Brayden's party part 2.. the crafts

Did I mention I purchased 60 yards of fabric? I did not use up all 60 yards but I used up a good portion. 7 tablecloths, a runner for each of the 7 tablecloths, 25 tool belts, 25 goody bags, 3 aprons, a happy birthday banner, coordinating towels, and a twin quilt for the birthday boy made for lots of sewing.

Goody bags

Matchy - match towels.

My favorite - the toolbags for the pinata. These actually only took 2 hours to make all of them start to finish once I figured out the pattern. I had some leftover Ruby Supply trim that I was happy to use up for the belt ties.

check in station.

What is a recap of the party without a shot of the food table? I think I had more fun sewing than Brayden did as the guest of honor.

rewind part 1... Brayden Birthday

I am a terrible blogger. In an effort to catch up and share some fun memories I will try and do a post every day to make the Jacks family up to date in blog land.

Here are some long overdue highlights from Brayden's 3rd birthday....

Stuffing their tool belts with Pinata loot. The birthday boy refused to wear his hardhat at his party.

Brayden's sandbox handmade from his dad was a nice rainy day birthday activity. Note...this sandbox is one of the nicest pieces of furniture we own. Most sandboxes are not made out of mahogany. He had leftover wood from a job he wanted to use up. It truly is a beautiful piece of furniture.

The pinata! We took a scary bright green duck pinata from OTC clearance and tried to made it construction site worthy. It is supposed to look llike a saw blade not a Chinese throwing star ( i think that is what they are called anyway).

Jumping in the bounce house with both of his Grandmas in the rain! How fun was that?

Happy 3rd birthday! I will share the handmade photos next post.

trick or treat

Bates Nut Farm

Happy Halloween!

Brick or treat at Legoland.

This one LOVES to trick or treat. I think this weekly trick or treating at Legoland has created a monster. He asks to go trick or treating everyday. It actually is really nice especially if you remember to fill your coffee thermos with beer. The line seems to move much faster that way. Last night he slept with his trick or treat stash. Tony is a little worried we may have a hoarder on our hands since he did not eat one piece. He likes to save it.

I did it. The San Francisco Nike Womens Half Marathon. 2 hours and 36 minutes. Not bad considering a 10+ minute bathroom line at mile 3 and the 3+ miles of hills we had to run ( in the rain I might add for part of the race). I loved the course ( with the exception of the steep inclines) and hope to make it an annual tradition. For the San Diegans, it was the equivalent to running up Torrey Pines multiple times. The finishers necklace from Tiffany's was a great perk. Hopefully I get picked for the lottery to enter next year.

The Cardiff Kook- I prefer seeing this version of him any day. Maybe I am a little slow at sharing our summer with everyone but I will get there. I found this picture while I was checking to see if I could find our Vegas trip photos. ( still not found- I will keep checking memory cards) . I really don't think running 8 miles to visit the shark gobbled kook over the summer counts as fun but it made me smile.

You know you have issues when a quarter of your sons birthday party budget was consumed by purchasing fabric. I have been having so much fun utilizing all of it. I won't comment on actually how much fabric I purchased but I will give you a hint. Multiply my age times two and add a few yards and that is how many yards of fabric of tool/ construction fabric we own. Scary.

back to school

It has been a long time since I have shared any photos or any stories. Our computer has been crashing and we have now converted to the MAC world. My lack of posting has been due to the amazing weather we have been having and I have been buried with work. Both are good things but I promise to be a little more blog chatty as life gets back to normal.

Brayden is now a preschooler. This is a photo of his first day of "summer school". They did fun summery things like go on a "campout", have a pirate week and go on a field trip to Round Table Pizza among other fun things.

This was yesterday at Kids By the Sea preschool for his first real day of Preschool. He loves going to school. He goes Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. During the two week break he asked to go back to school everyday. Our kitchen has become a preschool art gallery and loves to showcase his fun projects.

We had a super jam packed fun weekend. We were glad this viscous cold hit us all hard on after the weekend. Jazz in the park, bike rides to the beach, fun 4th of July bike parade, and Del mar fair left our immune system a little compromised to battle this horrible virus. Brayden has finally recovered, I am 50/50 and Tony left for Catalina yesterday still sick with an ear infection. I think surfing 5 times when he knew he had a cold was not the smartest idea. Chaos in the kiddie pool

Chaos on wheels

I hope everyone had a fun 4th.

Who is watching these kids and letting them play and dig things out of the trash at Jazz in the park?

These guys... busted

Watching the Monster truck show at the Del Mar Fair. I lasted about 5 minutes and excused myself to wander around the fair and steak out the food.

Projects-

A VSA San Benito pendant that I purchased at an estate sale that I am having fun working into a fun and bulky necklace. i have had an ounce of this 24 gauge gold wire left over from our wedding. This has been a good opportunity to fix and restring half a dozen of my other pieces that have needed repair or a fresh face lift. I have missed my beads.

Brayden's first sleeping bag. I loved the pottery barn kids one and actually went as far as purchasing it. After thinking about how silly it was to spend $70 on a sleeping bag for a 2 1/2 year old, I better make one and return the fancy one. I am still fighting with the zipper but I am close to winning the battle. I cut up a fishy octopus sheet I had to line the inside and use it on a couple of the patches. The rest of the fabric I had lying around. I felt good to use up a little of my stash. So far it has not been used camping but has been used to tumble down the stairs.

A refinished top to our dining room table Tony made us a couple of years ago.






More pictures from our second home Legoland.. We got good use out of our 4 free guest passes. Tony actually got to go and see where his family has been hanging out.

It could be snowing and he would still run through the splash pad.

The rock n roll finish line.

Looking forward to beating this years time of 2:30.04 next year.
My running partner Jenn.

I love this photo. It was worth every penny I had to spend at Janey and Jack to qualify for the free photo session. This was taken a few days before his tooth got fixed.


It seems that I think about posting a blog entry at the beginning of the month always when I pay bills. Not sure what the correlation is but I have been neglectful in my updates. Another month has come and gone. Filled with running, playing, crafting, lots of sewing and a little work mixed in. I promise to post our latest projects soon. Tony has begun working on a wooden surfboard, and I have been sewing up a storm.