WHO IN THE WORLD SENT THIS TO ME!

I got this



in the mail yesterday. It was an Amazon marketplace order. A seller by the name of "lilmermaid" got an order from someone to send this to "Ms. Sara Egbert". Two heart shaped lollipops (I'm afraid to eat since I don't know who this is from), and "Disney's Greatest Lullabies". First of all, whoever ordered it, thank you. Second of all, could you please send a VCR?

Weekend

We put up a swing in our backyard/patio. Rob and Jasper had a good time together playing and swinging this weekend, plus the weather was WONDERFUL!

Here's my latest sewing project. We went to Goodwill and bought a cool, kinda retro polyester suit jacket. I cut it up and made a pair of pants and a tie shirt for Jasper. The jacket only cost two dollars so it was quite a good deal to be able to make an entire outfit for Jasper out of it.

Here's Jasper a little while later, sans pants, in the bathroom. Rob said he had seven of them in his hand at once. Funny little guy...

"Oink, oink"- Jasper's first words. Just kidding, but this is one of the funniest pictures of Jasper yet.

Jasper in his tie shirt

Jasper in the tie onesie. I'm am more than happy to make one for anyone who wants one. I've seen these adult sized onesies at Goodwill. Just a few stains here and there, but I could probably cover them with the sewn on tie. Seriously, though, if you want one for your little boy (or girl I suppose) I'll totally make one.

Sewing Ties on Onesies

This is by far the easiest sewing project I've ever done. Some friends of ours, the Hendersons, gave us a cute, little onesie with a tie sewn on it for Jasper when we was born. Well, he's outgrown it. I was feeling really sad about it because we don't have very many "churchy" clothes for him. So, I decided to try and make some myself. It was soooo easy! All I did was cut out a tie shape (with a little extra room for the seam), ironed under the edges, and sewed it on to a onesie. Here' what I made:

This one's to entice Aunt Kim to move to Seattle

Today was a beautiful day. It was 60 degrees and blue skies. It's February and we've had really great weather for almost a week. I think that means Spring is here to stay. I'm sure Seattle's fair share of spring showers are on their way, but I think the long winter days are officially yester-year.

Discovery Park is an Egbert family favorite. I remember when we first moved up to Seattle my good friend Chrystal Young (who formerly lived in Seattle) told us that she really like Discovery Park and that we should check it out. We did, and we continue to frequent it's wooded trails, sandy beaches, and Olympic views.

So today, we went to Discovery park to enjoy the sunshine. It was a very wise choice. We were actually going to go hike Boulder River, which we also love, but realized we wouldn't get any sunlight in the dense old growth forest.

Here are some pictures from our hike:

Valentine Boys

I made Rob and Jasper matching pajamas pants for Valentine's Day. The fabric is pink camo with skulls. I thought it was a good mix of cute and bad.

Happy Valentine's Day, from Jasper

Here's a video that Jasper wanted you all to see to show you how grown up he is: Jasper at 10 months

The Caucus

We are so excited about the elections this year! Obama won in Washington's caucus today and we are thrilled. Today was really exciting. Rob, myself, and Jasper all attended our very first caucus. It kind of has the feeling of a community meeting, where all our neighbors got together, discussed politics and candidates and then voted. There was a very neat energy about the whole thing. People (myself included) were SO excited about Obama and the hope for the future he is bringing people.

We met lots of our neighbors!

Shut out

Sara has been really excited about the Obama campaign, so when she heard that he was coming to Seattle before the Washington state caucuses she immediately said, "We're going!" - meaning she and Jasper.

I decided to skip out on research at school and to join them. I was waiting at my bus stop at 11:10 this morning (doors were to open at 11:00am) and talking with Sara intermittently about how the line was going. She decided to wait for me at the front of the line for me.

Two minutes later she called back to say that the doors had been shut and they were turning people away. They were full! I feel terrible because had she not stopped in line to wait for me she could have gone in to see one of the three people (all in Seattle/Tacoma today) who will most likely be the next US President.

So instead she is spending the afternoon with Jasper at Seattle's Children's Museum. Museum employees told Sara that people began lining up at 8am! She commented to me that she thinks Jasper would enjoy the museum more than thousands of people crowded into a basketball arena for a rally. While talking to Sara on the phone, I think I heard Jasper say, "Speak for yourself, mama. Vote Obama!"

Picture of rally via Northwest Progressive Institute's blog.

Teething

Who would have known those two little teeth could cause so many sleepless nights...

Regardless, we love this little guy more than anything.

Tell me if you think this picture is inappropriate...

How to sew Book of Mormon scripture totes

I am posting this project because I tried to find directions online and couldn't find any. Now, if someone is interested in doing a similar project, I hope they will find this helpful.

I work with the children in my church's primary. Every year we have a theme and this year it is "I am a Child of God". We wanted the kids to understand that they can learn about the plan that God has for each of his children and about how much he loves them by reading the scriptures. The other women that I work with and I thought it would be great if each child had their own Book of Mormon that they brought to church each week and could have at home to read. We also thought it would be nice for each child to have a case or tote to carry their scriptures in.

I used dark denim material (works for both boys and girls) which was on sale at the time at Hancock Fabric.



Decided to give each child one of the very inexpensive ($2.50), soft cover Book of Mormons that measure 8" x 5". Cut a rectangle piece of denim at 16" x 9" (planned to double over the top seam, but not the side seams).



Folded in half and sewed up the top and bottom, leaving one of the 9" seams open:



Squared off the bottom two corners to create a sqaure bottom tote:



Folded the open edge under twice, ironed, and sewed:



Now it's time for the handles. Cut a piece of denim that was 3" by 9".



Ironed and sewed:







Measured so that each handle was evenly matched up on each tote. Sewed the handles on by sewing around in a square pattern.





Here's a shot of the squared-off bottom of the totes



The Book of Mormons fit perfectly into the totes. If you want to be able to carry a larger, triple combination, you would need to cut the fabric about an extra 2 inches on each side and square the bottom of the tote larger.



Here's a few of them finished. I forgot to get a photo of all 20 of them done!