Hi, My Name Is Kelsee...

And I'm a Crochet-Aholic. I had to post something as I've been a little MIA lately. Sorry about that. Between getting myself organized, exercising, cleaning the snot out of my house and trying to keep the laundry situation under control, crafting has been put on hold for a bit. However, I have found my new favorite thing to do in the evenings. CROCHET! I have been wanting a cute hat for some time now with a brim and those cute straps across the brim, but I could not find a pattern I liked for free. So I caved and went into "Etsy-Land" and found the BEST pattern ever! Here is the link to Beth's Shop. It was so easy (if you have more talent than me, it took me a few "Mulligan's to get it right.) But the product has turned out so nice. Here are a few of my finished products. And I say a few, because this isn't all of the ones that I've made. Yeah, I have made at least 3 others. Once you get it down, its super easy and fast!

Hope everyone is well and enjoying their new year!

Baby Boy's 1st Birthday

So, my little man turned 1 last week. *Sniff* And he's walking. *Gulp!* So I had to do a special little birthday party for him. I decided months ago to do a "Construction Theme" party. There was nothing that I could find locally that was construction themed, so I had to get a little creative. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I wrapped the doors and windows in "CAUTION" tape that you can find at Lowes. I also made signs that said: "CAUTION SUGAR OVERLOAD OCCURRING" and "DANGER STICKY FINGERS" and "CAUTION KIDS AT WORK". It was pretty cute. I also wanted to make these fun cakes that I found from Parenting.com, the same site that I used to make the purse cake. Here's the link for all 31 fun cakes!

The recipe for both called for frozen pound cakes, but as I don't like pound cakes I just used yellow cake mixes that I already had. I had to alter the directions a bit, but not too much. Just the size was off. The dump truck was supposed to be red... but it turned out brown. Here's a fun little story for you. I can laugh about it now but last week I was a little ticked off at myself! Lol I had red food coloring and vanilla frosting. So I added the red coloring to the frosting and it turned pink. No problem, I thought, I'll just add more. Well after that ENTIRE bottle was empty, and it was still pink, I then thought, well I have yellow so I can just make orange frosting. That would work? Right? After that ENTIRE bottle of yellow the frosting was a wonderful shade of salmon. I CAN'T have a SALMON cake for my little BOYS BIRTHDAY!!!!!! That is one of those things that will seriously damage him! (Which he really wouldn't have cared, I think I was just a little frantic and didn't have enough stuff to make more.) So I freaked out and sent the hubs to the store at 10:30 at night. I told him to look for frosting pigment, the paste that makes the deeper colors. What does he bring? Food coloring. Well, I just had to make it work. So I added the second bottle of red and the other new bottle of yellow only making it a more rich color of salmon. At this point I am... well pissed off! Sorry for the language, but it was a disaster and I knew I wouldn't be able to con my husband into another trip to the store to get me more frosting so I could start over. After a few "mad scientist" concoctions, I ended up with a purply- brown that you could only tell if you had it under a really bright light. Deep breaths. Just thinking about it is making my blood pressure rise! So the moral of this story is to get the paste stuff FIRST, then proceed with the directions!

Here is the purple-brown dump truck and the personal sized bulldozer.

The back view with the Oreo and pretzel back. Yeah, it was yummy!

The bulldozer. By far my favorite one.

The fruits of my labor... literally.

New Year, New Me!

Hello ladies! I hope you all had a great holiday, I know I did. We spent a "quiet" day home and enjoyed all our new goodies. But with little ones, "quiet" doesn't happen often. Haha.

Well, it is now 2010. Its crazy to think about! Why aren't we driving in flying cars yet?! Ok, yeah, I've been watching too much sci-fi lately. However, with each new year comes new goals and a new beginning. I usually don't make resolutions and if I do I usually break them within a week or I make them as a joke. But this year is different. I have resolved to do a New Year, New Me! What does this mean? No, I'm not changing everything, because let's face it, why tamper with perfection? Lol. That was for my husband who is reading over my shoulder as I type. But I think we all have room for improvement. I figure the more people that know about my goals, the more I am kept in line to keep them. Here is my resolution for 2010:

1. Lose 80lbs! WHAT?! Yeah, all the baby weight from the first and second child is still resting ever so nicely on my butt, hips and stomach... well every where I guess. So I am losing all of that weight, plus all the weight I gained since I got married almost 7 years ago. I know that its hard to do and I am looking for support wherever I can. I am thinking about starting a blog for moms/women to come and support each other and unload all their emotional struggles with one another, but I think it might just be white noise because I'm sure there are lots of those kinds of blogs around. Still need to think on that and maybe get your input.

2. For Christmas my husband asked for me to not cut my hair for a year. I agreed but only on the rules that I can trim it and thin it (as I have the thickest hair known to man, my family calls it the beast. True story.) So I am taking it one step further. I don't want to cut any length off until I have lost all the weight that I want to lose. As I have had short hair (no longer than my shoulder) since high school! This is going to be interesting!!!

3. Be more organized! One would think that having been home for over a year with my kids that I would have a system down and my house would be clean more often. However, that is SO not the case! It is a little victory for me if I get a shower in, so the dishes will have to wait. But this year, I am working on that.

4. Start an Etsy shop with some of the things that I make. Now, this is something that has been in the research stage for months and will hopefully be something that happens by late spring. I have really found my niche in making things and I find it extremely fulfilling. Any other job that I have had I was selling someone else's products. I want to start doing it for myself and help out with the bills.

5. Last but not least, I want us to be financially stable. In this economy its a closer to being just a dream than a reality. I really want us to be ok, which means I need to take more initiative in being thrifty and saving every penny we can. So all of my posts will be for cheap ideas for your house, children, menu ideas and crafts. I know I usually do that any ways, but I really want to focus on spending as little as possible.

Whew! That was a long list, but its time to make the change! What are your resolutions?