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).

Princess Abby (for real this time)

I just realized that I never updated my blog with pictures of the Miss Crook County Pageant, which one of Dan's students participated in, and she had asked Abby to be one of her princess attendants.

So here are some pictures!

Before the dress rehearsal:

At Dress Rehearsal with Tonna, and Tonna's other princess, another Abigail!
Before the main event:



Introducing all the little princesses:
Walking with Tonna:

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!