Oshiokiyo!

tsuki ni kawatte oshioki yo!

Yes. That is a little stuffed Luna.  Because I'm the best parent ever.

Moon Tiara Magic!

 Shannon's Halloween costume is done!  I'm so ridiculously proud of this.  Look at my adorable little Soldier of Justice!


I made this myself, and I love how it turned out.  Here's a breakdown of what I did:

Tiara was purchased, and odango covers are circles of cardboard covered in duct tape and glued to clips to attach to her hair.  The choker, which you can sorta see, is just a piece of ribbon with a gold painted crescent cut out of cardboard glued on.  No earrings, because her ears aren't pierced.  I've toyed with the idea of clip ons, but I probably won't bother.

Also, love the crazy eyes in this pic.

Gloves were purchased.  I tried to make gloves and failed.  These originally were trimmed in lace and beads and fake pink jewels with Disney princesses on them.  I took all that off, and sewed three strips of ribbon together, then attached that to the top of the gloves.

Bodice was a longsleeved white v neck shirt.  I cut the sleeves down to short sleeve length, then rolled that up filled with quilt batting for the tops of the sleeves.  I made up a pattern for the collar and stitched ribbon to it.  The brooch was a milk carton lid painted gold.  The crescent and center jewel are made out of hot glue and painted over.  Glued on the rest of the jewels.  I straight up hot glued the brooch to the bow, cuz I just plain didn't want to try to figure out how to attach it any other way.

The front bow is removable, attached with snaps and velcro, to make it easier to get in and out of the costume.

The bows are just rectangles of satin gathered in the middle.  The actual bow is stiffened with interfacing so it stands up.

Around the waist of the bodice I took a strip of fabric trimmed from the shirt and stitched it into a tube with quilt batting inside.  I attached a long piece of blue satin to this, pleating it as I went along.  I closed up the skirt and then attached the whole piece to the bottom of the shirt.  I had wanted top buy a white dance leotard and attach the skirt to that, but I wasn't able to find a cheap one.  This works.





The costume does have boots, they're just boot covers made out of duct tape, but they're a bit of a hassle, since they literally just tape on, so I didn't put them on for this set of pictures.  I'll get pictures of them on Halloween.

Isn't she fantastic? She does the poses, and she knows Sailor Moon's catch phrase in Japanese and English.  Because, as previously discussed, I am the best parent ever.

An update

So.... I've been a bit out of the blogging spirit since I finished Rinoa's jacket.  ah well.  No one follows this, it's just for me anyways.  Well, this is what I've been working on:

first, I made another River's vest for Amanda for Christmas, No pics, cuz it looks exactly the same.

And here's what I was making for Shannon for Christmas:

Thirteen Disney princesses.  To be fair, two are Ariel.  I wanted a human one.  I also made her a Gromit, from Wallace and Gromit.










And a Nibbler for Eloise.

And a Slender Man for Corey.

And what I'm most proud of, this quilt for Caleb.  The quilt top was made by his grandma, who passed away last year.  He was very close to her, and it was kinda rough for him.  She gave us this quilt top some years ago, but never finished it.  And so I learned to quilt and did it.  BEST PRESENT EVER.  He didn't see it coming.  it was awesome.

Then, after Christmas, I made some slippers:

nothing fancy, but they do the job.

so, that's what I've already finished.  I have some things I'm working on now, and I'm planning for, but I think I'll do a separate post for that.  more fun to break it up.

I'm not old enough to have a kindergartner.

I have not yet succeeded in convincing Shannon. I tried convincing her to have a backwards birthday or go bact to being a baby, and she wasn't having it. this is her at her table in her spot in her classroom. I'm not okay with it.

I got up early yesterday morning and got her dressed and fed. We went to the school, and found her classroom. it involved a little wandering around, I had no idea where I was going. Once we found it, her teacher came in. I was really impressed, when her teacher asked her what her name was, she actually answered her. we unloaded her supplies and I took some pictures. I've been worried for weeks that there would be hysterics when I tried to leave her at the school, so I hoped that by going early Shannon would have time to get settled in and be okay.

We went outside and she played on the playground for a while. I just stood there in the cluster of other parents, watching. when the bell rang, Shannon came up, grabbed ther wrong backpack- there was another girl there with a Hello Kitty backpack- put that one down, found hers and got in line. it was kind of hilarious looking at her next to the other kids. She's at least a sold four inches taller than the next tallest one. So I managed to make my way through the other parents, gave Shannon a hug and a kiss and told her I'd be back to pick her up when she got done. She said ok, and followed the line into the building. and then I had to rush to the car so I didn't embarass myself by bursting into tears. When I picked her up, she was super excited, and kept telling me all day that she missed school and wanted to go back. so that it. I have a kindergartner.

Yes, they are. not my fault if you can't hear them.

These boots I just bought are telling me I need more skinny jeans.

So here's a little tmi for you: last night things got a little..... um..... distracted with Caleb and I while we were fooling around, and based on the time frame we just rolled the dice on me getting pregnant. Wasn't really planned. Oops. We'll never get to plan a pregnancy, will we? that'll be our luck and it'll take just the one shot to do it. Not even intentionally! well, nothing to do about it now. I figured I'd blog about it, because no one reads this, and it's not something I can really bring up in conversation.

Not much going on now. Shannon starts school next Tuesday. I may or may not be having panic attacks about this. I'm 25. I'm not old enough to have a kid in school. I took her shoe shopping last night (thus the boots) and got all emotional over buying shoes for her to wear for school. I still need to take her to get some new shirts too. Already got school supplies, which was surreal. And we got her a new backpack last night. we were going to use the airplane one my mom got her a while ago, but she keeps insisting she hates airplanes, and her insistance got louder when she saw the Hello Kitty backpack at the shoe store. so, with Payless' buy one get one half off sale I gave in. She's in morning kindergarten, which is what we wanted. But I'm still thinking I'm gonna see if I can switch shifts with the other parttimer at work, cuz I'm sick of dealing with Katie, Caleb's sister, for childcare. she's flaky and unreliable and always a liar. I'm actually very angry at her- she said she was going out of town for a week, so she couldn't watch Shannon, so I frantically made desperate other arrangements, and she didn't go out of town- but I can't actually do anything about it cuz we need her. And I'm tired of needing her and biting my tongue. so I emailed the other parttimer- Ben- and we'll see if this is possible. Of course, if I get pregnant, that loss of afternoon shift is going to be strongly regretted.

Father's Day

so, we're less broke than we were for Mother's day, when we were both unemployed. I got Caleb a Boise State shot glass, since he collects them. Which people find ironic, since we don't drink. Someday I'm going to get him a nice display case for his collection. Shannon made him a card that I helped her with that she wrote "I love you, Daddy" and then put stickers all over it. Then we went out to Caldwell to have dinner with his parents, and went in with Caleb's brother, Aaron, and sister, Katie, to buy thier dad, Paul, a barbeque for Father's Day. it was fairly uneventful, other than the usual stress that Katie's kids cause.

Holly hell. they make me insane. The oldest is Shiann, a foster kid, who's 14 and has cerebral palsy, and all the extra stress with that. Then there's Madison who's 8, and Kayla, another foster kid, who's 10-ish. they're snotty and bossy and will tattle at the drop of a hat. Then there's Devon and Hope, 6 and 7, who ignore everything Katie says and do whatever the hell they want. And then Fintin, who's 3, and is the biggest whiny drama queen, EVER. and she lets him get away with it. Finally, there's Claire, who is 8 months old and just has the natural stress of a baby. She's also a foster kid. So, no, I don't like being surrounded by her kids. they make me crazy. It might not be so bad if she actually disciplined them and had any control AT ALL over them. sheesh. I was ready to leave by the time we finally did. I don't know how she stands the chaos.