I am not kidding. This dress took 15 minutes to make. I learned a lesson or two along the way but it was a quickie to make. You basically sew the top portion (you buy it already puckered at Jo-Ann's) into a tube, add some straps (I used binding), sew a bottom portion on and hem. Too easy! And she loves it, which is even better. She has worn it two days in a row. I need to make her another one. Forgive the poor quality of the pictures--it's hard to get an excited girl to stay still!
I found this picture of myself over the weekend. You can see my MJ poster on my door. My room was full of MJ posters. I think I was 9-years old when Thriller came out. I was a huge fan. So funny to think back to that timeperiod. A group of my neighborhood friends and I formed the PYT club. We even had t-shirts made with PYT in the front and our names in back. Can't believe I'm admitting that. Silly girls....
I know that the news is saturated right now with MJ coverage. Just the other day MiniMe saw that there was actually something else being covered in the news and asked why they weren't talking about MJ anymore. I don't know if this much coverage is justified but I think that looking at all the old video and listening to the old songs has taken me back to a time in my own life that was good, bad, hard, confusing, sad, happy, exciting. My parents divorced when I was nine so music really played a huge role in helping me forget the situation unfolding in my life. I appreciate that about Michael Jackson's music--that for a time I was able to escape through music. I loved watching the guy dance!
I am over the 30s hump and on my way to the 40s. Oh well. I'm starting to get cards that refer to old age. I had escaped them until now. We spent my birthday at a Rockies baseball game. It was fun....and HOT!
Our garden is overflowing with strawberries and we had to act fast before the birds got to them. I've never made jam before, but with such an abundance of berries, I needed to learn. I started by cutting the tops off and washing all the berries. Pretty, don't you think? 
Then I had to wash all of the jars, bands, and lids. Two summers ago I had purchased these jars at a garage sale for $3. They were still packaged brand new in the box. I am not sure if that is a good deal or not but I've been saving these jars long enough, it was fun to get them prepared. 
Once the berries were cleaned and jars washed, I started a large pot of water to boil. You have to put the clean jars in the water prior to pouring the jam to ensure no bacteria is alive to ruin your canning (or jarring, whatever). You also have to boil the lids. Don't start heating the jars until your mixture is starting to climb past the 200 degree mark because you will be stirring for a long time and you don't want your jars sitting in boiling water for such a long time.
There aren't many ingredients required for jam. Here they are:
4 cups of mashed berries (I used the food processor)
1/4 cup of lemon juice
4 cups of white sugar 
Add all the ingredients to the pot and stir. They look like this:
The key is to stir and stir and when you are tired of stirring, you stir some more! You wait until your mixture reaches 220 degrees. It seems to linger at 200 degrees FOREVER. You can tell that once it starts climbing past the 200 mark, it starts to look much more like jelly. And here is about the time you want to put your jars in the heated water. Make sure it is a slow and light boil, not a running fast boil. Have your tongs handy to pull them out! Sorry, no pictures of any part of this process--you have to operate fast so no time!
But here are my jars of fresh jelly. I was able to fill 5 jars using the above amount of ingredients. I had to make two batches. I thought about doubling the recipe, but when the mixture is boiling, it rises up so violently. I thought it safer to just do the whole thing twice.
My dad received his Master of Divinity degree on Friday. We're so proud of him! It took him three years of a lot of hard work. Good for him. What an accomplishment!
What is with kids and water? I don't remember being so fascinated with water. MiniB could spend hours pushing his toy boats and fish around the sink.
And this weekend we had quite a few water mishaps in our household. First, MiniB thought it would be a great idea to dump half the bath on the bathroom floor. He bathes with MiniMe who is always happt to tattle so I took for granted that she would have told me something. I was one room away folding clothes and their door was open and I had no idea the mischief going on. We want to tile the bathroom next spring but were waiting until MiniB got a bit older so he wouldn't slip on the wet floor. Why any homebuilder puts carpet in a bathroom is beyond me. The carpet is probably not recoverable now. I used 8 towels to try to soak it up and still go squish squish when I step in there. I am worried about mold/mildew!
On Saturday the kids took another bath. They played with their squirt guns. These are itsy bitsy guns from a birthday party. They apparently thought squirting the ceiling would be great fun. I poked my head in and water dripped down on me. The irony is that they both woke up the next day with really sore necks--probably from staring up at the ceiling. We had to put Ben Gay on their necks and everything. Hopefully they learned a lesson.
