Summer!

Ok, so as of today, Summer is officially here.

We attended L’s award ceremony this morning, where she got her “As and Bs” award for 1st Grade.  At one point during the assembly, I spotted her curled up in her teacher’s lap.  Just before I headed up to see what was wrong, I caught her teacher’s eye, and she shot me an “OK” sign.  L wiped her eyes dry as she headed back to her seat.  I guess I’ll find out what that was about later.

ANYWAY …

I went out last week and signed the girls up for swimming lessons.  I’ve been cruising Craigslist for a new bike for L and a trike for J.  Our garden is planted, and I’m even making plans to run the Color Vibe 5k at the end of July …

BUT …

This poor lad is sitting on the couch (he actually moved to the floor just before I took this pic, and now he’s back up on the couch) with a raging fever.  As in, already administered Tylenol, still toasty warm, red cheeks and all, FEVER. 

Grr.

I guess we’ll delay our summer a few days.

S doesn’t mind too much, since I handed over the kindle.

But we’re gonna be in for it when L gets home and wants to play.  I hope we don’t pass this around and spend the first weeks of summer sick.  I want to go play!

Springtime

So, while I am no photographer, I have tried to make a point to document my children’s lives.  Then last weekend, I went to my Mom’s and took the opportunity to dig out my mission pictures and journals for a talk I’ve been asked to give.  They were in the same place as all my college photos. 

I sat on the floor in my parents’ basement turning page after page of pictures and feeling nostalgic.  I LOVE the pictures that document my life.  And it made me think – am I taking pictures now?  Well, not so much.  So I pulled out my camera and started snapping.  It’s point and shoot, and I’m not entering any contests.  This is just my life. 

My mom pulled out a picture while we were there – one of this kitchen at the time when she was dating my dad.  I like to think that, one day, we’ll pull out this pic of L in the kitchen and stare in wonder … “THAT was how the kitchen used to look!  And look how small L was back then!”

My babies in front of the “Beacon House” …

J refused to be distracted from using the squirt gun he’d found somewhere in the house.  Everything needed to get wet.

This lone, purple tulip reminded me of my grandma.  She always had beautiful flowers.  I have cousins who inherited her talent. 

My mom took us to the aquarium.  I could live there, if they’d let me.  I probably watched the octopus for 15 min, and I could have stayed longer, except the kids don’t have that long of an attention span.

Do you see how my baby boy is perched on the edge of the ray tank?  I actually turned to the aquarium worker next to me and asked, “Have you ever had someone fall in?”  She smiled and said that it actually happens quite frequently, and it’s not usually small children.  The last kid to fall in had been 12 years old, and it was on a school field trip, so he had to go the rest of the day in wet clothes!

The oar is nailed down, so the girls had to pretend to row the boat.

And we’ve discovered that L is now larger than the emperor penguin!

The purpose of the trip was to get my quilt quilted, and I was lucky enough to have my grandma and mom help me out.

At one point in the evening, L decided she wanted to sew.  I brushed her off and told her she was too little.  When I noticed she was missing a little later, I found her crying under the piano.  Upon reflection, I decided I could possibly teach her to quilt.  Sometimes I forget how big she’s getting.

But, when I brought her down and said I was going to teach her, my grandma came to the rescue.  She found a hoop, two pieces of fabric, and a small square of batting, and set up L with project of her own to work on.  Yay for grandmas!  And how precious is this, with Grandma teaching L to sew?!

The other purpose of the trip was to see my precious new niece and my amazing sister (-in-law, but I’ll take her as a sister!). 

Finally, now that C is talking about selling his car, I gave in to the kids’ pleading to let them take a ride.  My concern has always been securing the car seats properly in it … but I figured, just once, I ought to let them take a ride with Daddy in his “Blue Car”. 

J changed his mind and stayed home with me, but the girls went.

I love this pic of C helping L get her seatbelt on!  (Again, not in the “amazing picture”, artistic sense, but because I think I’ll be glad to remember the moment 15 years from now.)

Can you see the look of pure joy on S’s little face?!

Good bye, my loves!  Have fun!

And for my last batch of memories, we put in our garden yesterday.  This is our third year, but it was the first year that L and S were really able to help, and not hinder.  Yes, I could have done it a lot faster on my own, but it was fun to do it with my girls. 

We’d worked hard the last few weeks to keep the weeds out of the garden, so we wouldn’t have to pull them all, like last year.  I used a fork and turned all the soil, then we dumped a few wheelbarrows of dirt across the back to replace what’s been eroded away.  Then a few bags of compost and a rake, and we were ready to go.  We let the kids pick what to plant this year, and we ended up with tomatoes, purple and orange peppers, sugar snap peas, cucumbers, watermelon, carrots, beets, and green onions. 

That’s all for now, folks!  G’bye!

Mmmmwah!

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.