Sewing Dress-ups

Annie was invited to a birthday party this past weekend and she had her heart set on giving her friend something fancy to play dress-up in.  I'm not a fan of the price tag of store bought dress-ups, though, so we came up with a fun compromise.  I let Annie choose some fabric and ribbon (Total: $6) and then turned it into a mommy/ daughter project.

We were both excited, but I was praying it would go smoothly.  It seems like I always have crazy or frustrating things happen when I sit down to sew.

Here she is pinning pieces together.

 She did all the ironing.

We did hand over hand to operate the sewing machine.  She basically guided all the stitching through, and I controlled the machine and was there to keep the fabric from going too far out of line.  Then she fed the elastic through the waistband.

Voila!  She was quite proud of herself and I had her model it for me.

It actually turned out a lot better than I'd anticipated.  If it weren't for the very basic way we did the waist, it would have been a nice skirt for a taller girl.  

I took a close up of the fabric to show how pretty it was.  It was double layered with a basic cotton/ poly blend underneath, and a sheer sparkly material on top.

She gave it to her friend yesterday and I'm told that her friend wore it all day.  I'm glad it was a hit!  Little does Annie know she also chose a birthday present for herself.  I purchased twice the fabric I needed and am going to make her one for her birthday next month.

Kids Say

Logan, "Is Detroit a pretty good place to be kidnapped?"

Overheard at dinner, "This is awesome!"  "This is the best meal!"  Plus several more similar exclamations.  What did we have for dinner?  A salad bar.  Funny kids.

 As Abby crawled around the living room, Logan said, "I don't think Abby can steer yet!"

Alex, "I just like Dad.  Not you Mom."  Pause.  "Actually, I don't like Dad, I like you Mom."  Me, "You can like both of us."  Alex, "I don't want to."

Alex was telling me about his socks, "They was in my drawer when I was a wittle boy."

The kids were discussing how a small portion of our dining room isn't set over a permanent foundation.  Logan said that we needed to build a foundation for that part.  So Annie suggested we use the metal from the old silo on our property to do it.  Logan said that wasn't a good idea because we are going to turn the silo into a swimming pool!  Ha ha ha!  Jim's dad had jokingly suggested that, and Logan thought we were serious about it.  I had to burst his bubble.

Posing For Pictures

We've been taking a lot of pictures just for the fun of it lately.  I love some of these fun shots.

My cute girls, complete with a photo bombing brother.

This time we had the photo bombing dog, but Abby's precious face makes up for it.

The kids were playing dress up with the clean laundry pile.  Annie came downstairs telling me that she was a boy scout.

I think Logan was the laundry monster.

He is wearing Abby's pants and Annie's shirt.  Wow.

Alex was so funny.  None of his outfits were very unusual, but he thought he was hilarious.  One time he came downstairs with one of his own shirts on over his clothes.  He said, "I'm just me right now!"

Meanwhile, Abby was just cute as can be.

They particularly enjoyed dressing up in Jim's clothes.

Annie was pretty cute in my church outfit.

More baby cuteness.

I love this goofy kid.

About the time they quit playing dress up, I decided to pull out my 'real' camera for once.  So we took some shots of these wonderful face.

Abby wasn't a very willing participant, but I was happy to get some pictures that weren't blurry for once.

'Mr. Photo Resistant' required chocolate chip bribery to let me take his picture.

Annie is always willing for a picture.  (I just noticed the boy in the background.  Apparently he was fresh out of the bath; I'm glad he has a towel on.)

So Healthy Together

I'm doing the Lifetime Wellness Challenge again right now because it really helps me to have a little external motivation.  Circumstances are different this time around, so I'm exercising at home again.  Anyway, Annie and Logan have been enthusiastic about it too.  The first day I pulled out my hand weights they wanted to do it with me.  They couldn't lift my weights, though, so we found some food cans for them to use.  It was pretty awesome.

As we rotated through various exercises, Logan taught us several of his difficult gymnastics exercises.  He is one strong kid!  I couldn't do half of them.  I was especially impressed with the kids' planking.  They could plank for a LONG time.

Today they joined me for a dance party.  We were doing the chicken dance, the macarena, the bunny hop, the twist, and others.  It was so fun.  (And exhausting!)  I'm sure we were quite a sight!  They've also been excited about the food experiments I've been creating for lunch in an effort to have new ways to enjoy healthy options.

Princess Poof

Annie had an interesting hair week.  It started with some twisty knots that we decided to try in her hair. 

 They were cute in a strange way.

When we took them out another day this is what her hair looked like.  Whoa!

She was excited about the super kinky curls, so I attempted to tame it.  This was my best attempt.  She was cute in a crazy way.

The back reminded me of a matted poodle.  Ha ha!  It was a good thing we weren't planning to go anywhere public...

This morning I thoroughly brushed it all out before her bath because I wanted to see what would happen.  Double wow!  Annie thought this whole process was hilarious.

I love the faces she made.

A bath tamed it back to normal, and we even experimented with a new style for church.

She considered this 'princess hair'.  :)

Cooking Fun

We've had a few fun meals lately.  

Alex wanted me to read 'Green Eggs and Ham' one day.  Afterwards I asked him if he wanted to eat some and he was super enthusiastic.  So we made green eggs and hot dogs because I didn't have any ham.  I also sneaked spinach into it and he didn't notice thanks to the food coloring.  Ha ha!

Another day, Alex and Annie helped me make twice baked potatoes for lunch.  We mixed finely chopped broccoli in them.  Had I made this by myself they wouldn't have tasted it, but because they did most of the work they were excited about them.  They even had seconds!

I've been on an oatmeal kick lately.  We invented peanut butter oatmeal pancakes one day (quite tasty), and then one evening we had an oatmeal bar for dinner.  These were our topping options: coconut, banana, craisins, raisins, applesauce, grape jelly, almonds, peanut butter, vanilla yogurt, chocolate chips, and sprinkles.

We had very small servings so that we could go back to try various combinations.  It was super fun!  The kids favorite toppings were chocolate chips and sprinkles (no surprise there) but they had just about everything else too.