Julia

This is how Julia spent much of the day Sunday (after church and shopping, of course) after she found a discarded tub in the basement and much to her glee, it was the perfect little nest for herself, her animals, her snack, and her milk.  I couldn't resist taking a picture of her in it.

 

We are so happy with the progression of Julia's vocabulary and pronunciation these days... it seems each day she is tackling a new word with ease and "fixing" the old ones... pocket is now a "pocket" and she has a host of new words that she loves to use.

Julia also knows how to sing the ABCs... the FULL ABCs... and sings them TO us and WITH us and to herself quite often... and she loves to start in the middle and end... then start over again... it is a fabulous, fabulous song!  Along with the ABCs is a rough rendition of Happy Birthday, but it too is coming along nicely!

Colors are coming along... Julia knows white, purple, and blue very well.  She tries with the others, but we are still getting there.  But she does understand when things are "the same" so she came up to me tonight and picked up something yellow and said, "Mommy, same as duck!"  Sure enough.  :)  Today we discussed different hair colors and she proudly proclaimed that everyone in our family has brown hair.  Fun, fun!

 

Julia starts Sunday School (called Discovery Time) this fall.  The "open house" didn't go so well so I'm doing a lot of praying that she is willing to go and stay when DT starts on the 12th.  That day especially will be interesting as neither mommy or daddy can stay with her... we both have our respective "tasks" at church that morning... should be interesting!

Julia is such a blessing in our lives and we are so thankful to God that he bestowed her upon us to keep her!  Her knowledge continues to grow in regards to Jesus and I can assume that I have M'Amy to thank for that... each day she begs to sing "Jesus songs" and we read "Jesus books" (Bibles and my Bible History books from grade school) and she has a fascination with Jesus... ah, to have to faith of a child again, eh?  :)

erin

Raven

After a particularly messy dinner, I sent the now-falling-apart high chair to the deck and bought Raven her "birthday present"... her very own booster chair!  She loves being at the same level as Julia and tonight they even shared their dinner.  Heh.

 

This last week it was finally cool enough where I felt as though Raven needed to wear socks and shoes... and would you know, it was Raven's FIRST TIME wearing shoes?!?!  Almost a year old and she hadn't worn shoes yet... wow!  She is not particularly fond of them but she will get used to them as the weather progressively becomes cooler.

Raven isn't walking yet but she WILL walk if she can hold onto your hands and so she giggles and laughs as we stroll around the house.  She likes to stand... and stand... and stand.... she isn't "furniture walking" yet but we think maybe she's too "wild" for that and will just decide to walk for real one of these days instead.

She has taken on a new warble of sounds and in keeping with her name, she sounds like a bird... a tortured one at that.  This is the sound she makes when she has been left alone for too long WITHOUT FOOD, MOM, THERE IS NO FOOD ON MY TRAY!!!  WHERE DID YOU GO!  Or in her crib for MOM, IT HAS BEEN TWO SECONDS SINCE I WOKE UP... DID YOU NOT HEAR ME?  COME HERE THIS INSTANT, WOMAN, BEFORE A FLOCK OF BIRDS WHICH I AM CALLING WITH MY WARBLE DESCENDS ON THIS HOUSE.

 

Yes, her warble is as annoying as reading most of that paragraph in Caps.

 

Raven doesn't back down from a rustle with her sister and it is becoming increasingly fun to watch the girls interact with each other.  Raven has enough momentum that she can easily take Julia down even though Julia outweighs her, and both girls think it is hilarious when they collapse to the ground together. 

RAVEN HAS TWO MORE TEETH!  Raven's top two teeth have popped through in the last week much to our delight but she has also started grinding her teeth much to our dismay... now I remember why Julia had her pacifier so much at this age... it was the teeth grinding... now Raven gets her pacifier more too.

 

That's Raven, for now.  She is no longer the quiet little thing who didn't make a peep... she is making herself KNOWN in the family... but thankfully she is still a happy cat much of the time as well.  :)

Erin

Rendezvous Chairs

Part of re-enactment or Rendezvous will involve having furniture that we can use that is somewhat "period".  We have the tent... but nowhere to sit or sleep or... anything!  So, part of Adam's "job" is to outfit his family with furniture, and recently he has been researching chairs and patterns to do just that.  This last week he spent some time in the garage and came up with these two chairs, both of which are comfortable and functional.  Yay!  We now have a few chairs for our Rendezvous "kit"... and, now that I've unearthed things again, I will finally get to the clothing... whew!

Awww.....

Yesterday morning Adam captured a shot of sleeping Julia... so sweet!  Despite the seven or so blankets on her bed, in the last week she has refused any blanket but her Minky & satin blanket AND she refuses help in covering up at night... but she seems to have figured it out pretty well and she looks cozy to me!

erin

The Pantry & Kitchen Cupboards

We have a pantry in our kitchen, but either we haven't been using it the way it was designed to be used, or we haven't been using it well.  Regardless, every few months I pull everything out of it, clean it, organize it, pitch old stuff, and shove everything back in there... to have it look like a disheveled mess about 24 hours later.  I have tried numerous things to keep the pantry clean, but because of the wide open space in the middle, it's really difficult to put food in the pantry and actually utilize it well.

Some time ago I got an inkling that maybe I should move seldom used appliances to the pantry and move the food to the kitchen cupboards in the hope that this would keep the pantry more organized and we could finally keep the door shut on it, as we wouldn't be in and out of the pantry dozens of times a day.  (At least, what feels like dozens of times.)

So, Friday I began the process and this ended up flowing to about 75% of the cupboards in the kitchen... and, in the end, I had more room to work with and we have room to grow again.  Yay!  It remains to be seen how well I organized the food, but I think the process was worth it, if for anything, cupboards and pantry were cleaned and old stuff was pitched. 

These pictures are the "after"... I didn't think to take "before".

erin

Raven's Dress

This morning, the first thing I did when Raven woke up was to bring her downstairs and try on her dress.  It's a bit big in the chest, but otherwise I am very happy with how it turned out.  And she seemed perfectly happy to wear it and toddle around in it so, I say, Score!

A Dress for Raven

Back when Raven was very, very small... maybe two months old?... I decided that I would knit her a sweater for her first birthday pictures.  Not knowing what size it would be (and neglecting to think about the fact that September is still HOT in Iowa and one-year-olds don't need to be covered from head-to-toe in 80-degree weather), I knitted a rather large sweater.  And... even though my gauge was correct, the sweater ended up being Way. Too. Big.  In fact, I don't doubt Julia could wear it.

Thank goodness I tried the sweater ON Raven a few weeks ago.

That left me wondering WHAT in the world I would put on this child for her pictures.  Julia's pictures were special in that she was sitting in (her) great-great-grandma's rocking chair... I really wanted Raven's pictures to be special too.  Especially considering that there is little doubt that the second child get somewhat less attention than the first child did... i.e., poor Raven often gets the shaft.

I searched online for a dress befitting her beauty, and found a wonderfully cute one and it was ON SALE at crazy8.com, but two days after ordering it, I received an email saying that they were sorry, but the dress was sold out and la-dee-dah.  So, the search began again.  I found these dresses...  Dress #1 and Dress #2, and while neither one truly said "Raven" to me, they gave me an idea and hope.

 

So, I packed the kids in the car two weekends ago and took them to Des Moines to Joann's, and after some searching, I found fabric and ribbon to make Raven a dress.  I used one of the dresses I know fits her well as the pattern, and went to town.  Part-of-the-way through, I tested it to make sure it would fit her, and I finished it tonight after she went to be.  Voila!  I am VERY happy with the results!  It took everything in me to keep from waking her up just to see if it fit.

 

Looking forward to having Raven's pictures taken in this dress... yay!

 

erin

 

 

Bucket Fun!

A.k.a... How Daddy "watches" the kids while he is brewing and Mommy is off getting her hair cut.

 

Julia is in a grain bucket... and apparently it is wild fun to be spun around in this bucket.  (You might recall a picture from almost exactly a year ago when Julia was in the grain bucket... it is much more fun now than it was then...)

 

And... Raven is in one of those tubs that you buy at the Big Box Store for storing stuff... perfect size for her, I guess, but it's even MORE fun when she has a plastic shower cap on her head, apparently... ha, ha, ha!  This picture had me laughing hard when Adam first showed it to me.  (He uses the shower caps to keep clean kegs... clean.)

 

erin

 

 

I Heart Hot Glue

I've told two people today that I was going to name this blog post, "I Heart Hot Glue", so there you go.

A few weeks ago I saw this great blog tutorial for a pettiskirt... it is calling my name it and it is definitely on the "to do" list. But, besides the skirt, I was drawn to the satin flower headband... it looked easy and yet pretty and elegant... and I hoped she would write a tutorial for how she did the headband.

Well she did.

Now... I felt I needed a reason to make these headbands for the girls, and Raven's up-and-coming 1-year pictures were the perfect excuse. I had found similarly cute headbands on http://www.etsy.com/, and while I loved many of them, they were all a.) $12 a piece or more and b.) simple looking enough that I KNEW I could make them.

So, while pondering what to have Raven wear for her pictures this last week, I decided a trip to Joann Fabrics in Des Moines was in order and that I would be making these headbands... and yay, here they are!

And, to be honest... I think the total time I have into both of them is an hour... maybe even less? The cost? WAY cheaper than the $12 + tax per headband... and, there is one left over for mom to wear in HER hair too on a bobby pin. Yay!

Picture descriptions:

Picture #1: My "tools"... satin, scissors, a lighter, and a circle-generating object.

Picture #2: Another asset... and the love of my life today... a HOT GLUE GUN!

Picture #3: The "accessories" to my flowers... pretty buttons and beads.

Picture #4: My flowers, completed!

Picture #5: Attaching the flowers to the headbands (I used stretchy lace.)

Picture #6 & 7: Headband Model... JULIA!

Picture #8: Headband Model... RAVEN!

Picture #9: Julia and Raven together -- Mom, we LOVE our headbands!

Picture #10: Complete!

Happy Birthday

Can you tell which member of our family picked out my birthday cake this year? 

 

Adam and I have slight affinity for Hyvee cake so it is fun to buy the cake AND eat it too.  Last year we shared the cake with church friends and the doctor's office; this year we'll be sharing it with members of our church small group and anyone else who requests it.  Fun, fun!

 

Adam and Julia sang Happy Birthday to me at lunch today, and I blew out the obligatory imaginary candles.  We are pretty certain that Julia would sing Happy Birthday to me a thousand times if it meant she would receive a piece of cake each time.  My, how that gal loves cake!  Takes after Mommy, that one!  Heh!

 

erin