This is How They Rope You In

My husband likes country music.  I do not.

Occasionally he watches CMT with Jayce, and they will both clap or smack their leg with the beat of the music.

Yesterday, I was flipping through the channels and stopped on CMT for a minute.  Jayce looked up at the TV, smiled at me, and then started to do the baby bounce.  He then moved into his newest dance move, the baby slide, where he dips down while taking a big step to the side.  He then clapped and smiled at the TV.  It was so cute that I pulled the video up on YouTube, and attempted to recreate the situation.  It worked.

When the song ended, he pulled me over to the computer and pointed to the screen, like he wanted me to play it again.  At which point I had to admit that the song was a little bit catchy.  So I bought it on itunes.  For him and his dad, of course. (Miranda Lambert’s White Liar, if you’re interested.)

I will have to make sure that they don’t team up on me like this again. 

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Isle of Misfit Trees

One of my lovely friends made a comment a little bit ago, which I loved her for, that I should change my tag from “attempts at being crafty and domestic” to “ways I rock at being crafty and domestic.”  I emailed her back and reminded her that the advantageous thing about writing your own blog is that it shows only what you want it to show, and my failed attempts were not typically the things that I posted. 

But I’ll suspend that rule for a bit today and show off a few of the failed attempts.  I’m afraid that this will be their only moments in the sun, for they are currently tucked away in my room and will likely not be appearing again this holiday season, or maybe ever.

First, I give you, The Leaning Tree of Lincoln.  Remember how I said that when I first made these little trees, I tried to use a glue and water mix to harden them?  Well, it didn’t work so well.  And I was left with a few of these.  If I remove my hand, it will instantly fall over, and it’s just not that pretty to decorate your house with trees that are lying on their side.  In my opinion.

I tried to coax it into standing tall and proud by convincing it that it could be a glam little tree.  I thought that maybe some spray paint could stiffen it up a bit, and gussied it up with a little Dollar Store silver platter and tiny Christmas balls.  But then, like an idiot, I put it in the bathroom.  Completely disregarding the fact that, a little moisture is probably not the best thing to do with an already saggy tree.  After only a few showers, it looked like this. 

In conclusion, sometimes, trying to be clever and use items that are already around your house (like Elmers glue) just doesn’t pay off.  Instead, suppress your inner middle school sense of humor, and just buy some of this stuff.  It works.

Next, I give you this little guy.  Who I call…

Slinky Tree.  For you lovers of all things 80’s, it might be the perfect tree for you, though I have not yet taken it to the stairs to see if it will walk down.  Maybe this afternoon.

I thought I could do something to help this little guy, but he was a bit too close to the edge of the table.  Too close to the eager hands of my son, who I heard saying “No. No.”, which he does when he has something he is not allowed to play with, and by the time that I got over to the table it was even more unraveled than it is here.  I am trying to do something with this one, since the twine is already cone-shaped, but it may require more hot glue and patience than I have at the moment.  Especially since they are so easy to make, it may be less time-consuming to just start another from scratch.

As for these two, the Side Leaning Set, I don’t know if they can be helped.  They are standing up, which is more than I can say for the Leaning Tree of Lincoln.  But other than a little Dr Seuss village, where leaning and wonkey-looking trees would be appropriate, I’m not sure what to do with them.

Hmmm, a Dr Seuss villiage…

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He Loves His Mom

Yesterday afternoon Jayce and I were playing with his Halloween tin. It's a good game. He puts it over his head, yells, laughs at how the noise sounds with his head inside, and I drum lightly on the top with my fingertips to make him laugh even more, which doesn't take long.

All of the sudden, Jayce threw the tin off of his head and the edge of it cracked me on the ankle bone.

I rolled onto the floor, howling in pain in that, "this hurts so bad I can feel it in my teeth, but not enough to cry" sort of way.

Jayce ran over and laid down on top of me, rolling around on my back and imitating my noises. This didn't seem to help, so he took a different approach and laid across my shoulders, hugging me, patting me on the shoulder and going "Awwwww. Awwwwww." This didn't completely shut me up either, because my howls had kind of turned into hysterical giggling. He looked around the room, brought me my glasses which had fallen off in the shuffle, and then a Sandra Boynton book, which we read together, and then I was all better.

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Christmas-y Cones

I have always wanted some of those cool cone-shaped trees that they sell a variety of at Target this time of year, but couldn’t bring myself to spend $40 for one. I’d been thinking that I’d make my own this year, and ever since I made the twine centerpiece balls (read about here), I’ve been planning these.

I showed these off just a little last week in my post about my wall art, which you can see here if interested. (Sorry for the shameless bragging, just still a little too excited about them :)

Anyway, I started off with the materials shown below. I initially mixed glue with some water and used this to harden the twine, but once it was dry it wasn’t quite strong enough to keep it’s shape.

So I got some of this stuff to use instead, (I know, I know) and it works tons better.

I wrapped the cones in parchment paper and secured it with pins, and then wrapped the soaked twine around the cone in a crisscrossing pattern, wringing it out a little at a time as I went. (Edited to add: Make sure that your bottom strands are straight all the way around the base, or you may end up with something that belongs on the Isle of Misfit Trees.)

Once that was finished, I put green raffia in the stiffener and wrapped it around the cones as well, just for a little color and a different texture.

Once all is dry (I usually left it overnight), I used a knife to separate the twine from the parchment paper and here is the end result!

The best part about making the trees this way is that you can make several trees using only one foam cone as the mold. I wanted to try out a few different things, so this let me experiment on the trees without “using up” one of the foam cones, since they are kind of expensive. I have a plain pair, and this pair that has just a few tiny berries hot glued on in various spots.

Another set I spray painted white, sprayed it with some glitter, and then glued on these larger berries.

This one I actually used the little cone for (I had two, so I was willing to lose one of them). I spray painted the cone and the twine separately, hot glued the twine onto the cone, and capped it with (of course) little berries.

This has been a good little project, but now I have these trees everywhere. Time to start giving some away!

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We Love Tooshies

I Heart Faces is doing “tooshies” this week instead of faces, so I’m celebrating with this picture of our little team mascot.

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Sunday Six

1.) A few months ago I picked up a few of those re-usable grocery bags from Wal-Mart and I am wondering why I didn’t do this sooner.  The straps are long enough to sling them over your shoulder, which makes them considerably easier to carry in from the car.  It also forces the cashier to pack the bags entirely, instead of having 2-5 items per bag, which drives me crazy.2.) Speaking of Wal-Mart, I was there today and was almost run over by an unruly little boy who was “helping” his dad push the cart.  As I passed, the dad said, “Now don’t you run into that lady, or she’ll whoop you good.”  I turned around, baffled, but they had already passed and didn’t look back.  I didn’t think I looked that intimidating in my LCU sweatshirt and jeans, but who knows?

3.) My sister-in-law once commented, when I complimented her Christmas decorations, that she used to put out every Christmas thing that she owned, whether she liked it or not, simply because it was Christmas-y.  More recently she started only putting out what she really liked, even if it didn’t end up being a lot in quantity.  This is good advice and has been in my mind as I’ve been rummaging around my Christmas boxes.   

4.) I still go back and forth about whether or not I like it when Jayce looks like a big boy.  But sometimes these grown up outfits are just too hard to resist.

5.) Jayce spent lots of time playing with his Aunt Melanie and Uncle Matt at Thanksgiving.  In true 18 month old fashion, he was most enamored with their electronic things, like phones and cameras.

6.) Luckily Uncle Matt was around when we were trying to get a family picture, and kept Jayce laughing while we snapped away.  If only we all could have remembered to look at the camera.

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Organized Disorganization

That old saying about getting spoiled at Grandma’s house was true for us this holiday weekend.  Though Jayce was spoiled by the usual stuff, toys and snacks and whatnot, there were also a few surprise bonuses, such as non-child safety locked drawers, and Tupperware on the bottom.

This happened a few different times over the weekend.  The first time was while I was asleep and I just discovered a few pictures on my camera after the fact.  But I got to observe one of the unpacking sessions myself.  There was plenty of this,

and occasionally this.

We did discover on one spying session that these items were not being randomly thrown out of the drawer, but carefully placed around the room, with care taken to ensure that all of the bowls and lids were separated and put out individually.  Several of them started off in little rows that were eventually filled in, and by the end of the weekend, he had everything spread out all around the kitchen floor.  It was a good and important project.

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