My Thermal Curtains

The windows in my messy room, it gets really cold in here in the winter and the main motivating factor to making the curtains was so that when the new baby is in our room he wont freeze and we wont have to pay so much to heat the house overnight.

I measured out the fabric to be slightly bigger than the opening for the window.

first finished curtain

not the prettiest sewing job but it'll work

both finished curtains, someday i will get a cute ribbon to tie around each but for now a black piece of yarn is doing the trick.

The other day I decided it wouldn't be very difficult to make thermal curtains. I've wanted to buy some for a couple of years now, i even went to shopko last year to purchase some but couldn't bring myself to pay $24 for one panel. so i looked up online what all should be done to make your own thermal curtains and some sites said to use a pre put together thermal fabric that you could get for about $12 a yard other sites pretty much said you can use old sleeping bags for the thermal fabric, or heavy cotton, felt, denim, pretty much some heavy fabric that would help keep some of the heat in and the cold out. I went to Walmart last night to see what kind of fabric they had that could work and the prices per yard blah blah blah. While i was there i checked out how much thermal curtains would be just to purchase them and for one panel the cheapest was about $13 so that really wasn't too bad, i read what material they used to make the curtain and it said 100% polyester. In the fabric section i decided on fusible fleece which is also 100% polyester, and the cheapest black fabric i could find. the fusible fleece was 2.77 a yard and the fabric i bought for the outside of the curtain was 2.47 a yard (i think) So all in all it ended up being more expensive then i thought it would but i have extra fabric. All in all i spent $29 which i think is still steep but this includes the tension rods i used to hang them up, black string, and 3 yards of each fabric and tax. I have some sticky back Velcro that i put on the sides of the windows and curtains to make a tighter seal at night. So I'm hoping tonight we'll be able to tell a difference besides our room being darker, (which is almost worth it all by itself).

Makayla Words

Makayla is using sentences and says lots of words in her own cute way and i thought I'd post some of her cute words

Chicken Nuggets - Mugwits
Witch- switch
the - za
potato - tato
black - bwak

she says belly button, with a British accent, which is hilarious.

I read a book

... and its overdue so i should return it :) I really have enjoyed some of the self help books by Dr. Laura, she seems to have a very level head and I enjoy the way she is able to tell it how it is. The book i just finished was Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, it was good but also a slap in the face wake up call as to how I treat my husband, so not a completely comfortable read but it definitely had some value. Last night is when i finished it, i wrote in my journal different points that I'd hope to work on, some of them are from this book others are from previous books or good advice I have heard, I don't know that any of you will find this of any value but I'll list what I've chosen to be a goal for myself in order to have a more harmonious family.

• Appreciate spouses hard work outside of the home in both work and schooling, express gratitude.


• Arrange planned meals to be when my husband is home (since he has an odd schedule the big meal will be lunch)


• Do chores and prepare meals while he is away and use the time he is home as down time/ family time


• Allow spouse an hour each day to unwind


• Find time each day to both get outside and exercise


• Ask my husband for help nicely and provide options for things that need to be taken care of so there is less "telling" and more freedom of choice.


• Anticipate hard days and allow breaks to keep from overreacting and being stressed.


• If the day is too daunting focus on one room and allow more time for playing with kids.


• Appreciate all the blessings i have and give thanks


• If feeling "unloved" or "under-appreciated" focus on giving to or thanking my spouse or someone else.


• Give more hugs


• Speak softer, more ladylike and be aware that anger is a choice.


• Know that every day, week, month or year cant be perfect and that hard times happen but can't stay around forever.


• Treat spouse how I would like to be treated.

Wish me luck on being better :)

time to kill

i saw an idea for this on another blog only she used beads and suggested pine cones so i made it yesterday, it was a bit time consuming but not too bad.

I've seen cute pictures of infants wearing a hat with ears and i thought that would be fun to do so today i made a cap with ears, initially i thought it'll be a little black bear cap and then when i put on one ear i realised that actually it looks like a mickey mouse cap, which isn't as cute of an idea

:( Because Makayla is napping i wasn't able to use one of her baby dolls to model it so i used a beat up pumpkin :)

Productive day

double stroller before, and when its been stripped of the seats

after, ya i know it doesn't look much different, it smells better though :)

I haven't had a mantle or a shelf to decorate before so this year being bored one night i created a Halloween display and i know it isn't that cool but I'm pretty proud of how it turned out considering i just used what i had which isn't much.
its pretty fun to look at in the dark but these pictures don't do it justice.

I had Makayla try on this bee costume to see if it still fit, although she will be going as a hula dancer for Halloween. Well when i put it on her she didn't want it off so she spent most of the day in a bee costume, and since she is such a hat person she added the hat to just complete the outfit so i had to take a couple pics.

I love days when i can say something got done, and because i have nothing left to do that i want to do right now I'll tell you how today went! i woke up early did a haircut then snuck back to bed because i didn't want to be up that early, then i woke up again when Makayla did, made her some eggs (I'd already eaten breakfast the first time i woke up), and did the dishes. Jared came home from school and the gym, i decided to clean up Makaylas sock box in her drawer which i haven't done since she was born because i hate mating socks (we also have a big sock drawer in the laundry room because its just something i don't care to do) So i mated all the socks in the box and put all the "too little" ones that couldn't pass for boy socks in a laundry bag to be put away in a clothes tub down stairs for when i have another girl. The white socks that needed extra help cuz the soles were so brown i put in the sink with some bleach and anything else i could think of to whiten them. I think i folded 3 loads of laundry one of them containing the newly bleached socks for my son. So now he has some socks although I'll probably still go get him at least one bag of new ones. After lunch Makayla went to bed, Jared went to work and i took a much needed shower, then i patched up two pairs of jeans that have started to tare on the bum, so hopefully they will last longer cuz i really like one of them. Then I pulled out the 2 seat stroller my mom found for free on the side of the road with a sign that said free, it is super sun faded and every time I've looked at it it makes me tired but today i took off all of the fabric sprayed it down with spray and wash and washed it in the washing machine then i wiped down the whole frame sucked up the spider webs with the vacuum and used window wash to get all the dust off. Then when the fabric was finished drying i screwed it back into place on the stroller. Its now all disinfected and smells nice but it still looks sun fade and worn and I'm contemplating reupholstering the thing but it may be a job too big to tackle.. we'll see. I raked the backyard again while Makayla played in the leaves, then went inside to make "noodles" (makaylas way of saying she wants top ramen) but we are out so i made egg noodles with a top ramen packet and added left over shredded pork with frozen peas and ended up with pork noodle soup and it actually tasted good to me and i ate most of it, makayla ate some noodles and left the rest, oh well. We watched some of the biggest loser then went to a visiting teaching interview. Came back and ate an apple with Makayla, then i picked up all of the apple peel she spit out all over the carpet, then i put her to bed for the night. And now I'm writing you an extremely boring post but yet its something to pass the time till Jared gets off of work. I'll post some pics of the stroller i hope it looks a little bit different but I'm thinking it wont really.

My dry erase calender

this calender cost me a grand total of $2, the lettering i used was from a press on page with months written out, so i had to cut out the individual letters for each word and was really surprised that i had enough letters. (the press on page was given to me by a lady at the Weber county fair 2 or three years ago) I don't know if you can tell but it says Arnold Family Menu, since i already have a calender that i put things i need to track on i figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a monthly menu calender too. So maybe now I'll have an answer to my least favorite question "whats there to eat?"

Makayla wearing a cute shirt my mom got her

finnished nursing cover

so i found this fabric at walmart the orange fabric was a remnant piece and i didn't realise it had tigers on it until i got home and unrolled it all, so its not really a cute cuddly baby fabric but it looks pretty cool. I followed the directions on the blog Make it and Love it, thanks so much Annie for the suggestion! For the boning that goes in the top I actually used a plastic soft spread butter container and cut a strip the size that i needed, its really flexible so it will be able to bend the other way and it was great cuz it was free. I didn't use the D ring on mine to adjust the neck tie i just sewed one side in a loop and I'll just tie the other strap to it to adjust the size.


now my next project i'd like to finnish is my temple painting all i have is a basic sketch...

the mask

so my husband informed me today that i have too much time on my hands. he could be right but really i just think i have weird priorities... i do what sounds funnest and i have the energy for. this is coletons completed mask, i'll be sure to get pictures of the whole getup when we get around to it.
super funny huh?

My brother Coleton wants to be Sasquatch for Halloween and if you look online that is a pretty expensive costume. so this is the start of a mask I'm making for him, its paper mache and it was pretty funny putting it on my sister to make the form, if i had my camera with me when we were doing it i would have posted it, but its on my moms camera right now. i put clay on her face to make the shape and then put the paper mache strips on and after blow drying it for 30 minutes i took it home and painted the newspaper brown and added some detail with an eye liner pencil. now i just need to add some hair!

i saw on a blog how to make a tutu and while shopping for fabric for my nursing shield i decided to get some tulle also , it was way fun to make and super easy. she wanted to dance with me and with daddy when she had it on tonight so i got some pictures of them dancing.

she's getting so big and i don't really notice it until i look at pictures I've taken and I'm shocked by how grown up she is looking. so sad, it goes by too fast.