one sleepover = two skirts

Sydney went for her long-awaited sleepover at cousin Grace’s house last night. People, it was heaven. Sydney is not particularly difficult or anything, but having one child for 24 hours was an amazing gift. Thank you Aunt Sarah and Cousin Gracie!

And, yes, I realize now that I desperately need to clean my mirror.

Elias and I played a lot of Star Wars, had many funny conversations and I was able to sew not one, but two skirts! This includes one for me and adult skirts are a lot more difficult for me than pre-school ones. Mostly because 5 year olds don’t have curves to negotiate.

Sydney’s new skirt is partly for a party we’re going to tonight since I know she’ll want to dress up and I thought a fun, new party skirt made out of warm, sensible corduroy sounded fun. Mine won’t be leaving the house until April or June, depending on how long we have snow and cold, cold wind around here. I think I may look like a large blue marshmallow in this skirt, but the color is so happy that I’m going to try really hard to like it anyway. My fashion advisor (Nick) assures me it’s cute and already told me what I need to wear with it to “finish the outfit”. Yep, I married the best guy ever. He doubles as a sister or best girlfriend and it’s such a treat.

The bonus to the sleepover is that Sydney walked in the door, cried for 15 minutes for Aunt Sarah and Gracie to come back and then passed out on my bed. I’m almost tempted to start another sewing project since Elias is happily putting Chewbacca and his stuffed monkey down for a nap next to me on the couch.

Oh, and the tutorial for this skirt can be found here. I think the gal who wrote is a very experienced seamstress because her directions weren't real thorough and I had to make some serious adjustments on the waist.

a tardy valentine's day greeting

We’re still here! The last month or so has been a bit rough on me. I think I may have been teetering towards depression in the midst of the grey, windy weather, a series of illnesses that allowed me a few days of feeling good and then, bam, I was back down and my back kept going out so I couldn’t move and I had to keep going to the dentist. Yikes. I’m glad that’s over!

In the midst of my sick-bad back-funk we had a really fun Valentine’s Day. We made red velvet pancakes in the shape of hearts for breakfast; Sydney got the cutest ever valentine’s from her pre-school friends with them all attempting to write eachother’s names and their own and we had a feast for dinner with heart shaped pepperoni pizza for the kiddos, pear, carmelized onion and spinach pizza for us (sounds gross, but will knock your socks off…see InPraiseofLeftovers for the recipe) and, of course, molten chocolate cakes for dessert. Yum!

I hope your day was as filled with smiles and chocolate as ours was!

last winter's bag

I began this bag last winter, most likely when we were snowed in for a few days, using fabric I had in my stash. It started out following a Simplicity pattern, but I got all the way to the end and I didn't like the way it hung. I'd used too stiff of a batting and it hung just plain funny. I started a drop-in zipper for it, but something annoyed me along the way and I threw it to the back of my closet.

So, when I went to pack up all of my craft supplies for the move, I found this bag and decided to keep it and give it another try. I added a crochet flower (that came out a bit poofy, I need to fix that) and ended up with what is this winter's perfect bag. I can throw in all my essentials, some snacks for the kids, treats for my Sunday school class, a journal...and it never seems to be too full or too heavy. And, because it's grey, it goes with everything.

Yay!

from drab to fab

January is one of the hardest months of the year, I think. Once the magical glow of the Christmas tree is taken down and I have to actually turn on lights when I come out in the morning, life seems a bit drab and sad.

So, I put the time in and made our new living room curtains that are anything but sad. I bought 8 yards of fabric (from my sil's shop), which was the perfect amount for these curtains. I first carried around the 8 yards of fabric in a pile, smiling at how pretty it is and how wonderful the weight of 8 yards of nice fabric feels in a sewing girl's hands.

Cutting into the fabric was scary because I have been known to mis-cut fabric, but after the nail-biting inducing cuts, it was fun, fun, fun!

And, our living room is no longer a sad, post-Christmas space. yay!

January 10 on 10

I think I may be aging prematurely. I cannot seem to remember it is the 10th of the month for the whole day. I make it several hours and then space out. So, here is a partial journal of our day.

The best part? Going with a very excited, newly 5 year old to Claire's with her gift card and to Starbuck's for a treat, just us girls. We held hands and wandered through the mall for a bit and grinned at each other over the sparkle extravaganza that is Claire's. I so love that little girl who loves pink and sparkle and all things beautiful. I just can't figure out how this tomboy, lover of turquoise and lime green, has this girl!

Christmas in Hood River!

(this was the view out the kitchen window when we arrived at the cabin on Christmas Eve)

Christmas this year seemed extra special, maybe because we celebrated our little family Christmas in our new house. Maybe because we took a road trip on Christmas Eve. Maybe because the whole season was full of such celebratory fun. But, I am really hoping my kids keep some memories from this Christmas season, because it was a really great one.

I misplaced my camera on Christmas morning in an effort not to lose it, so I have very few photos from our week-long festival of birthdays, Christmas and New Year's Eve together with my family, which is kind of sad. But I have so many fun memories of the kids giggling in the basement, of playing cards with my sisters and mom, of walking through the cute town and getting excellent coffee with my sis, of the kids riding their scooters for hours on the covered porch and that one contactless moment of glee when I thought it had snowed on Christmas morning (with my contacts in, it was just frost).

I hope yours was lovely too!

She's 5!

After months and months of looking forward to this big milestone, my little girl is now officially big. She's looking forward to kindergarten in the fall, ballet classes this winter and hours of riding her new razor scooter in her hot pink tutu.

I still think that 4 was the most perfect age and I tried really hard to convince her to stay 4 forever. She said no, but she promised that even when she's as big as me and we share clothes, I can still call her baby. phew.
(Photo credit: I shamelessly stole the first two photos off my sil's blog. She captured my girl so well!)