Monday, October 31, 2011

Pumpkin Carving!

Iris's first time carving pumpkins
The Frog thought he should document the moment thoroughly
The final products:

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Chevron Pillow AAAND I'm awesome!

I'm slowly accumulating pillows for our "Theatre Room" (as we lovingly refer to it) since it had to be redone after the flood.  I found this yellow chevron fabric for sale on Etsy (a surprisingly GREAT place to get fabric!) and thought it would go nicely with the other pillow I made awhile ago.
Which leads me to why I'm awesome...

Let's look at that other pillow one more time, shall we?
Now, let's look at something I noticed in Real Simple Magazine:
That's right people.  Z Gallerie.  $70.

Mine was less than $20.

uh-huh,
uh-huh,
uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Ward Halloween Party

We had a trunk-or-treat this year with our ward.  (and I live in Provo, so they're all of our neighbors too :D)  We had chili and cornbread beforehand in the gym at the church.
Witch Iris with Tinkerbell Peach

cutest. Tink. Ever.

the spooky ghost
I realized once I got home that I never got a pic of myself, so Jay obliged.  Sadly, you can't see my purple tights and pointy witch shoes in this pic.  Know they are there :)
witchy me
When Jay showed up with the wig on, Peach started crying initially, and wanted me to hold her.  This is once she's had a bit of time to get used to it, but she is still very unsure of what is going on.  As you can see, I couldn't find the right hook hat, so this is why Jay is only half-hearted Hook.
And here's the group- thanks to a friend taking pictures of everyone at the event! :)

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Soba, Tempura, and Frog's 1st Picked Outfit!

We (and by we I mostly mean Iris) made soba noodles and tempura.  Turns out the noodles are meant to be served cold, which I thought odd.  You basically just cook them like the package says, and then Iris put them in a bowl with ice cubes to cool them off.  (She tells me this is usually eaten in the summer.)   Then we each had a little bowl of sliced green onion and Tsuyu sauce she uses so often for dipping the noodles in.

soba in tsuyu sauce
We did tempura again- this time carrots and red bell pepper.
carrot tempura

red bell pepper tempura
AND today was the first time The Frog has ever shown initiative about getting dressed and he picked this outfit out all by himself :)

strike a pose!

Costumes Unveiled and Freaky Spider

So.
This year was a bit of a let-down for costumes.  Because my brother makes such a  big deal about his Halloween party, and goes to such extent to make it well-planned and intricate, I enjoy thinking about themed costumes for our family.  I had decided pretty soon after Halloween last year that this year we would all be Peter Pan characters.  It was perfect, Hook, Wendy, Peter Pan & Tinkerbell.  Then when we decided to have Iris along, she would have been a great Tiger Lily.  However, there were two pieces of information I didn't have:
1) The Frog is now old enough to be opinionated about his costume
2)  My brother decided not to throw a party this year :(

Sadly, I didn't know about either of these things until after I had already started buying materials for Hook and Tinkerbell.  SO Jay ended up being a half-hearted pirate and Peach was Tinkerbell.  (as well as every other girl under 5...)

So, my unveiling is very anticlimactic for me this year.  le sigh.
Luckily, I did get a fantastic deal on the fabric for this dress, since it was the end of the bolt.  The tulle was from a 6" roll at Zurcher's.
I was excited to see that I just happened to have this button in my stash of extra buttons from clothes you buy.  (this particular one is from a sparkly green 3/4 sleeve bolero, in case you were wondering)
After trying her in wings and seeing how much she HATED them, I debated trying to attach small wings to the back of her dress somehow.  BUT when I noticed the Halloween store I bought the wings from didn't take returns (lame) I realized if I bent the top of the wings to a curve slightly, they no longer hit her head and Peach would tolerate them.  (phew)
This awesome little thing is the puff for her toes.  Sadly, the gold dress shoes I ordered online, didn't make it here in time, so we just had her wear sneakers.
I have to thank Iris for doing an excellent job on them.  And to think she had never made pompoms before!
As soon as The Frog told me he wanted to be a ghost, I had visions of tantrums and trodden and discarded white fabric since those darn eye holes are so hard to see through.  (plus, how do you eat?)  So this was my solution:
Ghost costume
I used some silky fabric I got for free a few years ago and bought something sheer  to go over his head.  I basically cut a hole in the middle of a rounded rectangle and put in some elastic.  As you can see below, I sewed an elastic strap to go under his chin to keep the "veil" on.  Then if he wanted to get rid of it to eat, etc. it could just hang behind him from his neck.  It worked pretty well!  I like that this is pretty gender neutral and could be used for a fairly wide range of ages.
Here's the hideous women's jacket I found at the DI that just screamed "Captain Hook" when I saw it.  I removed the collar and buttons and cut off about 6 inches from the bottom.  Then I rehemmed, added gold and used the bottom to make big cuffs.  Then I sewed two big decorative buttons to the cuffs.

Before:
After
The shirt underneath was just a white collared shirt from Savers and I also removed the collar and sewed 3 pieces of gathered lace to the front, and added some gathered lace around the cuffs.
I decided not to dress up this year and go as a witch.  (hehe)  It was high time I bought me a witch's hat anyway- I feel like it is an answering-the-door staple. I found an awesome one at Halloween city for about $6.  I pulled out some orange ribbon from some wedding shower gift of long ago and cute-ified my hat.  I'm not fully dressed yet- this pic was taken before going to a little kids party.
scary witch- eee eee eeee
And finally, the season wouldn't be complete without a picture of this HUGE spider hanging out on our porch.

Yeah.
The Frog caught it for me in a jar and we brought it to our Mother's Group Halloween party.  (why I was dressed up)

A lot of people were sick and I was enjoying myself too much to remember to take too many pictures, but I did snap a shot.
Tinkerbell and the only non-Tinkerbell girl there.  Serious.
Ah yes, so The Frog decided at the last minute that he wanted to be Spiderman instead.
The kids made these little spider cookies.  I thought they were really cute!

Iris's Volleyball Pics

We have taken a million-billion photos of Iris's volleyball games.  I have officially gained a new appreciation for sports photographers...  It's HARD to get anything to be non-blurry!!  

We have had so much fun going to all her home games (and a few aways that aren't too far) and we are excited to announce that the Timpview Volleyball team has qualified for the state tournament, ranked 2nd in our region!!  We are so proud of Iris- she is wicked good!
team lineup before announcing the players
It was always exciting to see how they would pronounce her name :)
Iris serving
I've never seen her miss a serve!
She may be short, but she is the left-side hitter.
T-BIRDS!
This shot makes me think she should play basketball. :)
Don't worry- she got it!
Iris wanted to make something for everyone on varsity, and she designed these flags to pin on their bags herself.  She did the embroidery (THS and around the edge) and I helped her sew on buttons, cut stuff out, and sewed the colored part of the volleyballs with the machine.  I think they turned out really awesome!
super cute flags
warming up
huddle!
L spikes it!
E just saves it!
Look how high Iris can jump!



There was always a small gathering of students to cheer the team on, and they always rushed the court when we won.  (which was most of the time :D)
hugging coach Bailey
At the last home game, they always celebrate the leaving seniors, but they also honored Iris since she will also not be returning next year. :'(
My friend took a picture for us, but Iris couldn't see where the camera was, haha.
The seniors and Iris :)