Summer Time!

Summer is a really busy time around our house, and time just seems to slip away too quickly!

Abby has swim lessons coming up in a couple of weeks now, and needed some more swim class appropriate swimsuits. So today I got cracking on those.

I did make Abby two one pieces, and Andraya a one-piece, but their favorites were the two-piece suits I made them. Andraya put it on, and said, "Oh! You made me a broken swim suit! Like my dora broken swim suit!" I said, "Why is it broken?" And she relied, "See mama, it's broken right here, where my tummy sticks out!" I love kids and the way their minds work :)



I am so pleased with how they turned out, and now the girls are set for summer, playing in the sprinkler and in the pool!

Big Catch Up Post!

Well, it's been over a month since my last blog post. What have we accomplished in that time??

A Cow-Cow birthday party for a very special three year old:






A Preschool Graduation for our little graduate:







And a bit of sewing mixed in!







All in all, a great, wonderful, busy time!

Andraya's birthday party was wonderful, with family coming to visit and celebrate with us. Abby was the best big sister, as she decided that she wanted to buy Andraya a special breakfast of doughnuts, with her own money!! So on Andraya's birthday, Abby woke up very early and got Grandpa Bob out of bed (who had spent the night with us), and had him take her to get Andraya doughnuts - at 6:30 am on a Sunday morning. It was incredibly sweet! Andraya got spoiled for her birthday, and is really enjoying playing with everything. I think the cow cow party was a success!

Abby's graduation was way too cute, as a preschool graduation should be. They were all bumblebees, and sang different bumblebee songs (the embedded video is one). Abby was the announcer for the evening, and she did such a great job. A year ago, she never would have trumped up onto their "stage" and announced the songs they were going to sing to a crowd of over 70 people. She is growing up right before our eyes.

Dan is off of work now for the summer, and has been getting a LOT done around the house. The girls are home from daycare for the summer, and really enjoy helping him do everything (though sometimes I wonder about the level of help they provide).

Back to the grind

I have been working on a huge custom order, and finally completed it and mailed it out this week! So I am taking advantage of some free time to sew for my girls, and also to sew up some instock for my cart.

I decided to start easy and quick, and made them both a couple of dresses yesterday afternoon.

Abby got a mock cross dress from a very spring like print with asian lanterns and fans. I love this print, and I think the color is just perfect for spring!



Andraya found some pink camo knit on the fabric shelves, and asked for a dress with a heart. And a pocket. Okay. Hmmm...... She also needs things with pants for transitional items, because apparently when you are almost three, you think it's funny to grow about 3 inches all of the sudden, making all your pants too short, with 5 weeks left of cooler weather. :) Little stinker!

So this is what I came up with for her, with matching leggings:



That was the one still pose out of many. Most looked like this:


I also sewed up a few things in the girls sizes for my cart. I will photograph those later today, and get my Hyena Cart stocked!

Another project completed

Apparently this is the week/weekend for getting long planned projects out of the way. First was the swing set we have been planning for spring and summer. Next came Abby's dress for the upcoming pageant. If you have read my blog, Abby is going to be a princess for a contestant in the Miss Crook County/Miss Prineville pageant, and needed an appropriate princess dress to wear (in about two weeks).

The contestant is wearing a red dress, so I thought Abby should go neutral, with a nice white. For an instant I had extravagant plans, and scoured my favorite fabric shops in person and online for lovely fabric. However, I came to my senses before I hit "send order." First off, she's five. Secondly, this isn't *her* pageant or anything of that sort. And lastly, although dupioni silk would have been lovely to work with, I also came to the realization I was having caviar fantasies when my budget was more along the hot dog lines :)

So, coming to my senses, I ran into JoAnns, and picked up a very nice weight, very pretty embroidered satin. It wasn't lovely to work with by any means. It raveled almost instantly, so it forced me to gain a lot of practice on french seaming. But it hangs nicely, and all in all didn't fight me too much. And I think the resulting dress is just perfect!

Here she is modeling it (with her "I've been playing all day" hair):


Back:


Sweet Princess Pose:

It's a full circle skirt, so it's also very spinny!


I am really relieved this is done, so it's not weighing on my mind. With the purchase of the sweet white shoes today, she is all ready for the pageant!

It's Done!!

The swing set is done!

It takes up quite a bit of room in our decent sized backyard, but it's worth it!



Helping Abby do the monkey bars:


Abby Sliding:
Andraya's turn!
Daddy, my turn!!
Swinging - that smile makes it all worth it!

The girls are in seventh heaven, which is exactly what we were hoping for. There are enough things to do on it, I don't think they will get bored anytime soon!

Summer is coming

Even though it's about 40 degrees outside right now!

Most of our family has heard that Dan's school district is ending school May 20 (instead of June 13) due to budget shortfalls. Of course this will have a financial impact on our family, but thankfully we are able to adjust some things and make it impact us less.

One of the changes we decided to make was to pull the girls out of their preschool/daycare this summer. They only go a half day during the school year, and they have so much fun there playing, doing art, and all those things that wear them out and make them sleep better. Usually they just continue to do this in the summer for fun, but unfortunately with Daddy's loss in pay, it's an expense we have to cut.

One thing that Dan and I agreed to do was to invest in a swing set for our backyard, something they can go out and play on for (hopefully) extended periods of time. Our budget wasn't a whole lot (equal to about one month's daycare bill), but we were able to get the girls a nice wooden playset:



They are very excited! Now we just have to assemble it. There's a lot of heavy boxes and a LOT of parts. The book even says it will take 6-12 hours to assemble, and I think that's not counting any squabbles over assembly :) So we'll see how it goes!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Abby announced last night that none of the semi-green things in her closet were suitable for the preschool party today, and asked me very nicely to make her something that would be perfect. Of course, being a spoiled child of a sewing mama, demanding new clothing is not a huge inconvenience.

So, I embroidered and made them each a new raglan, with the last little bit of kelly green knit I found in my scrap basket. At first, while searching for embroideries, I was going to go with shamrocks or something just as festive and typical to the holiday, but then I remembered my goal for this year to make holiday shirts that will be worn again.

I had admired these angels at Emblibrary, but wasn't quite sure what to use them for. However, with green dresses, they worked out perfectly!

Here are my little goofball girls, all ready to go to school:


And they really do love each other (either that, or Draya is secretly planning to knock Abby down):


They had a great party! And reported that neither one of them got pinched ;)

Princess Abby

One of Dan's students is running for Miss Crook County/Miss Prineville, and needs a little girl to be her princess at the competition. After pulling some strings because Abby is not yet 6 (as required by the rules), she got approval for her to participate. We are looking forward to the pageant, Abby will just feel so special! I am working on making her a suitable dress for it (still in the muslin phases), which is very exciting for me.

As one of the fundraisers for the pageant, the contestants for Miss Crook County/Miss Prineville put on a princess party for the girls in the community. It was really quite fun! They got their picture taken with a contestant, received a tiara and a sash, and then we ate a light lunch and played games. It really was very cute to see all these little girls all fancied up for a few hours.

Here is Abby, all dressed up and ready to go:


Playing a game (that is Tonna, who she will be in the pageant with):

Picking a prize, in a princess like manner:

Yay!:

The pageant is on April 11, we are looking forward to it! Not something I would normally be involved in, but Abby is beside herself, and being a mom is sometimes about making your kid happy above all else.

Playdresses

With two little girls in this house, I get a lot of requests for dresses, especially from the big one! I do enjoy making them dresses, but I have been in a huge rut.

As far as knit playdresses go, I am quite picky. There are a lot of styles I don't care for over a certain age, although I don't judge those that do prefer them. One dress I have always really loved the fit of is the Olivia by Farbenmix. I usually just make the underdress on that pattern, which makes a very cute knit playdress.

But, looking back through pictures, that's all my girls wear! I know I have made it a lot, but I didn't realize I had made them THAT many. They will still get some for summer, but I obviously need to change things up a bit.

So, I am trying to broaden my knit playdress horizons. Today I decided to give the Henrika, also from Farbenmix, a trial run. It's basically a drop waist playdress with a full circle skirt, very cute! There are lots of options to add ruffles and all sorts of things, but for the trial run I kept it pretty plain.

I used a Flap Happy overrun fabric, I love this print! I haven't found the perfect use for it yet, but I really like how the fabric works so well with this style of dress. I also used the matching stripe I was able to get to make a pair of leggings, so this cute dress can be worn now while it's still a bit chilly outside:


Abby really liked it, which was a bonus. I think it's very flattering on her:

And like any princess girl, she is most impressed with the twirl factor of the full circle skirt:



The dress went together really easily, and I think I might have another Farbenmix pattern that will become a regular in their closets! Draya will definitely get a dress in this style, I am still thinking about the perfect fabric for hers.

Deja Vu

Dan was looking through old pictures tonight, and we were really surprised at how alike our daughters look at the same ages!!

Abby at a little over 2 years (notice her sense of fashion went back to a very young age):


Andraya at 2 years, 7 months:


Andraya at 2 years, 5 months:

And Abby on her second Birthday with Grandpa Bob:


I just could not get over it, they look so much alike! And it cracks me up that they have the exact same cheesy grin! Dan and I are also thankful that we have moved consistently over the past few years, otherwise some of these pictures would be hard to tell apart in the future! But with the backgrounds changing, we'll be able to use that as a reference to tell which kiddo it is, thank goodness!!

When your five year old teaches you new things!

I think that is one of the best things in the world!

Abby goes to what I consider to be a fantastic preschool. After one year there, she knew all of her letter sounds, was able to read with some help, could sight read a handful of words, write legibly, tell simple time, the list goes on and on. Since her birthday is in October, she is spending another year there because she was too young to start Kindergarten. This second year has just really reinforced everything, and she is really Kindergarten ready. She can now read simple books with little or no assistance, and is just a very well rounded student. I am constantly amazed by her.

They do spend a lot of time just learning about topics related to different events throughout the year. Naturally this month her class has been learning about Abraham Lincoln. They have learned a few fun songs, and learned about things he did. She comes home and shares these with us, and most of them are familiar. He helped to free the slaves (and yes, we leave it at that simple idea), he carried important documents in his tall hat, he was very tall himself, just random facts about the man.

This weekend she asked us, "Do you know how Abraham Lincoln's mother died?" I responded with an honest "No." Abby proceeded to tell us, "She died from a snake. It didn't bite her, but a cow ate it and she died." Now, I am very happy to learn new things from my five year old, but this had me a little bit confused. So, a quick Google search (thank goodness for Google, I don't know how parents a generation ago clarified things like this without Google!!), revealed that Abraham Lincoln's mother died of Milk Sickness. She contracted milk sickness from drinking milk from a cow that had eaten white snakeroot, passing the toxins on to humans in the milk.

We went back over this with Abby, who stated, "Oh yeah, that's what happened. Yep!" I honestly had never learned this before, and it was pretty interesting to me I love learning things from my five year old :)

Snow is fun!

We got another round of snow, so the girls were out taking advantage of it:


They get so excited to see snow, and so does Whip. Stretch tends to hang out inside when it's snowy outside, he's a little tender.

It's still mama made, but now longer lasting!

I really enjoy sewing special shirts or outfits for my girls for each and every holiday, it's something that I enjoy! The hunt for the perfect fabric for the occasion, then the design and construction of the perfect garment for that special day, all made with mama's love. Then, the outfits are worn on that perfect day, and usually another day around the holiday or occasion, and then they are thrown to the back of the closet never to be seen again.

*sigh*

So yes, while I enjoy it, I have also become frustrated with the special shirts I make that scream a certain holiday or occasion (like last year's Valentine Shirts) that are worn once or twice, and then never again.

So I have been attempting to make outfits that are appropriately festive for a holiday or occasion, but will still be worn before and after without screaming "I AM A VALENTINE SHIRT!!" or something similar.

This year, when I saw the mad sky hearts and mad sky chickadees in stock at an online fabric store, I knew that the fabrics would be perfect for valentines, but would not look odd worn all year long. So I took the mad sky hearts and made Abby a tee shortly before Christmas, and then for Andraya I made a chickadee outfit about a month ago.

Their Valentine parties are happening at preschool today, so they happily got dressed this morning in clothes they have worn before and will wear again, but yet they look so festive for their parties!



I know I got lucky with these fabrics working out so well! Let's hope I can do it again sometime!

Sense of Style

The conversation today:

Abby: "Mom, are we going anywhere today?"

Mom: "I wasn't planning on it, we did all of our errands yesterday and I have chores to get done today."

Abby: "So, can I wear whatever I want?"

Mom: "Sure, it doesn't matter."

About 20 minutes pass

Abby: "MOM! Don't I look soooo cute???"


She does have a daring sense of fashion! (And yes, she will most likely want to strangle me for this when she is a teenager, but isn't that one of the bonuses of being a mom? :) )

Photography by Draya

Andraya took such a cute picture of Abby and I today! I am usually the one behind the camera, so I had to share this: