Coloring cards for kids...

We used to be on our game and send homemade cards or post cards to all our family members... yeah well we sort of got off track there a little bit. Kudos! to everyone who is good at keeping up with that stuff. I remember my great grandma sent birthday cards to everyone, every year, and she never missed one person once. By the time you get into greats and great greats and their spouses and step kids and all that... well that's a whole lot of people to remember and if she could do it when she was in her 90's. What the heck is our excuse? Anyhow... we recently received the most adorable handmade Valentine's day card from our dear friends the Jeongs, so to thank them Jesse drew some pictures. We turned his pictures into Thank You cards and left them colorless, so the kids could color them instead (it's more fun for them that way). We also turned one of the cards into a birthday card and sent it to Jesse's nephew Aiden for his 2nd birthday. I think they turned out adorable. The kids and their parents all seem to like them. Now we just need to come up with a bunch of different designs and save them for an easy print out anytime someone has a birthday. Here's what we've got so far...

 Batman Card.

Puppy dog card.

Birthday puppy dog card.

Pirates... ARGH!

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science has a really cool new exhibit all about pirates. More specifically the Whydah pirate ship that crashed off the coast of Massachusetts in the 1700's. Jesse and I have a dual membership and it's about to expire, so we figured we should get some more use out of it before that happens. I heard about the members only preview of this exhibit and figured it would be a perfect place to take Kayden. Jesse got off work early and met us there. There was a short film teaching us the history of the ship, paintings, buried treasure, replicas, and all kinds of info about pirates. Inside the exhibit they made you feel like you were really on a pirate ship, the sounds, the sites, and even the smells of an old damp wooden ship completely surrounded you. I think the boys favorite part was the one free treasure box to each group. Inside the box there was an eye patch, a hat, some coins, and tattoos... everything a pirate could want. I think we all had a good time.

Little Ms. Owl...

Now that we have our sewing machine dusted off, oiled up, and in proper working order we decided to try our hand at making something else. In September of 2009 when we went to Texas to visit Jesse's sister and her family. While we were there Jesse got the idea to make his niece London her very own owl doll. Well obviously we never got around to actually doing it until now. But... This week Jesse drew up the owl, researched pattern making a little bit, and then turned his drawing into a big pattern. I went shopping in the scrap bins at several different stores and scored some great deals on fleece and corduroy. Then I cut out the fabric and sewed up our little birdie. The owl was quite a bit more complicated than her monster predecessor that's for sure. I definitely got frustrated and had to rip out stitches and re-sew parts several times, but I am proud to say that we finished her and she is awesome. We'll probably end up keeping her since she is our first, but we do intend on making more. We will surely have our pattern perfected and another finished before Ms. London's 3rd birthday this May. I know. I know... It's about time. Enjoy!

P.s. Her chubby little owl belly is my favorite.

 Original sketch.

Wings out!

Side View of her awesome belly.

Back view

Wings tucked in.

Better view of her tail.

Buddies

Moonlighting with Monsters...

In an effort to do something creative every weekend we are trying to come up with new crafts to challenge us, so this weekend we chose to make a stuffed animal. Bare in mind that I haven't sewn more than a small hole in a clothing item in years and Jesse has well never sewn. Oh, I take that back he told me tonight that the last time he sewed something was a wind sock in his middle school home ec class. Anyhow... We have a sewing machine, but no needle and no place to  put it really so we ended up sewing it all by hand. Jesse got the idea after drawing adorable little monsters on an envelope for his nephew's 2nd birthday. He drew up a rough pattern and we went to work. It wasn't until after he made the pattern and we cut the fabric that I realized we didn't really leave room for a seam allowance. Oops! I showed Jesse the basics of simple sewing and we haphazardly slapped together a Monster from his sketches. Lucky for Jesse that I'm still a bit of a pack rat, especially when it comes to craft supplies. I had random fabric from my days at Michaels and almost every color of thread imaginable from my great grandma's old sewing kit. Our poor monster turned out to be bow legged and scrawny armed, but he's still pretty cute if you ask me. Obviously we have more to learn about pattern making, but I think we did a pretty good job for our first attempt. You be the judge...

Sketch

Finished Product

Birthday Parties...

On my actual birthday Kayden and I went out for ice cream after he got out of school and that night some friends met up with us at the bowling alley  for quarter bowling to celebrate. I even shared the cupcakes that Kayden and I had made a day earlier.

Then on Friday Kayden and I picked up Jesse on our way to glow-in-the-dark mini-golf. We met our old neighbor Mary and her 4yr old son Christopher there. We golfed, the boys played air hockey, then we dropped Kayden off with his grandpa, and had a nice lunch. It was a good 2nd party. My birthday week was filled with so many celebrations. I definitely enjoyed my birthday this year far better than last year. Thanks to everyone for the Birthday cards, wishes, phone calls, and emails. They all really helped make my day special.

 

Air Hockey from Erin Wilson on Vimeo.

Babysitting...

Also while we were downtown we spent quite a bit of time hanging out with the Jeongs. They took us out for dinner and ice cream for my birthday and Jesse and I babysat the kids one night, so that Mark & Myrna could have a night out. As you can see from the pictures below Fiona is quite taken with Jesse now. She prefers that he hold her and she has even taken to babying him like one of her dolls. She cuddles up with him, reads stories with him, and even feeds him like any good mommy would. Denton is also quite taken with Jesse, because well... he is man. Denton and Jesse played Star Wars battle most of the night. Denton was Darth Mal, his favorite character, and well I'm not quite sure who Jesse was, but he definitely wasn't the winner whoever he was. We had a great time with them as we always do.

  

 

StarWars Book from Erin Wilson on Vimeo.

Feeding Jesse from Erin Wilson on Vimeo.

Epic Battle from Erin Wilson on Vimeo.

It's been a while...

Jesse and I have become the go to housesitting/petsitting couple for the Denver Capital Hill neighborhood. We have 3 houses under our belt as regular customers and another one on the books. This last stint we did was for 12days. It's been a little chaotic, but we made it work. The extra money, the free laundry, and the nice house to stay in are great perks. Plus we're downtown with in walking distance to almost everything. Too bad the weather dropped from nearly 70 degrees right after my birthday to -26 degrees with in 3days. Yikes! Those big old houses can be drafty and take forever to heat up. Brrrr.... Thank goodness for fire places, hot tea, snuggies, cuddling, animal snuggling, and space heaters. If not for all of that we might have froze. The only downside was having to scoop the walkway and the sidewalk multiple times. The last stint started on my birthday and ended on Monday of this week, hence the absence in posting.

While we were down town we went out to  eat at Potager a restaurant in the neighborhood that our friends the Jeong's gave us a gift certificate too. It's a really pricey place that we probably would have never been able to try without the gift certificate. Our meal with tip was over $100, but with the certificate we only payed $27. Well worth it. So yummy!

After dinner we headed downtown to the Performing Arts Complex to watch our friend Joel perform in the choir that was accompanying the Denver Symphony Orchestra as they performed Mozart's Requiem. This was all in celebration of my birthday. We got dolled up and made a fancy night of it. We had great seats and the performance was perfect. It was a wonderful birthday night out. The tickets to the show were Jesse's present to me. It's even more perfect that it was a Mozart show since he is my birthday buddy. I don't know many other people born on January 27th, but Mozart was so it was quite fitting. We had a great night.