Being crafty

It's one of my favorite things to do, so here is an update on some of my latest craftings.

 

A baby blanket made from some fabric my Grandma Scoresby had to make a blanket.

A skirt.  It has an exposed elastic waist and was pretty easy to make.  I haven't worn it yet because I didn't get it finished until after Labor Day, so it might just get saved until next summer.  I made it to replace my white skirt that Janet loved and always wanted to borrow.

 

This little dinosaur was kind of a pain to make, but it turned out pretty cute.  There were lots of little parts and tight corners and I didn't care much for the pattern, but I hope it's getting lots of love from the nephew who got it for his birthday (and I hope the stuffing hasn't fallen out!)

While my sewing machine was getting repaired, I had to move on to non-sewing crafts.  I wanted to do some nativity crafts since my cricut cartridge can cut them.  Anyway, this is what I came up with.

The other week while I was working on a Halloween project, I started humming a favorite Halloween song. This got me thinking back to how much fun we would have in our elementary music class learning new songs.  In our school, we would hold assemblies for Thanksgiving, Christmas, parent nights, welcome back to school nights.  In first grade we performed The Little Red Hen play; in second grade it was The Elephant's Child.  And, each year we would have our Christmas Program were each grade would perform the three or four songs they had learned. As I was happily thinking about my fun elementary days and all the fun our teachers did, I started making a mental list of songs I am going to teach my children for sure.
1. Have You Seen the Ghost of John
2. Must Be Santa
3. All the songs from The Little Red Hen, especially Who will Help Me?
4. All the songs from The Elephant's Child
5. Zero the Hero
6. Froggy Went A'Courting (My first grade class loved this song so much that we made Mrs. Denzer let us do it as a play in music class.  We practiced for hours so it was perfect!)
7. Fly Eagle, Fly (or whatever it was called. Mrs. Eaton made us practice it in choir over and over and over)
8. Jimmy Crack Corn
9. Up on the Rooftop
10. Jump Jim Crow (not a song we learned in school, but one they'll learn anyway even if it is politically incorrect.  I didn't know what it meant for a long time)

Update

My lip is doing much better!  The swelling has gone down considerably, and the scar tissue is almost all gone.  I hope this makes you all feel better especially since you don't have to look at my nasty lip anymore.

Mucocele

def. lump in lip caused by blocked salivary gland that leaves an ugly mess when removed

sorry it's blurry, but taking a picture of your own lip is hard

Yep.  That's it alright.  I've had mine hanging out on my lip for a while now, but the doctor snipped it of this morning with three snips!  That was it.  And, now my lip can return to normal!

The Great Minnesota Get Together!!

My Peeps,

One of my favorite activities in Minnesota comes at the end of summer:
THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR!!!

For Information:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvIg55oZWH0

Joanna and I went TWICE this year and it made me (and my stomach) VERY HAPPY!!

Here are some pictures with captions:

This was our first feast of the day! Apple dumplings with ice cream! 

I was happy to see these robots, rockets, and legos! 

These are award winning cookies. Joanna kept saying: "I could make that!" 

These are award winning decorative cakes! I kept saying: "I could eat that!" 

Award winning Sweetcakes! :)  Oh ya, and there are some baked goods in the picture too. 

Smoked turkey leg!! DELICIOUS!! With the Midway behind me. 

Fried/breaded mushrooms and soft pretzel! Yum! 

The crowds at the fair! 

CHEESE CURDS!! 

Joanna next to a prize-winning cow - and her groupies. . . .  and someone creepy. . . 

Nice round steaks! 

This was the largest boar. His name is Husky Lee. He is 4 years old and weighs 1160 pounds (just slightly more than me).

Look at this cute Bunny! Oh ya, and there is a 1st Place junior doe Dutch Steel rabbit back there too. 

The big wavy slide!  We didn't go on it because I was still eating a turkey leg. 

All you can drink ice-cold milk! Yum! We were also eating a bucket of Sweet Martha's cookies too! 

We found this trading card for the butter princess! Don't the faces look the same-ish?
Maybe everything is better in butter?

These pumpkins were big, bold, and beautiful!! 

Only the best of Crop Arts exist at the State Fair. All of these  Lillian Colton originals are of famous people . . .
except for that guy in the hat and glasses making a funny face on the bottom. . . 

Yep, someone paid tribute to Girlie by making this crop art.
That cat sure got around! 

Beautiful flower presentations. This is supposed to represent fireworks! 

You can't get any more proud than to be an American who is eating a Pronto Pup!!

Our last meal of the evening: the caramel apple! Yum! 

Here we have Joanna, Preston, Emily, Lauren, Rene, and Margaret all enjoying the tractors!  

Lauren got to be a farmer for a day! Here she is driving her tractor. (She did NOT want to get off!)

Isn't it sad that no other picture in the world will ever be as awesome as this one?
(Just look how happy they all are!!) 

This is sweet-corn Joanna with a sweet-corn-hat trying to blend in to the sweet-corn field. 

Rene begins the morning by proudly displaying his corn hat, and feasting on this foot-long corn-dog! Yum! 

Yep, it exists! 

This is Lauren trying  to be brave enough to touch the horse.
When we were in the horse barn she got a little scared because a horse NAYED super loud right next to us!

Rene is now trying to help Lauren pet the horse, but she was too busy clinging onto her daddy.
Joanna just enjoys being in the pictures I take.  

A nice stroll through the cow-barn. . . 

Moo! Do you see the secret this big cow is hiding? 

Nice rooster. 

Look at that Sweet Honey!! Oh ya, and there is some bee products in the background too.
. . . and Rene and Preston. 

Yes, Mensa had a booth at the Fair! Joanna walked right up and solved a complex puzzle in 2 seconds.
Literally. 

Princess Kay of the Milky Way rode by in this parade right after I got done talking to some kids about their robot.

BOW TO YOUR KING!!

Spam Queen Joanna commands you to feed her pigs! Now! 

This is Rene with his two-favorite FIsh-Head-in-Laws. 

Various captions:
We left the State Fair with full stomachs and our tails held high!
What a catch!
They've got fish on the brains!
Somp'in fishy's goin' on!
Rene's schooling Preston.
FIN.

I hope you enjoyed the MN State Fair this year! I sure did! I can't wait until next year!

-BEN

Last weekend was our last weekend of the summer because Ben started school on Monday.  So, what did we do?  We played some fun Minute to Win It, ate lots of yummy food, went to church with my brother and sister-in-law as the blessed their baby, played more awesome games, spent time with some of our cute nieces, said goodbye to my little sister as she headed back to Provo for her last year of school, enjoyed being lazy at my parents.  Thanks for such a great weekend everyone!  It was a great way to say goodbye to summer!

Apparently, I didn't get the pink/coral color memo :)

We'll miss you summer, and can't wait for you to come back next year (preferably earlier than this year...)!

Machine-less

AS I mentioned in a previous post, I was sans-sewing machine a few weeks ago. It was sad because the day it happened was the day Ben left for a campout with the young men in the ward. Luckily, I found a shop that was still open (it was about 8:00 pm on a Friday night) and I hauled my sewing machine over and dropped it off with the assurance that they'd have it back within 1-2 weeks. 1-2 weeks! I was so depressed that on my way home, I stopped by Michael's to find some crafts that I could do in the mean-time.

I found plenty.

I have done several really cute crafts, but unfortunately I can't really share them because they might be making appearances in the future (yes, gifts). But, let's just say that my cricut found a new friend with vinyl and I can't believe I didn't find out about this earlier because it is pretty freaking awesome!

Don't worry. I'll post pictures of them all once they are safely delivered to their recipients :)