A Skirt for the Whole Family

I couldn't get her to sit still or pose. She just wanted to look at the pictures on the camera. But here is Mary's new skirt.

It all started with this:

Dad's pants, salvaged from the charity bag.

Cut off the legs. I did it about 2 or 3 inches below the crotch. Then...


... cut off the crotch!

Come on, admit it. You've always wanted to do that.


Turn skirt inside out and pin crotch pieces together, front and back.


Attempt to distract your toddler from repeatedly climbing on the table by giving her your keys and wallet.


Now sew a straight line from the existing seam down to your new hem. Do this front and back.


Hem the bottom to desired length. I left it long (well, long for a toddler).


Et voila! The skirt in this form will be a nice short sexy skirt on your average 38-inch waisted man or woman.

What's that? You want to make it smaller?


I cut two holes on the inside waistband on either side of the zipper and fed the elastic through there (actually, I fed a piece of ribbon through first, then pinned it to the elastic and yanked the elastic through.

Now, before I cut and sewed the elastic on, I tested out a longer piece on myself. Fit great! I modeled it for Scott. He liked the leg. And HE's the one who pointed out that it would fit him just fine, too. And with the elastic with button holes, like they make for kids' adjustable waist pants, you could easily achieve this. They just didn't have that at the store I went to.

All done!

Good Morning, Daddy!

We miss you.

I Am a Horrible Babysitter and Mean Auntie

Sorry, Dorian!

Obligatory Pumpkin Patch Photos

Warning: I think my kids are insanely cute and I had a hard time paring down the pictures from our Sunday trip to the Laity Pumpkin Patch. And sorry, Mary, but your brother doesn't move as much and, thus, gets better photos taken of him. So that's why he got top billing.


Is it possible to get two kids looking and smiling at the camera at the same time? Hey Thomas! Look at Mummy. *chorus of ridiculous, embarrassing, attention-getting sounds*


Nope, not possible.

Mary hated it up there anyway.

We proceeded into an abyss of pumpkins. Mary thought it was neat. Wanting to get a portrait of my beautiful, graceful daughter with a pumpkin, I enticed her back with an irresistible request.

"Kiss the pumpkin, Mary!"


Well that didn't work. And shortly after, she tripped on a pumpkin vine and fell flat on her tummy.


Thomas became fussy. His malady was easily cured by a cookie.


But he wanted to know what his sister was doing.


She was trying to get lost in the pumpkin abyss again.

Hey, Mary, come sit with Thomas.


But Thomas is no fun.


She didn't fall. She wanted to lie down in the mud. Seriously.

Now when we first arrived we made the mistake of walking through the barn first, where Mary spotted a cow. Through most of the pumpkin patch she was inquiring "Cow? Cow?" We told her we should see the cow again later. She wasn't impressed when we walked through the mystery forest, which is really just a grove of trees with an amazing number of cut out wood figures from Disney, dinosaurs, fairy tales, zoo animals, and gnomes.









Thomas didn't really care about the mystery forest. He got another cookie. Finally we returned to the barn, where Mary parked herself in front of the cow.






"Cow!"


Eventually she was convinced to say byebye to the cow and visit the ducks, chickens, goats and sheep, too. The sheep were scary.

Yeah, I know, the pics suck in there.

On our way out, we looked for a better pumpkin as we discovered a hole in ours. Mary liked these little ones.


The photo needs to be cropped, really.

It was a good, tiring excursion that zonked the kids out for two good longs naps when we got home.

Zoom with Froom

My husband has political aspirations. Yeah, that guy in the picture.

Back in 1999, he ran for both city council and school board in Port Moody. And he ran with the slogan "Zoom with Froom into the New Millenium." What can I say? He was 26 and he hadn't met me yet.

He means well and he's got a good heart, but when the guy who runs his entire campaign based on homophobia gets more votes than you, you might want to call it a day. Or at least get more community volunteer experience before trying again.

We love you, Daddy.

Blocks

As Mary's vocabulary grows, we get great joy out of listening to her try really hard to enunciate new words. Blocks gets a really long rolling L, a throaty/gutteral CK sound, and a long hissing S. It's awesome.

Have I mentioned yet how much we're loving these toys? Mary goes back to play with them all day. Untreated wood has anti-bacterial qualities, you know there's no lead paint, and when the kids are done with them, they're not going to sit in a landfill for thousands of years. I hope they get passed on for decades.

Male Bonding

Scott got this awesome $200 MEC backpack at the Cloverdale Fair for $35 a few weeks back. Thomas didn't like being put in there, but he did enjoy bouncing along with Daddy on a walk to get a few groceries.

How often do you get down on the floor with your kids to play? We've found ourselves doing this more and more lately, and they love it. They crave that one on one interaction with us, and they deserve it. And they get so much out of it.

We do, too.

New Wood

Daddy came home bearing Mary's birthday presents from Grandpa and Grandma. Grandma chose very well. It's the train that matches Mary's fire truck AND a wagon with stacking alphabet blocks from the same line. She LOVES them. She kept calling us to "seat seat!" next to her on the floor to play together. We drive the train and make train noises, she drives the fire truck and makes siren noises. Or sometimes train noises, too, when she forgets. With the alphabet blocks, we're only allowed to spell her name.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

I Love Her

I've enjoyed the week, but it's been rough. I found this morning pretty overwhelming, actually. Mary was up at 5 and wouldn't go back to sleep in bed with me. I cried off and on, and she was pretty forgiving. I took too long to change her diaper and it soaked her nightie. She was fine with nudity. She sat watching her "Melmo."

There are no photos after this, because she saw I was crying and came to sit with me. She wouldn't let me type, or look at the computer. My arms had to be around her. It was her way of holding me. I love her.