The Big Bag Re-Do

Last year when we went to Florida for our trip, I made my girls cute little cross body bags to carry. Because Boo and Kadoodle were old enough to carry their own bag with their own stuff (and the gazillion Mickey Mouse stickers they acquired all week) and their own spending money, their bags were tailored to their size and desires. These bags are almost big enough for a full grown adult to carry if it weren't for the shorter straps. They wanted them big enough to tote a water bottle and some snacks. Seems they are always hungry and as this kept them from asking me for one every thirty seconds, I was all for it.  This is what we came up with last year...

The top two are the individual cross-body bags, but the baby had to have an actual diaper bag. BUT my baby is no longer a baby and after almost nine years, I am growing accustomed to the idea of NOT carrying a diaper bag. I often feel as though I am missing a limb, but we just don't need the diaper bag any longer. Fully potty trained, Nayners insists that since she is a big girl now, she needs a big girl bag. Enter the bag makeover. I hate to throw things out, especially things that have taken time, effort, energy, money and my own personal blood, sweat and tears to make! So I have decided to take her Disney themed personalized diaper bag and turn it into a bag like her sisters'. The problem is we leave tomorrow, so I am going to have to do all of this TODAY!!!

I am hoping that since the bag is already lined that this will be easy.

Oh, the carnage!!!

My bestie saw this pic and cried,

"NOOOOO!!! You've ripped it's poor guts out."

Why yes, yes, I did.

So I started by cutting the bag apart and ripping out the corner miters (this is where you sew that little triangle on the inside so that you have a gusseted bag).

I needed my "fabric" flat so that I could make my cuts.

Once I had the bag flat, I evened off the top. See when I made this last year, I set the fabric in my embroidery hoop lopsided so I have lived with this bag cock-eyed for a whole year. It has nearly driven me to drink! lol

Next I made a "zipper sandwich." To do this I placed the lining fabric down right side up, laid down my zipper (I always start with my zipper head on the left, that way I never get confused as to where I am) and then place the outside fabric down right side down. Then I put on my zipper foot and sewed them together.

Next I flipped the zipper over and made another zipper sandwich. This time I added a yard of coordinating ribbon in between the outside fabric and the zipper creating a strap for the bag.

Once my zipper was sewn on, I gathered up the ribbon and pinned it in the middle of my fabric so that I didn't catch it on the needle and accidentally sew it somewhere I didn't want it (again, also didn't take a picture of THAT). Then I opened the zipper about half way and laid everything flat right sides of the lining together and right sides of the exterior together and pinned the fire out of it (I'm a copious pinner). By the way, I always pin with the teeth of the zipper towards the lining. I find this makes it easier and things lay better.

I started sewing at the bottom of the lining and sewed all the way around leaving about 4-5 inches for turning (that whole 2-3 inch thing may work for some, but my poor arthritic hands need more space. it also cuts down on the amount of times I jab myself with the pin holding the ribbon in place). 

Next I cut the corners so my bag would be nice and crisp on the edges when finished.

Then I turned the whole thing right side out, tucked under the open edges and sewed them closed. I used a little wooden stick to poke out all of my corners.

Here's the completed bag next to the pile of scraps it came from. I guess one could say it lost some weight. Wish it was that easy for me. Looks like this thing went from a size 16 to a size 6 in one afternoon!!

So here are my big girls' bags all together....

**sigh**

The Mama of the Drama

We have three little girls. Because of that, we have drama. I have a username somewhere that is dramamamax3 because there is so much drama in our house. I have a tween, a first grader and a preschooler. They are all girly girls and they are all insanely fun! If you have cable and have ever watched TNT, you know their slogan is "TNT We Know Drama". When we meet people out and about and they comment on our three beautiful girls, we inevitably hear, "Wow! Three girls! THAT must be fun." To which my witty husband replies, "We have more drama than TNT." Some folks get it and some don't, but it always makes me giggle when he says that because there is ALWAYS drama in our house. This picture is about 6 months old, but you get the idea...

ANYWHOO, to that end, we are preparing for our trip (TOMORROW!!!!!) and I always make the girls a little something special for trips. I have been so busy that I didn't get time to make them a new outfit, so I am doing things the easy way this time.

This is Naynay's dress for our week (she had to have a dress because that's just who she is; the other two have tshirts).

Here's what I did...I went to Hobby Lobby, that great and wonderful bastion of craftiness for all people-kind. In the back of our store where they have the hair do-dads, purse makings, etc. we have a section for littles. They sell these adorable tank dresses for $8.99, which was actually only $5.39 after my 40% off coupon. If you have a smart phone, you always have your coupon and you can use it every day. Just pull up the coupon on their site and show it to the cashier. Then I picked up this flocked transfer just down the aisle for $1.99. Total cost for this dress...$7.38, definitely worth it! At home I just followed the directions to iron on the transfer and voila! I had a super cute dress. For my other two, I will be picking up plain white tshirts at JoAnn's (they have them there with a more "tailored" feel for girly girls).

And yes, it is true. All drama in this house is come by honestly. I do, after all, possess a degree in the stuff! :)

The Vacation Survival Kit

I am a huge fan of the blog, www.dixiedelights.blogspot.com! She is so creative, talented and has so many beautiful things on there that I almost wanna hate her! I mean that one person could be so crafty, so creative, so talented, well it just isn't fair! BUT, since she has such amazing ideas and entries, I have to continue to follow. And that is where I came up with my idea for Vacation Survival Kits.

As I said on a previous blog, we travel at night to keep the puking at bay so I don't normally have fussing children asking, "Are we there yet?" and telling me that they are bored and that their sister crossed "the line" in the back seat with her little pinky finger AGAIN!!! Maybe your kids don't do that and mine don't necessarily either, but I feel for my poor parents because many many years ago, they had to deal with that. I used to put my entire hand on the seat next to the imaginary line my sister had drawn delineating what part of the car was hers and what part was mine. I would just sit there with my hand right next to "the line" and look at her. And yeah, I was that annoying little sister that danced my finger next to her ear chanting, "I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you." Come to think of it, I'm not sure why she still speaks to me! lol

So, we don't have to deal with the normal headaches that many parents deal with on road trips and we don't take but two or three a year anyway and they are most always at night because of the whole car sick issue, so I don't need the same kind of set up that Amanda shows on her blog. HOWEVER, if I were going to travel during the day time with three kids, you can bet your backside that I would be using every single one of her tips and tricks! See her entire kit here, including step by step instructions, buying guide and how much she spent. I told you she was awesome.
 http://www.dixiedelights.blogspot.com/2011/09/road-to-disney.html

Okay, so our problem occurs AFTER we get to our destination. If we can't check in yet, the first words I hear are "I'm hungry." I have learned to deal with that by packing a snack kit (maybe that is another post). But inevitably, at some point on our vacation, somewhere in our condo, you hear those dreaded vacation words, "I'm bored." It may be due to an intense rainy season, lightning closing the pool and miniature golf course, or just those 15 minutes when they are ready to go to Downtown Disney and no one else is.

Enter the Vacation Survival Kit. Once we reach our destination, children are promptly stuffed into swimming suits and sent with Daddy to the nearest pool while Mommy sets up "house" in our townhouse. This year, when they return from swimming and it's time to prepare to go out to dinner, they will find these on their beds...

Each basket will also double as where they are to keep all the "stuff" they inevitably acquire while we are there. Here's the breakdown...

There is nothing here that cost more than $1 at Walmart (that's where I bought everything new) or that we didn't already have in the house. We travel during the time of year when school supplies come out so I was really lucky to get everything for a very small amount of money.

The giant Dora coloring book was $1

The composition notebook was $0.50

The activity book was $0.88

The water bottle was from a pack for $3.88

The snack container was a mini Chips Ahoy container for $1 and is filled with pretzels or goldfish (we ate the cookies a LONG time ago!!!)

The spiral notepad was from a 4-pack for $0.88

The Pez was in my goody cabinet as were the colored pencils and the play pack but these are also available at WM for around $1 each

The glow wand was $0.97

The tattoos were from a pack I split between all three girls on clearance for $0.50

The stickers were from a multi-pack that I also split between all three girls for $0.97

I will probably still hear that dreaded sound of "I'm bored" but it won't be because they have nothing to do!!!

Liki Tiki, Here We Come!!!!

Well, the countdown has finally reached a crescendo. We leave in just a few short days for our annual family vacation to the coolest place on earth (at least to us). We own a time share in a fabulous resort near Orlando called Liki Tiki Village (www.likitiki.com) and go each year. My almost three year old is chanting her usual, "Liki Tiki, here we come!!!!" and asking me every day where we are on our calendar.

This year we are taking our "fourth child" a college student I have known since she was very young and who helps a great deal caring for our children, often for no payment at all. So we are taking her with us on our trip (our girls don't know this). We leave Friday night (today is Monday). In effort to get myself ready, I am basically doing all the laundry in our entire household and washing every dish (I hate coming home to dirty laundry or ants). As of right now, I have load #3 folded on the table, load #4 sitting in a basket next to that ready to fold, load #5 in the dryer and load #6 in the washer. Of course, there are still loads #7, #8, #9 to deal with, but I will get them all done. (I really need to do laundry more often!)

 (my little helper "washed out")

So, in effort to make our trip as pleasant as possible (6 people in a van for 10 hours overnight and pleasant don't exactly go together) I have been scouring the web for ideas. I have found some good ideas and I will list them in another post when I share what we are going to do for us.

The first thing we do to make our trips more pleasurable is that we will be leaving around 11 p.m. Daddy gets a nap in the middle of the day while Divamommy gets everything ready to go and packs the car. Daddy works a swing shift where he does two weeks on days and two weeks on nights, so he is a little used to the idea of sleeping at weird hours. This helps with one very important thing...we have pukers. Oh yes. Get in the car, get it all packed up, head down the road, you're 15 minutes from where you just left and someone pukes. Nayners is a sympathetic puker so then we have two pukers. On our last trip, Kadoodle waited till our food arrived at our first restaurant stop and puked all over herself, our table and Grandma. Yay. (insert sarcasm here) For this reason, we travel at night whenever we can. (traveling at night limits optical stimulation and has the added benefit of not having to stop for multiple meals because everyone is asleep) So, they who are old enough get their dose of dramamine and they who are not, Benadryl (except me, of course because I will probably have to drive some).

Since we don't travel during the day, we don't have to prepare "busy body" kits for the girls, but we do have to entertain them once we get to the resort. Because we travel at night, we are not usually able to get into our townhouse until later in the day. Because we are owners, we cannot check in until the Owner's Office is open (usually around 10:30 a.m. whereas we arrive around 8:45 a.m.) So, I am working on getting our stuff ready to go and when I have something ready, I will post that too.

However, before I can do any of that, we have to pack and THAT requires that I finish all of that laundry. So, how does one pack for five people in two suitcases so that everything fits in the cargo space of an eight passenger van? Well...THAT is a whole other post as well!

Well, dang! There went my buzzer. Load 5 is done in the dryer, load 6 is done in the washer, time to switch. I'm gonna be folding laundry all night.