Monkey Business, Etc.

Some of my kids, and my sister have been asking me to post pictures of some of the crafts I have made recently, so I'm finally going to do it. For some reason, I have been in a sewing mode for awhile and have been sewing some fun stuff. First, I made all the grandkids a stuffed animal for Christmas (yeah, that was kind of a long time ago, but I never posted pictures of their cute monkeys and dolls).

This was the bigger monkey that Isaac and Josh got.

This little guy is the one that Truman, Charlie and Rhys got. I really fell in love with the monkeys. They are just so darn cute.

My two little girls, Sareny and Finley got this cute little doll. She is so homely she's cute. Finley just warmed my heart when she opened hers up. She grabbed it and hugged it like she already loved it!

I also made all my girls one of these bags. I loved how they turned out so much that I made myself one too. They are big and roomy, perfect for a diaper bag, or just a purse, which is what I use mine for.

This purse is one I made from a pattern I got from Cass. I thought hers was so cute, but a bit too small for me, so I enlarged the pattern and made mine bigger.  I even used the same fabric she used because I really liked it, so now we have twin purses. I bought the fabric in Hawaii when I was there.

The latest project I have been working is zippered pouches. I just love these little things! They are see through vinyl on the front so you can see what's in them. I can think of a million uses for them. They are kind of tricky to make, but are kind of fun at the same time.

I have also been making aprons and dish towels, but they were featured on another blog about a weekend I spent with my Mom, so I think everyone has seen them. And now, after my fun scrapbooking weekend (more about that later) I think I am going to start scrapping more, so maybe I'll lose my desire to sew. We'll see!

The Adventures of Build A Bear

Jake, Liz and the boys came down in March for a weekend visit. It was close to Josh's birthday, so we took him to Build A Bear to make his very own bear. He was pretty excited about going, and said he wanted to paint the eyes on his bear. Even though we told him the bears already had eyes, he still kept talking about painting the eyes on. But it gets worse; the minute we told him to pick out his bear he ran for the ugly green St. Patrick's day bear with four leaf clovers all over it. We quickly tried to divert him, but as you can see in the picture, he is still pointing at it. We said maybe he should pick a different one, so he went for the "kitty" with pink ears, and Jake said in my ear, "he's NOT getting that cat." But my question is, why IS there a cat in "Build A BEAR"? Anyway, we practically had to pick his bear out for him by steering him in front of the normal bears and telling him to pick one of them.

The thing about this place is, there's not really that much the kids get to do to "build" their bears. Here Josh is pushing the pedal that fills the bear with stuffing. And it kind of scared him because it made a loud noise, so he kept stopping.

But obviously he was having fun anyway!

Here he gets to give the bear a bath by brushing its fur.

Then comes the picking out of the "outfit". This got a little sticky because he wanted Woody, then Buzz, then Batman.............we tried not to influence too much here, since we had been kind of overbearing (no pun intended) concerning which bear he should pick. He finally settled on Batman.

Cute little Joshy with the finished product.

When Josh and I went to name his bear, I asked him what he wanted to name it and he just insisted that he wanted to name it Batman. So, Batman it is.

Bampa kept Charlie entertained with his tickling. Charlie is really ticklish!

It was a super fun time with Josh. But I really think if I had just drawn a bear on a piece of cardboard and let him paint the eyes on it he would have had just as much fun! But that wouldn't have been as much fun for me.

After that we went to show Liz some of the hotels that she hadn't seen before. Here we are at the Belagio. They have the coolest flower gardens there.

Josh is giving us his best tough guy look

We had such a fun day with everyone, and a fun weekend soaking in the spa, having a big breakfast, and watching a movie. Those two little grandsons bring us so much joy and make us laugh. We hope they'll come visit us again soon!