My Lil Owl's Birthday

My sweet little baby turned one last week.  It is hard to believe it though because its gone by so fast.  I've learned a lot about taking photos since her big sisters' first birthday photo shoot.  I still have so much to learn about my camera and maybe some day I will.  For now though I have improved and am happy with that. 

Look how much she has grown.  I took the photos in the same laundry basket.  She is getting to be such a big girl!

Her sisters wanted to help with the photo shoot.  D dressed up her bouncy horse with a tutu and earrings.  They both helped to keep M distracted so she wouldn't pull so much on the paper chain decorations or the blanket (the backdrop is just a blanket over her pack and play).

We celebrated her party on the 4th since daddy had that day off.  She got to wear a fluffy party dress thanks to Leila.  They make such adorable clothes for girls.

It was an owl theme with pale pinks and greens.  I covered a post with brown packing paper and blew up balloons for a tree.  I imagined the top much fuller, but apparently 14 balloons don't go as far as in my imagination. 

I made a couple tissue paper poofs and added eyes, a beak, feet and wings out of scrapbook paper.  I hung the little one from the tree.  The big pink one hung from the living room fan.

 

I made a collage out of baby pictures in the shape of a one.  They move from when she was newborn at the top left to 2 weeks ago on the bottom right.  It is neat seeing how much she has grown.

 



I would have liked to bake the cake.  Baking birthday cakes is something I've always done since I learned to bake.   Since I didn't have much time and my newly married sister-in-law's mother-in-law has a cake business, it seemed like a better idea (and much nicer looking one) to order it instead.  The cake was vanilla with chocolate in it.  It was so rich and delicious.  The gum paste owls that were perched on top of both the big cake and the smash cake are too cute.  I have to find out if they keep.  Maybe I'll save them in M's memory box. 

M liked eating the frosting and the chocolate ribbon on her vanilla cake but didn't smash it too much or get really messy. 

My one year old girl already walks a little by herself although she still prefers crawling for speed. She's a climber.  She's up on stools, step ladders, chairs, the couch and the coffee table every chance she gets.  She says mama, dada, Yeiya (for Leila), more and dog.  She can sign more and all done, she claps and tries to blow kisses.  She is pointing at things now, so I tell her what they are called.  I don't know if she is actually ahead of what her sisters were doing at this age or if I'm just busy with all of them, so not paying as much attention and time is going by so quickly. 

Happy New Year

2014 has come to an end.  It was a year full of change for us.  Starting of course with a new baby girl (who just had her first birthday) and followed by a move cross country back home to California.  It has been so nice living near family again.  We have settled into a rental here in Brea.  The community is nice, the neighborhood has good amenities, and shopping is very close.  I continue to slowly get the house in order but it already feels like home. 

We had a wonderful Christmas.  We rounded out our advent calendar with baking more cookies, seeing some neighborhood lights, trying unsuccessfully to get a picture with Santa, making Christmas cards and watching a couple Christmas movies.  We headed down to my sister's house for an insane Christmas Eve with 5 littles running around and opening presents.  We spent all Christmas Day at my in-laws.  My husband unfortunately was on call and had to head into work twice during the day but at least we were able to spend some of the day with him.

I hadn't planned on doing any New Year's resolutions this year but I did start thinking about goals and things I'd like to change when writing this post so here is my list:
1) to knit more than last year.  That isn't saying much since I only did a handful of small projects last year.  Already this year I have finished a pair of fingerless mitts for Oma and have started testing a pattern for a designer on Ravelry. 
2) to finish Baby M and Little H's growth charts and make M's baby quilt.  I have the applique ironed on the growth charts but need to stitch them down, add the ruler lines and quilt it all together.  For the baby quilt I still haven't decided on a pattern, although I do have most of the material.
3) organize and stick to a weekly cleaning schedule.  It was really nice having someone clean for us in Arkansas while I was pregnant and then trying to keep the house looking good for showings when we were trying to sell it.  I just can't justify having one now though.  If I organize my time and get the twins involved, it should be "easy" to keep this house clean.  Especially since the twins started a Tiny Tots program at the community center today that gets them out of the house for 2 1/2 hours for 3 days a week.  So I have no excuses.
4) have more alone time with my hubby without the kids interrupting.  Between the new baby and not living together for months while he worked in AR and the girls and I came back early to CA, our marriage has definitely taken its hits this past year.  Now that we are settled and M is older we deserve to get some time to ourselves.
5) be more patient with the twins.  I have been losing my temper more than I should and raising my voice too often.  Then they react badly to me yelling at them and it just gets worse.  I need to be a better example for them of how practice patience and self control.

I wish everyone a great adventures and good health in 2015! 
 

Cross Stitch Stocking Finished

Baby M's stocking is finished and all sewn together.  It has taken its place up beside her sisters' stockings.  They are currently on the china cabinet because I'm afraid of little hands pulling those heavy weights down off of the mantle. 

Activity Advent Calendar

Years ago when I lived in Tucson, I bought an advent calendar house.  I was so excited the first year I got it, and was so disappointed.  For some reason when I bought it, I imagined opening the doors each day to see what surprise was left for me, not thinking that as an adult no one fills it for me.  After eight years of moving around the country with the advent calendar in storage at Oma's house, I am finally using it again.  And it is exciting.  Although I don't get to open the doors, I get to watch the girls get so excited about doing it every morning.  And it is something wonderful to see.

 

I made a list of things I wanted to do this month with them and looked online for more ideas.  Then I wrote the ideas on slips of green paper.  To start I filled day one through day four, but it took me about 5 minutes on day one to realize that was a mistake.  The girls opened all of the doors and found the chocolates behind door two.  So now the last thing I do before going to bed is fill it for the next day.  This makes it nice because I can decide what to do based on what I feel like doing the next day and whether we have all the supplies.  If I'm tired and don't want to do a big project the next day, we watch a movie or they get a piece of chocolate.  Another thing making this easy on me is that they can't read yet. So if I wake up in the morning and don't feel up to doing what I planned, I just tell them something else is written (going to enjoy that while I can, since they will be reading it themselves one of these days).

 

This is roughly what we have done so far:


Day 1: Read a new Christmas book (pop up Twas the Night Before Christmas)

Day 2: Chocolate

Day 3: Watch Miracle on 34th Street

Day 4: Bake Cookies (Ina Garten's Rugelach)

Day 5: Learn a Christmas Carol (Frosty the Snowman) 

Day 6: Put up the Felt Christmas Tree

 

Day 7: Make Paper Chain Garlands

Day 8: Paint Snowflake Boxes (Baby M got to squish paint in a bag)

Day 9: Quarters

Day 10: Drink Hot Chocolate

Day 11: Make Cookies (we actually made fudge instead)

Day 12: Make Salt Dough Ornaments

Day 13: Read a new Christmas book (thank you, Connie, the girls loved the books you sent)

Day 14: Paint Salt Dough Ornaments

 
Also on our list are painting pinecones green and decorating them as trees, cutting out paper snowflakes, doing painted handprint or footprint pictures, along with watching A Christmas Story, and baking more cookies. As they get older I'll try to incorporate some service projects into it too.  This year we donated a toy to an organization that gives them to families in need, but the girls didn't really get it. 

This activity advent has been a nice way to celebrate the season and much more fun and healthier than just a piece of chocolate everyday.

 

Finally Fall

Fall has finally come to California.  Arkansas woke up to snow this morning.  We on the other hand had a beautiful, brisk fall day.  After lunch, the girls and I walked to our little neighborhood playground.  I laid out a picnic blanket for Baby M and me to snuggle on while the girls played.  Only she wasn't having any of it.  I'd set her down and immediately she'd start heading across the grass and into the sand to play with her sisters.  She's getting so big.

Although I am still busy unpacking, fixing and organizing things at our new place, the bulk of my crafting attention is now focused on M's Christmas stocking.  I want to finish it by the beginning of December.  It is all stitched, except for her name, a few missed stitches, and the backstitched outlines.  Then I have to sew it all together of course.  I have been working on it since July 2013 and should have it done some time before her first Christmas. 

 

We're off to See the Wizard

Well, this is take two of this post since all those times I pushed save did not apparently save the last version. 

 

We carved the twin's pumpkins the day before Halloween.  I used the girls' shape toys as a template for some neat star and cross eyes. The little saws in those carving kits are cheap and easy to bend but they do a great job maneuvering around corners.  The girls were very proud to help carve this year. 

 



The Halloween costumes turned out great.  Oma was a trooper.  She made little H's Dorothy jumper, Big H's tinman tunic and helped me out a enormous amount.  They all look so adorable together.  We mommas also got to dress up this year.  I found some witch's hats at Target for my sister and me, and I wore striped socks like the Wicked Witch of the East.

 

M's onesie, that I dyed, didn't look great and it was a little chilly, so she ended up in a brown First Thanksgiving bodysuit turned inside out.  She didn't really want to cooperate with wearing the lion's mane I had knitted around her face (and I don't really blame her), but she did keep it on when I set it on top of her head while trick or treating so that was something at least.  I drew a cat's nose and whiskers on her and she looked absolutely adorable.  But then she does even when she is not dressed up as the Cowardly Lion. 

 

Miss D loved being Glinda the Good Witch of the North (and yes, she says the whole title every time someone asks her what she was for Halloween).  The costume turned out really well, but if I had had more time I would have tried to make some big puffy sleeves out of tulle like Glinda had in the movie.  I did get a little bit of pouf in the peasant top but much less than I was hoping for. 

I made the peasant top of the dress using this tutorial.  Oma came for a visit the weekend before Halloween and by the time she left, all that was left to do was sew the body of D's dress together and hem it.  I cut out the material and pinned them, she sewed it together and made the casing for the elastic while I took care of the kids.  Then while she held the baby, I threaded the elastic through the casing, gathered the skirt and sewed it to the top and made a tutu.  Oma checked the length on T and hemmed hers while I nursed Baby M.  It was a great tag team approach that made it go by so fast. I am so thankful I wasn't stressing about these costumes trying to finish them at last minute.  Thank you, Oma!

I had hoped to sew the tulle material into the dress seam so it was all one piece but it would have taken more time and planning to figure out how to do that.  So instead I made a separate tutu to wear over the dress and pinned it in place with safety pins.  It is nice now because they can play in their costumes at home and take off the tutu when it gets in the way.

 

For the crown, I (for some strange reason) thought that two paper sized sheets of pink felt would be enough, silly me.  Luckily, I was able to find a little more from previous craft project and was able to sew together a sturdy and pretty decent looking crown.  First, I sewed all the pieces into a cylinder that fit her head.  Then I folded that in half, wrong sides together and top stitched along the fold to make it sturdy.  I used the handy star shape toy that I had also used on the pumpkins to trace stars on the felt and then I sewed just inside the line I had made.  I trimmed everything from the line out to complete the shape. I had bought some spray on glitter but the can jammed almost immediately, so sadly only a small part got any glitter.  If I had not waited til last minute, I could have gotten more glitter or something else shiny to glue on it. 

Oma and I made T's dress the same way as D's with orange cotton.  The only difference being that I didn't gather the sleeves with elastic.  I love all the colors in her tutu and the sunflower clip I bought to go with it.  Oma also sewed a few fall leaves on the top.

 

Her hat was an interesting mess but it looked great.  I also only had two sheets of tan felt.  I used their current sun hats, that are a little snug, for sizing since they were asleep when I made it and it turned out a little too small.  I just sewed all the scraps together after cutting out the brim, which made an interesting shape but turned out pretty flat due to lack of materials.  I twisted some yellow tulle leftover from the tutu and sewed it to cover the seam and sewed a few puffs on with fall leaves to look like straw.  Then I made cuts on the brim about an inch an a half in and a centimeter wide so it would look more ragged. It was too small and also too short but looked good perched up on top of her head anyway.


 

 

The costumes all looked so great together.  We only made it to about four houses in my sister's neighborhood because of tripping, falling into a rose bush to avoid a little sniffing dog, trying to eat the candy--wrapper and all--and anything else you could think of that would slow a group of pre school/toddler/babies down.  But they enjoyed it and got to watch Wizard of Oz afterward.  So all of the pink for Glinda's dress and the slippers being red instead of silver like in the book finally made sense.

Next year we'll have to come up with another great theme and hopefully I'll have my act together a bit more and get everything done ahead of time.

 

Halloween is Coming up Fast!

I have made very little progress on the Halloween costumes because we have been busy painting, cleaning and moving.  I have managed to pull my sewing machine out of the box it has been in the last 6-8 months.  However, I don't have a table to set it up on unless I put it on the dining table.  I really want to avoid that, but it may come to it if I don't find a good table at a yard sale soon.

I had started resizing a boys long sleeve shirt I got at a thrift store for T's scarecrow costume but she didn't like the color and it took so much effort to get her to try it on to size it that I gave up and scraped it.  Instead I will do a dress in fall colors and forget trying to make it look like on the movie.  It just isn't worth the effort to make something she doesn't want to wear anyway.

I finished dying baby M's onesie and it didn't turn out as well as I had dreamed, though it was pretty close to what I expected.  I'm thinking of buying pants and a long sleeve shirt anyway since it might be chilly enough.  She also yanks her lions mane off at first chance so that will be fun to deal with too.

I have bought all of the material to make D and T's dresses and have started cutting out T's.  I'm hoping to start sewing them in the next couple nights.  I definitely need to start by the weekend.  I'll probably have to put in some late nights to get it done without interruptions.   

So I am a bit sad and stressed about these costumes.  At least I got a couple pumpkins and some pumpkin butter at Trader Joe's this morning, so thing aren't all that bad.