The Land of K.A. bio picture

I am Stacy, a thirty-something *cough, cough* (I am I really this old??) mother of two very cute, smart and multi-talented pre-schoolers. This blog is my attempt at being witty whilst I detail the trial and tribulations of having two kids 17 months apart and surviving the ordeal. It really helps that they are so dang cute.

I usually try to post sewing/crafty/decorating/gardening stuff on Tuesdays and I try to post a kid-friendly recipe every Friday. That's if I have time. Sometimes I need to sleep.

The rest of the week it is usually photos of our extremely photogenic children and the ruckus they cause in our lives.

Thanks for visiting!

stacy@thelandofka.com

The unexpected…a new floor NOT in the basement

December 5, 2009 – 7:08 pm

The new floor in our 1/2 bathroom off the kitchen.  When we moved into our house, the inspector found that there was moisture around the base of the toilet in this bathroom.  We tried to replace the seal, and in the end had a professional plumber do it.  Should have just saved the money, since that didn’t work.  Over the years we have watched the wood around it get discolored and knew that eventually we would need to fix it.

Well, that time came.  It was getting quite grody looking.  Time to replace the seal…and the floor…and the subfloor.  What they found underneath was…well…interesting.  Sand.  Yeah.  Are you shocked…cuz I was shocked?!   At this point we think the builders of our house were beyond inept…ineptitude doesn’t explain SAND.  I’m not sure COMPLETE IDIOCYexplains sand in the floor.  When it was being built the subfloor got rained on and sagged.  Well, instead of replacing it or shoring it up, they put sand it to level it.  Like that was supposed to help??

The guys replaced the sand and the subfloor with the proper materials, and installed our pretty marble tiles on an offset pattern.  Now it looks so much better, and we have piece of mind that our floor won’t fall into our new basement.  This was a real concern, let me tell you!

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We are *almost* done with the basement.  We will be having the countertop installed on Monday and then Brian has to hook up the faucet.  Once that is done, then we just need the final inspections and see if Hilter (a.k.a. the city inspector) has any more issues that he thinks we need to fix.  Needless to say we won’t be telling him about this floor. ;)

Hopefully I will have some posts up next week on the basement!  This weekend is Kai’s birthday parties…today was family and tomorrow is friends.  In the meantime, I have moved my sewing room back down into it’s beautiful new space.  *SQUEEEEE*  :)  Well, it’s not decorated yet, so it has some work but the bones are there.  Decorating will take a little time.  I’ll post what it looks like now, and then I’ll get a post up later when it is decorated…sound good?

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! :D

By Stacy | Posted in Family, home decorating | 3 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment

{ SIX }

December 2, 2009 – 5:00 am

Not sure how it happened, but apparently another year has gone by and our baby boy is now SIX.   This year he started Kindergarten and last week we had his first school conference.  His teacher really likes him and said he was a really sweet boy.  With the exception of his little klepto incident, of course.  He is doing well in school, and even tested very well in a new exam they are administering to Kindergarten students.  I wouldn’t doubt that he would do well, though.  He has been in daycare for so long and they have been teaching the kids things the whole time.  We even enrolled him in an optional phonics program, to help him in his speach. 

This weekend he is going to have a Halloween Birthday Party with a few friends. He only wanted to invite four kids, and so far we have RSVP’s for two.  I’m sure they will have fun if it is only that many.  We borrowed several totes of Halloween lights, pumpkins and other paraphanalia from his Aunt Susie, so we can create a Halloween room in the basement.  Should be interesting!

Happy birthday our little man!

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By Stacy | Posted in Family | 8 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment

More looming and a little sewing

December 1, 2009 – 5:00 am

I had grand plans for this holiday 4-day weekend we had.  I got into my looms a bit more than I planned and I made 2 sets of armwarmers, a hat for Kai, a hat for me, a little neck scarf/collar thingy and I have another scarf half done on the loom.  I also made a baby blanket and finished the underdress for Anya’s Christmas outfit, so my sewing machine wasn’t completely unloved.  Here are pictures of a few of my projects.  I will need to take pictures of the rest…hopefully by next week.

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A different way to wear it.  I sewed two buttons together and just put them in the weave where I want to fasten it.

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 My lovely armwarmers…they do keep my hands nice and warm.

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A hat for Kailan - my appreciative child :)

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The last baby blanket on the to-do list.  Now I just need to deliver it!

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Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend with their family and friends.  We just really hung out in the house after the Thanksgiving festivities with Brian’s family.  We got home around 10pm on Thanksgiving, and pretty much didn’t leave to go anywhere until Sunday.  It was nice to just relax at home with no where to go and no plans.  It went by way too fast as usual.

By Stacy | Posted in Creativity, Sewing | 8 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment

DIY, from a child’s perspective

November 25, 2009 – 5:00 am

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Children are uniquely suited to be excellent DIY’ers.  That’s all they want to do.  You will often hear, “Do it myself!” screeched in an ear splitting wail if you dare try to help them do something.  Unless of course, it is something they would just rather not do themselves.  You know, those little things that require such effort that, you, as their parental servants, must do for them.  Such tasks as brushing their teeth, wiping their bum or spoon feeding them.  Those would be the things we would happily defer to them.  Thankfully we are making progress on that here.  I don’t think I’ve had to wipe a bum in months.

In order to aid our little DIYers in helping themselves, we try to employ such tactics as, “If you can’t do it yourself you must not be ready for Kindergarten!”  This usually leads to a half-hearted effort, before their little wills groan under the weight of their to-do lists and they throw up their hands in surrender.

Take for instance, them wanting a particular toy.  “Where is my such-and-such?!” they will ponder and pointedly ask us, the parental figures who are both omniscient and all-powerful, able to instantly surmise the position of all toys using our internal GPS tracking systems.  Or so they think. 

We will in turn say, “I don’t know, I wasn’t playing with it.  Perhaps if you actually put your toys away when you are done you will know where they are when you go to look for them.  How about you try to find it yourself?”

They will sigh in consternation and disappointment, as they walk into the Library, look casually at the toy boxes from 5 feet away, and declare, “I can’t find it!  Can you help me?!”  This is a demand, not a request.

Sometimes we help them, sometimes we leave them with the monumental task of finding their toys themselves.  It all depends on the whine barometer of the day.  Lots of whining = no help from parental units.  Generally, what will happen is we will walk over to the toyboxes, open them, look inside and find the toy sitting on top. 

Whether we tell them we found it, is another thing. ;)

By Stacy | Posted in Craziness, Kids | 5 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment

Made for mama

November 24, 2009 – 5:00 am

Stuff for me this time.  I actually only made the skirt this week, and the top and wrap are from past stuff I’ve done but never photographed.  It’s really hard to photograph stuff for me since I generally have barely enough time to get ready in the morning, much less take a photograph.  I went home over lunch from work to get these.

The brown stretch velvet skirt is just a simple tiered skirt with an elastic waist.  The hem is a rolled edge.  I got it done one night while watching Resident Evil.  Nothing like a good zombie movie to pass the time while sewing. ;)

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The black top is a peasant top with shirring at the wrists and elastic at the waist and neck.  I made three fabric roses I sewed on at the neckline.  It’s hard to see because it’s black, but they are cute, trust me!

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The wrap was suuuuuuper simple.  I made this when I was pregnant with Anya as something to dress up my boring wardrobe.  I just took a long length of fabric, folded it and sewed up part of one of the long edges, leaving a hole for my head near the folded edge.  I cut it along the selvage, so I only needed to hem one side.

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I ordered some of my fabric artwork from Spoonflower and made a bag with it.  There’s lots of interfacing and pockets in the construction.  I used an upholstery weight fabric for the black and the interior is green satin.  I put some beaded trim along the pocket.  I really love it!  I just made it a little too tall, but that is okay.  I can probably fit my laptop in it if I had to take home it from work.  My other purse was always overfloweth, so this is so nice. 

I also made a pouch for all my sundries that were all over the place in my other purse.  It is the green satin with a ribbon trim I had that matched pretty well.   Now everything is all nicely contained.  I can also use it for my wallet and phone if I just want to bring that with, so I made it large enough for that.  

The purse handles were just ones that I bought on sale at one time.  I attached them to the purse with highly-interfaced-and-lots-of-stitched-satin.  It’s important to make sure they are sturdy since it might have a laptop or other heavy things in it at some point.

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I also got another baby blanket finished up.  It is so nice to get some stuff off my to-do list!

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By Stacy | Posted in Creativity, Sewing | 9 comments         Show Comments | Add a Comment
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