Finishing February

I know I still owe ye ole faithful blog readers a post about Will's South Africa trip, but that is going to take me a while to process! In the meantime, here are a few more family things to wrap up the month.

(1) Another round of snow. 1-2 inches to be exact and two more days out of school.



(2) Future astronaut?

David loves to play dress-up with Claire. After Halloween last year, I bought him a couple of boy costumes at 75% off because we were getting a little concerned about all the dressing up in Claire's princess dresses. (Not really!) He loves the astronaut costume. He also loves the moon. He can spot it anytime it is out ... even in the daytime when it is barely visible.


Another boy costume ... Ninja fighter. (Please disregard the mess in the background. We had a few baskets of clean clothes to be put away, several bins of old clothes being priced for a consignment sale and the kids had emptied several bins of their toys from the playroom out in my bedroom floor!)



(3) Pajama day at school.

To celebrate the letter "P", Claire got to wear pajamas to school and eat a pancake breakfast with pink milk! There was absolutely no question that she would be wearing her Kitty White pajamas!



(4) Spiderman.

We celebrated Claire's friend B's birthday at Pump It Up complete with an appearance from Spiderman. He was a big hit with all the kids. Notice how we have finally progressed to having our pictures made with the characters. (David isn't quite there yet.)


Claire and the birthday boy.


The whole gang with Spiderman.



(5) Meme's birthday brunch.

We had my family over for Saturday morning brunch to celebrate Meme's birthday. I think this is our first time all together since Christmas.


My sister and I with Mom.


My mom and dad (aka Meme and Poppy).


All the grandkids.



(6) Just hanging out.

Claire and David love playing with Baby Luke on the floor. They are a big help to me. They better watch out because I have a feeling he will be crawling soon!



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Sew What: February 2011

Even though it is March ... who knew I would have another sewing post up so soon? Not me for sure.

Claire is "modeling" an outfit I bought from a friend. It is Castles & Crowns and still had the tags on it. It was size 2, but I think it was totally missized. We tried to wear it last year, and the pants and shirt were still HUGE! Well, this year it fit, but the pants were just barely too short.

REMEDY? Add a ruffle. I went to my favorite children's fabric store and found some cute polka dot fabric to match and added a ruffle.

Easy-peasy.

A close-up of the ruffle.

Meme came over one day and Claire put her to work making a doll dress. I'm just going to go on the record here and say that I will never make doll clothes. I hope I don't eat those words one day!

This top goes with the pink polka dot pants I made here. Love the butterfly corduroy fabric and the pink polka dot sash! This is the Louise pattern from Children's Corner that I shortened for a top.

I've had this super-cute asian inspired fabric for ages to make something for Claire. She loves it! I decided to make a tunic top to match some black leggings that she had. This outfit seriously took about an hour to make. I modified the Mod Kid Nina pattern long-sleeve top to add the red band and make the top a little longer. I also added bands on the sleeves. I will definitely make this again. So easy and so cute!!

Lastly, Claire loves this mermaid fabric and everytime she sees it she asks me to make her something. I found this cute pattern on etsy and made this dress in a size 5 (she probably won't wear it until next year). It was also easy to make once I figured out the somewhat confusing pattern instructions for making the ruffle around the neck. You can purchase the pattern here.

That is all for now. Coming soon ... Easter outfits!

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project SCRAP 2011: February

Personally, I am shocked that I finished my two layouts for February on March 1st. That must be some kind of record or something. But, I am on a roll ... and Photoshop is so much easier to navigate when you use it frequently (not once every 6 months to make Christmas cards and birthday party invitations).

Layout #1

Layout #2

project SCRAP 2011

Before I started sewing (shortly after Claire was born), scrapbooking was my one true crafty love. I still like to scrapbook, but since my three little kiddos came along, there has not been a whole lot of that going on.

When Claire was born, I had all of my scrapbooking up to date. I made a family album for each year and I have even gone back and scrapbooked my high school and college years and Will's summer in Lake Tahoe with Campus Crusade. Claire's baby book was "in progress" before she was born!

Now, I am still working on Claire and David's baby books and Luke's is yet to be started. As far as our family books are concerned, 2006 is complete and I have started 2007. Needless to say, I am very BEHIND! And I may never catch up until my kids go to college!

In 2008, I switched to digital scrapbooking (and have printed very few pictures since then). One of my favorite websites for digi scrapping is The Shabby Shoppe. They are currently sponsoring project SCRAP 2011. The goal is to have a 24-page finished book at the end of the year (a two-page spread for each month). Even though I still plan to go back (one day) and do a full family book for each year, I thought I would do this to have some current pictures scrapped (and possibly a nice little gift book for the grandparents at the end of the year). The Shabby Shoppe makes it really easy and even gives you two templates to use for each month. All I have to do is add pictures and my own papers and embellishments.

Here are my two pages for January. Instead of kind of doing an overview for each month as the project suggests, I am just going to pick an event/holiday from each month and scrap about that.

I hope to have my February pages up by the end of the week. February's theme is Valentine's Day of course! I am excited to be scrapping again!

Show me the Love

Some of the Valentine's Day festivities from this year ...

I helped with Claire's Valentine party at school.


Some of her favorite little girl friends. Miss L in the middle is one of Claire's favorite friends and she loves her some Hello Kitty (or Kitty White as Claire calls her).


Enjoying chocolate cake for breakfast. The donuts where a "no show" but sweets are sweets right.


Claire was upset that I wasn't sitting by her (I wasn't sitting anywhere) so Ms. Pam gave her a little love.


My friend Jennie and her middle girl Miss A.


A group photo ... only missing one little boy I think.


Me and my girl.


The kids loved opening all of their Valentines. David carried his "McQueen" cards around for several days later. They both got lots of sweet treats.


Claire got a special valentine from Bryson. His mom and babysitter tell me all the time how much Bryson talks about Claire and how he's even said he is going to marry her! When we were signing his birthday card the other day, Will said "don't put 'love, Claire', just put her name." He is too funny.


My three little loves.

On a side note, I never in a million years thought Luke would wear David's old heart plane onesie (size 9M), but it fit perfect! Claire's outfit was a dress made by my mom when she was two. I could barely button it around her arms this year. We will be retiring that one to my keepsake box (or giving it to my neighbor's niece Claire).

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Luke: 5 months old

Well, even if I am doing horribly at keeping the blog updated otherwise, at least I am keeping up with the ins and outs of baby Luke. That is a good thing because I probably won't get to his actual baby book until he is in college (at which time I will be 51 ... we discussed this at church last night).




Here are the highlights from age 5 months:

-trying to sit up a lot ... he is starting to sit in his bumbo seat for longer periods of time but I still have to watch him quite closely as he is prone to tumble over.

-reaching for and grasping small objects. He is really starting to play with all those little toys we have hanging around his head (in carseat, playmat, etc.). He has even grabbed big sister's hair a few times.

-He loves to smile! If you catch his eye, he will smile. He is quite the little flirt. I do have a hard time catching the sweet smile on camera. He is quite mesmerized with the camera.




-He has the sweetest laugh ... like music to my ears. Will can really get him going if he rubs his head on his tummy.

-Everything goes in the mouth. His hands are in his mouth all the time. So much so that sometimes he will gag himself and spit up. We have a big spit up about once a day, but that is about it. Lots of drool though.

-Wearing 6-9 month clothing. Most of his 6 month stuff is getting pretty snug. We are ready for spring so he can move up into big brother's spring/summer hand-me-downs.

-Wearing size 3 diapers, which has helped with the daily blow-outs we were having in the size 2 diapers.

-Eating oatmeal and baby food. So far, he has tried squash, carrots, sweet potatoes and peas. He is NOT A FAN of the peas. He is a really good eater!

-He babbles, squeals and turns toward sound. I think he is starting to recognize his name. That would be "Luke" or "Baby Wooke" as David says. And we have finally gotten the hang of calling him Luke instead of David. I was afraid that he was never going to recognize his name because we also called him the WRONG name.

-He can hold his upper body up on his tummy and will play there for a while. (See below). He can roll in both directions and he will roll all over the place. I will put him down on his playmat and leave the room for a second and when I come back, he is all the way on the other side of the room (unless he runs into an obstacle, like the coffeetable. Then he just starts screaming).




-He is sleeping through the night (from 8pm to 7-8am) in his bed. HOORAY!

-He is still taking three naps despite my valiant efforts to get him to two longer naps a day. One of his naps is usually a quick 30-minute cat nap so I know we are getting close to dropping it.

-Just like my other two kids, he loves his crocheted blankets. All three of my kids have handmade blankets from this sweet man in Will's parents' church. My mom has also made blankets for Luke and David (she is working on a blanket for Claire). Luke is posing on his blanket from Meme that he just received a couple of weeks ago. Such a treasure!



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We're still here!

I have not been the best blogger this year. Here is what have we been up to lately ...

This is my old Samantha American Girl Doll ... Claire doll-napped her from Meme's house ... will save us about $100. Score!


Playing in the snow. We've had a lot of snow this year. Last time I checked, we lived in the south. The kids love it though. We only had one really good sledding snow (back in January) and schools were out the entire week!




David's favorite thing about the snow was coming inside and bundling up in front of a movie and drinking hot chocolate. That boy loves him some chocolate.


That boy has also figured out how to get into the refrigerator. We may need to put a lock on it! (He also likes to run around in his underwear.)


Will went to South Africa on a trip with our church for 12 long days. We are so glad to have him back home safe and sound. He is showing the kids where he is going on a map. I promise to devote a whole other post to his trip (he took over 400 pictures), but you can read about his trip (from other bloggers) here, here and here.


Claire has finally started playing her Leapster after having it for 2 long years. It has kept her entertained on the many days we have been stuck inside.


David has always loved his Tag Jr. reader. I promise this is not a big plug for Leap Frog products. Ha!


This little guy is loving him some oatmeal. And this is about the messiest he gets. He does not waste any food.


Did I mentioned that my mom bought both kids roller skates? A little crazy, but the kids are getting the hang of it and it has been a fun indoor activity during a very cold January. Claire is pretty good and David manages ok on the carpet. When he gets to the tile in the kitchen, he sits and scoots until he hits carpet again.



Lots of sweet smiles from this little guy ... and some laughs too. Apparently, we are pretty funny.

Hopefully I will do a better job of keeping this thing updated the rest of 2011!

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