Summer Fun List 2012

Well, last year we jumped on the Summer Fun List band wagon and I really liked it. It served it's purpose as a huge inspiration for those summer days when you have NO idea what to do with the kids, they are whiney and don't know what they want to do either. All you have to do is look to the list! The list that you made when you HAD those ideas, but didn't need them and when there wasn't so much pressure to have awesome days planned out before breakfast is even over. So if you have kids, I would totally recommend making a summer list! We used a large piece of paper from one of the rolls of paper used on Moos art easel. Then, because my kids are young and love bright colors, I wrote "Summer Fun List 2012" in a rainbow of colors. Below that I draw an empty box followed by the fun idea so that we can check off the boxes as we do the things listed. I used a different color for each idea to give the list an overall rainbow effect. I would post a picture, but I'm still waiting for magic computer elves to come clean up my hard drive while I'm asleep. So to get you started on your own list, I'll share a few of the gems from my list. Toots is still too little to contribute, although we do take her into account and try to think of things she would enjoy. Mainly the list is a project Moo and I do together. So here we go! 1. Moo & Mommy date - Brave in the theater 2. Park hop day (spend the day going from playground to playground in our city) 3. Get ice cream at an ice cream shop 4. Make s'mores around a real campfire 5. See a fireworks show 6. Camping in the familyroom, tent and all 7. Enter something into the fair 8. Moo makes dinner 9. Try a new restaurant 10. See the Fresh Beat Band in concert That last one is a surprise for the girls. Moo likes them, but Toots LOVES them! We think they will be really surprised when we walk into the arena and the Band walks out on stage! I think I'm more excited about the surprise than I've been about anything in a long time. So fun! So you get the idea. I also have a whole bunch of stuff on there that is "educational" like writing a letter to a favorite cousin once a week (to practice our writing) and reading 50 1st reader books all by herself (can you believe they expect you to read by the time you leave Kindergarten now? Wasn't that a first grade thing when I was in school?). I also have a TON of ideas from Pinterest for crafts and projects and just general fun things to do...can you say DIY sprinklers or oobleck? Yeah, I'm not sure I'm saying that second one right either, just forget it. Anyway, have fun and make a list! Even a little one will help you out on those days when everyone says "I'm bored!" and you can just keep adding to it as you think of things! Our list last year had so much on it, we didn't get half of it done. Our list is pretty full this year too, but I'm going to try to do something on it at least every other day to keep the summer fun! Our summer is exactly two months long so I don't know if we'll get it all done, but the point is to have ideas there when you need them - not to force yourself into a crazy busy vacation! We are almost there, only a few days left for Moo and then it's fun in the sun for this family! I can't wait!

What is up with my computer?!?!

So I feel like it's been forever since I was able to post anything on here! I am having a serious problem with my computer and am having trouble fixing it. It seems as though I take a greater than normal number of pictures of my kids, which has filled up the memory on the hard drive. I have only had this computer for about 3 years and have NEVER had this problem before with any other computer I've ever had. Since the hard drive is full, I can do nothing - not even update my Firefox or create any new Word documents! Moo is about to graduate Kinder and I couldn't even contribute any photos to the collage the parent group is making because my drive is so full it can't even burn a disc! So I am typing this from my iPad, which is an odd experience since I don't think Blogspot was designed with mobile devices in mind. I have purchased an external hard drive, but now I have to figure out how to get everything off my hard drive and onto the external drive. And since the Hubbs is either at work,overtime or the gym about 95% of the time, it is hard to find the time to be in the study. My main problem with that is that the study is not Toots friendly. It is organized and clean, but I cannot be sure that she couldn't get her hands on a pin or scissors or Sharpies. So I try to keep her out of there and since it is on the other side of the house, I can't just head in there and leave her in the family room alone...blah. Someday I'll have a laptop and this will be lots easier. But now that I can manage just written posts on the iPad, I'll try to get on here more often to at least get some written posts up. Like I mentioned, Moo is almost done with Kinder! Then I will have a first grader on my hands, what?!?! I just can't seem to wrap my head around that. As soon as Moo gets out of school, we will be moving Toots into her room. The big girls will use the summer to get used to the whole room sharing thing and hopefully have it down by the time school starts again in the fall. We are also trying to wean Toots off the bottle and onto some big girl sippy cups. She has been resisting like crazy and won't even try to use a big girl cup. So that one might take a while. But it must be done! Hopefully I'll be able to update a little more if this iPad thing cooperates, so summer may be well documented this year! Yipee!

Homemade Non-Easter Easter Dresses

Well, I haven't posted in a while.  The Hubby changed his work schedule, which will be changing again at the end of the summer...so much drama...anyway, I'm basically a single mom- with someone sending her money to support the kids and herself.  So I don't get to blog as often as I like.  Someday I'll save enough to buy a laptop so I can blog from the familyroom, which would allow me to blog every day!  Can you imagine?  But for now, I have to wait until conditions are just right to go clear across the house for 20 to the only room in the house wired for internet access.  Frustrating.  Anywho...

Do you remember back in January I posted about some happy mail?  That I got a package of fabric that I had ordered from Hawthorne Threads?  Well I made dresses for the girls just in time for Easter!  Yes, I know they aren't exactly Easter dresses...but I let Moo pick out her own fabric, then I picked out something kind of complimentary for Toots and since when I ordered them I was not thinking of Easter, this was not an issue.  But since I had time and got a wild hair, I decided to bust them out in time for the holiday.  Plus I've always wanted to make an Easter dress.  Of course, it was freezing on Easter so the girls are wearing long sleeve shirts and Toots is wearing leggings too.  I promise the dresses are not as sloppy as Moo is making hers look.  I made Moos' first and followed the pattern exactly, gathered top and front pockets.  Then I modified Toots' little dress to be easier/faster.  I omitted the pockets because she doesn't need them and I actually like the cleaner look as opposed to the broken line the pockets make.  I also did pleats instead of the gather along the yoke.  I thought this would be easier, but I did have trouble keeping the pleats nice and neat while sewing.  It was a faster set up to do the pleats, but totally easier to sew the gathers.  A toss up, I think.  There is a little button at the top/back of the dress which I was proud of since I have never done anything with a button before.  The girls both seem to like their new dresses and I made them in sizes 7 and 3, so that they should last for a while ( I hemmed Moos' up after I finished it so that it would be the proper length.  The main difference between the 6 & 7 was the length.  It can be let out as she grows.)

Moo likes hers so much she wore it to Costco the day after I finished it.  A woman with about 5 kids all under 10 asked if I made it.  I told her I did, she said it was cute, then we went on with our shopping.  After I had a huge inner dialog about why she would ask that?  Does it look homemade?  Is that a good thing?  I thought it came out rather well and since Moo liked it so much I was pretty darn proud.  But boy did that lady ever throw me for a loop.  I never thought I would be bothered so much by something like that.  Now obviously, I don't care if someone else likes the way I dress my kids or whether or not their clothes come from my machine or Target, but I hope that kind of thing doesn't rub off on the girls.  I hope they always like wearing the things I make them.  I hope they always think of how much time and love went into those items...so much more special than a $10 dress from Walmart.  But I guess we'll see in a few years...

By the way, the fabrics are from Hawthorne Threads and the dress pattern is the Ice Cream Social Dress from Oliver & S.  In case you were wondering.

Baby loves Baby

Today's obsession is not mine, but belongs to Toots.  It is her baby, well Moos' baby, really.

Moo was not into baby dolls until she hit 4.  She still isn't really big on them.  She'll play with one for a few minutes, then get bored and move on to something else.  She's gonna be my career minded gal.  Toots, on the other hand, seems to love her baby.  At 16 months, she is all about pushing baby in a stroller, feeding baby, making me change baby's diaper...she hugs and kisses baby all the time.  She still carries it like a toy (see above photo, I promise I don't carry my babies like that) and will still drop it and run to the table if I offer her a snack.  But the other day she started doing something odd, but funny.  She dropped baby, on purpose, then made a noise that sounded like a tiny kitty meowing.  She looked up at me with a terribly sad face and said "Oh no, Wha happen?  Baby fa dow, baby kwyin!"  (that's crying for all you non-mom's out there).  Then she picked it up, still meowing, and handed it to me.  I did what I do for her and said "Oh no!  What happened?  Did you fall down?  Where is your boo-boo, let me kiss it...there all better!"  She smiled the biggest smile I've ever seen and said "Fank you, Daddy!" (Yes, she still calls me Daddy sometimes-I know, don't even start).  Then she did the entire thing over and over again, about 30 times.  Since then we have had to go through this little ritual daily and while it still is funny to me to see her little face make that terribly sad sympathetic frown and pathetic meowing, it does get annoying when you can't finish making dinner until baby's boo-boo has been kissed.  On the plus side, I actually got a picture of her smiling!  She sure does love that baby!

Moo's New Haircut

Before

After

 Haircut a la Mom.  I think she likes it, thank goodness.  I tried to talk her out of it for a long time because I thought she'd regret it since she LOVES having long hair to do fancy hairdos with.  But she's had her hair like this for about a month now and she really seems to like just throwing on a headband in the morning instead of me spending half an hour brushing through the long tangled jungle of hair before school.  She looks SO grown up now!  The before was taken right before Christmas, not too long ago but look at the difference!  I think I might try to keep it like this, even if it does make her look ready for college.  What do you think?

Happy Mail!!!

Look what I got in the mail today!!!  The elephants (sorry they are upside down) and the grey with little swirly dots are for a dress for Moo, the large and small pink dots are for a dress for Toots and the two tone pink is for a shirt for me!  I let Moo pick her own fabric - I was not expecting that one.  And I picked for Toots and had to go with the pink and grey dots because they were just adorable and I LOVE pink and grey together.  And the tone on tone fabric was a hard choice for me, I don't usually wear patterns that bright, but it was between this one and another, but this one was on sale.  Had to go with the sale!  And I think it will look nice in the pattern I have from Indigo Junction.  The girls will be the Ice Cream Social dress pattern from Oliver & S.  So cute.  I'll post pics when I complete them.  These projects will have to wait until I tackle the Hoarders paradise that is my craft room/office.  Every time I come in here to use the computer I'm afraid of being trapped under a tower of collapsing scrapbook paper.  I need to get this under control before I can begin any new projects OR finish any of the long term/pending projects I've got stashed around here.  But it was fun mail to get!

*Fabrics were purchased from my new favorite fabric store Hawthorne Threads!  Check them out, they carry some SUPER cute fabrics!!!

Stuck!

I have no idea how she did this, but while I was doing the dishes Toots climbed into one of her toy bins.  Then she couldn't get out again.  But she didn't freak out, or scream, or cry.  She just sat there and looked around.  After I noticed her situation, I grabbed the camera and snapped a few pics then asked her what she was doing.  "Stuck" she said.  That's all, just stuck.  Then she just kept looking at the toys around her and started playing with the cow right in front of her face in the above picture.  I slid the drawer out and pulled her out of it.  She stood there looking back and forth, from me to the drawer to me, then just went right back to playing.  She's so odd sometimes.