This week’s theme is “Jump for Joy” over at iheartfaces.com. Unfortunately, still no new lens for my camera, so I’m working out of the photos I already have on my computer for this challenge. This photo was taken at a local park the beginning of February. My son and I, his two girl friends and their moms decided to meet up for a picnic lunch and to let the kids play. About 5 minutes after we sat down in the grass to eat, the kiddos spied the huge hill and decided it would be fun to run up and down it. I, of course, saw this as yet another photo opportunity. In all of the excitement (They were having a blast! You should have heard the squeals coming out of them!), Summer decided to jump while running down. Which wouldn’t have been an issue had she landed back on her feet haha. Instead, she took a tumble head first to the ground. I just so happened to catch the exact moment she was in the air, however.
Be sure to check out the other Jump for Joy entries at iheartfaces:
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This past weekend, I was browsing random blogs as usual trying to find more interesting daily reads. I came across Muffin Tin Mom who does this great thing called Muffin Tin Monday. Basically, you serve lunch on Monday to your child in a muffin tin based off the weekly theme. It allows you to break up the lunchtime routine and introduce new foods in a fun and interesting way, while focusing on portion size. This week’s theme was “Yellow” so I thought, hey, why not give it a try, at least it will make things more interesting, right?
I apologize for the AWFUL pictures. I still haven’t bought a new lens for my DSLR, so I had to use my cell phone. Wow does that ever make me miss my camera! Here is what I made today:
Left to right, Top to bottom: Gold delicious apples, Deviled eggs, Monterrey Jack cheese cubes, Sliced bananas, Cheesy noodles with tuna, Corn… and to wash it down some Orange Mango juice (it looks yellow) in a cute yellow smiley cup. As usual, my son really only ate the fruit and vegetables and a few bites of the pasta, but at least he tried everything.
To continue with the “Yellow” theme, after nap time we will be making a sun out of construction paper to practice using scissors and glue, as well as coloring some activity sheets relating to yellow and learning how to say yellow in Spanish (amarillo). Next week’s theme is Green/St. Patty’s Day. We will definitely be trying that one out, too! Be sure to check out Muffin Tin Mom’s website for links to other MTM entries.
*Edited to add:
Well, my son just brought out the deviled eggs that he thought were “disgusting” and spit out at lunch. He sat on the floor and ate two of them. Maybe this will work out pretty well after all! Also, here are pictures of the sun he made this afternoon.
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Alright, alright, alright… my husband has been gone a week already, so it’s time to get over the moping phase and get to work on my to-do list. I’m also able to breathe out of my nose again (ugh so tired of being sick!) so I’m feeling a renewed sense of energy (well, for the next few minutes anyway). So here are the projects I have been meaning to post about.
I was wandering around the dollar section at Target a few weeks ago and came across these adorable little towels that were bright teal with pink cupcakes on them. I am a sucker for cupcakes, so I had to buy them even though there was no chance my husband would allow me to actually use them in the kitchen. As I continued walking around the store, I remembered a blog post from Dana at Made where she used a simple towel to make two different aprons for her children. At the time, however, I couldn’t remember exactly which blog I had seen the post on, so I did a little searching when I got home. I found quite a few other apron tutorials and even a chef’s hat tutorial. So I decided to use the idea of the towels from Made, but incorporate them with this adorable apron tutorial at Skip to My Lou. (She used Amy Butler fabric, how could I say no??) I paired the towels with two fabrics I already had in my stash. I won’t go through the whole tutorial because Cindy does a really great job at explaining in detail, but here are a few changes I made:
I had my ruffles go all the way up into the waistband, simply because I could not get them even haha.
I used a different ruffle technique of simply changing the stitch length on my machine to its longest and then pulling from one end to gather. (Please let me know if that doesn’t make sense, and I will gladly post in more detail.)
I also didn’t topstitch mine. I was afraid to mess it up since I’m still fairly new to sewing and was just so proud that mine had turned out just like her pictures at that point!
I made the waistband a tie waist by extending the length and omitting the velcro. I only chose to do this because it was for a gift and I wasn’t exactly sure of the size of the little girl’s waist.
Overall, I think it was pretty simple and looked rather impressive when it was finished. I ended up making two of this style. Then, I came across Skip to My Lou’s chef’s hat tutorial! HOW CUTE! So I had a go at it… and it was great up until the end… when I sewed the band on with the hat inside out. Well, the inside looked great, the outside, not so much haha. I guess that’s why they call it TOPstitching! Whoops! So I had a little date with “Jack the Ripper” aka my seam ripper and fixed it. After that, the second hat went together much more smoothly. Just a note, I think the sizing on this tutorial may be for a child’s head and not a toddler head. I just placed the velcro a little further over and it fit just fine.
So when all was said and done, I was tired of making anything with gathering involved haha. BUT, I couldn’t leave my poor boy out! He was loving the apron and hat that he got to model for me, so I told him we could go pick out fabric, and I would make him one for himself in a few days. He ended up picking out some Spongebob fabric, and I chose a nice bright orange to complement it. For his, I used a tutorial from Supafine to make a full length apron and added a pocket to the front for some more color. He also got his own matching hat.
Oh, but I’m not done yet. So my friends and I then decided that since it was so close to Valentine’s day, we would have a little play date/party for the kiddos that way I could give the girls their aprons and my son would get to wear his. Well,we had one other little guest, and I didn’t want her to feel left out, so back to work I went making another apron. This time I did the full length version, but added a ruffle detail to the top and used leftover fabric from the stripes and polka dots. These longer aprons whip up in no time!
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I just wanted to get this up really quickly before I head to bed and forget about it. This week’s challenge at iheartphotos.com is Hilarious Outtakes, and I just so happen to have the perfect photo. The night before my husband left for Iraq (this past Sunday), I convinced him that we needed to take a few pictures of the three of us. So while I was setting up the tripod and testing my settings, the boys were sitting there waiting. Of course, you can always count on a toddler to do something funny in front of the camera. I’m pretty sure you can just imagine a big “RAWR!” coming out of his mouth in this photo:
Check out the other hilarious outtakes photo entries at:
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I know, I know… I promised all of you an update on my sewing projects, but let me tell you these past few weeks have not been good ones! I am not normally one to complain, especially not in an open forum like this (maybe a little to my husband). But this time, I feel the need to get this out and let everyone know just how awful it has been dealing with Sony Customer Service.
Awhile back, I mentioned I had some issues with my Sony Vaio laptop. Well, basically, I bought this laptop in February 2009 at AAFES (it’s a military store) when my son ripped the letters off my Dell laptop keyboard. Boy do I ever wish I had just waited and bought another Dell! A few days after I bought it, I noticed the area where the power button is was falling off. Hopefully you understand what I mean by the image below. (Basically, that round area on the bottom right of the picture.)
It’s really only attached by this small piece of plastic with a wire going between the two pieces. Well, at this point, it was just hanging on by the wire. But seeing as we were stationed overseas in Okinawa, Japan at the time, I dealt with it instead of having to mail it back to Sony in the states and wait for it to be returned. So I just kept sticking it back into its little spot whenever it would fall out. Then just recently, the same thing happened with the spot where the AC adapter plugs in. It is the exact same round area on the left side of the laptop. Talk about a design flaw on Sony’s part! So I figured, well, we’re in the states now and it’s still under warranty so I will call Sony and get this fixed once and for all.
Well, I call Sony and setup a repair, and they say a technician will call in 3 days to tell me when they will come by my house to fix it. I think to myself, “Great! They will even come to me!” and go on about my daily life. Well, the guy calls and we setup an appointment for him to come to my house at 10am the next day. He says he should be done by noon because I was worried about having time to go pick up my brother in law at the airport. He gets here at 10:30am (no big deal, I’m easy going about these things) and is rushing to finish at 2:30pm. Shows me the laptop is back together, and it’s turned on, then leaves. Well, I realize just a few minutes after he left that my laptop was no longer charging, and that he also forgot the charger to his power tool he was using. So I call him back, and he rudely tells me that he will have to pick up his charger later and that I will need to call Sony back to setup another repair because it’s not his problem. Excuse me, you just fixed this and CREATED THE PROBLEM.
So, being the nice person that I am (pushover as my husband refers to it), I call back Sony to setup another repair. They tell me a technician will call again in 3 days and give me another repair number. So 4 days pass and still no call. So I call them back only to find out that the customer service representative never put the request through all the way. So the lady on the phone puts through ANOTHER request (this is #3 now) and tells me to wait another 3 days for a call. Oh right, I almost forgot… at this point, my laptop is no longer under warranty, so the woman has the nerve to tell me she will “try to put it through” even though it’s not under warranty. At this point, I am thinking to myself, “Oh you will put it through, and I will not pay for something YOUR technician created.” But of course, nice little me keeps my thoughts to myself.
So another 3 days go by, and I finally get a call from my new technician. We set up a time for the next day. The next morning he calls and says he has to go to Utah for some other repair and reschedules for the morning after. Ok, ok, fine… I’ll be nice one more time. So the next day comes by and still no call to say he is on his way at 3pm. So I call him, and he says he is backed up because some guy called off. Ok, fine, I’ll be nice ONE MORE TIME. So we reschedule for the next afternoon. He shows up a little late, fine by me, I understand there is no set time limit on how long the job before me could take. At least he called to say he was on his way this time.
So, he arrives, and I explain my situation. He opens up the laptop to find that the previous technician screwed through a wire when he was putting my laptop back together, and says it’s ok because he can fix it. Then he opens the box of parts that Sony shipped to him only to find that they aren’t even the correct parts! They sent him stuff to repair the mousepad. I have never once said anything about a mousepad. (I did however mention that my letter N key had fallen off and asked for that to be fixed, though they never bothered to put that part into their computer during either request.) So he works with what he has and tries to put a patch on the wire for me. It holds and it works. I am happy. Two days later and my laptop is randomly not charging. GRRREAAAT! Here we go again!
So, of course, I call Sony back. I explain to them the situation and ask to speak to a manager this time because I am getting very frustrated and just want it fixed once and for all, not at cost to me. Well, at least I got a customer service representative with half a brain this time, and he tells me that I have a 90 day warranty on any work that is done by one of their technicians. Someone should probably tell that to the customer service lady I talked to before that had to “try to put it through”. So anyway, we set up another repair, and this time I tell him to be sure that it is put in that I want my keyboard fixed because that kept getting pushed aside.
So I wait my 3 days for a phone call and get a call from the Sony Escalation Center. I call them back only to get a message that for after hour service you need to call another number and get hung up on after this. So I call back and write down the number and then proceed to call this new number. I get yet another customer service representative that has no idea what they are talking about unless it is on the prompt on the computer in front of them. He asks me the same 20 questions all of the others asked… verify your name, phone numbers, address, what is wrong with the computer, serial numbers, etc. and then assigns me yet another repair request number (#5 now) and tells me to wait for a call back in 3 days. I am beyond frustrated now. And not trying to make a huge issue out of this, but it makes it all the more frustrating that their customer service is outsourced to India. I just want to speak to someone who has a clue about computers and will actually listen to what I am explaining. Send me the stupid wire, and I will fix it myself if I have to! Just fix my stupid laptop! I am so over Sony. I will not be buying a Sony laptop ever again, and it is seriously turning me off from their brand entirely.
Well, I just had to get that out there. So all of you know why I haven’t been posting and know how insanely ridiculous this is getting with having my laptop fixed. I will update if I ever get this thing fixed haha. Oh and by the way, on top of all of this, my husband left for Iraq on Monday for his third deployment (first two were to Afghanistan), and I am now sick with some nasty head cold. Oh and I forgot to mention that I also managed to break the lens on my DSLR so I no longer have a camera right now. I surely hope that whoever I speak to next at Sony knows what they are talking about because my patience is running very thin and adding in these other factors is probably going to make me blow up on them at the first sign of more stupidity on their part. Ok, end rant. Now… maybe I’ll get a chance to post those pictures from my sewing projects… 
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February 27th, 2010 in
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