One-on-One

We were invited to a birthday party today, and because it was during nap time, Jeff and I decided that I would take Grace to the party, and that he would stay home with the boys.  It happened to be an American Girl-themed birthday party, and the little guests were welcome to bring a dolly or stuffed animal.  Grace brought Baby Jenna, and she was SO excited to have some "girl time" with me and skip her rest time to go to a birthday party!

I don't think I've ever brought Grace to a birthday party without her brothers before.  Since she's the middle child, she gets all the experiences that come with being "stuck in the middle."  Her personality - and the fact that she's a girl - will always prevent her from being the forgotten middle child.  But, even though she's not forgotten, she was very ready to soak up some individual attention!  She had so much fun at the party and was pretty independent.  She enjoyed the other kids and the party games, and she didn't have any moments of tears or angst like she normally would if our whole family had been there.  It was really fun to see how comfortable she was and what a good time she had at the party.

It was a lot of fun to spend some special time with my girl.

This One's for Ella and Delia

This is one of the little birds that likes the feeder you gave to us.  We took this picture through our window, while we were inside the dining room, so we wouldn't scare the birds.  Thank you for our bird feeder!

Boxes

A Few More Moving Pictures

Just a few more.  There may be others that trickle onto the blog as I settle into life here.  Maybe.

 So...I detest moving, and it was an extremely stressful experience.  BUT, I was behind this truck/trailer/couch combo two days before we moved, and I realized that I needed to be thankful that, at least, I wasn't strapping our couch to the top of a small trailer.  (And yes, I was at a red light when I took the picture.)

 Here we are, enjoying the play set on our last morning in the old place.  The set came with that house, and we left it there.  The kids miss it, but they have a pool instead, so they really can't shouldn't complain. Cheryl took the picture.  She came out to help with the kids while we moved, and we really appreciated her help.

This was the view from my new kitchen to my new family room on our first morning in the new place. The whole house looked like this.  It was overwhelming.

And, here's part of my experience packing us for family camp three weeks after our move.  It was really difficult to pack for a seven day trip when I was living in a chaotic home, and I've never felt less organized before a trip or less prepared for a trip.  But, family camp was the respite from our household chaos that I needed, and I'm so thankful we were able to get away for a week.

Three Pictures of a Fun Evening

Todd and Corinne and Charlotte came over the other evening, and these are my three favorite pictures from their time here.  You should take the time to click on the final picture and look at Charlotte's expression.  It's priceless.

Cousins.  I hope these two get to be better and better little buddies as time goes on.  A two-year age difference really isn't very much.

Some Moving Pictures

I don't think I posted very many moving pictures.  Probably because I was drowning!  But, here are three worth remembering.  I took the one of Benjamin on June 2, the first morning that we woke up in our new house, and the other two on June 6.  Wardrobe boxes make great slides!  And Grace is the one who chose that ensemble, I promise!

Shout-Out to a Great Dress Tutorial

I ran across the tutorial a few months ago for making this little girls' pillowcase dress with fat quarters. I fell in love with it and started scheming about what kind of little dresses I might make.  I don't have the time to sew, really, but somehow I got hooked on this super fun project anyway.  I think I started daydreaming about birthday dresses for my faraway twin nieces and also for my little girl.

I went to Hobby Lobby and looked through their bundles of fat quarters in 5-packs.  Most of the bundles are $9.99 per bundle, but if you use your 40% off coupon, that's about $6 for a little girls' dress...which is a bargain if you enjoy making it.  And I did.  The tutorial did an excellent job explaining all the details.  Here's the first dress I made, following the directions.  A birthday dress. I made it far in advance of her birthday, because I knew I wouldn't have the time as her birthday approached!  (Obviously my photography and staging are not as cute as you'll see on the tutorial.  But this is a family  blog, not a craft blog, so I'm not going to worry too much!)

She was moving most of the time she was wearing it, so it was hard to get a picture, but she loved her dress, and I was happy.

Here's the second dress I made...and I made three of them, just alike.  I had wanted to make something for my youngest twin nieces for their birthday, and it just so happened that we'd be visiting with them and taking pictures with them, so I made one of these dresses for each of the little girls.  The sizing guide in the directions was perfect.

(Note for those who might sew one of these: The original fat quarter bundle had TWO directional fabrics, both navy with birds.  This dress only allows for ONE directional fabric, and it has to be on the bottom border.  An up-and-down print put on the body of the dress would end up sideways. So, I just bought a bit of extra, coordinating fabric to replace one of the bird prints.  The purplish fabric on the lefthand side of the dress is the one I added.)

Here are the dresses in action...

 And sitting still, for a picture.

I realize that I never did write a post about the nice visit we had with Jeff's mom, and his sister, brother-in-law, and their girls.  It was around the time we were preparing for our move, and I was going a little crazy.  I trust that I will recover from the craziness at some point, but so far, 2013 has been pretty consumed by our move.  And I will write about our visit.  Sorry, that was a tangent...I love how the dresses turned out, had so much fun making them, and really appreciate that there are people out there who take the time to share their creativity!

Sisters Can Build, Too!

Here is Grace with the house she built.

Shelves for the Animals and Dollies

I found this idea on Pinterest, and I've been plotting to duplicate it ever since.  I thought it would be a great home for our well-loved stuffed animal population in each of the kids' rooms.  The shelves remind me of little swings for the animals.

Of course, I couldn't find the original source or directions on how to do it, so I just had to figure it out myself.  It looked to me like the creator used D-rings, strips of cute fabric sewn together, and boards cut to fit.  I decided to use two layers of 1 1/2" grosgrain ribbon instead of fabric, and IKEA EKBY shelves, which are already the right size.  I've been pondering how to do it for a long time, but the actual project didn't take very long, or cost very much.

And here are what D-rings look like in the packages.

I used a stud finder and marked the studs that I wanted to use to anchor the D-rings.  Here's what that looked like up close, with the ribbon threaded through the D rings.  (I added a second nail later, to secure the top D.)

Here's the first shelf I hung in Grace's room, with the studs still marked.

I made sure it was level and centered.  I had spent some time deciding how tall I wanted each shelf to be, and how high above little hands, and what size stuffed animals would fit.  Each one is between 14 and 16 inches tall, but I can adjust that later if I need to because the ribbons are just like a belt on the D rings.

For Grace's room, which is very polka dotty, I used polka dotted ribbon to hang the shelves.  They aren't exactly the way I pictured them, but Grace likes them, and they'll be easy to modify if I want to later.  And the animals and dollies look happy, right?

For the boys' room, which just has bright colors and boyish things, I used robot ribbon and red solid ribbon.  Jonathan told me it would have been better if I found ribbon with gears on it, but that doesn't seem to be a popular theme on ribbons, so robots had to do.  The shelves in both rooms are the same width, but the studs in the wall are farther apart in her room than in his, so the shelves look a little different.  The boys love them.  Now that they can see their animals better, Benjamin has been requesting different ones to sleep with a lot more often!

I'm thankful to have one more house project done.  After three months living here, I think I *almost* have the kids' rooms the way I want them.  I'm going to tackle hanging up their pictures next...now that I know how much wall space I have.

Jonathan's Plane

Jonathan still loves his The New Way Things Work book.

This page inspired him to make a plane.  He told me that he was going to make a working plane out of Legos.  I asked him if it would fly, but of course, he told me that he meant that it would have all of a real airplane's functions, but not actually fly.  Of course.

He looked up this set on brickset.com - the Sopwith Camel.

He used the directions as inspiration, figured out how the wing flaps and tail flaps would work, and made a joystick that would control all of them.  Here he is showing the functions to Jeff.  (He brought it to school to show to his teacher, too.

Here's the front of the plane...

and the working tail flaps...

and wing flaps and cockpit (sorry for the poor photography...)

and here's the underside of the plane.  It was pretty amazing.

Later, he modified it so that a pilot could control it.