fabric

Just in case you were wondering, the fabric I used for my shoes is:

Wonderland by MoMo for Moda in Tweedle Dee Tomato. I LOVE the Wonderland series- I think they would all make fantastic shoes! (Or quilts, or aprons or really anything you can fabric!)

ModPodge Shoes

Here are my shoes. Aren't they cute? Did you know I made them? That's right. Made.

I and my close-knit group of crafterhours girlfriends LOVE to get together and make fun stuff costing almost nothing that other people like to pay mucho dinero for. Like DARLING ballet flat shoes.

Here's what they looked like before:
And after:
So how did I do it?

easy answer- ModPodge.

Here's how

1. I cut off the stringy bow thing

2. I purchased fantastic Moda fabric- don't you love it?! it only takes a fat quater OR a 1/4 yard.

3. Using a craft sponge and a bowl of ModPodge you start at the toe and glue the underside down first- paint, spread fabric, let dry. repeat. repeat. repeat until the whole shoe has been covered.

4. With scissors, make an incision where your foot should go (remember it's covered with fabric?) 1/2 inch from the back to 1/2 inch from the toe.

5. cut out the rest of your foot hole.

6. every 1/4-1/2 inch or so, make a cut perpendicular to the shoe (so when you fold the fabric to the inside, it will lay flat).

7. Using ModPodge again, glue the fabric flaps to the inside of the shoe, covering the sides of the foot hole.

8. If you haven't already, make sure your fabric is ModPodged to the shoe ALL THE WAY to the sole. There will be left-over fabric. Do not worry- it comes off next.

9. Using an exacto knife or a crafting knife, cut the excess fabric from around the sole.

10. ModPodge the heck out of the fabric on TOP.

11. you're done!!!! Let them dry. Wear them out.

just a side note: the ModPodge dries stiff so if flexibility is something you desire in a shoe, we're working on that...

All about Oliver

Oliver was looking really interested in the broccoli we had for dinner a few nights ago. So, we decided to give him some and see how it turned out. Well....

He actually seemed to like it for the flavor but I also think he enjoyed sharing it with the rest of his face. Ooooh, this tastes so good in my mouth, I'll bet it tastes even better in my EYELID!

Oliver is a tiny little one. He's just.... petite. Yes, Petite. GASP! A petite grand-Simpson?! Hell has officially frozen over. We love our little man- and he is such a little man. But he's little. 30% height. 6% weight. Tiny. So I think it's awesome that the book he's holding is 'Stand a Little Taller'.

Oliver loves to read. 'I Stink' is a particular favorite. Of his. Not mine:)

James and his fishing pole

This is James and his beloved fishing pole. You may remember the history of this particular toy- it actually belonged to the little boy loving next door. The kiddos next door moved and left the shell of this toy so my little scrounger picked it out of their trash. True story. And I, as a wonderful mother, let him both DO that and KEEP it. For the record, I did clean it.

In this picture, it looks like the scope of a rifle. Who knew fishing poles could be so multi-purpose? He's also used it as a pointer, sword, plush stuffed-animal to snuggle with at night- the list goes on.
I LOVE this picture. we attached a shoe string to act as a fishing line and he wanted to " Sit on the moon and fish" just like the DreamWorks boy.
Of course, nothing happens in this house without Oliver being somehow involved.
And now James has decided that he wants to go fishing for real. With his toy pole of course. Not sure how that will work out yet.

The Triathlon

Since I KNOW you all want to hear a play-by-play about me and the triathlon, here it is.

Saturday morning I was awakened at 12:30am by a little boy who needed to go potty. This is good. I'm glad that he can identify when he needs to go and that even in the middle of the night, he can clearly state "mommy, I need to go potty". But I really just wanted to sleep. So I got Drue to handle the potty. I got up again at 5:10am with a crying baby who just wanted to be held. But I just wanted to sleep. So I brought him into bed with me, and I laid awake for the next 45 minutes thinking about all the stuff I needed to do before I left. The alarm went off, I got up with the kiddos and thank heaven for Sesame Street!

Cut to the pre-race meeting. It was not in the instructions that we needed to place our bikes BEFORE the meeting. That means I missed the meeting because I was 3 miles up the road finding where to put my bike. By the time I made it back, the meeting was over and I had to ask a fellow Cooper YMCA-er what they said in the meeting. Essentially, nothing.

The race.

I was in the 7th group to go. Swimming is first and I skunked them all. Seriously. Swimming is my strong point though, and everyone has them so I don't feel like I'm bragging. I laped all the other swimmers at least twice. That was fun:)

After the swim was The Run. Swim-Run is not the normal series of events for a triathlon, it is usually Swim-Bike, but I was okay with the run being in the middle. It's my most difficult event so it was nice to get it over and done with just a little ahead of the ladies in my heat even though 3 of them passed me at mile 2-ish. The thing that slowed me down during the run wasn't my inability to run fast. I wasn't really all that tired. It was the two little boys, obviously brothers, who seemed to have gotten VERY behind and separated from their age-group pack. So, I ran with the little guys. They were great and such troopers. Their dad seemed relieved when I ran with them to him at about mile 1.5- but they were really cute kids. The rest of the run, all I did was get passed and not by people from my heat either! I was passed by at least 3 people from the heat after me.

But that's okay because I passed them in the bike.

The Bike.

I was actually looking forward to this because I knew I had a chance to make up lost time from The Run. And I did.

The course was a mile loop repeated 10 times. Half a mile down hill, half a mile up. The half uphill was of course hard. But it was crazy hard for me.

Why?

Weeeeel, my bike decided I didn't really need any gear controls anymore after the first 1/2 mile. SO what that means is I did 10 miles in 1 gear- the downhill race gear. I was essentially WALKING up the hill on my bike for 10 laps! I tried making up for lost time during the turns and downhill slope but it was so exhausting to climb that monster hill again!!!

I had a great music mix going for the run and the bike and on the last lap the song changed to Muse- This is The End. Seriously. It was great music to end to.

After I pulled into the finish area, I couldn't believe I had done it. I had no idea what my time was but I knew I was proud of myself. I was also not prepared for how emotional I got. This was a huge thing for me- I've never felt such a surge of gratitude to my body that it was able to go the distance and race so hard. I can honestly say I have no regrets about this race. I did everything I wanted to do and worked my tail off the get there.

And, of course, it paid off.

In my division, I placed second and in the Women's over-all I placed 2nd with a time of 1hr. 35 minutes and change.

Which means I came home with a medal. That was amazing.

things I need to blog about

Here's a list of all the things waiting to be blogged about:

My new computer

The boys

James on his bike

James in a tree

James ans his fishing pole

boys in the tub

Oilver vs. broccoli

Oliver and books

and just around the corner

Drue's DMA recital #1 starring yours truly (and a violin and a cello, but who cares about them?)

So there.

But I have a few really great reasons to NOT be blogging right now:

I am doing a sprint triathlon tomorrow

Amy's getting married in 2 weeks

I've made 2 pairs of shoes with ModPodge

Wedding gifts

Messenger bag for James

practicing like a crazy-head for this recital. Have I mentioned that this piece is REALLY hard?!

and that's just half of my total list.

Things are busy. I am busy.

But if you'd like to leave a message I'll get back to you as soon as possible

*beeeeep*

Funny as heck

Sorry, no photo for this one either.

But I promise to elaborate enough so you get the picture.

Thursday was the Music Department Picnic and Drue invited the boys and I up to campus to partake of the free food. Free anything is a great reason to go anywhere in my book. As a matter of fact, I'm going to CA in 4 weeks to see a free wedding:) But that's another story.

So, we go to campus. James is running around and showing everyone his fishing pole.

(side note on the fishing pole. Our neighbors moved recently and James was very good friends with the kiddos. These particular children had more toys than I've ever seen in one place- and of course, they left some behind in the move. This fishing pole is the remains of a Spiderman fishing pole that used to light up, used to have a line and sinker and decoy fish attached, used to have a spinning.... well, whatever that spinning thing is inside the handle of a fishing pole. Essentially, he rescued from their trash pile a shell of a one-time fishing pole. And he loves this thing. So OBVIOUSLY it had to come with us to the picnic. Nothing like fishing at a picnic.)

People are laughing at how cute James is and cooing at Oliver who is toodling around- such an angel. But the wasps are getting really excited about all the free food for them so we decide to move our family indoors.

This plan is working beautifully: the kids are contained, food is consumed, things are good.

UNTIL

James. He is 4 and has very little understanding about what is appropriate to say aloud and what we need to keep to ourselves.

Enter rather rotund man. Walking down the hall towards us.

James notices him.

and in a stage whisper says:

Wow. You're REALLY big. That's Amazing!

It is fortunate for us that at the same time, this same man is commenting to James on how neat his fishing pole is so we cannot be sure whether or not he heard our little boy's observation.

But how do you explain to a 4 year old (who just barely is beginning to communicate his feelings, wants, and discoveries to us) what is appropriate to say to strangers and what might not be as acceptable???

We laughed hard after that poor man was securely out of sight. But what do you do?!