Easter and other such stuff

I found Easter dresses for the girls this year, instead of making them.  I don’t know if I would have found time to make them otherwise, but when I found these … I can’t make them like this for that cheap!!!  So I bought them.

(I’m not feeling too bad about it, though.  L insists she wants to be Merida -from Disney’s Brave"- for Halloween, and S wants to be Elena, so I will be making dresses for them … later.  Oh, and with L’s baptism coming up next year, she’ll get a mommy-made dress for that, too.)

As much as I tried, I couldn’t get more than this half-hearted grin from S.  I think she’s become self-conscious about her cracked front tooth lately.  (She’s had it since she was 18 months old … I guess just a year or two more, and she’ll lose it and grow a permanent one.)

Speaking of which, here’s my older daughter.

She feels the need to pose and twist her body around while getting her picture taken.  And she wouldn’t be complete without a close-up.

 

She’s missing 4 of her front teeth.  The two top center teeth and the two side bottom teeth.  I keep threatening to put her on a liquid diet if she doesn’t stop losing teeth.  One is growing back in, so she won’t be like this forever. 

And this little man would not stop moving long enough to get a good picture.  Even when he did, he gave me this funny face -

What’s up with that lower lip, young man?!

Huh, Mom?  This one?

Like this?

I finally gave up.

 

The Easter bunny did visit us.  A few days later, the little black bunny in the middle got one of his ears pulled off.  I thought that only happened to chocolate bunnies.

Here’s a quick update on J’s quilt.  The top is pieced together, and I’m just waiting to have a chance to go to my mom’s and have her and my grandma help me quilt it.  Then I’ll edge it with multi-colored triangles.  I’m excited to have it done for him.

And last … we have popcorn popping on our apricot tree!!!  I’ve been waiting three years for my little tree to bloom, and it finally did!!!  (I would put up a pic of the whole tree, but it seems to be blooming in spurts, and as a whole tree, it looks a little silly.)

Springtime?

I was actually in a discussion yesterday with a group of girls from church about the weather here.  We’ve had a girl move here from Dallas, Texas.  She asked about what the summer was like.   All the local, born and bred girls started telling her what a wonderful summer we always have …

I had to cut them off.  I said, “Coming from Dallas,  you’re going to think we never get out of spring.  We might have a week or two when we’re consistently in the 90s, and we MIGHT hit 100 on one or two of those days.  But you will think it’s consistently too cold.”

At the blank stares from everyone, I continued.

“I’ve tried to take my kids swimming here, in June, in July, and even in August … and when it’s 89 degrees outside, my poor little girls are only in the water 15 min before they turn blue.  Chattering teeth, freezing fingers … and we rarely last more than 30 min before heading home.  Maybe if you grow up here, you’re heartier, but coming from Texas … it will never get hot here, to you.”

I don’t think I’m exaggerating that much.  I know a number of people who have switched to putting their kids in swimming lessons in the winter, when there’s a dome over the pool, so they don’t freeze to death.

The new girl smiled at me, but I think I rubbed a few of the locals the wrong way …

BUT … back to the point:

We have gone outside to play lately … now that we’re consistently above freezing.

J is still on the girl’s old, pink bike.  He doesn’t know pink is for girls … in fact he picks the pink cup to drink from most of the time, because he knows it’s the one the girls want.

S used her birthday/christmas money that’s been piling up and bought herself this princess scooter.  She’s so thrilled!

She was scooting around everywhere.

L has the scooter she bought last summer.

I still think it’s high time I get her a bike, but it’s hard for me to really feel the need when it’s still freezing outside.

This is J pointing at C’s car and informing me, “Dada Car!!!” because I dared to look at it.  Back off, Mama, that’s Dada’s car!

Speaking of Dada’s car … there it is. 

One last thing:

I tried to get J to sing “Popcorn Popping” with me the other day.  He joined me for, “I looked out the window and what did I see?”  Then he leaped to his feet, dashed to the front window, and cried, “Dada’s Car!”

Learning …

Ok, so sewing is one skill I never developed as a girl, but I’m working on it now.  I’ve used the amazing “Wonder Under” before to make the “Incredibles” Logo on C and my shirts for Halloween two years ago, and I thought, “Well, what more to applique is there than Wonder Under and sewing around the edges?”

What more indeed.

If you look too closely, this Triceratops has been mauled.  His rear legs are in a horrible state.  I’m not sure he’ll make it through the night.

And the Allosaurus might finish him off for me, if not for the fact that he has no teeth … and no claws.  Yep, the claws were way too detailed for me to handle.  And I probably should have found another pic to do, because when I look at this one now, I realize his right hip is out of place.  So the Triceratops will die a slow, agonizing death because the Allosaurus can’t help him out.

This one was easier.  The lines were straighter.  I left most of the rigging off, which I was planning on putting on … but it was proving to be more than I could manage.

(Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with all 20 squares. )

And there I stopped.  For two weeks all the fabric sat on my sewing machine in the corner, and I bemoaned the fact that it wasn’t turning out like the vision I had in my head.

Then I faced the fact that the only way left to go was forward.

And I made this one.  I was rather pleased with it. (BTW, I think this is the only animal on the whole quilt who got to be his “normal” color.)

Then I made this:

This was the square I was dreading most of all.  What if I butchered my sweet little boy’s face?!!!  Thanks to a miracle, it turned out nicely.  I even got the poky hairs on the back of his head.  I decided, if I could get this one done, I could finish the rest.

I made C help me choose the tank, because I know he knows more about them than me.  Then, when I realized my lack of skills with applique, I dashed his choice to the side and chose the one that I thought would be easiest to make.  (Did you guess a Tiger?  Good, because I had to ask C again which one I’d ended up with.)

I was very particular about the airplanes.  J has two grandpas who have been pilots, and I wanted to use planes they’d flown.  Then, as with the others, I had trouble finding silhouettes.  This is what we ended up with.

Cessna.  Easy.  Quick.  And Grandpa O teaches people to fly in them.

C-47, because Great-Grandpa M flew one in WWII.  (My propellers came out a little wonky on this one, because I decided to try making them differently than I had on other ones … and it didn’t really turn out … which is why this next one lacks propellers …

See?  No propellers.  But I think the C-130 turned out the best.

I laid the squares out on my front room carpet last night, and I think I’m pleased enough with how it turned out.  Now I just have to piece it together and take it down to my mom’s.  I’m hoping she and my Grandma will help me quilt it … or at least around the squares … then I can finish it off with a quilting hoop, once it’s tacked down.

Life goes on …

I’ve been so pleased with my rolls lately.  I have a love/hate relationship with yeast.  I love bread.  Yeast hates me.  I actually had my dad watch me put the ingredients in the bread maker once, when I was a teenager.  I did it just the way he said to, the way he always did it, but because I did it, it didn’t rise.  Even my dad looked at it and said, “That’s funny … what did we do wrong?”

BUT … I’ve had luck lately … or I’ve bribed the yeast with just the right temperature water and the right amount of honey, because this is what my rolls looked like this week:

They were a little on the crumbly side, but I knew I’d added too much flour when I was shaping them.  I’m not a pro yet, but I’m on my way.

L is doing very well.  She’s reading 83 words per minute.  The first grade goal is 53.  She passed that months ago.  And I don’t know what poor S is going to do in Kindergarten next year.  She’s already starting to read.  And J just had to get up and pretend to follow his sisters’ examples.

I went to Jo-anne’s today.  I found most everything I needed on sale … including the rotary cutting board, cutter, and rulers.  I’d planned on using my mom’s when I went down next, but at 40% off, and the fact that I don’t think this is the last time I’ll ever need it, I couldn’t resist buying my own set.  Oh, and I had a coupon for 20% off that was also good for the things on sale.  When they totaled up my receipt, I’d saved $63!!!  I’m not telling how much I spent, though …

So, now I have a plan and fabric, and all the tools I need to put together a new quilt for J (minus batting, I’ll get around to that after I’ve pieced the top).  I get so anxious in this moment: when I have the plan and the materials, but I haven’t started yet.  Remember the Snow White Dress I made for Susanna two years ago?

I had the same feeling before starting that project, when all I had was this:

I’m afraid I’ll mess up and ruin the whole thing.  Of course, I won’t, and even if I do mess up, I’ll be able to fix it.  But until I make those first cuts and get into it, I’ll have this lump in my throat. 

The nice people at the local Bernina shop are so encouraging, though.  I stopped by to pick up a satin stitch foot, because I’m going to put an applique on each of the squares, and they talked to me about it and assured me that it’s no big deal, and I’ll be able to do just what I want without any problem.  Then she cautioned me to start on a scrap piece of fabric, just to get the hang of it.  Good advice. 

Big Girl’s Birthday!

We had another birthday.  I keep threatening to put bricks on my kids’ heads, but they object …

She was thrilled to get a pencil from her teacher at school.

And she opened her cards without complaining before she went for the big present.  C meanwhile got clobbered by the other two, who felt L was getting too much attention and needed to demand some more of their own.

Then came the big moment.  I laughed at Pillow Pets and swore I would never get my kids one … but when she’s been begging for nearly a year … it is her birthday, after all.  She is now the proud owner of a Multi-colored Unicorn Pillow Pet.

Then we got down to the good stuff.  We even had lemon-strawberry ice cream to eat with the cake.

Her birthday present from her Grandma didn’t get her until the day after her birthday, but she was okay about that.  In fact, she said it was exciting to have two birthdays instead of one.

She got a Merida doll, and she loves it.  She’s even been kind enough to share the three little bears now and then with J, who adores them.

S ran off to get her Rapunzel doll, and the two couldn’t even be bothered to look up and smile for me from then on.  It was a good birthday.