SNOWBALLS

First of all I suck at blogging. I might be even worse at giving directions, but I am going to try. I am also not a professional photographer and I took all of the following pictures with my phone (because I have a giant camera that most likely has dead battery that I need to remember to pack to take to Texas tonight...SOMEONE REMIND ME!!!!) If you think the pictures are awesome and need an awesome picture taking phone, I have an HTC Thunderbolt. Anyway... on to the point.

Last year I saw a little bucket of fleece snowballs somewhere. They were so cute and soooo expensive. I decided that I could totally make them myself, how hard could it be. I got a yard of white fleece and it made 34 or so snow balls. I have no idea how long it took me to make them. in my head it was like an hour. Since it only took an hour I figured I would get FOUR YARDS this year and make 136 or so. So far it has taken me a million hours and I have only finished 5 of them. On to my crappy instructions.

First get some fleece. 1 yard makes about 34, if you use a CD for a circle pattern. Fold the fleece in half, with the good side on the inside. This can be really hard to tell on white and it really doesn't matter all that much. I am honestly not sure if mine was folded the right way.

Next I cut strips of fleece, a little wider than the CD and then cut the strips into squares just a little bigger than the CD. I did this because I thought it would be easier to cut out the circles and I wanted to sit in my recliner and do it. I have like a million Jimmy Fallons to watch so I have to work in front of the TV.

Next I put the CD on a square and cut around it to make a nice circle. Make sure you have TWO pieces of material when you do this. After you cut all your circles you should have a nice pile like this

Now sew all around the out side of the circle but leave an opening so you can stuff it. If you make it really wide you will have a lot to sew shut. If you make it too small it is a bitch to turn right side out and stuff. I think maybe an inch is good.Next turn it right-side out.

Now stuff it like crazy. The more you stuff, the more ball like it will become when you are finished. I used a giant bag of fiber fill. Actually for four yards I used almost 2 whole bags of it.

Next sew the hole shut. I tried to do it on the sewing machine but I couldn't do it. Maybe if you are better at using the machine it will work for you. I pretty much suck at sewing. I fold the raw edges over and make sure that when I am stitching I go through both parts to that it looks like a finished edge. I also start the thread INSIDE so the inside knot is inside. When it is completely sewed shut I go back under a stitch and make a knot and cut the thread off. So far we haven't had any snowballs explode.

It looks really crappy but if you roll the seam around in your hand you can almost make it look like a ball and it is almost like rolling a real snowball.

The bucket of snowballs from last year. I am working on some type of fun container to hold them.

We had a snowball fight this weekend at my aunt's house. I tried to get some action shots but my phone is slow and my kids (and niece and nephews) are super fast like True Blood vampires.

Dude, where's my blog

I guess I'm gonna update this every 15 months or something. Why can't I keep up with this? I think I am afraid I am boring, but why does that matter if I am the only one that reads this. But in reality my kids provide me with enough material to write for days. I guess I am just too busy doing nothing to type a little blog post up every now and then. Should I vow to start writing every day again? Maybe if I think I won't I will anyway and will surprise myself.

Today, or yesterday or whatever, was Mother's Day. I had a pretty good day. Saturday, The Dad got me a new phone. I have been waiting impatiently since January to get this phone so I was pretty excited. We went to a going away party Saturday night and I drank more than I have in a long long LONG time and I was feeling it this morning. I think around 5pm I finally started feeling normal. At any rate, Princess Spazzy and The Whiner both had presents for me that they made at school. Princess Spazzy's was "breakfast in bed" a fruit and cereal bar and a tea bag and a cute little card. The Whiner's was a cute little book thing, on one page he had to list all of my favorites. I was a little worried when I saw "phrase or expression your mom uses the most" he did NOT write what it should have been and that's good because I probably would have gotten a phone call from the school :-D Number One went fishing and picked up a snake, I think his gift was giving my heart a workout. Oh I forgot, they did kinda clean the house on Saturday, as I asked for a clean house on Mother's Day. It did look pretty good this afternoon (yes I finally got out of bed around noon) but it is now trashed (since I took the day off from everything) My parents and sisters and nephews and niece all came over and we had a little cookout. So fun. I love it when there are a million kids here and my niece and nephews are hilarious. I wish we could all hang out every weekend. Heck I'd settle for once a month, alas we all have lives and busy schedules. I keep trying to think of some hilarious thing that happened today but I'm drawing a blank. I really wish I could get a brain hard drive. Then I wouldn't even have to type this blog, I could just upload it. Someone needs to GET ON INVENTING THAT!!!! I guess the highlight of the day might have been The Baby saying over and over all day "Happy.. to you, Happy to you" The big kids said "Happy Mother's Day" about a million times today, I guess that was what he got out of it. He has the most adorable little voice and he says the cutest things. It almost makes you forget he is kind of a really big booger. I think I am gonna be in trouble with this one.