Pillowcase dresses

Well among other things to update on, I made two pillowcase dresses for the girls! These were obtained from R's grandma and he was using them for pillowcases! I was aghast at this waste of hand embroidered and hand crocheted pillowcases. I waited until this year to make the dresses so G- would be vertical and could show off the dress better. This project should have been done earlier in the summer (or spring) but I forgot about it! The blue seam binding came from Grandma Freda's stash and I used elastic I already had for A-'s. I did have to spend $1.29 for more elastic for G-'s, but not too bad for two cute dresses! I used directions from this site: http://rowena.typepad.com/rostitchery/projects/index.html

Can I just say how much I love the Internet? There is so much information out there from regular people that are so generous with their time and talents.

Also, we are babysitting the neighbor's bird so that's been quite exciting for the girls. We have two chairs in front of the cage because they like to sit and watch him. G-, of course, saw me take the tray on the bottom out once so now she does it whenever she drops something inside the cage. Poor bird is never going to be the same. Actually, he seems pretty content, only chirps occasionally and plays with his toys.

I've been test-driving some of the Montessori activities I'm preparing for A-'s school this year. It's going pretty well so far - she loves to walk the line (masking tape on the sunroom floor) and the sandpaper letters but I've having to hold her back on the letters. She wants to trace all of them before she has learned the sounds of the first two. She's not too into the practical life activities, I think I need to make them harder because she already knows how to pour and transfer and use tweezers.

She was playing with the foam geometric shapes the other day and came up with this person

and matched the trapezoids around the sides of the hexagon all of her own volition. My geometry loving heart was so proud!

A birthday to remember!

A little late, but I never mentioned my awesome birthday last week. R- outdid himself by managing the following:
a) I got to go shopping by myself. I went to CCA and got a ton of stuff for A-'s Montessori homeschool preschool next year for all of $13. Then I went to Dollar General and got some more stuff, and stopped at Home Educator's Resource where I found a book I've been wanting to read for less than half-price and geometric solids used for $7, and stopped at Staples for their 1cent deals and spent 15 cents on 10 folders, 3 packs of pencils, and a hand pencil sharpener. I felt a little bad about not buying anything at full price but I got over it. Overall, a banner shopping morning.
b) I came home to a chocolate birthday cake with balloons on it (chosen by A-) and three presents and a handmade card.
c) After lunch and cake R- tooke them for a bike ride and I got to do yoga for an hour by myself.
d) We went to Nick's and had Italian and the girls were very good and it wasn't crowded so it was easy to have kids there.
I have a picture but I can't seem to get it to upload.

My hummingbirds have arrived! It took a week but I've seen them there three times already today.


A- calls me "mamma-mia". I swear we haven't been listening to ABBA or anything. I don't know where she gets it, a few months ago it was "mee-mee" both of which are better than when she was calling R- "doo-doo". He nipped that one in the bud. I can't imagine why.

A- now can not only make French toast, she can cut strawberries with a real knife (with supervision of course) and she made her own PB&J today. She cut off the crusts, then cut a shape with a cookie cutter, then spread the jam and PB on the shape and all the little pieces. And she ate the whole thing with no complaints. She told me she'd make my sandwich tomorrow.

Artwork

Here's A- wearing her sling I made her for her dolls. It's just like the one I use for G-.

And this is A- with her painting she did this afternoon. She told me a long complicated story about a witch and ducks and the hiding spot and a tower and the purple dots are duck footprints. It was cute.

We went to a Kroger today that has fountains the kids can run around in and met a friend there. The kids were so cute running around in their bathing suits!

6:30!

I hung up the hummingbird feeder today so maybe we'll get some visits. I also found a cool website that tells what species visit by state so maybe I can identify them! When I had the feeder up a couple summers ago, I didn't recognize the species.

I also fed the worms cantouloupe rinds, they love them. S- and A- helped me put in the paper strips. Apparently it's been awhile since I fed them because they were down to just a little newspaper to eat.

A- and I went to church and left G- with dad because she was running a fever yesterday. I tried to get A- to go to Sunday School but her regular teacher wasn't there and she freaked when she saw the husband of the substitute teacher there, even though we know them. So we went to 11:00 service instead and she was very good. They have those pads you can write on and then lift the plastic and it erases so she practiced writing letters the whole time after she finished coloring the kids bulletin.

Everybody went to bed early last night and consequently woke up at 6:30 this morning! That was rough, but I got up with them and R- slept more and then we switched.

Walking sticks

A- found some wooden dowels while I was cleaning her closet yesterday. She said she could use them for walking sticks and walked all around the house with them. Then she said she needed them when we were in Ohio and she hurt her knee (she was emotionally crippled by a skinned knee for several days). I asked her how she had ever heard of walking sticks and she said "in Deutschland". Amazing what she picks up, there were in fact people using walking sticks at several of the places we visited and apparently we must have talked about it.

G- stays forever in her bathtub. If A- is in there she'll very studiedly pour water on A-'s head over and over. Luckily A- doesn't mind, she just laughs. And G- loves to pour water, again, over and over. She fills up a cup at the faucet and pours it into another cup and when I turn the water off, she says "mor, mor". Last night, she washed Dora's hair (bathtub Dora, luckily) over and over. Unfortunately, she also likes to drink the bathwater, but that's another story.

Rain, rain everywhere

It has rained every day forever it seems like. Not all day, but every day. The lake is getting very high, in fact, one lane of the access road is closed today. We went for a bike ride yesterday to see the part of the lake closest to us.

The edge of the lake is usually about 20 feet out or so from the edge of the road that you can see on the right. Lots of water!