Thoughts from Idaho

Saturday, October 22, 2011

We went to the store in search of birthday presents for the slew of parties this weekend, and I picked up a small monster truck. J immediately wanted it, reaching out his arms and babbling at me. I handed it to him. Then, upon further thought, I decided it cost more money than I wanted to spend. I tried to take it away. J was not happy. Then I realized he had birthday money …

And the truck came home with us.

He played with it all through the store, all the way home, and he had to fight with his sisters over it when he got home. This is one cool truck! It has a button for “forward” a button that plays music, and a button that revs the engine and flashes the lights. Even C called it awesome, in spite of the fact that it makes noise!

Thank you for birthday money to buy this truck!

J's Truck

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Happy Birthday Boy!

We don’t really have family close by, so we celebrated J’s birthday as the cards and presents arrived. It actually turned out nicely, because he played with each card and present for a while, instead of tossing each one aside for the next one.

(And then you can enter your text, like this, and hit send …)

He loves his new phone, when he can get it away from his sisters.

We headed to my sister-in-law’s house for the weekend to celebrate both J’s and my niece’s birthdays. We had cake:

Lots and lots of cake:

We had party favors:

And more presents!

We discovered that J takes after C, and doesn’t care much for chocolate cake.

But it was at least good enough to sample.

And of course, after we ate the cake, he got his favorite present!

And two last pictures, just ‘cause he’s so cute!!!

Monday, October 3, 2011

I bought my husband a car!

C’s favorite car ever is a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda. For anyone who’s unfamiliar with them, they’re collector’s items, and one in “excellent” condition would probably bring in more than my house is worth. I’d never heard of them until I met C. So, for others like me, here’s a picture:

Well, on Friday, I found one for C, and I bought it. I texted him and asked, “Is it the 1970 u like, or 1971?” He assured me it was the 1970. “What do you think of purple?” I asked. “It can be repainted,” he replied.

I told him I didn’t think I had the fine motor control needed to repaint his car. He was confused, “??? I wouldn’t paint a car on my own, either.”

I sent him a picture to explain:

Here it is, sitting next to the Charger I bought him. :-) It was hard to get the camera to focus well on the little matchbox. But it sure put a smile on C’s face!

Adventures in Sewing

I got a sewing machine in March. My excuse for buying it was to make window coverings to keep the sun out of my kids’ rooms. My secret reason for buying it is the dream of learning to sew and one day making my daughter’s prom dresses … let me tell you, I’m a long way from fulfilling that goal!

I’m getting a start on it, though. L wanted to be sleeping beauty for Halloween this year, and my amazing mom bought me a pattern for an Aurora dress. So I bravely walked into the fabric store and came home with this:

Then I stared at it for a few days. I was afraid I would screw it up. If I didn’t cut it, I wouldn’t ruin it, right? Then I got some help from C.S. Lewis, “It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

It was nice fabric, but it would only ever be nice fabric, until I did something to make it into a dress. So, I cut it. And I sewed it.

And I got the bodice done. Whew. I think I sweated more over these few scraps of fabric than I did over the rest of the dress!

I know it’s far from perfect, but I am pleased with how it turned out. The skirt is ridiculously full, and she loves it!

To finish it off, the pattern came with instructions for the crown and necklace, so she can really look like Sleeping Beauty (THANK YOU Simplicity, as soon as the dress was done, she insisted she needed a crown, just like the one in the movie!).