Gettin' Crafty...

Just after Luke was born, my mother-in-law, Peggy, bought me a super-fancy sewing/embroidery machine. I was excited about it, but with a 6 week-old baby and a lovely bout of postpartum depression to deal with, I couldn't even think about tackling learning how to use it, let alone finding the time to actually make something. Peggy was awesome and said that if I put it up in the attic and didn't even open the box for a year or two, she wouldn't have a single problem with that. She just knew that it was something that I'd like, and since it was really on sale at the time, she wanted to go ahead and buy it for me then.
Well now that I have been of sound mind and body for months, I decided it was high time I pulled it out of the closet and got to work. All I have figured out how to do so far is thread the needle, wind the bobbin, and sew a straight line, but I am loving it. I can't wait till I have several hours in a row to try to figure out how the embroidery part of it works. Right now it blows my mind that the machine can even do such a thing, but I am determined to figure it out...one of these days. It may be 2050 by then, but darn it, I'm gonna do it.
I also discovered the fine art of freezer paper stenciling and have been enjoying that little technique, too. Here's what I have made so far out of some boring shirts Luke had hanging in his closet and a few odds and ends that I picked up at Joann's.

This one is my favorite so far. Luke loves cars, so he HAD to have a car shirt! I used a reverse applique for the body of the car and made regular appliques out of felt for the tires.

Hey, Luke, where's your car??

Good job, Big Man.

I think he likes it!

Unfortunately as I was cutting off the extra fabric underneath, I cut a teeny little hole in the t-shirt. This is so typical of me. I always cut too close to the fabric when cutting tags off and such, so I shouldn't have been surprised by my idiotic move....Thankfully, it was very small so I just made a little patch and hand sewed the word "vroom" on it to cover my faux pas.


All fixed.
It looks awfully yellow in this picture, but it's lime green in real life.

I also took one of the ties from Luke's birthday banner and made him a Big Man tie shirt. It was an old madras tie that had belonged to our friend, Joel, back in the day, and it was too cute to get rid of.....so I just cut it up and sewed it on a plain t-shirt that Luke had never worn. Now I love it!




Our Big Man all dressed up and playing in the house painters' tarp (we were getting our house painted at the time).


Perfect attire for golfing.


As a nod to Luke's complete and utter obsession with fans, I also made him a fan shirt. I was inspired by Cheri of I am Momma Hear Me Roar (I heart her!) and used her freezer paper stencil tutorial. I Googled an image of a fan that I liked and made it into a stencil. Then I painted it onto a plain grey shirt and voila! While this shirt seems totally random to everyone else, Phil and I get the biggest kick out of it since we are all too familiar with Luke's fan love.


Up close and personal.



Our little fan.


Even though he's not smiling, this is a better pic of the fan and an awesome one of the belly!!

It's a great shirt for watching the painters.


Lastly, I made this robot shirt for our Big Man. Again, I got the idea from Cheri. She made a version of this shirt for her big guy, Rex, who is obsessed with robots. I thought it was too cute, so I just flat out copied her!



A close up.
(Next on the list of fancy gadgets to aquire: a DSLR camera so I can take decent pictures)

When I put Luke in the shirt and asked him to smile, this is what he did:



Then I asked again, and got this:



So I gave up and just started being silly, and finally:


Mr. Roboto smiles!

When I put him in his robot shirt for pictures, I also put some hand-me-down, lace-up tennis shoes on the Stinker Man for the fist time. When I got them on, along with socks (which he LOVES to wear), I found it hysterical that he no longer seemed to have ankles. It made him look even chubbier! He loved his new shoes, though, and walked laps around the house looking down at his feet the whole time.



His super wide, cubed feet could barely be contained in these size 7's!!


OH NO! Where did my ankles go??


Big-foot-beer-belly-robot-man mowing the driveway.


Anyway....
THANK YOU, MAMA T., FOR MY SEWING MACHINE. I LUUUUV IT!
I'd be happy to make you a car or tie shirt any time!!

A Big Man Birthday Bash...kind of.

Well,
.....{sigh}....
We had Luke's birthday party last Saturday. It started at 5 pm, and the plan was to have a big cookout in the backyard. We invited a bunch of families and planned on having tons of fun playing, cooking, and eating outside. I (with help from my sister, Anne, and friend, Carli) put lots of time and effort into making decorations, buying/borrowing toys and things to play with outside, and making the desserts and sides. We were so excited for this party.....
And then we woke up on Saturday to the crummiest weather ever! The temperature had dropped about 20 degrees (I'm not exaggerating. It was in the low 50's!), the wind gusts were ridiculous, and it was sprinkling on and off all day long. BOO HISS!!! We were so bummed. We had no choice but to move the party indoors, and since we don't have a giant downstairs, we had to set up the tables in the dingy garage. Not what I had envisioned for Luke's first birthday party. It all ended up working out, but I can't lie---it was somewhat of a let-down. Lots of people couldn't make it at the last minute, but that ended up being okay, since we were now all stuck in the garage. Those that did show up were very kind and flexible and didn't seem to mind eating in the same place we park our cars. We managed to have fun, but most importantly Luke had a lot of fun. He played and played with all the "big kids" and seemed to have a blast....until cupcake time, that is! Thanks to all of our friends who showed up and celebrated our Big Man's first year with us. It was a special time, despite the kinks in our plans, and we are so grateful to you all for being a part of the party and a part of our lives!!

Here are some pictures and details from the party. Since we have always called Luke "Big Man", we wanted to have a "Big Man" birthday party. I used neckties and mustaches to carry out our theme. It was such a fun theme and so cute (well, as cute as possible in a garage)!

I don't have any pictures of the invitations, but they were striped in the colors I used for his party (teal, turquoise, and lime green), and I glued onto each one a necktie that I cut out of turquoise cardstock. On the inside I wrote the details of the where/when/what on one side and this poem on the other:

We can't believe it,
But Luke is turning 1!
He's a BIG MAN now,
and the fun's just begun....
So throw on a necktie
And run a comb through your 'stache.
Then come and join us
for a BIG MAN birthday
BASH!!

This make-shift wreath greeted our guests and gave them a laugh.

It's made out of a paper plate, ribbon, crepe streamers, felt and cardstock.


The dessert table.


The cupcake stand.
(My awesome sister baked every single one of these cupcakes, with a little help from our neighbor Katie. THANK YOU, ANNE!)


Necktie sugar cookies.
They were super yummy, if I do say so myself.
(Thank you Anne and Carli for helping me make/decorate all the cookies!!)


Mustache sugar cookies with chocolate icing....and you can also see the chocolate mustache lollipops that were scattered around the table.


And speaking of chocolate lollipops, here is a picture of Luke during the lollipop making process...


...And Daddy, too!


The necktie banner made from Goodwill ties and cast offs from my dad and Carli's husband, Joel.
(This would have been SO much cuter hung up outside under our harbor, with the beautiful wisteria as a backdrop. Boo-hoo.)


Anne and I painted this "frame" which held tons of pictures of the Big Man from the past year.
(Our garage walls = G.R.O.S.S.)


A happy birthday banner made of paper plates and crepe streamers. (It also would have been much cuter hung up outside in our backyard.)


A view of the necktie banner and tables with buckets full of felt mustaches on sticks.


Another view of the tables and picture frame.


My handsome, goofy husband with a necktie napkin.


Jake modeling his necktie napkin.


Luke's buddy Anthony hard at play.


My living room full of our awesome neighbors. I love it!


The Big Man wore his own necktie that my mom and I made for him using a real tie and this tutorial.


Such a stud muffin.


Busy man taking apart a refrigerator magnet during his party.

My sis and I also made a million different mustaches on sticks. I found some great templates that I used and ended up with 13 different styles.


Jake and his Super Mario mustache.


Dominic with a Luigi mustache.


Silly Katie with yet another 'stache.
(Can you tell that they were a big hit?)


Even some of the big kids enjoyed the mustaches.


Jackson could have cared less about the mustaches. He was busy playing with the wagon full of balls and the big plastic bowl that he kept wearing like a hat.


Poor guy had a broken leg, but walked and played like a champ!


Luke and Marcus hard at work. The punching balloons were a super-smart purchase from the Dollar Tree. Little boys love punching balloons!


Luke enjoyed chewing on the bubbles while the big kids blew them.


Our neighbor Meghan helped me out a ton by feeding Luke his dinner.


After dinner we stripped Luke down in preparation for his blue cupcake. We all sang him "Happy Birthday", and he totally freaked out by the end of the song. I guess it scared him that we were all suddenly making a ton of noise while staring right at him.


This was during the song. Not a happy birthday boy. Notice the tears on his face.


Marcus helped us blow out Luke's candle. Luke was in total freak-out mode at this point.


Sweet Marcus was trying to explain to Luke that it was just a cupcake and that it was yummy.


Luke wasn't buying it.


He DID NOT like the 2 bites of cupcake that I forced him to have.


Look at that face. NOT HAPPY.


He decided to taste the candle to see if that was better...


Bad idea!


Gerber Lil' Crunchies to the rescue!!!
Luke couldn't be more addicted to these things if they were crack cocaine.


Clapping because he has his crunchies.


Daddy provided some comic relief by holding up different mustaches and speaking in (what he thought was) the appropriate accent.


A little Fu Manchu action for the Big Man.


This cracks me up.


Now it's Daddy's turn.


After the cupcake fiasco, Luke wanted to hang with Mommy for a little while and entertained himself by pulling all of the shredded paper filling out of the centerpieces.


By the time the last guests were saying goodbye, it was an hour past bed time and it certainly showed!

In other news, my sister was here for Luke's party and helped me out SO MUCH. I could not have pulled it off without her! Unfortunately, I was a loser and got practically no pictures of her with Luke. Seriously, I got 3. Two of which are below and the 3rd will never be posted on this blog for fear of her disowning me if I did!


Wearing pj's and flying on Annie's legs...


Oh what fun!!!

Thanks so much to Anne, Carli, the Barnes family, the Schrock family, my mom, and my mother-in-law for all of the help and/or contributions to Luke's party. I am so grateful!