I was also feeling the need to use my kitchen creativity skills this week, so I asked the teachers if it was okay to bring in a Seuss themed snack. After receiving a resounding “yes!”, I made Cat in the Hat cookies – oreos dipped in white chocolate and topped with a marshmallow that had both ends dipped in melted cherry chips. I bet the kids will be hyper after snack time!

I went with the ladybug pattern, which I just love. I felt a little guilty giving a present that is most likely going to require its own load of laundry since I’m afraid the red will bleed. I did pick out colorfast fabric, so hopefully it won’t cause too much extra work for the birthday girl’s mom.

MonkeyBoy was kind enough to model for me so that I could get a few pictures. I think I’ll have to make him one of his own soon.

I did get cutesy and use the organic bunny crackers instead of standard goldfish. I couldn’t pass up the irony of a carrot filled with bunnies.

I made a smash cake (little cake just for the birthday child) earlier this week for a friend’s little one’s first birthday photo session and then I repeated the cake later in the week for his birthday. I also made some coordinating cupcakes.

Then for another friend, I made Mickey Mouse themed cupcakes and a cookie cake.

Finally, I made some soft blocks for a baby shower gift. I was so excited with how these turned out. I made them extra tactile by putting things inside them, one had a bell, one had crinkle paper, and one had a squeaker. These were made with fabric scraps that I brought home from my mom’s stash. She had some wonderful fabric to choose from and I hope to go back and borrow some more soon.

MonkeyBoy decided that he wanted to get in on the crafting, so he stole my bag of stuffing. Using kitchen tools from his play kitchen set, he emptied a bunch of stuffing onto the hallway floor, telling us that he was making a polar bear.

I did get a few gifts made last week. One of my friends let me come over and raid her fabric stash to get scraps to use for a project.

I used the scraps in my die cut machine to make Build-A-Bear bears and letters to apply on tote bags.

I also made up some felt food while I was at my parents’ house. Mom has a new sewing machine that is fancier than mine, and it was fun to play with it. Her machine has a button to cut the thread for you – very cool! I didn’t get a very good picture of the food, but I’ll post it any way to remind myself what all I attempted. There are two lunch sacks, a red bag filled with potato chips, ravioli with sauce, a ho-ho, a chocolate chip cookie, a fried egg, and a pancake with syrup and butter.

The final project I was able to finish was a superheroine-style cape. It’s pink on one side and green on the other, and I was beyond tickled that I could figure out how to sew it with different colored thread and bobbin so that the colors matched up correctly. I thought for sure I’d mix it up and have the pink thread on the green side, but I did it right the first time! The project wasn’t without difficulties though – I couldn’t get the fusible webbing to adhere on the felt piece and turned up my iron to see if that would help only to melt the felt into a giant lumpy mess. Luckily, I had extra and was able to get it to work on my second attempt.

He’s discovered the pockets of his pants and has figured out that he can store things there. I found these items in or on his clothes when I sorted for the washer this evening.

Laundry has just become much, much harder.

And in other news from our week, check out this adorable artwork he brought home from preschool this week. I can’t look at it without smiling.

Today MonkeyMan’s father came to visit for awhile and we went out for a family dinner. MonkeyBoy hardly ate anything and has been kind of off all day. He woke from midnight to 1AM and then woke for the day at 5:30 this morning. He’s also been sniffling some and I fear he caught a bug from a germy looking kid at a restaurant playground on Friday. I don’t get why parents bring their kids to playgrounds when they are sick, and especially don’t get parents who just leave their little kids alone in said playgrounds. This germy kid looked like he had a rash on his face and he even bit one of MonkeyBoy’s playmates. And he looked to be around two years old with no parent in sight. Sheesh!

I’ve been doing a lot of cooking and freezing of foods to make weekday dinners easier. I made a crockpot pasta meal right before we had to leave town last month so I froze it in two large plastic containers to eat later. Today I was messing in the freezer trying to get the ice machine to unclog and managed to knock both of the full, heavy containers off the top shelf. I caught one, but the second one landed square on my big toe. I yelped and jumped in so much pain that I ended up throwing the second container onto the ground, shattering it as well. So not only do I have a possible broken toe, I ruined one of our dinners for the week. I’m curious to find out what color my toe is in the morning. If it’s too bad, I guess I’ll get a doctor’s visit added to the coming week’s schedule.

Speaking of toes, I’m slightly addicted to footie pajamas for MonkeyBoy. I couldn’t resist buying him this pair over the weekend. How cute are those moose?

Parents also have to provide homemade playdough one month out of the year, so I went ahead and signed up for September to get it out of the way. It was so much easier than I remembered it being from my childhood. I think we’ll be making it more often – MonkeyBoy and I had a blast playing with it on the kitchen counter.

He seems to really enjoy going to school. On non-school days he stuffs his backpack full of toys and then runs around. He even yells out “Let’s run!” before he takes off.

MonkeyBoy started pre-school last week and one of the things he needed was his own backpack. We have one that was a freebie at some pregnancy fair we attended while expecting Monkeyboy, but it is embroidered with the name of a child care chain. I dislike using my son for advertising, especially for something he didn’t even attend, so I wanted to get him a different backpack for school. I found one at the Disney outlet on sale that would have worked but the fabric kind of creeped me out and then there’s that advertising thing again.

So then I wondered if I could sew a backpack. A quick Google search directed me to to the most wonderful tutorial at Made By Rae. Since I had a little spending cash in my Paypal account I purchased the tutorial and am so glad I did. I’ve never done binding (didn’t even know what it was or where to find it at the fabric store), zippers, or quilting (the bottom), but I was able to start and finish a backpack for MonkeyBoy today – laboring over the sewing machine on Labor Day. I used leftover scraps of fabric from MonkeyBoy’s bedding, fused to canvas (something else new!).

There are things I’d do better next time around and I need to find a way to finish the interior seams to keep them from fraying, but I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. I’m a little sad I won’t get to see MonkeyBoy’s reaction since I’ll be at work in the morning. Hopefully he’ll like it.