The Hansen Family

There are so many things I love about summer, eating fresh veggies out of the garden, working outside, playing golf and making dresses. Wha? Did you say making dresses? Yup, I did. Summer reminds me of little girls in soft flowy dresses, blowing puffy white dandelions into the wind. So, I decided to make my own flowy dress, and thanks to Pinterest, I was able to find an easy Pillowcase Dress tutorial that I will share with you! Items needed: 3/4" fabric of choice ribbon of choice thread scissors iron ironing board sewing machine     I went to JoAnn Fabrics and picked out fabric.   The easiest way to measure the size was to find one of Kennady's dresses to compare it to.  I placed her dress on top of the fabric and measured the length, which was 21". Then I added 4" for seam allowance. The total length measurement is 25" for this dress about 3T/4T. I left the width the same width as the fabric came on the bolst...

Here is our update with using the Thumbguard.  If you want a refresher click on {Thumb sucking habit is hard to stop} It has been about 2 months since we started with the Thumbguard. She is doing a great job and hasn't missed a night.  AND...it WORKS! We're still trying to stop thumb sucking while watching TV. We chose not to use the Thumbguard during the TV hour times because she doesn't want people to see it on. (I'm sure this blog would mortify her). And we're in and out of the house/car a lot during the afternoon hours. But we have noticed that the thumb sucking while watching TV has decreased, so that's a bonus. Thank goodness for the change in seasons, being outside is a great distraction from thumb sucking because the kids are active in sports. So far, so good.  I'll keep you posted when we have this habit whipped. What tricks have you used to stop thumb sucking?

I FINALLY have my typography sign finished. I don't know why, but I was so nervous to have it printed, framed and hung. I'm a very visual person that is why I create room boards { here } and print artwork and hang it before I make a purchase. (I can also make you a typography sign too!) I wanted to make sure that I LOVED this typography sign before I printed it since it was SO LARGE!    Yup, we loved it! And so did many of YOU! Because of this post { here } I have been making  signs for friends all over the country, even overseas. I finally sent the design file to the printer and it turned out like this:   It looked so great.  It was so, so, so big (36 x 60 inches). I had it framed at Hobby Lobby and they did a fantastic job. It cost about $100 to print and $100 to frame, for a total of a little over $200. This is so much better than the $400 Chicago print I was originally thinking of using in this space, and much more p...

We all have those tricky, stubborn, cleaning dilemmas, don't we? We've only lived in our house for a year and a half, and I'm a neat freak, but I still have some tricky and sticky cleaning issues. Some how I stumbled upon numerous ways to clean with White Distilled Vinegar. After building our patio { here }, our house has been neglected and needed a nice deep cleaning. REFRIGERATOR TRAY: The refrigerator water tray is a white mess. I have tried all kinds of cleaning solutions to get the lime deposits off. Guess what works?  White Distilled Vinegar. Just soak for 5 minutes and wipe away. STINKY TOWELS/CLOTHES/SPONGES: We use a High Efficiency washing machine and ever since we got it, it seems that our towels smell funny. Guess what fixes that? Plus, smelly sponges, wash cloths or sweaty clothes? White Distilled Vinegar. Yup, just lay your smelly item in water and add about 1/4 Cup White Distilled Vinegar, then wash as usual. STICKY SCISSORS: Sticky sci...

Here we are in the heart of summer, and the kids are so excited to be out of school.  We are enjoying the warm weather, sun and pool. Our summer schedule is packed with daily activities, camp, tennis, golf, soccer, baseball, basketball. Busy, busy, busy bees. See our family summer list { here }. Although, we all want to have a break from school and daily routines, our family knows how important it is to continue with school work.  Therefore, I decided to have a rewards system for the kids.  If they read, do math or spelling they earn a fake dollar for every minute of "school" work. I decided it would be fun for them to make it a game. Everyday (well more like every OTHER day) we roll a dice to see what number they have to do. Most of the "activities" are 20 - 30 minutes.   They were so excited to start this fun project! I hope that continues throughout the summer.   As I mentioned before the dollars are fake money that I found online...