Snow Day...

We had a snow day yesterday.  The kids begged all morning to go out and play in it.  I really dislike taking the girls out to play in the snow, because Claire is too young to go out on her own and usually it takes at least 15 minutes to get them all ready to go out and then they only want to be out for 20 minutes.  But I sucked it up and took them out after lunch.  The lasted almost 45 minutes, and we definitely had lots of fun.  Nothing like a snowball "fight" with an almost 3 year old.  Here are a few highlights...

Claire refused to go down the slide so she just cleaned everything off. 

Close up of Kate before making her snow angel 

"The biggest snow angel ever, Mom!" 

 Claire just "hanging out" on the swingset

 Kate after making a huge pile of snow for all her snowballs.

Claire chasing me with a snowball - "I'm dunna det you Mama!"

Craziness

I can't believe I haven't written in 3 months.  Wow.  This summer has been CRAZY, but at the same time it doesn't seem like we've done much!  Let me see if I can sum up our last 3 months... trips to the waterpark at Kings Island, speech therapy for Claire (she has made AMAZING progress this summer), VBS, a family reunion, summer ballet class, soccer practices ending and then starting again for the fall, and preparations for both girls to start school.  In less than 3 weeks, Kate will start Kindergarten (how in the heck is that happening?!?!) and Claire will start preschool!  I am not one to lament the passing of time, but somehow realizing that both my girls will be in school this year and that Kate starts riding the bus does make me nostalgic.  At church, Kate moved up to the Kindergarten "class" in early June, and somehow the realization that I'm now the parent of an elementary aged child makes me feel old.

Claire has been taking weekly private speech therapy this summer and has been making amazing progress. She is now linking up to 5 words together (with some prompting), using 2-3 words consistently with no prompting, and is articulating much more clearly.  The past two weeks at speech, she's even said "cake" and "cook" instead of "take" and "took".  She has been able to get the K sound on the ends of words for a while, but the beginning has been a challenge.  Miss Susan is a miracle worker, however, and we're now getting Ks on the front of the words, at least some of the time.

Kate took a 2 week summer dance sampler and has discovered tap.  She loves it.  She's taking a ballet/tap combo class this year (during Claire's preschool on  Tues mornings, so I will have approx 1 hour to grocery shop in peace every week during Kate's class.  I am more excited about this than Kate is about dance class, I think!).  She's also playing SAY soccer again this fall.  This is the first season Mark has not helped coach her team.  I may have to force him to go back to coaching after this.  I'm kidding.  Kind of.  Her coach is coaching 3 teams in 2 leagues this fall and practice times have been a nightmare. However, Kate's playing on the same team as one of the girls from her preschool class last year, so that's fun.

I'll sign off with a few pictures from our family reunion last month.  By most people's standards, it would hardly count as a family reunion (there were only 19 people at it, and that includes all he cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmas & grandpas and even my great aunt!), but we get together every summer with my mom's family and it's so much fun.  

Kate & Max checking out Alex's DS... they were enthralled.

Kate showing off her slip n slide skills

Love this photo of Kate - I crouched right at the end of the slide and snapped it at eye level.

More mad slip n' slide skills...

My cousin Michael getting in on the action.  He's about 6'4".  It was hilarious.

Nice expression, Alex.  :)

Claire's version of the slip n' slide consisted of her crawling the length of the slide.

Claire's dismount

Alex torturing his sister Maggie

These girls walked down the path to the community park in my aunt's backyard.  All conversation stopped for a good 3 minutes while we gawked at their outfits in disbelief.  This was taken in 2010, not 1986.  But were it not for me telling you, you'd never have known that.

Alex getting crazy with the younger cousins....

Gatlinburg Retreat

This past weekend, we went on a retreat with other leaders from our church to Gatlinburg.  We LOVE our church - Four Corners Church - and this was a really fun weekend.  I lead the early childhood area of our kids ministry, and this was an opportunity for people to just hang out and relax and get to know each other better.  We stayed in a 14 bedroom cabin on the side of a hill, with the steepest driveway known to man - we have a manual transmission and the first time made the mistake of stopping at the bottom of the drive.  I kid you not it took us 3 attempts to get up the bottom part of the driveway and you could smell our clutch for at least a day afterwards.  Wow.

The other fun part to the trip is that on the 13th, Mark and I will celebrate our 10th anniversary.  We spent our honeymoon in Gatlinburg, and so coming back for the first time almost 10 years to the day with the family was pretty fun, and a reminder of just how much things have changed (for the good) in 10 years.  Mark even took Kate miniature golfing at the same place he and I went on our honeymoon. :)

Here are some highlights from the trip....

The view from the cabin balcony

The view inside the cabin - a.k.a the "Lodge-ball" arena.  Lodge-ball claimed the saddle on the cross beam, several lampshades from the chandelier and at least one chandelier light bulb.  All was back to normal when we left on Sat.

Kate playing one of many games of air hockey.

Claire just being her adorable self, sitting in a window.

Sunset from the cabin balcony on Thurs. night

Kate "swimming" in the hot tub (we turned it way down and a bunch of the kids had a blast in it).

"Bouldering" in the Greenbrier area of Smoky Mountain Nat'l Park

Kate at the TN/NC border sign - I took a picture of Mark at this sign almost 10 years to the day before this picture was taken, while we were in Gatlinburg on our honeymoon.  My how times have changed in 10 years.

My awesome family posed on "the biggest rock in the whole world" according to Kate.

Claire chowing down on some bread before we headed home on Sat.

Catching Up

Wow, this has been a busy spring.  Really busy.  Here are some of the things we've been up to:

Claire has discovered nail polish, and if I don't have the time to paint her nails then she'll do it herself using marker.  Sigh.  I should have been suspicious when she was quiet in the car for way to long....

We had to put a childproof knob on the pantry because about 5 times a day Claire would come hand me either the oatmeal jar or the peanuts from the pantry and say "eat".  I am happy she has a word, but I began to wonder how much oatmeal a 2 year old could eat.  I guess it keeps her regular...

                

As I write this post, Kate is proudly helping Daddy fold laundry (have I mentioned how awesome my husband is?  He does over half of the laundry around here!).  This is one of the first times that I have not had to put quotation marks around help.  She's even folding shirts with only a little help straightening from her a bit too Type A Daddy.  Here she is very proudly holding up a shirt she folded.

And of course, if big sister is doing something, Claire has to do it too... after these photos she stood up and said "Dah!" (her version of Ta-da) and then "All Done!"

                  

This morning is Kate's Mother's Day program at preschool, which she is super excited about.  I'm sure I will have many more pictures from it...

My Favorite Time of Day

I love it when my husband walks in the door from work each day.  I'm always glad to see him, and I'm often very glad to have him entertain the girls for a while while I make dinner or get a little break.  Some days I am VERY glad, if you know what I mean (i.e. - here are YOUR children I am disowning them for the time being).  Today was one of those days.  Sigh.

Both girls generally love it when Mark gets home (Claire's a little more hit-or-miss on that subject than Kate is, since she is more of a "Momma's girl") and situations such as this often arise:

This was the take down and tackle of the Daddy tickle robot.

First Claire's turn.

Then Kate.

Then Claire goes in for the assist.

Just another reason why my husband rocks - I'm sure after a long day at work being attacked by two young children isn't necessarily the most "relaxing" time, but he does it with a smile. 

My little Ballerina

Kate got her dance recital costume this morning.  It was practically better than Christmas morning for her. She begged and begged to wear it once she got home, so before dinner I caved and let her wear it for about 20 minutes.  She had to put on "elegant music" and dance for me, Mark and Claire.  When she prayed tonight we had to thank God for her beautiful new costume.

Note the nice hot chocolate traces all over her mouth.  It goes so well with the fancy costume, doesn't it? You can't see it very well but there is even a necklace/choker that goes with it that is made of "diamonds" according to Kate.  The thing that always kills me with costumes like this is how expensive they are and how cheaply they are slapped together. I'm going to have to cover all the seams at her arms because they sewed the sequin trim right into the armhole and it is really scratchy.  Really, really scratchy.  This really irks me.

Kate also lovingly indulged her sister in her favorite activity today - being pushed around in a doll stroller.  This is a stroller I got at a garage sale for $1 when Kate was about Claire's age.  One wheel is pushed out and wobbles and it always tries to fold closed on Claire when she sits in it.  This doesn't phase her in the least.  She sits in it and promptly says "Mama! Date! (kate) Dada!" hoping that one of us will push her in it.  I'm waiting for the wheel to come off and her to end up on her rear end on the floor.  We shall see.

The final topping on Kate's day was a handmade amigurumi (crocheted doll) from my friend Amber.  It is pink and red (Kate's two favorite colors) and white, and has a little flower on it's head.  It's adorable.  Kate christened it "Snuggly" and insisted on sleeping with it and giving it a goodnight kiss.  I'm sorry, Kate would correct me here - giving HER a goodnight kiss.  "It's a girl mom!"  Here's what she looked like when I went up to check on her earlier this evening.

Upcycled Tote

Here's a tote I made last night.  It started as a man's size L button down shirt (thank you to my husband Mark for his donation to this project) and some ancient quilting fabric handed down to me from my mom (only used about 3/4 yds of the 7 yds I have - more pink projects on the way I think!)

I basically just cut the shirt apart at the seams, cut the top yoke and collar off and then used the fabric to cut out the pieces of my tote like I would on regular fabric.  I just made sure that the front piece of the tote had the buttons and front shirt pocket on it.  I also used no-sew hem tape and ironed it in between the buttons on the front shirt placket so that it didn't gap and show the interfacing.

I ironed Pellon 978 fusible fleece to the gray shirt pieces to give it a bit of padding, and then on the pink lining pieces I just ironed on midweight fusible interfacing.  The inside has two pockets - one that is about 9x9 (finished size) that holds a couple of diapers and travel wipes really well and another that is about 6x9 that holds small stuff like gum, cell phone, ipod, etc.  The outside pocket of the bag is the pocket of the shirt, which I embellished with pink grosgrain ribbon (I ironed this one at the end with no-sew hem tape - next time I will sew it on before assembling the bag) and a faux bow.

The tote is modeled after the "Charm Party Tote" pattern from Quilts Illustrated, just for dimensions, basically. I think I'd honestly like the tote to be a bit taller and narrower so that more buttons show - I think I'll offset the buttons to the side of the tote if it's taller.

Not bad for a first attempt I think.  Right now I'm on a kick of converting men's dress shirts into other things - girls peasant dresses, totes, and I'm thinking maybe even a shirt for myself sometime soon.

I'm linking this up to the "Get Your Craft On" day at Today's Creative Blog, "Tip Me Tuesday" at Tip Junkie, and Do It Yourself Day at A Soft Place to Land

Here's what my girls did this morning - the box from our new bathroom vanity is now a house.  Kate ate her breakfast in the house.  Claire screamed that she couldn't also fit in the house at the same time.  Sigh.