Roller Derby is the new craft addiction

I've always thought it would be fun to be a derby girl, but there was never a local team to join. We have a few leagues all over the state (wi) but none are close to where I live. A few months ago a local magazine posted an article about a roller derby league in another town 2 hours way. Saying they were calling us out to start our own. I said when someone else gets it going, I'll join. Well that never happened so I decided to start it. I got in contact with another girl that was interested in starting a league and we have been working together ever since. I set up an e-mail and just started posting it around asking anyone who was interested to e-mail me.

The first big struggle was finding a place to practice. Both the local skating rinks said no. We asked about using space at a huge warehouse and they quoted us at $1800 a month and we'd have to sign a year lease. uuh That was not going to happen. We called every place we could think of that had a flat surface to practice on. I didn't want to give up and then one day someone said yes! We contacted everyone that was interested in joining and told them about our first practice.

The same team that called us out in the magazine the Mississippi Valley Mayhem drove 2 hours to help us at our first practice. So nice of them since most of us had no idea what we were doing. You can see pictures of our first practice here You can see my sweet rainbow socks. I had to wait a couple weeks before I could upgrade my skates to actual derby skates, but I have them now! YaY!

We've had three practices and have 11 girls. We are currently hashing out a logo design and team colors and themes. Still majorly working on recruiting more girls and refs. I've poured a lot into this and really haven't had much time to be crafty. Now that we have a place to practice I can stop stressing about that and get my craft on again!!

Hello Goodbye Halloween

It has been a few days since Halloween, but I wanted to post about my costume. Took awhile to decide on an actual costume. After a few weeks of going back n forth I went with Gilly from Saturday night live. You can see a video here: http://www.hulu.com/watch/101509/saturday-night-live-gilly---art-class

I started with a black dress. I found it at a thrift shop and it was perfect.


Then I added hearts. Which took forever.


Added some black trimming, and a belt and ties. Found a white shirt added some bows. Found a wig and made a hair bow.
I guess I didn't take anymore pics of the process, but here is the finished product.


Had a few people who knew who I was. :)

Helloooo blog!

You know what I haven't done in awhile? Posted to my blog! What has kept me away? Part laziness part life. I'll try and catch up on a few things. First things first. My veggie garden! Check out these carrots. OK so they are probably not the greatest but they tasted good. (after I cleaned them of course)

and this is what happens when you finally break down and buy some lucky charms. Then your three year old runs through the house with the box upside down in excitement!

This is just a small portion.

Headed to the park the other day.

The leaves were just starting to change.

Saw some cats




They recently redid the cougar cage. Turned out pretty nice.

A drive through the forest.




I've been working on a new project as well, but I'll post about that later.

Hide and Seek contest

The Diyscene street team is giving you a chance to win a huge basket of prizes. Worth over $300. All you need to do is play a round of hide and seek. More details to follow. Check out some of the prizes below.

Beachy beachy beachy

This past weekend the weather was finally nice enough to take the kids to the beach.
We were expecting 87 degrees, but we had to settle for 78 degrees.
At least it wasn't raining!




No idea who the girl with the stick is. lol


Here is one way to get rid of your pesky little sister.
Just kidding! She was having fun.

We didn't realize it until we got there, but we happened to get there about an hour before the ski-sprites put on their show. The ski-sprites are a local water skiing team. This was my first time seeing them. I thought the skiers were entertaining, but the commentary was quite annoying. Here is a quote from their site, "The show is born with the selection of a show theme or story line. This story line is simply an entertaining story that is told to thread together the skiing acts to entertain the audience." Maybe it was this particular story line, but it really kind of ruined the show. The basic idea of the story, one guy was explaining to another guy about a made up social network called ski-book aka facebook (if I remember right) and basically explaining how it worked. I'm sure others thought it was great.




Lia enjoying the show and clapping constantly. :)


Approaching the jump and


landing. Yeah, I never actually got a shot of anyone in the air.
All in all the show was good.
The kids thought it was a great addition to their beach time.

Summer has taken over

I've been busy doing summer things with the family I forget to update my blog.
Poor poor bloggy I swear I haven't forgotten you. :)


The kids and I transplanting a house plant.


Trying to take a nice picture is sometimes impossible.

This past weekend the hubby and I went camping with some friends.

Spent a little time out on the boat before it started raining.

Yum!

My radishes are done! I grew way way too many of them. I like radishes, but they are really not one of my favorite foods. I may have to search for some recipes. I can only eat so many salads with diced radishes. hhmm sauteed radishes.. not sure if that sounds good or really disgusting. Roasted radishes? yeah.. still not sure how that sounds.

I started cutting it before I took the pic

Fair Time Fun!

This past weekend was very busy. On Friday we headed to the fair. The kids had a blast!
We decided to buy them wrist bands so they could ride unlimited rides for 5 hours. woohoo!


The swings were spinning too fast, it was hard to get a picture of the kids.


Riding the coaster.
This thing went beyond slow.


My daughter had a blast driving!
The girl in the back.. not so much.


Riding the carousel.


Yes, my 7 year old son is in that thing!
I can't believe I allowed such scary things to happen.


Here he is right after.
He said it was AWESOME! but wasn't going to ride it again until he was 10.


Honk! Honk!

After the rides we headed over to check out the animals.


This goat looks a bit crazy.


Stinky cows


Long day

My Garden!

That is my garden! Ok I know to any real gardener I'm sure it probably looks like crap, but I'm happy it is actually growing! The space we have for it is tiny. Our yard is not very big at all and it is hard enough keeping the kids out of the garden as it is. I have carrots, lettuce, radishes and beets. I have some onions growing in another area.
I think my radishes might actually be ready for picking. My daughter and I ate some of the lettuce as we thinned it out a bit. Yum! So far the rabbits have left it alone (knock on wood) I think they are too busy eating the neighbors garden.

Weekend Fun

We had a pretty good fourth of July this year. We were all pretty lazy until 3:30 or so and then we headed over to a friends house. There was a lot of people there we didn't know, ok we pretty much knew about 4 people out of 20 or so. Our friend was grilling out with his neighbor and the neighbor had a bunch of friends over as well. There was also a crap-ton of kids running around. Which was good because it gave someone for our kids to play with. Keep them out of our hair for 20 mins. :) We decided to not go to the big fireworks in town. They have been really crappy the past few years. We did however have a lot of fireworks at the cook-out and actually some pretty good ones. We ended up staying to about midnight. Lia passed out around 11:30 while sitting on daddy's lap. She was so pooped from running around all day.



Fun with sparklers!

Today we grilled out as well. This time it was just the fam though. My husband mows the neighbors yard so he gives us salmon that he catches himself up in Alaska. So we grilled that today. Along with some potatoes, brats and the best portabella mushrooms I've had in a long time. YUM!

Hanging out waiting for food to cook.

TNTsales

It's Thursday again and that means time for another round of TNT sales. TNT or Thursday Night Temptation is a sale sponsored by the DIYscene Street team. Anyone is welcome to hold their own sale. For more information please visit http://tntsales.wordpress.com/
My sale today is FREE SHIPPING!

Fun with paint

My 3 year old daughter has discovered the joys of painting on the computer.

A lot less messy, but she still enjoys painting on paper as well. :)

New ideas new items

I've had these foam beads for quite sometime now. I finally decided they might just make some super cute bracelets. I was right! They are also very soft on your wrists.



Here is the other idea I've been playing with.

I've also had these animal beads lying around. I wanted to make a necklace that had a message. Something that a person could wear and show off their love for the animal. I finally went out and bought some heart buttons to use as beads and this is what I made.

Crafting with the wee-ones

I was making some bracelets and things the other day and the kids decided to help.

My daughter decided to make her own bracelet.

She picked out the beads herself


and started stringing them on.


I decided to hold the end of the string for her.


Here she is modeling her creation.

I was also wrapping up some metal wire to make some coils.
(sorry about the blurry pic)

My son decided he wanted to try.

Look at that concentration.


He ended up making about 10 of them.