Allie's Spring Picture

Two Hens and a Cuckoo

On Friday, my hometown Hen, Kimmy Sue drove up to Wausau and we went to the Little Big Town concert at the Grand Theatre.

Have you heard of them? I was hooked when I first heard their song "Boondocks". They are great songwriters and musicians and the show was amazing.

The band that opened for them, The Zac Brown Band, was awesome. You may have heard their song "Chicken Fried".

I purchased two tickets as soon as I heard about this concert. I got seats in the fourth row, center. I knew right away that I wanted to invite Kim to go with me. I was with her in Georgia when I first heard of Little Big Town and I knew that since both bands have Georgia roots, she was the perfect person to invite. She had to drive 6 hours to get here but was willing to make the trip. I wanted everything to be perfect, and it was...until we were ushered to our seats.

We had seats 8 and 9 in a 12 seat row. The people in seats 12, 11, and 10 were already seated. There was a young man, his girlfriend, and next to her a man, I mean a woman, I mean a "what the heck is that"? Let me describe what we saw...a man, older, tall, wearing a blond wig, dressed in a white lacy gown with spaghetti straps, a red cardigan sweater, black and white striped socks, and black orthopedic shoes. He wore earrings, a bracelet, and 2 rings on hands with red painted fingernails. And he carried a cute little red purse.

I was mortified! Kim took it all in stride. As the night wore on, we realized he was very weird but harmless. The people all around us got a kick out of it too. I was secretly plotting how to get a picture and thinking it would make an awesome blog post.

So here you go...

I had a great time and I want to thank Kim for driving all that way and spending the weekend with us. Let's do it again soon, minus the cuckoo!

Rag Quilt

I made another quilt this week, although I don't think you can technically call it a quilt since there is no quilting involved. It was very, very easy to do and I found the instructions here.

I bought a "Quilts with Style" do-it-yourself kit from JoAnn's (with my 40% off coupon of course). I really liked the fabric colors and it's challenging to pick the right amount of coordinating fabrics so I figured a kit would make it easier the first time around. For the inside layer, I used cream colored flannel and for the back, I used cream, light brown, and dark brown flannel. The most tedious part was the cutting of all the blocks and the snipping of the fringe once the quilt was assembled.



But I think it turned out so cute and it's very warm and comfy. I've seen some of these made up as baby blankets on Etsy. I think I'll make one up the next time I need a baby gift.

Meredith's Twirly Skirt

Since my sewing machine is out, cluttering up the kitchen table, I decided to make another project. I got the idea here. I really like this gal's blog. Although I don't know her one bit...she seems like someone I would be friends with. She has two daughters, a cat, likes to knit, and sew...read more here. So I thought I'd give her twirly skirt pattern a try. This was harder for me than I thought it would be. Either I didn't cut the fabric pieces correctly or I miscalculated Meredith's measurements but when it came time to try on the almost finished skirt, something was way off. Luckily, thanks to the skills I learned while making American Girl doll clothes, I knew how to fix it. I'll only be making one of these, since (sadly) Allie doesn't wear skirts anymore.

A Perfectly Imperfect Quilt

The other sewing project I recently completed is a Ragged Squares Quilt. I found a tutorial on how to make it here. It looked like a do-able beginner quilting project so I gave it a try. The placement of the squares and the stitching does not need to be perfect. You leave some of the raw edges exposed so when you wash and dry the quilt, the edges of the squares begin to fray. I made a few mistakes along the way but because of the shabby look of the quilt, you'd never know it.

Here is a closeup view. Can you see the frayed edges?

I'm sure this won't be my last quilting project. I had two kids fighting over who got to use it first. But in the end, the cat won out!

Up next...a twirly skirt for Deefers!

Scooby Doo Pajamas

It's March and I'm bored. It's not quite spring but I'm tired of winter. No more knitting and making mittens. What's a girl to do? Well, one stop at JoAnn Fabrics on Thursday and I had two sewing projects to keep me busy.

I finished both of my projects today. It consumed every spare minute...for 48 hours. I should just take my time but I like to get stuff done, see the end result. And I don't like to have unfinished projects lying around.

The first project was a pair of Scooby Doo pajamas for each of the girls. I got the flannel print fabric at JoAnn's and the solid t-shirts at Old Navy. I used a basic pajama pant pattern for the bottoms. For the tops, I cut out a picture of the Scooby Doo Gang from the left over flannel and appliqued it onto the t-shirt.

Pretty cute, huh?!




So what was the other project? You'll have to wait till my next post to find out. But I ran myself "ragged" to get it done!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

Scooby Doo Up the Wazoo!

Jinkies! My kids are obsessed with Scooby Doo. Rup, rat's right. They can't get enough of those crime solving meddling kids and their nosey dog.


Zoinks! It all started innocently enough. We watch one cartoon channel in our house...Boomerang. Some of you may not be familiar with this channel but it's all classic cartoons from Hanna Barbera, like The Flinstones, The Jetsons, Huckleberry Hound, and Yogi Bear. For some reason, the kids really like those old cartoons and I like it because the channel does not show commercials.


Jeepers! I'm not exactly sure when the kids saw their first episode but they've been hooked since that day. "Scooby Doo, Where are You?" is on each night at 7:30 pm. These are the oldest episodes, from the early 70's. We watch it each night before they go to bed. And you know, it's kind of a fun family thing because Jason and I like it too.



Ruh Roh! Ris is razy! Then it got to the point where the kids ONLY wanted to watch episodes of Scooby Doo. So I put the DVR to work and now it's set to record all the episodes of the show. I have 23 episodes saved so far. Practically the first thing out of Meredith's mouth in the morning is "Can you turn on a recorded Scooby Doo?". I've figured out how to start it so it just keeps playing shows in the order they've been recorded. But Meredith would seriously sit there the entire day watching almost 700 minutes of TV (except for the episode with the demons, that one is too scary).



Relp! Luckily, to get them away from the tube, there are a ton of Scooby Doo books to read. We've found a bunch of them at Goodwill and our favorite consignment store. And it always works to bribe them with a Scooby snack or two!



Gee Wilikers! I wonder how long this obsession will last!? It's already affecting Meredith's speech..."Rey Rom, Ri'm rirsty". Good thing I speak Scooby!

Majernik's On Ice

The girls just finished up with 8 weeks of ice skating lessons. This was Allie's second time taking basic skills lessons so I knew that she would enjoy it. But I wasn't so sure about Meredith. She does not like to be cold. Her first lesson was on a trial basis. She spent about 15 minutes of the half hour lesson on the ice and then complained of being too cold. She told me that she did like it and wanted to come back the next week so I officially signed her up. After 8 weeks, I'm so impressed with her progress. She stays out on the ice for the entire 30 minutes. She can skate forwards and backwards and follow the instructor's directions. And if you ask her, she'll tell you she can do a spin. And she can! She may end up flat on her belly or bottom but at least she tries!