In their Easter bonnets

The dresses are made from Oliver + S's family reunion pattern, and a friend of mine made the hats. The girls would hardly wear them today, but I did get some pictures :) These were Janette's first try at children's hats. She's working on opening a hat shop. The quality on these is fabulous. Oh, and about the only way to get great pictures of M1 is to have him interact with his siblings, especially the baby. Sweet boy.

Oliver + S sewing patterns

What a sweet little neck! This is the back of E's ice cream social shirt. I actually measured the girls before making these in order to pick the right size, and the fit is perfect. I love the button in the back. Have plans to make ice cream social dresses for the girls. The only issue is that I have a real tendency to buy fabric with one-way designs. And the yoke in this pattern is in one piece, so if I were to use a fabric with nap (one-way design), the back of the yoke would show the pattern upside-down. Issue.

These capes took forever, seems like. The pattern is quite straight-forward, nothing tricky, but because I was making two capes and each cape is lined, that means I really made four capes. And two of them were made with velvet, which was a royal pain. The blue cotton velveteen wasn't bad, but the polyester velvet was very slippery. Even with the walking foot. The girls wear these often to church, and E likes to be little blue riding hood rather often. My favorite moment was when we parked close to the kids' school and walked to pick them up. E was a bit cold, so she was wearing her longhorn dress plus the blue cloak. Awesome style. Another day, she wore her mermaid towel to pick them up. It's nice to be three.

Here's the front of V's ice cream shirt and an a-line skirt.

And the mermaid dress! I used the class picnic pattern, but lengthened it and shortened the sleeves (3/4 sleeves are not summer friendly in Texas). She loves it, but refused to wear it to church because it's a play dress, not a church dress. She's probably right. I've got some more Oliver + S patterns to use soon. I've got the fabric and buttons for the girls' Easter dresses. :)

V's 6

So, V turned 6 and I kinda didn't blog about it. But now I am! Here she is with the topping tornado from her awesome auntie. Basically, this is a little plastic thing that you pour sprinkles into, push a button a few times, and it makes the sprinkles swirl around! Yeah, there were sprinkles on all kinds of food for a few days. M1 got in on the action, too. It was a job for 2 little stinkers.

I've been sitting on this pattern for a while -- the 3 little bears sleeping bag pattern. V sleeps with two friends, Duckie and Sheepy. Now they have their own little places to sleep. See? I did quilting. These are so, so small, but I still thought finishing the binding would kill me. Part of that is because I was making very small stitches, since it's a toy. Part of that is because hand stitching is not my friend. Anyway, V squealed with joy when she put her toys in their sleeping bags.

She also had very specific requests for her birthday cake. Chocolate cake, vanilla icing and strawberries. She explained that perhaps we could put strawberries all over the top of the cake and then put a few strawberries with the tops still on them next to the cake and that would look really pretty. Ha. I'm not much of a display-focused cook. (Taste, baby, that's where it's at.) So I got into the spirit of it and E helped me make some chocolate-covered strawberries, and V happily helped decorate her own cake. Biggest smile all day was looking at the cake before we cut into it. So glad I could make her happy.

Wax Museum and other happenings

Here's E in her mermaid dress that I finally finished. I've had a rough couple of weeks with a teething baby, so it seems like this project has been start-and-stop -- OK, sewing when you have little kids is always start-and-stop, but it was worse than usual. While I was taking pictures, she kept asking, "How can I climb this tree?" and didn't want to go back inside, despite the chilly weather.

V just finished up a unit about Texas, and the kindergarten kids had a rodeo yesterday. They were asked to make their own stick horses and wear cowboy (or cowgirl!) gear. She was very excited about making a unicorn (the only one in the school, of course) and wondered if it was going to be creative enough. Ha. I was going to make one for E as well, per her request, but then I saw her swing the stick around. Think we'll pass.

M1 also had a school function recently -- apparently a long-running event at our elementary school. Each 2nd grader did a project about a famous American (they gave different centuries to each class and made sure there weren't duplicates). After doing a bunch of work (timelines, essays, portraits, etc.), they finished up with a wax museum. The kids memorized facts about their famous people, dressed up like them, and sat around until someone woke them up by pushing the buttons on their hands. Then they recited their information and asked, "Who am I?" I didn't realize how totally adorable this would be until I went. It wasn't possible to get a good shot of the kids together, but I wish I could have. So, so cute. M1 was Red Cloud. He led the most successful war Native Americans ever fought against white men, in case you were wondering.

And this is just a picture I find amusing. It's what happens when I ask V to keep the baby happy for a few minutes.

update

E is very flexible. I thought it was hilarious that she could fall asleep this way.

M2 is rolling over and creeping a lot. To distract him from teething pain, we go outside, watch the washer and dryer run, or watch E dance.

M1 is a cub scout! His first pack meeting was the pinewood derby. He won 3rd place in his age division. Pinewood derby is high tech. There was specialty software going on.

E spent one whole day like this. It was especially amusing peeking at her in the car.

Project Run & Play Junebug Remix

I decided to sew along for a few of the challenges over at Project Run & Play. This week is a remix of a cute little dress tutorial from Craftiness Is Not Optional. Here's my take on it. I used an asymmetrical color scheme -- 2/3 hand-dyed fabric (the orange fabric), 1/3 Kona cotton with texture. This particular length of fabric I dyed based on a project in Ann Johnston's Color by Accident. Lots of yellow and a bit of fuchsia. It's a no-closure dress, my favorite kind! My kids love clothes they can get on and off themselves. The pattern for the dress is mine (well, adapted from a sloper) -- with cues from the original Junebug dress.

The colors are very Starburst. E couldn't stop playing with the buttons, and although I didn't get quite the pictures I wanted, she was a trooper for being outside in the cold with just a cotton dress on! The yellow trim is made from more Kona cotton. Canary, I think.

There are a few rows of stitches at the bottom, for added interest.


I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but not as happy as E!

New Year's Goals

So I'm still working on my goals. I have several ideas, but I'm trying to find the balance between things that will benefit my life and things that are too ambitious when I've got a baby in the house. Tricky, that. My weight-loss goal is an easy one, since I'm already working on that. (I'm saying that it's an easy goal to make, not an easy one to achieve!) And some goals will come naturally, like having E totally potty trained, teaching M2 to sleep better, and eventually weaning my last child. Anyway, still mulling on some others. But the kids made some goals that are so amazingly cute.



M1's goals:
1. Learn how to rollerblade really well.
2. Read the Book of Mormon. (I had to talk him down from setting a goal to read all the scriptures -- meaning the Old & New Testament, plus the two LDS works: the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. I love this kid!)
3. Prepare for college. (Seriously, what's not to love here?!?)

Of course, he's also hoping to do some awesome stuff in Cub Scouts this year. First goal is to get his Bobcat by the next meeting.

V's goals:
1. Learn how to ride a bike.
2. Cook at least 1/4 of the recipes in her new cookbooks.
She's also hoping to grow some front teeth. This picture is her crazy, "look, I'm missing teeth" face. I hope she doesn't grow teeth too quickly.

I can't really remember E's goals, but I know learning to read was on the list. Of course, this is also a goal for her Mommy (by the same token, V's learning to ride a bike is a goal for Daddy to help her accomplish). And isn't this picture awesome? She was dancing around so much I kept getting crazy shots. That's my mother dying of laughter in the background.

M2 is hoping to get as many things into his mouth as possible and figure out how to move. He's got some serious food envy, so I think eating real food is on the list.