Valentine's Day Love and Craftiness

I love Valentine's Day.  I love that it makes the whole nation take stock in what you love in life.  Who you love.  I love making shirts and special things for my kids.  Last year, I made the girls matching outfits,  this year I didn't feel up to making them outfits.  So I threw together a couple of shirts for all three kids.  It's difficult to come up with something for Monkey.  He is a boy after all and almost 9.  To make him something too cute could be the death of him at school.  The girls are way easier.  Cuteness is still acceptable for a long time.

I decided to make the kids Valentine's Day pillows.  I got this great idea from this website. http://www.howdoesshe.com/why-i-love-you-pillows-tutorial
Super cute.  My pillows are a little different.  I honestly didn't want to spend a ton of time on them since I had to make 3, but I wanted them to like them.  I also did a zipper pocket, because let's face it, kids like zippers.  It makes things seem more secret like.  Here is a picture of the pillows I did.

I started with a trip to JoAnns.  I have to say, it is so much easier picking Valentines material out for girls. Someone should invent heart fabric that is more masculine!  So my Monkey got a pillow with red flannel and red gingham.  I stopped into Michaels and saw these great felt words on their Valentines clearance.  Yay!  For $1.50 I got all 3 and can I just say that they had the one red and two pink, so I think it was meant for me!  Monkey's says LOVE and the girls say XOXO.  I just stitched those on and made a pouch with a zipper and sewed it onto the pillowcase, stuffed it with the pillows and they each have their own little Valentine pillow!  I had thought about having these done by Feb. 1 so I could put a note in them everyday, but, well, next year.


Last night at 9p, I was thinking that it would be nice to have a Valentines shirt to wear.  For the kids.  I have a dresser in my craft room that has one drawer that has only t-shirts in it.  I found a white shirt for both girls and grabbed the red t-shirt for Monkey.  I have been wanting to try this reversable applique that I saw on this link here
http://darnkat.wordpress.com/reverse-applique-tutorial/
Valentines Day isn't a day that screams masculinity so I was trying to come up with a way that I could do something for my Monkey without embarrassing him.  So, I cut a piece out of an old plaid shirt and made a small heart in the bottom left corner of his shirt.  Here is the final.

It looks pink but it's really red.  

For the girls I just cut out a couple of hearts out of a fabric that has cute cupcakes on it.  I did a regular applique on theirs.  

So it is about 9:30 now and my ADD is now satisfied with the completion of their shirts.  I think I am done!  

It's morning and now I have my kids line up do display their treasures for me.  I have such great kids!  Monkey was moments from heading out the door and didn't really want to take the time to do this, but he did it anyway, for me.  Love these kids!

Happy Valentines Day!

Losing a friend and growing up...a little

It's been almost 2 weeks since I had thought about writing about our dog Dixie.  It's just a sad story.  So don't read anymore if you want to read an uplifting story.  It's not this.  Sorry!

Two weeks ago, this Wed. started off like any other crazy school day morning.  Monkey let the dogs out to do their business and then he started laughing so hard.  The baby was still asleep and I was whispering loudly to be quiet to not wake her.  He was whistling too, at least that is what I thought he was doing.  I quickly went over to him and asked, "Why are you making that noise?"  to which he responded, "It's Dixie, mom!"  I looked out the back door and saw our chocolate lab scooting on the patio and looking very concerned.  Ok, let me just add in here that even though I am a vet's kid and blood doesn't bother me, going out to find out what was wrong with our sweet girl was my husbands job.  I hate surprises.  I don't like not knowing what I am up against.  I know, fun right?  Anyway, I had my dear hubby go out to see what was wrong.  Shooing the kids away and trying to get them ready for school and dialing my dad's number was my job next.  I handed my husband the phone so he could talk to our on call vet, (thanks Dad!) and tried to distract the kids.  Very VERY difficult to do!

Speed up an hour.
 We are on our way to the vet hospital.  We live in a town that has a University Vet hosp.  This can be a huge benefit!  After a quick (45min) exam, the neurologists decided it was on of two things and by the way she was acting it was probably a fibrocartilaginous embolism.
  A what?  Simply put, a spinal stroke.  She ran out the door and it dislodged a clot that then paralyzed her from the waist down and was continuing to affect her front legs.  To confirm this they recommended we spend $1500 for an MRI and then discuss treatment from there.  We were looking at spending thousands of dollars for a dog that we rescued and to hope that it worked.  Ah Crap!  Being a grown up Sucks!




                            


 We decided after 3 days of much deliberation and crying, to let her go to doggie heaven.  There is way more to the story, but let's just say it was exhausting.  After telling the older kids, we took them to say good-bye.  


I guess, I had thought that they would respond the same way we did growing up.  Knowing it was a fact of life and you hug them, cry and say good-bye.  What I didn't expect was my sweet Peanut draping her body on her dog, crying and saying that she would stay with her dog at the hospital so she wouldn't be sad or scared.  What I didn't expect was my stoic 8 year old to be standing next to his dog and then saying, "Mom, my eyes are sweating!" "They're hot!"  What I didn't expect to see was my husband and I looking at each other with tear soaked faces.  I kept thinking, "This is a time when I want my parents and I don't want to be the one handling this."  

One week later. 


 Peanut's comment "It seems like it was a lifetime ago, mom."  At times, I forget she is gone and other times it does seem like, "a lifetime ago".  Monkey forgets to feed our other dog daily now since he doesn't have his Dixie reminding him when it's breakfast/dinner time.  Dixie could talk just like Chewbacca.  No joke.  The other dog, didn't eat for about 5 days and he was afraid to go into the backyard like he knew that something bad had happened.  The baby would run around the house with a flashlight looking for Dixie.  (she would chase lights)  Small reminders of a big void in our daily lives that she isn't coming back.  The kids will be okay.  We will be okay.  She was a good dog and yes this whole post has been about our DOG.  

Bye Dixie girl!