three things making me happy today

a new pandora station: old town school of folk music.  the library uses a lot of their music for toddler time and we really enjoy it.  it's a pretty folksy kids station but i sometimes forget i'm even listening to kids music.

hudson's eyebrow.  he must have eaten something sticky this morning with breakfast.  i noticed it while we were eating lunch and got a good laugh.  and he won't let me wipe it so i think there will be a bath tonight.

a new memory verse for the week.  psalm 63:1.  on my new martha stewart dry erase sticker from staples.  right by the kitchen sink so i see it often.

some other sewing

I've managed to get a few other projects done in the last few days now that Hudson is on the mend.  I needed a smaller diaper bag of sorts for when we drop him off at the church nursery or to throw in my purse when we're just going to be gone for a little while.  Something to hold a diaper, wipes and a few snacks but not as big as our diaper bag from when he was a baby.

I found this great tutorial via pinterest that was super easy to follow.  All I had to buy was a zipper because I had the fabric already.  I used Michael Miller's Just Dig It fabric that I had purchased in Fort Collins over a year ago and never used.  The inside was lined with some random dot fabric from JoAnns.  I made it taller than the tutorial because I wanted to be able to put a few more things in it and also have room for a cloth diaper.

Another fun little thing I made was this sweet doll for Miss Millie, who just turned 1.  We missed her party due to germs, but I hear from her mama that she loves it.  Again, made with fabric I already had.  The head and arms are from an old sheet.  The body is a vintage sheet I got from goodwill awhile ago.  The skirt is from some knit that Millie's mama actually passed on to me (did you catch that, Jennifer) and the legs are from a baby sleeper from goodwill.  I had fun adding the skirt and the little headband and flower to the basic doll pattern to make it more personalized. 

thanks jennifer for the picture.  i forgot to grab one before i wrapped it up.

choo-choo

A certain little boy is obsessed with all things that move, especially trains.  We read a lot of books about trucks and cars and trains.  Over and over and over again.  One of our favorite books is Freight Train by Donald Crews.

 I found a great train clip art from this site and printed it off at 50% so it would be small enough for the shirt.

 Then I traced them on to some heat n bond backwards from the direction I wanted them to face.  I wrote the color that I wanted each train car on the paper so I wouldn't get confused.  The train in the book is all different colors and I wanted to mimic that.

 I just used fabric from my scrap bin.  I had to get a little creative with the purple.  That's what happens when you have a boy, I guess.

 I played around with how I wanted the train on the shirt.  I knew that I wanted it to wrap around to the back of the shirt.  I liked the diagonal train better than the one just straight across.

 I pealed off the back of the heat and bond and ironed it all on and then sewing around each car to help keep them in place.  I didn't do all of the details, like the wheels.  Just the basic outline of each car.

 I also sewed a long black line along the bottom of the train cars to be the track.  Here's the back of the shirt.

 Somebody loves his shirt.  He was so excited when I showed it to him and had to put it on right away.

     

linking up here

today's sponser

sometimes I like to think that my days have sponsers. there are definitely days that are brought to me by starbucks. in fact, that's a lot of days. well today's sponser is my dyson vacuum. i have never been so thankful for it as I was today when I dropped my flour canister and it broke and flour went everywhere (including my bra! tmi?) yep, that's a pile of flour sitting on our computer. vaccumed it right up. not exactly how I wanted to start the day out.

yummy dinner

We recently split a big meat purchase with some friends from Ranch Food Direct.  It's been a while since we've had any sort of steak in our house.  I never know what to buy at the grocery store so I just don't.  When I saw this recipe for an open-faced philly cheesesteak, I knew I wanted to try it.

We used skirt steak and Mike marinated it and then grilled it in one big piece.  My favorite part of the recipe was how simple and fast it was to make.  I'm pretty sure it was done in 20 minutes.  It was so so good.