Two New Goals

So today my new toy arrived in the mail. I signed up for a promotion on a food storage website that I like called trackmyfoodstorage.com, and I actually won. (The last time I won a contest was when I got a free telephone at my high school grad night – and that’s the phone we are still using in our home today). Anyways, I got a brand new wheat grinder for free. It looks pretty cool – it can grind wheat, dried, beans, corn, etc. and has different settings to make the flour a normal texture or very fine pastry flour. Making our own fresh-ground wheat sounds like a good way to have healthier food for our family.

So, my first new goal is to use the wheat grinder. I have never actually purchased wheat before (actually, I rarely use flour), but I no longer have an excuse not to. And Kolby is very excited to "put food in that thing," so I am sure he won't let me forget to use the wheat grinder soon. I figure I will start with bread -- I can handle bread. I'll let you know how it works when I am done.

My second goal is to sew a Halloween costume. And not just any costume – I want to make this elephant costume for Kolby this year:

I found this picture on the internet and thought it was adorable. I could buy the costume already made, but it is extremely expensive new and the only ones I found for sale on e-Bay were baby sizes. So, I thought maybe I could make it. I am still trying to decide if this is a realistic goal or not – it looks like a difficult thing to make, especially since I don’t have a sewing machine or much sewing experience at all. I don't really know how to read a sewing pattern either. I am not sure what kind of fabrics to use or how to make the elephant’s ears stand up like they should. The feet might be challenging, but the body of the costume looks pretty straight forward, I guess. I want to give it a try, but I know that I won’t be satisfied unless it turns out looking just right. I guess I’ll think about it some more.

But whatever I decide to do, I’ll have to start soon if I am sewing something, because this baby is due the day before Halloween, which may not allow for much procrastination time. At least we’re already set on costumes for the other boys: Camden will be a lion, Eli will be a dinosaur, (and if Isaac happens to come early enough to celebrate Halloween, he can be a teddy bear). That’s one good thing about having all boys and having them all so close together in age: if you get a costume for the oldest child each year, you are set for the rest of the kids every year following. Anyways, my hope right now is that this baby comes a couple days after his due date, because I really don’t want to miss out on Halloween with the boys.

Well, I guess I have some deciding to do on this whole elephant thing . . . What do you think?