The Land of K.A.

Kitties

July 28, 2010 – 5:00 am

Last Sunday we went up North to see Brian’s family, and celebrate his sister and brother-in-law’s 25th anniversary. We all pitched in to get them a new refrigerator that wouldn’t burn down the house. Romantic, eh?

Much to the children’s joy, the farm cats had a few litters this summer and there were little puff balls of kitten delight around the barn. Kailan named the little orange and white one A.J. A.J. is his new best friend, which is unfortunate since he sneezed the entire way home after sticking his face in A.J.’s fluffiness. Luckily we had some Claritin in the cupboard, so he could get some sleep.

We are now pretty sure he is allergic to cats, which is why Kitty decided to sleep with him that night.

Cats just know.

He always seems to have a stuffed up nose, which is worse in the winter. A constant “cold”. One of my friends has a son that is allergic and they keep his door shut at all times and an air purifier in his room, since they have pets, too. I think that is what we will need to do, too.

When he woke up in the morning he said he missed A.J. Brian thought we were going to be bringing another cat home with us that day, but I do believe one cat is enough for us right now.

Anya wore her pretty birthday dress that day, too. She went over to the enthusiastic puppy that was tied up for the sole purpose of staying away from the kids so he wouldn’t jump on them. Yeah. He jumped on her and his nails caught the tulle in her dress and ripped a piece out with a nice big hole, to boot. That top layer of tulle is going to be considerably shorter very soon.

This is her describing why Copper is not her favorite dog anymore for ruining her pretty dress. Poor Copper. He just wanted some LOVE!

Copper was a bad puppy because he jumped up and TORE MY DRESS. *pout* *pout*

See?! Look!

Don’t worry, Baby Girl…Mama will fix it.

Okay… *big sigh*

We stayed most of the day and took off in time to miss most of the “cabin traffic”. We stopped at DQ on the way home…mostly because mommy and daddy were craving some ICE CREAM. Seriously, I could have just had a small peanut buster parfait for dinner and would have been fine. Unfortunately that would have set a bad example to the kidlets.

Dang…being an adult is hard sometimes.

By Stacy | Posted in Family | 4 comments Show Comments | Add a Comment

Awesomeness…that most people probably won’t notice

July 27, 2010 – 5:00 am

Yes, today I am showing some clothes for Fall. Even though Kailan probably needs more shorts, he is just S.O.L. Perhaps if he didn’t change in and out them like a teenage girl, he would have more available clothing. Therin lies the trouble…it is his own fault.

Last Fall I cut out a bunch of pants for Kailan, but unfortunately I didn’t get them all sewn up. I knew that I would have to add length for this Fall. He does grow, that little guy. I finally decided to get them sewn up, since I don’t have to really think too much in putting them together. This is what would be termed a TNT (tried and true) pattern, in my case. I did get a bit adventurous in the styling of the elongation of the legs, but that’s what I do.

This first one is a brownish/blackish corduroy. I did some fancy cutting and panelling on the front of the bottom to add some length. Then I added a dragon with fabric paint along the side seam. Can you see it??

NOW can you see it??

Yeah, I wanted subtle and apparently I got it. Ah well. It’s still awesome even though most people won’t be able to see it. I have a book of dragon artwork that I perused to find one that was simple enough to stencil and met with the little man’s approval. I used gray and white metallic paints.

Next we have a pair of light blue corduroy pants. I added a dark denim to the bottom of these, which I figured would help in the staining department, as well. Once winter comes, light fabrics suffer stain-age from trooping through the mucky snow.

To do the bottoms detail, I ironed Heat n’ Bond to the denim and drew the designs on each side. I didn’t want them to match, so they are different. Once the designs were drawn, I cut them out and then I took off the backing and ironed to the corduroy. I just did a straight stitch around the edges. It will most likely fray a bit in washing, which I would like to see.

There you have it…last week’s sole sewing. I am attempting to get in shape, so my weeknight sewing time is being usurped by working out. Only so many hours in the day…

By Stacy | Posted in Creativity, Sewing | 4 comments Show Comments | Add a Comment

The tale of the poisonous toad

July 23, 2010 – 7:57 am

A few weeks ago we had a visit with Brian’s family. Aunt Susie came over with her German daughter, Sarah, and we had a nice visit. It was good to see Sarah. It was fun having her here for a year, and she is such a sweet girl. She has been back home in Germany where she finished up high school and is ready to take on the world of hotel management.

While they were here we had a nice lunch and visited awhile. Eventually, it got late and we decided to order some pizza for dinner before they made the drive home. Susie and Sarah wanted to take the kids to the pet store to get some fish while we waited for the pizza to arrive. (We live rather close to all sorts of shopping, so the pet store was only a few miles away.)

During the day we had been looking at the pond and noticed a frog inhabiting it. The nice, normal, non-threatening frog is in the picture below.

Kailan saw a frog at the pet store that he just had to have, of course. The kids each chose a fish for the pond, and then Susie let Kailan have that frog. Once they got up to the counter, Aunt Susie was met with a surprise. It was a poisonous toad! She even had to sign a release to take it home.

Being the doting aunt, she still bought it for her little nephew. It came with the added bonus of crickets that we were supposed to feed to it.

Live crickets.

I have to admit the toad was pretty neat looking. It was a light green with white speckles. We let him out on one of the rocks in the pond while we were eating the pizza. That is the last time we saw him. He made a quick getaway as soon as felt the free air. Very likely he was born and raised in captivity. I’m sure he’s frolicking through the marshlands around our house now.

Fortunately, we still had the crickets.

We eventually had to let them go as they started to eat each other, completely ignoring that potato which was supposed to be their sustenance. Little cannibals.

We still are on the lookout for the toad. As least there is no shortage of them in our yard for the kids to catch. Nice, normal, non-poisonous toads.

By Stacy | Posted in Craziness, Family | 1 comments Show Comments | Add a Comment

Butterflies

July 19, 2010 – 8:33 am

Joepie Weed apparently attracts them rather well. The butterflies and the bees love this rather tall plant right now.

Which is quite nice, since this little girl really like butterflies!

We have been having a busy summer, so when we have a chance to relax we are taking advantage. I’m pretty sure I won’t be having a Crafty Tuesday post this week, although I do have something made up. Hopefully next week I will get a post up on it/them. I even got some mending done yesterday while we had an impromptu playdate. Our friend’s needed some takers for their 3 kids for about 5 hours, so we had a housefull of rugrats. They all behaved fairly well, so it wasn’t too taxing on us. I just didn’t get as much done as I wanted. This is not an unusual occurance, though.

By Stacy | Posted in Gardening, Kids, Photography | 4 comments Show Comments | Add a Comment

Charity basket of baby boy goodness

July 13, 2010 – 6:24 am

I got the basket finished up in time to give it to my Mom and Dad so they could pass it through to the silent auction folks. This is going to benefit a mom of my friend’s girlfriend/ex-wife/mother of his 2 kids. Complicated.

She was diagnosed with an agressive bone cancer and they are in need of some financial help. Hopefully the basket will sell well. It seems hard to find cute stuff for boys, so I’m hopeful the novelty of it will produce some willing bidders.

Satin bound flannel/minkee blanket and flannel/terry cloth burp cloths