Simplicity 5504

I made Anna another dress!

I started Sunday night after she went to bed and finished in a squeezy bit of time Monday afternoon.
She is not into cooperating for pictures lately, so it's hard to tell that there are sweet pink roses and thin blue stripes. I think this is a calico? It's pretty, whatever it is.

We decided to put a really ruffled piece of lace on the bottom, just for fun. And because I really like to put something on the bottom, because then I don't worry so much if the hem is straight.

Sewing with patterns might be getting a teensy bit easier. :)

Internet meets real world

Last Friday I had one of those days that turns out entirely different than you expect. My plan was to go right home after school and get to work. I had a much better day instead.

First I had to go to town to pick up Anna, so I got to swim. I am really loving swimming every day. It's amazing that I never thought to join the YMCA before now. I swim a mile 3 times a week, and about 1000 yards the other days. If I time it right, I get done in time to change and watch the last 30 minutes of Days of Our Lives while walking on the treadmill, and then I pick up Anna from school.

Anyhoo-back to my day. Then Linda called and told me she was reading a poem at GCCC, and that I should go and meet Shauna and her family there. What a treat! I haven't seen Shauna in years, but we're connected via this wonderful Internet.

Here's Linda's poem, a delight as always.

Like Pudding by Linda Lobmeyer

It can be an instant sensation-

like pudding, like chocolate,

which tastes best from the instant,

or it can be like butterscotch,

which is much better from

the cook-n-serve (stirred

and stirred). Smooth,

spongy on top, sweet

on the tongue. It's simple

pleasure: love like pudding.

A heart reaches

for a spoon and punches

through the skin to eat mushiness.

We eat because it feels right.

We are happier than we were

without the pudding.

Then I got to chat with all of those fun people while Anna and the girls played at McDonalds, and then, tiring of that noisy place, we all gathered for dinner at my house. The girls (who never met, but have watched each other grow up on the blogs) had a wonderful time and the rest of us had some wine and conversation. What fun!

Way better than the day I had planned.

"I gave her braids!"

That girl does amazing things with tape and construction paper.

(Hopefully we'll have the rest of Thanksgiving tomorrow. I can't get my video to load!)

Thanksgiving 2009 (1)

Our Thanksgiving festivities started, as usual, with the baking of many pies. Matthew's Mom told him he had to wear a mask (strep throat) but it didn't slow us down much. We tried (again) to bake 4 pies at once and failed (again) to remember how much longer that takes. So the pumpkin pies took forever (again) and the pecan pies were runny (again), but still tasty.

Susan and Abby and Poppa Ted all came out to our house on Thursday morning.



We had the 8th Annual Connect Four Tournament (more on that tomorrow) and ate lots of yummy food.

Our fireplace isn't working at the moment, so Matthew set it up as a screen for the projector. We watched The Sound of Music (Abby had never seen it!) and played Wii.

And, of course, there was some dress up, and some taking care of babies.

Collage

Most afternoons/evenings when we get home, Anna goes straight to her room, shuts the door, and climbs up to her desk to work on something. She often runs in to ask to borrow my tape. She made this last week, all by herself.

I love it!

Halloween!

What?

I'm not THAT late.

You want pictures? No complaining.


We're still in the age of the clenched teeth fake smile and camera avoidance, but she still managed to look pretty cute.

This is serious.Outside she demonstrated some more ballerina poses. She's learned all of the ballet she knows from Angelina Ballerina (A British mouse who dances. Anna, not knowing about foreign accents, came and told me the other day: "Mice say 'to-mah-to', instead of 'to-may-to'" ). I wore one of the extra moustaches. Too bad I couldn't find another one for Matthew.



Abby went trick or treating with us in town. She was a librarian. Anna was mostly excited about her glow stick.

Happy Halloween! :) On Friday the 13th!

Drawing

Anna's always drawing and making things, which I love love love. And, proud Mama that I am, I think her drawings are pretty wonderful.

And stylish!

After my own heart

On the way to Osborne last weekend, I asked Anna what she was working on.

"A puppet"

At the gas station, I turned around to see.

Made out of her chip bag. Of course.

When she was done she told me: "It's kind of a greasy puppet."

Birthday Hat

The night before Susan's party, Anna decided that she needed to make her a Birthday Hat.

I'm not one to turn down a project, so I gathered up some felt and we got to work. Anna drew the heart and I cut it out of felt and stitched it to the hat. Anna drew a princess on some sparkly felt and we stitched that down too. A little decorative zigzagging around the bottom, a little elastic, and we're done!

Happy Birthday Party.

First Concert

Anna's been to lots of band concerts and symphonies and plays and music in the park, but this was her first big deal show, with lots of people, and a famous performer.

Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley, and Jimmy Wayne.

We got pretty cheap seats, dinner included! (A hot dog and a drink for each of us)


She stayed awake through the two opening acts, and then fell asleep for Brad. Poor girl. And poor adults! We had lawn seats, surrounded by stumbling young-uns, so we couldn't lay her down on the grass. 40 lbs of dead weight is heavy!

It was still a great show. Brad's always fun to see.

The next day we asked Anna how she liked the concert, and she said it was great, her favorite part was "sleeping!".

We went back the next day so we could see Daddy a little bit before we had to get back to the real world.

Quinter

We spent the night in Quinter, at their only motel. They didn't advertise having wireless Internet, but the owner put me in the room that was closest to the lobby, and I had no trouble. I love small motels.

We woke up early for a change and went for a drive through Quinter. Found an estate sale! We wanted to buy all of the boxes of fabric, but settled for just one. (Coming soon, a post full of gushing about cute old fabrics)

Then we hit the road to see Castle Rock. This drive was not designed with Lady in mind. We were stuck for one or two panic-filled minutes, and then got out and decided to hike up and see it from a distance.

It was a really nice view on a pretty morning.

About 8 miles down the road is Park, KS. You can see the spire of the Catholic Church from the interstate. Go ahead and take Exit 99, it won't take that long, and it's worth it.

My pictures don't do it justice, it's full of stained glass windows depicting the saints, and usually unlocked.

We had a lovely visit, talking about saints and stained glass and saying prayers.

Runaways, 2009

There must be something about September that makes me want to run. Anna and I took the long way around to Denver last weekend, taking an extra day to wander and find something fun.

One of the rules of running away from home is that you must stop and play at many playgrounds.

This is a great time to practice taking photos. It's a good idea to stop at that "golden hour" when all of the pictures are beautiful. I missed it by a little on this trip, it was almost too dark.

But then it's fun to play with color levels.

More to come...

Punkin

Anna got to pick a pumpkin yesterday.

And Kiki's home for a visit. What a great day.

Polo Dress

A few weeks ago we found Matthew a new polo shirt that perfectly matched his blue and yellow shoes, right down to the strangely electric color of yellow. I was excited.

But then the first time he wore it he got a little hole in the front. I was sad.

But then I went back to the store and the shirts were on an even better sale! I was happy again.

Now I had a perfectly new polo shirt with just a small hole in the front.

So I made a dress for Anna to match!

I had a great time with this one. First I had to make it smaller, then I had to resize the sleeves and put them back on, and then I had to make the collar smaller.

I sewed up the hole and let Anna pick out a button to cover it with, a pink heart. It works on a little girl dress, I think!

Plastic Stained Glass

Last Thursday Anna and I went to our local Craft Store, and I let her pick out a little project for us to do. With a little direction, she chose this plastic "stained glass" parrot to paint.


We had to do it together, because the instructions were to drop the paint into the sections, rather than brushing it in, and that was a little beyond her dexterity. So she chose colors and I provided a little extra stability.

At the end we sprinkled a little glitter on. Or a lot.

A big thumbs up!

My favorite artist

Anna watches Monk with us (We make her leave for the scary beginning part). As she is a little girl in love with love, her favorite episode from Season 7 was "Mr. Monk Falls in Love". There is a dancing scene, and Anna exclaimed "In a picture, they would be dancing and there would be a heart around them!" and then ran off to make that picture.

Here it is. It is my favorite drawing ever.

Look at the motion! The hair!

I was thinking of making a bunch of cards with the image, but really, like I need more cards in my life. Maybe I could give them away?

As a side note: Here's a Monk trivia game. I only got 41.7% correct. :(

Anna's Room (with too many pictures)

And it only took me three weeks longer than I anticipated! Why am I so crazy about time and projects?

Once I decided that we really needed to redo her room, I stopped being so strict about cleaning up. And we had several REALLY fun days with cousins. I sent her to take some "before pictures" Here's one:

I don't see how she could even sleep. She kept the door shut and would tell me "Mama, don't look in there!" (How did she know?)

Aunties Linda and Abby helped with the enormous task of sorting through toys and junk and deciding what to keep and what to give away. It was very very kind of them. That mess of toys is now contained to this bookcase with four boxes.

And a giant hamper of dress-up clothes in the closet. She wasn't willing to give up any dress-up, and I couldn't make her. She's rarely in her regular clothes when we're here anyway.

My parents bought this bunk bed about 15 years ago, I think. I spent lots of time looking at beds online, and looking at auctions, and looking (usually too late) at Garage Sale ads, when I finally remembered this bed sitting in storage.

I'm usually terrible about skipping steps, but this time we sanded, and then wiped it down, and then used primer, and then did lots of light coats of paint, just like they tell you to. Dad mentioned that I should be sanding lightly between coats, and so I did that too. Abby came out and helped and helped until her hands were cramped into little balls. Mine too.

I'm really happy with how it turned out. (Fingers crossed that it holds up for a while).

I covered the top bunk with a pink chenille blanket I had saved, it's so pretty up there. I made her move the giant pile of stuffed animals so I could take this lovely photo, but normally it's pretty crowded (and much more fun).

She's sleeping on the bottom bunk, under her quilt from Grammy Rita, with an afgan crocheted by Great-Grandma Anna Streit at the foot. That makes me really happy.

I think she likes it too.