Getting Ready for Valentine's Day

Not much to say, except we're excited about Valentine's Day coming up (in spite of the fact that I vowed never to celebrate it!). 

At the fabric store last week, I spotted this hearts-and-cupcakes fabric in the remnants bin. There was a little less than a yard, and I just knew that it was destined to become some quick little skirts. So I literally whipped these up in about an hour, and here they are!  Mostly I just wanted so share these cute little girls with you.

Can you tell Lydia is saying "cheese?"  Hannah has already taught her the art of the phony picture taking smile.

Snow Day

Imagine the wonder of seeing snow for the first time.  (Technically, Lydia was out in the snow for about three minutes last winter, but I'm sure it made very little lasting impression.)  I snapped this picture just as she came out the front door and saw that everything was covered in white stuff.

It didn't take Lydia long to learn that you're supposed to run around, gathering bits of it in your hands.

Or maybe trying to catch a flake or two on your tongue.

Of course, if you're big like Daddy, you can make a really BIG snowball.

Everyone can help with this one!

I wonder what it's going to be?

In any case, this snow business is pretty fun.

Would you look at that?  It's taller than both of us.  And Hannah says this carrot is it's nose.

This snowman may be very nice, but I'm getting cold.  Enough pictures, Mama.  Time to go inside.

Hannah?  She's never cold.  She could just stay out here all day long.

Decking the Halls (literally)

There's a flurry of organizing and rearranging going on in our house, typical of January's new year frenzy.  Among other, more ambitious projects, we (and by we, I mostly mean Jonathan) have been moving around our artwork and photos.

For a long time, we've been wanting to make a place to display the kids' drawings and scribbles.  After scouring Pinterest, we agreed that we liked the idea of over sized clothespins to hang the drawings.  And then, as if by fate, I found these glitter over sized clothespins at Hobby Lobby on clearance!  So Jonathan screwed them into a piece of wood, and mounted the whole thing on the wall.  Above it, we hung the canvases the girls made at Hannah's birthday party.

This hangs in our dining room, and we all enjoy looking at this during mealtime.  Mama also enjoys a significant reduction of clutter on the fridge.

This morning, we tackled another project that's been on our wish list for some time.  We gathered up our favorite photos, some graphics, and made a new canvas to add to the mix.  Source here and here.

These are Hannah's hands and Lydia's feet.  I added the text using vinyl cut with my Silhouette, and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.  (Just a hint if you try something like this: canvas and vinyl aren't really best friends, so I added a layer of Mod Podge over the whole thing when it was finished, just to keep everything really stuck together.)

This is in the hallway, directly across from our front door.

Want to know what else is in the works?  Stay tuned...I've got the organizing bug, and I definitely want to take pictures of everything while it's neat - just to prove that once upon a time things were put away!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

We're getting pretty excited for Christmas around here.  All the regular Christmastime preparations are going on.  We've been to visit Santa.  I was ready for the typical toddler "don't-leave-me-that-hairy-stranger" reaction from Lydia (we certainly saw that with Hannah - for two years), but Hannah taught her to say "ho ho ho," took Lydia by the hand, and the two of them marched right up to Santa and climbed up on his lap.  

We trimmed our trees.  Yes, trees.  I have too many ornaments to fit on one tree.  It was fun to show the girls some of our favorites.  The ball is from a trip Jonathan and I took to Disneyland after we finished school and before we started our first jobs.  

This is the ornament my mom gave us the year we got married.

And what would Christmas be with cookies, and lots of them?  Hannah and I took nearly a whole day to tackle the project of baking and decorating gingerbread men.  I was impressed by how seriously she took the whole endeavor.

Check out those shoes!

Hannah thought my Santa cookie looked like a guy with a huge mouth.  I thought her stripy one looked like a mummy.

The original plan was for Hannah to take the cookies to her class party at school.  But she got sick, and couldn't go.  So we had a party at home instead.  We discussed what was necessary for a party, and settled on Cheetos and balloons.  (Why have I been making all those birthday cakes?  I could have just bought a bag of Cheetos!)

Lydia shared her cookie with her baby.  I actually love this picture.  She's looking at the baby with such a look of affection.  I hope that's what Lydia sees on my face when I look at her.

Yesterday we had some friends over to make gingerbread houses.  Well, graham cracker houses, but still... 

I saw this clever idea in Family Fun, where you use crackers and dried fruit instead of candy.  They're stuck on with peanut butter.  I glued the graham crackers together with royal icing, because peanut butter just didn't seem to be strong enough.  Surprisingly, it held the goodies on really well. 

I don't think the kids missed the candy at all.  They ate their fair share of toppings.  In fact, I had to cut Hannah off after her fifth prune.   

Last night, the girls donned their matching pajamas and danced around the living room.

Hannah got a new ornament in the mail from grandma that plays "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas," which is the recital song from her ballet class. 

This is Hannah doing the ballet dance.  See that look of concentration?  She's so serious, that all I can do is laugh!

Last but not least, here is our sweet Lydia, playing peek-a-boo behind the tree. 

Unlike last year's Christmas panic, this year, everything is finished, gifts are wrapped, food is cooked, and we are looking forward to a quiet and cozy holiday.  I hope that your Christmas is as blessed as ours.

Halloween Costumes! Brave's Merida (and Baby Bear) Costume using free patterns

 I have to admit, when I learned there was a new Disney movie featuring a Scottish princess with red curly hair, I started a not-so-subtle campaign for this year's Halloween costume.  Even before we saw Brave, I'd started planting seeds.  And after we saw it (even though it was pretty scary for a three year old!), Hannah and I sealed the deal: she would be Merida for Halloween.  It was actually Hannah's idea that Lydia be a bear, just like Merida's little brothers.  That sounded cute as could be, so I searched to the ends of Pinterest, and this is what I found.

So here, for you, are several free online patterns and tutorials needed to create a Merida costume, complete with a red hair garland, and a coordinating little sis/(bro) bear.

I started off with the dress, using the pattern found here (rostitchery.com's Magistrate Dress pattern), via ikatbat.com, here.  I added some gold trim, including an inset of gathered gold fabric at the neckline.

Next came outerwear.  Not only does Merida wear a cape in the movie, but I distinctly remember last year, pinning Hannah's butterfly wings to the back of her winter coat because it was so cold.  Although practical, it was not as lovely as I intended when I sewed the costume.  So this year, I wised up and made something warm for her to wear.  I used the free Red Riding Hood Cape pattern found here, at fleecefun.com.  There are instructions for lining the hood, but I lined the entire fleece cape with flannel, both for added warmth and to add a little color.

Finally, what would a Merida costume be without red hair, and lots of it?  I looked at tutorials for full wigs, and even found one that explained how to curl the yarn by heating it in the oven.  I finally decided to make a red version of mmmcrafts.blogspot.com's Rapunzel hair recipe, found  here.  Hannah said, "This isn't like Merida's hair...it's not big enough."  However, she can put it on and off by herself, which I think will be handy when this becomes part of the dress-up box after Halloween.

And because Grandma's are cool like this, Hannah's Grandma got her the official Merida bow and arrows from the Disney Store.  Very cool.  Hannah spent a good fifteen minutes trying to string the bow before she gave up and started throwing them across the yard.

For Lydia's bear costume, I decided to keep it simple - mostly because I wasn't sure whether she would wear it or not.  She wasn't going to until she saw Hannah had a cape too, and then she was ready to go!  The cape is made from the same pattern at fleecefun.com, although I printed the pattern at 75% to make it toddler-sized.  Hers is also fleece, lined with matching flannel. 

The ears are from another pattern at fleecefun.com, and are a part of their Halloween Bear Hat, found here.  I cut slits in the top of the hood, and stitched the ears in before I added the lining. 

So here they are...Princess Merida and her bear sis.

 Ready for some serious archery.

And doing a happy little Halloween dance.

Hannah's Birthday...A Beautiful Mess

Hannah turned 4 recently.  It was the birthday that just kept happening...in ways good and bad!  After all, when it comes to celebrating birthdays, the more parties the merrier, right?  But there comes a point, when the first party has been canceled because of the stomach flu, and two cakes have been baked, and the edible favors have all been gobbled by someone (I couldn't possibly have eaten a whole pan of chocolate-covered Rice Krispy treats, could I?), when it's just time to have the party already.

So for your entertainment, here are all the lovely details of (both) of Hannah's birthdays.

My mom came for the week of Hannah's birthday, and she and Hannah made the super cute crayon cake that you see above.  She found something called sugar paper and edible markers, and she and Hannah actually drew the picture on the top of the cake! 

I suppose this is a good time to mention that Hannah wanted a "painting party."  I tried to sway her toward Mermaids and Pirates, but she thought of this wonderful theme on her own, and it stuck.  So we did all things painting.  My little arts and crafts apprentice was in seventh heaven!

Hannah, my mom, and I did a test run of all the art projects before the party.  This was one of the finger paintings.  We made this by applying vinyl letters on a canvas, and after the paint dried, peeling them off.  (And yes, that's the second batch of Rice Krispy treats.)

Here are all the kids, finger painting their hearts out.  Each kid's canvas had their name on it.  I made little paint aprons for each guest from old jeans, following this pattern.

These are ice cube paintings.  Almost as fun as actually doing the painting was hanging the papers out of the clothesline to dry!

 And our final art project was bubble painting.  This was really fun, and the photos don't do justice to how cool they looked.  (If you do this, it took a lot more food coloring the bubbles than I expected!)

Here's the cake (reprise).  And after the candles were blown out, all the kids - so excited about the cake - just couldn't keep their hands away.  Check out Hannah: she's like, "Get your hands off my birthday cake!!"

 And last but not least, what's a painting party without paint invitations?  I printed these on paint chips, and couldn't be happier with how they came out.

The best part?  Every morning for about a week after her birthday, Hannah woke up and said, "I'm FOUR!!!"