“My dear brothers and sisters, may the laughter of children gladden our hearts. May the faith of children soothe our souls. May the love of children prompt our deeds. ‘Children are an heritage of the Lord.”
President Thomas S. Monson
T-shirt Baby Pants
So with the heat of August, which means a cooler on and off during the day–we’ve needed something to add to the babies’ summer wardrobe that will keep her legs from getting too chilly. She does spend more time on the floor where all the cool air lands.
We’ve found a simple solution in Baby Pants, made from T-shirts. With all the grown-ups around here we are always having T-shirts being passed around. When they finally go through all hands, and no one claims one, we either put in the box for donations or we try to make something else out of it. In this case Baby Pants.
Are you ready?
First, smooth out the shirt nice and flat so that you have two side folds.
Using a pair of pants that already fit baby, fold them in half and lay the side edge along one of the folded sides of the the T-shirt with the bottom of the pants lined up on the bottom of the T-shirt.
Cut around the pants being sure to leave about 1/2 inch seam allowance on the sides, and at least 2 inches at the top. If you are using jeans as a pattern–as I am–be sure to leave a little more because they cut them low these days…even for babies.
Sorry this is harder to see but flip the piece you just cut out over to the other folded edge and cut it out the same way.
You’ll have two pieces the same.
Open them up and place them right sides together.
Sew down the curved edge on each side, stopping at the point.
Now, re-orient the pants by matching those two seams together by laying them on top of each other. Now they should look a bit more like pants.
Sew the inside leg seam being careful to match the bottoms and the middle seams.
Fold down the top about 1 inch and sew it down, to form a casing–leaving an opening of about 1-1/2 inches.
Measure around baby’s waist and add one inch. Cut 3/4 inch wide elastic using this measurment. With a safety pin, guide elastic through the opening, around the waistband and out the other side.
Sew the two ends of the elastic securely together.
Sew the opening closed.
And now you have them…
Soft and squishy, long and cozy, cuddly and warm baby pants! Wahoo!
Our donation bag is in serious trouble now.
Forgive me…
…but these just make me laugh…
so I had to share them with you.
Toyland, New York
Doesn’t look like any big deal, right? That’s what I thought too.
This, my friends–is a toy store to be reckoned with.
Chompy trying to say, “Hollll–Leee–Cow!”
A life-sized Lego Chewbacca–because we all need one of those to ward off the Vader guy.
A lego Batman to scare off all the other bad guys with his…
Bat-belt…or those shorts. They could do it too…easy.
Lyndi’s favorite part–a 10 foot tall Jelly-Belly soldier…
and all the other candy in the civilized world.
This is what a thousand pounds of jaw breakers looks like up close.
It looks the same far away.
A couple of babies enthralled with a Jack in the Box. Sheesh, you’d think they’d never been surrounded with 65,000,000 toys before…
or been hugged by a 6 foot bear.
Three stories of this. Even a Barbie wing. A BARBIE WING!
I’m sorry, did I say that twice? They even had my very first Barbie in a glass case as a collector’s item. Ok, that part was embarrassing, but if you’re wondering where the picture is…umm…well…too blurry to do anything but make everyone sea sick. Maybe I was shaking.
It was an emotional moment for me.
Remember the movie “Big” where Tom Hanks dances on the giant piano? Well, I’m sure at some point, I told my kids that I’d get them one of those big pianos someday…
Oh, yeah. I lied.
Lily chose a sweet dolly…
and Beck and Chompy met the Muppets.
If you look at the corner shelf on the far right—third shelf down, third bird over–you’ll see a stuffed Robin. It came home with me, to be with the Cardinal that I already have.
They sing.
Come over sometime and I’ll show you.
Harry Potter and all his friends…
absolutely, positively…
adore this place.
So did we!
Still Upstate~Things To See…
Day 2
A baby ordering room service…
and he did one fine job, I might add.
Tons of forests and marshy land. We live in what is commonly referred to as a desert–so we were duly impressed. In our world, lush green is a tough commodity to come by in the middle of July.
These fabulous, ancient farmhouses kept popping all over the place. I want them. All of them. Pretty sure I annoyed everyone by shouting, “Look at that one!” every 20 seconds. I was powerless to stop it.
Lyndi and I did break up the monotony by shrieking, “BEAVER!” and leaping from the car before it came to a complete stop, so that we could get a picture of the little guy. He had a big problem with two crazed women sprinting across his meadow towards him, I guess. The bad sport jumped into this canal pipe before I could get my camera turned on.
We saw the very first beaver I’ve ever seen, in my entire life.
I just can’t prove it.
We met back up with Jillian for a tour up “the hill.” You know, the big, steep, switch-backy, smallish mountain. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too bad. I was expecting to have to pay for a pack mule or camel or something to get me up this thing. The treadmill work must be paying off. Lucky for me because they were all out of beasts of burden.
She showed us the creepy pagan idols that are used as props in the play. Good thing we don’t worship those nasty looking things. What are they suppose to be anyway? yikes.
This is what 7000 seats looks like from the moon—I mean, the top of the hill. You can’t really tell, but we are standing just back from a very steep, deadly edge of this hill. I mean, you could seriously plunge to your death from this place. yikes again.
We saw the Angel Moroni Monument…so pretty.
and headed back down the foresty side of the hill.
Oh, Chompy was impressed with all this, let me tell you.
Back on the road and passing more of those houses that I want…
need…
ok, covet.
One Chill and Grill Hamburger. Yum.
One Chill and Grill “Junk Plate” for The Bald Kid. Let this be a lesson to you. Never assume that anything called a junk plate could possibly taste…you know, good. It was hard to watch–and harder to sit by. Blaugh…
Now this chicky has the right idea.
Tons of beautiful church steeples. You’ll just have to trust me that there were churches attached.
We took the tour through the 150 year old Grandin Printing Company. Scoff if you will, but we actually like this kind of stuff.
Even the litle dudes were being good sports. Good thing too because while driving along, minding our own business…we discovered…
a good old fashioned country fair! WoooHoooo!
To be continued…