Give away

Here is a fabulous giveaway: http://ihavetosay.typepad.com/

I love the quilt along. Our Relief Society is using this quilt top as a project for kids in the Sick Kids Burn Unit. It has been an exciting process. I got a bunch of fabric together and aked the YW and RS to volunteer to cut 4 inch squares and 8 by 4 rectangles. They did a great job. After we did this I assembled quilt tops for the sisters to sew. We are planning to tie these quilts on September 1. This is very exciting. Sitting around a quilt frame brings out the pioneer spirit in me and I totally love it.

I coud probably go on for a while about this concept. How great and different this earth would be with more women taking time to sit, visit, use their hands, build a skill and use this all for good. Imagine.

Thanks Randi for the giveaway the possibility for me to have more material to work with for this cause.

One of my beefs about cleaning...

I am not sure how many of you fall into this same problem...all the little bits and pieces that are everywhere. I get so sidetracked by them and want to throw them all away. What usually happens is that I put them all in a box to go through later and then have a dreaded box that I put in the basement and takes up space. Not a good thing.... Here is the collection at the end of my room.

I am happy to report that the kids are doing great with keeping everything tidy. I am also pleased as can be with the bigger and bigger pile of giveaway stuff in the family room. The funny part about the pile however is that my daughter is a little suspicious of what is in the pile and so she will occasionally go through it. Must change this strategy- perhaps keeping the pile in the back of the van.

Will include picture on next post- just imagine 15 random items on my bed. What do you do with all these little things. I do not want to micromanage every piece of Lego and puzzle!!

Progress

Here is the result of the boys room. I also did some switching around of some furniture (of course!!). Although the dresser is not white in the boys room, it will have to do for now. I took out the tall dresser from the closet which gives a lot more room. Now that Baby is not wearing onesies and is the same size for everything that child 3 is in things are a little more streamlined.

I was very happy with how much stuff I got rid of.

Benefits of doing this:
-gave lots of great boy clothes and other baby related stuff to a friend having a baby
-got things organized
-have a pile of stuff to return to my sister
-have stuff to give or sell that just doesn't work in the space
-have a perfect organizer for the makeshift kitchen that will be going into the basement as we remodel the kitchen!@! so excited

Good stuff.

I am not sure what to do with the paintings behind the chair in the hall. I have some pretty good wall space upstairs but i have not been inspired yet.

Keeping it Real

Okay so I am going to post these pictures as is. There was no quick tidy before these pictures were taken. This is really good motivation.

THis is just the younger boys room- many more pictures to come.

Getting Rid of the Crap

I am taken by V&Co 's challenge to get out the crap!! I have such a hard time making these entries but I want to try to figure out how to record all my efforts. By writing and taking pictures it commits me even further to this process.

We have moved 5 times in the 9 years of our marriage! I have a hard time getting rid of some items. I moved quite a bit when i was a kid and my mom hardly saved a thing- sometimes i feel sad about this when other people (like my husband) can give our children toys that he played with when he was a baby or kid.

My other crap management issue is that I love to sew, knit and do crafts so along with this hobby comes a lot of supplies. I was amazed at Allison from Cluck Cluck Sew who has hardly any fabric- I on the other hand have approximately 6 totes full plus 10 shelves in the office full.

I love a bargain. I also feel like I never know when I am going to have a sewing emergency and need to whip up a quilt at 10 pm.

Having three boys in all different sizes also poses a problem because I am constantly needing to assess what fits who in what weather. See i have some pretty good excuses. Plus I feel that I already got rid of a lot of stuff. I did, the part is that I constantly need to do this!!!

I have some after shots of two kids room and I will take some before of the other three rooms.

The biggest challenge however is the BASEMENT. The biggest trouble with the basement is that it is BIG. I can fit a lot down there- the problem is I don't need it because it is a lot to manage.

Primary Lesson May first week

I often get ideas form Sugardoodle but have yet to contribute. Today is the day! I read a great idea from one fellow Primary sister and decided to go with it and make it my own. If you would like to take this and make it your own- feel free.

The lesson is the first of the May series covering the concept 'Covenants and Ordinances of the Gospel Lead Me to Jesus Christ'. The first Sunday focuses on this: My faith is Jesus Christ is strengthen when I obey.

I want to teach the children the fourth article of faith.

I have a scripture chase prepared for the senior primary. There are 20 scriptures divided up equally in the OT, NT, BofM and the D&C.

The children will be broken into 4 groups and will have the scriptures for them. They will have to find the words. I will post later how they will put the words into the 4th article of faith- some of them have it memorized already and I don't want them to give it away- they need to come to it on their own.

Old Testament Scriptures

2 Exodus 19:9 27th word

5 Numbers 29:1 8th word

8 2 Kings 17:34 24th word

14 Habbu. 2:4 20th word

17 Deut 28:28 2nd word

New Testament

6 Hebrews 6:1 4th word

11 Galatians 1:6 21st word

18 John 6:14 11th word

19 Romans 15:17 19th word

20 Matthew 22:26 3rd word

Book of Mormon

21 Alma 42:5 33rd word

23 Moroni 8:20 9th word

25 3 Nephi 11:26 5th

28 Mosiah 4:20 18th word

30 2 Nephi 9:45 9th word

Doctrine and Covenants

31 D&C 88:55 4th word

32 D&C 20:43 8th word

35 D&C 124:14 last word

38 D&C 6:10 5th word

41 &42 D&C46:13 8th & 9th

The verse read like this:

We 2 that the 5 6 and 8 of the 11 are first 14 in the 17 18 19 20 21, third 23 by 25 for the 28 of 30, 31, 32 on of 35 for the 38 of the 41 42.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

I am pretty resourceful and made this quilt for my son out of my stash, a vintage single sheet and a second hand dinosaur flannel sheet I got at my old favourite thrift store. I tried to use crazy mom quilts tutorial for the zig zag quilt, but i obviously didn't get it. Part of the quilt is zig zagged and the other...is just patch worky. By the time I realized it wasn't all good, I figured I just didn't have the heart to unpick it all and just keep it. I will reattempt the zig zag again. i also went to the library and got another idea of how to do the zig zag without triangles. I will show that later.