Jess and Michael's Window

Happy Earth Day everyone!

We had a big day yesterday celebrating Cole’s first birthday!!  I think we were so excited to have a birthday in April (Jess, Mike and Evan all have Nov/Dec bdays) that it got a little crazy.  Its nice to be able to have a birthday at home and outside, but with what all we had planned, the weather forecast had me squirming all week.  Lucky for us it turned out to be a gorgeous afternoon and everything was perfect with no rain!

When I started planning Cole’s party, I had no idea what to do.  He doesn’t really have a favorite toy yet and the only thing he’s obsessed with is our dirty shoes.  We have to hide them and whenever we forget he bullets across the room to get his hands and mouth on them.  Even Evan has learned to throw his shoes in the garage or hide them in a drawer!  So my first thought was to do a shoe cake but after looking online I decided I wasn’t talented enough for that idea.  While brainstorming with friends on facebook I finally came up with “bugs” since Cole has had two memorable occasions this year of eating bugs…a ladybug and an earwig (blech!).  That turned out to be much more doable and fun!  We had a caterpillar smash cake and cupcakes and worm cupcakes.

We also decorated with inflatable bugs, had a make your own bug treat and the goody boxes were filled with bug stuff.  The older kids got a butterfly net too.  We love bugs around here!  Maybe because my dad is an entomologist!   (Edit:  I forgot to mention the freezer paper stencil stink bug shirts I made for Evan and Cole.  Cole has a number one on his, and Evan has a heart for love bug.  See Evan’s in the photo slideshow).

For stuff to do, we set up a kiddy pool filled with boats, Cole got a new sandbox for his birthday from us, and our friends brought jumpy houses, ride-on toys, pop up tents and wagons to play with.  The kids had an absolute blast and our little friend Marin declared it the best party EVER.  YAY! Mission accomplished.

Yesterday, Cole still seemed very much a baby, with crawling being his chosen mode of transportation at the moment.  But today, he stood by himself for the first time.  He did it several times and was so excited he “pterodactyl-ed” about it.  He also invented a new way of sliding backward on the floor!  Silly.

Oh…I also wanted to mention (especially to our guests) that we experienced a breach in security during the party cleanup.  While we were outside putting everything away, our sneaky 3 year old was busy opening all of Cole’s presents.  We think we got everything put back together the right way so that Cole could open them himself, but if we accidentally thank you for the wrong thing, you will know why!!

Thank you to all who came and helped us celebrate this special day in our family!  Happy Birthday Cole!!

Here is the gallery of our favorite pictures…don’t ask us how many we took!

This year for Valentine’s Day we decided to make it a family party and give only handmade gifts to the kids since we already have a big Christmas and Easter.  I think this will be fun, especially when they are old enough to start making gifts on their own.  For dinner we had pink, heart-shaped chocolate chip and banana pancakes.  Evan got a big kick out of that and Cole gobbled up his pancake!  And for dessert Mike and Evan made sugar cookies to decorate with frosting and sprinkles.  Evan kept saying “are we having lots of fun? we’re having lots of fun!!”  Too cute.  He LOVED the gift I made for him and Daddy…matching “love bomb” t-shirts that I freezer paper stenciled.  It was my first try at it and they turned out really awesome, but unfortunately I just found out this morning that Evan’s got ruined in the wash.  I still have Mike’s shirt so I’m going to wash according to the directions and see how it wears.  If it gets ruined too, I’m taking everything back.  There is nothing worse than ruining something you made yourself!   MAJOR bummer!  I wanted to make Evan a pair of pants too, but my machine decided to be a jerk so I only just barely finished Cole’s pants for his Valentine gift.  Cole’s pants are from the book Sewing for Boys and I made them as part of the Sewing for Boys Sew Along, which you can read about here.  For the sew along, you have to add something to the pattern to make it truly unique, so I added the heart applique on the front.  They are size 12-18 months and clearly they will fit him much better when he’s closer to the middle of that range!  They turned out so cute though…can’t wait till they fit!   Hope everyone had a great Valentine’s Day!

Oh no!! Its been so long since I blogged on my crafty blog that I lost it!   Mike has promised he saved all the media before it got bounced off the internet though so that’s good.  The holidaze brought back a fury of craftiness and got me all hooked again, so I’ll just have to blog about it here  on our home blog!  For E’s birthday I made him a reversible rocket ship and super Evan cape.  And I made  a Santa stocking for Cole.  I also helped E and C make foot and hand print ornaments for the g’rents and Mike for Xmas.  So on to the new year and new projects.  Here’s what I’m up to…read on!

Raw edged raglan tee plus a cute model

I discovered this awesome book called Sewing for Boys and you can read all about it and the authors at their website here.  Then I found this nifty blogger who is hosting a sew along for 2012 with the goal of one project from the book per month (more about the sew along here).  That is right up my alley!! Something to keep me motivated throughout the year and not just during the holidaze.  AND its not too lofty either…certainly I can find time to do one project a month.  I’m having so much fun though, I might sneak away to create more stuff.  Yahoo!!

So here is my first project…finally completed after several snafus.  This was my very first attempt at clothing AND sewing with knit so I was pretty scared!  I think it turned out pretty cute though…helps to have a snappy model too.  So I started out with the knit print featured on the back design but learned the hard way that you need to buy more than required for the pattern.  My purchased section shrank so I didn’t have enough.  I upcycled a t-shirt that I got for my honeymoon but never wear instead.  I think what it says suits my kiddo pretty well!   I wanted to make it long sleeved but didn’t buy enough for them not realizing I had to turn the pattern a certain way to make it work right.  See, I’m learning a TON already.

The neckband was my biggest obstacle since I’m still pretty new at sewing and the directions from the book all turned to gobblety-gook in my brain.  It didn’t help that every time I set to work it was after a long day of chasing little people.  After 9pm, my brain is saying “what the heck, you want me to what? I’m TIRED yo!!”  Despite mush-brain I perservered and now that I’ve gotten through the first project, there’s nothing stopping me…it was so easy once I figured it out and should be super quick from now on.  Can’t wait to make Evan an oceansunfish shirt!! I’ve got one ready to upcycle just for him…he’ll be THE HIPPEST 3 YEAR OLD EVER!!  He’ll be stoked too…he calls them “rocket ship” fish and I told him they really do fly out of the water like rockets and cruise around like space ships!

I wanted to incorporate the cute print I bought so I made it into a “thought bubble” patch for the back showing how Evan’s thinking is that of a typical 3 year old…you know, “go this way! go that way! Stop! No!! NO! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”   I don’t know if anyone will really get it but I like it anyway.

Detail of the thought bubble

Here’s one more picture.  This morning when I asked E to put it on, he said “but I’m wearing this one right now.” Ok I said.  Then to my delight he asked to try it on after school!  So I didn’t even have to bribe him!  Miracle!

I was determined to get to the beach this year and the only time we could go was in October…so this past week we hung out at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina.  Not the best time of year for playing in the ocean, but the weather was Gorgeous, nevertheless.

We stayed at the Landmark Resort for financial reasons (I think it cost us about $17…much love and gratitude to our hookup).  The first four nights were awesome.  It being off-season, it was quiet and we had the beach and grounds mostly to ourselves.  But Friday night, our last night, it turned into the Atlantic Coast’s version of the Redneck Riviera and a party was had in the room next to ours.  Much bud light was consumed.  Other than this one minor detail, the place was fabulous.  We had a separate room to stow away the toddler and managed to stow the baby away in the bathroom (yah I know.) until he protested around 11ish p.m., so we didn’t have to go to bed early this vacation…bonus!  This place was a kid’s dream in the things to do department…if only the weather were warm enough to enjoy all the water features!  It was ok though…we had too much to do to get it all in anyway.

Highlights of the trip:

The Sky Wheel – giant Ferris wheel that goes 200 some odd feet in the air with a breathtaking view.  I got all heeby-jeebied but was able to hide my hyperventilation by pretending to be excited so as not to cause the toddler to freak out.  After one trip around it was just plain fun.  This made up for there not being a wheel at the fair this year.

Broadway at the Beach – total tourist trap heaven.  We went twice.  One night we ate at a Japanese steak house, since Evan enjoyed the one in Chattanooga.  Besides boatloads of restaurants and ice cream places, they had kiddie rides and obese carp begging for food…who could ask for more?  The first night we saw a speed boat roaring around and doing 360s out on the water and thought “doesn’t that look like fun?!”  The second night…Evan and I decided to go for a ride ourselves!  We were the only ones on the boat and the captain got a kick out of Evan.  He said he’d never heard a two year old cackle like he did…so we got an extra trip around on the water just for being cute.  Nice.  I was laughing so hard at Evan’s reaction to this experience…awesome.

Brookgreen Gardens – We debated and debated about what to do with our break-from-the-beach day and went here on a friend’s recommendation (thanks Drena!).  Wow! I loved this place!! We could’ve spent a whole ‘nother day here since we didn’t get to do everything we wanted to.  I think its the best garden-y, nature-y, artsy type place like this I’ve been too.  Too bad E was in such a poopy Napoleon Dynamite (I DO WHAT I WANT…GAH!) mood that day.  I know it doesn’t look like it from the pictures.  Since this place was heaven for us with our new lens, we took about a jillion pictures and so still got a few smiley ones of Evan.  I don’t think I have ever seen so many butterflies in one place…not even at Price Park.  The only downside is that we were so tired from our trip to the garden that on the last day we skipped out on going to Huntington Beach State Park…which we really wanted to see but will have to save for next time.

Kite Flying and Mellow Un-Do-Nothing Day – Since we decided to stick close in on our last day we went to the resort’s water park after Cole’s morning nap (partial fail since kiddie water feature was too cold) and played in the warm swimming pool for a while, went to Mickie D’s for lunch and then set out to find a pier so Evan could see what its like out past the waves.  It was a blustery day so there were surfers to see on big waves.  There were also loads of fisher people and birds to shriek at and chase.  We got out our kite after the pier excursion and that was when Evan ended up in nothing but his spongebob undies running around like a gremlin.  Much fun was had.

As previously mentioned, Mike saved up to buy a new lens for our big camera and we took it along to break it in…wow, did we take a lot of pictures! I think I put up almost 70 on facebook!  But, that was narrowing it down from hundreds!  Love digital photography for getting those artsy shots just right.  I tried to only include my absolute favorites on this post, so as not to overwhelm you!   Thanks for reading!