The Reveal

I have finally finished the Christmas gift for Aiden and Ava... only took me two months of solid work, but I think it was worth it. It all started with a roll of paper and some matchbox cars. Jacob drew Aiden a village on a large roll of paper for him to drive his cars on the kitchen table, and in the process, Aiden was asking for specific buildings; Target, "Dad's work", our house, etc etc., he also specifically wanted a roundabout, a bridge, & a railroad track, so of course I had to add those too... the list was quite long. So from that, came this:

I know you're so jealous of my drawing skills, right?

 So I started with a green piece of fabric, cut down to the size of a twin sheet, then slowly but surely started to build "Millerville". It's not exactly like the drawing, but I used it as a basis for where to start. I found all my supplies at either JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby or Michael's. Take a look and let me know if you like it! (I apologize for the sheer amount of pictures, there was a lot of detail on here). 

I used chalk as an outline for the roads, and cut out a charcoal colored felt (measured to the width of 2 matchbox cars plus a little for the lines), then hand sewed it down. I then used a thin yellow and white rope as the lines on the edge of the road and in the middle.

Once I got the roads on, I started to put together buildings and houses. This was by far the hardest and most time consuming. Probably because I was trying to put so much detail into each individual store. I google imaged each store to get a picture of the building to give me a stating point. Then I re-drew the stores within the scale of the mat. This also made a little template to cut out the fabric with. I bought this fabric glue, and it really helped me fold down the little edges and get small pieces into place so I could sew it down. Did I mention this was all hand-sewn? No machine at all, except for the bias tape edge. I also found this fabric in cotton at JoAnns. You just put it through your regular inkjet printer and it prints your image directly onto the fabric. This made it so much easier to get logos and signs that looked realistic. Here are a few more pictures, I told you there was a lot of detail!

The Beach

Our Parent's houses, plus one to fill the neighborhood

The Zoo

School and Playground

Ikea

A few houses plus our house on the right

See any resemblance to our house?

Home Depot (plus a garden center!), Police Station, & Fire Station

Church (looks nothing like our church but oh well)

Close look at the sign, taken on our wedding day

Meijer, Coscto, Target, JoAnn, Dairy Queen & Qdoba

Construction Site and Railroad Tracks

Farm

Doors open!

"Daddy's work" - Chrysler (With a Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep out front of course!)

Our old house

Any resemblance?

Small Pond

Library

Speedway

 

In all it's glory!

 

And so they always remember when they got it....

So? What do you think??

Aiden-isms

The past few months we've been noticing a change in Aiden... He is quite the comedian and has great comic timing. Often times, Jacob and I have to leave the room because he's got us laughing so hard.

Our little comedian

Here are a few examples (my apologies to Jacob's Facebook friends, you may have read some of these before):

•  Jacob's sister Sarah is in school to become a teacher, once Aiden realized it, he said, "No, I don't want her to be a teacher, I want her to be Aunt Sarah."

• While shopping at Hobby Lobby, Aiden sees these iron-on letters...

He then points to each one while reciting the alphabet, gets to "Z" and then asks, "where is 'now I know my ABCs'?"

• In response to the graphic on the building at Jacob's work...

He stated he knew the water on the daddy's work was pretend, however, he was still concerned because he was afraid his desk would get wet because there were holes on the side of the building...

• In the car, one of Aiden's favorite song came on, Katy Perry's Wide Awake, or as he calls it, "wake, wake, wake song". When we told him, he replied, "Oh, I'm just so busy right now... Can you please turn it off?" What was he doing? Looking through a car brochure....

• After a dinner at Qdoba, we were in the car when Aiden blurts out, "DAD!! We forgot to pray at (the restaurant)! Because God gave us that food!" So as we're driving down the road, he asked us to fold our hands (while Jacob was still holding on the wheel) and said our dinner prayer... After Amen, he very sternly said, "Now Dad, get both hands back on the wheel!"

• There is a house near ours that has incredible Christmas lights that are timed to change in response to music on the radio, all done for charity (Our Dancing Lights). As you watch the lights, you tune into a specific radio station. While listening, the homeowner comes on the station asking listeners to be mindful to the neighbors with no bright headlights and no loud music. About a minute later, during a Mannheim Steamroller song, Aiden blurts out, "Daaaddd! Don't you remember what the man said on the radio? NO loud music!!"

•  Aiden brought home a noodle necklace he made at school (beautiful might I add) and very proudly showed it to me. "Mom, I made this for you at school today!" he said. I told him I loved it so much, let him put it on me and said I'd wear it all night. His face fell and he quietly said, "Um, Mom... I made it for me too. But you can wear it until you go to sleep tonight!"

• As we were eating dinner, he was talking about how much he loved school and his teachers. "I really like Ms. Laura and Ms. Tara... but I like you the best Mom."

He cracks us up on a daily basis, so stay tuned for many many more of these to come... I can't help but share them (even if you don't find them as humorous as we do!)

A New Project in the Works...

So I've been MIA for almost a month now, and I promise I have a good reason... here's a (very) small preview. It will be a Christmas gift for Aiden and I hope to have it done within the next few weeks so I can focus on other people's Christmas gifts. 

I know it looks odd...

I can't wait to show it all in it's entirety!

Trash to Treasure

My sister Nicole found this ottoman in someone's garbage and snatched it right up... She knew the bones of this ottoman were still good, and asked me to help her out and recover it. Please excuse the crappy quality of the following pictures...
 

It had a few tears on the corners, which was probably what caused the original owners to throw it out.

Once I tore it apart and started working on getting the new fabric on, the entire thing fell apart. So, with the assistance of Jacob, it was completely re-built and is now stronger than ever! I also added an additional 2 inches of foam on the seat part so it was a little cushier (is that a word?) since before, when you sat on it, it felt like you were going to fall through.

This was where it fell apart, none of the original nails were in straight

 The kids even enjoyed it!! Nicole picked out this gorgeous fabric to match her living room curtains - I hope it matches!

Done!

Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween everyone! Here are a few pictures from our night with Aiden as Lightning McQueen (from Cars, the movie) and Ava as one of the cutest ducks ever!
I hope everyone else enjoyed their nights as much as we did!

She got tired...

 

 

Sorting by kind

Busy Couple of Weeks

I've had a bit of down time lately and have been struggling with finding something to keep me busy. Now if you saw my "to-do" list, you'd think I was crazy for calling this my down time. I've got several things to do, mostly for Christmas gifts, but again, not much motivation. We've had a lot going lately; some bad, some good... So this is going to be a long post.

Hang in there. It'll be worth it, I swear.

For one, Aiden had a field trip last week to Miller's Big Red Orchard. We went there last year also and were able to pick apples, but due to the unseasonably warm weather too early in the year, they didn't have any apples. So instead, we got to pick our own pumpkins. Aiden loved the hayride out to the pumpkin patch, and was Mr. Perfectionist when it came to picking out his own.

So proud!

 

 

We also enjoyed cider and doughnuts, and saw some animals. But Aiden's favorite part I think was the giant straw tower the kids were able to climb up. I'm glad there were some parents there to help him up that were braver (more brave?) than I am... there was NO WAY I was climbing up there.

Enjoying his doughnut

You can barely see him! (Red Coat)

Victory!

 

And??? Aiden turned 4 this past weekend!

I still can't believe I have a 4 year old... I'm in a bit of denial. He's my baby... He'll always be my baby, my first born.

Makes me feel so old...

Anyways, we worked SO hard on getting everything ready for the party. Cleaning the house, moving furniture, adding tables, food preparation, etc etc. Luckily my sister was able to come the morning of and help us out; I'm not sure we would've gotten everything done on time without her.

All in all, everything turned out great. We had awesome food, great family, and I know Aiden had a blast! We had a Cars movie themed party, although in the end, it turned into more of a general car theme; but Aiden didn't seem to care. I made cake pops (lemon, funfetti, and chocolate "tires"), Stoplight brownies, construction cone rice krispies treats, and of course a #4 cake for Aiden. Which was supposed to look totally different than it turned out... the original was a total disaster. Good thing I had extra M&Ms left over from the brownies...

 

 

 

 And even Jacob's co-workers were able to enjoy the treats since I made so many, he brought some to work yesterday... That was one lucky group of Engineers...

While I figure out what needs to be done next on my project list, I leave you with some party pictures. Hope you enjoy!!

What a crabby girl...