Conquering Fears

When I was a kid I tried sewing a few things with limited success.  As an adult I thought I was ready to conquer sewing again.  I make a few things like curtains and proudly announced I had mastered the straight line.  But every time I tried sewing clothes I hated it (ok that is too strong.)  It wasn't fun or relaxing. 


Then one day I had an epiphany.  If I didn't like sewing clothes I didn't have to do it.  So I stopped trying.  Then as Sophie's 8th birthday approached I started looking for a baptism dress for her.  If I wanted to pay an arm and a leg I could get one.  Then I found an affordable site, but they were all way to poofy and fancy. 

So I got my mom to help me make Sophie a dress.  She bought the pattern and supplies.  She showed me how to do things step my step.  She did some of the harder parts for me and in the end we had a dress.

Then a friend asked me if I wanted to make an Easter dress with her.  I told her NO!  But some time went by and I am not sure why, I changed my mind.  I went to the store with Sophie.  She picked out fabric and a pattern. And then...I made a dress.  All by myself.  I tried to call my Mom several times and she wasn't home and I was forced to figure things out on my own.

Here is the end result.  It is full of imperfections, but I did it!!!!

The dress

At the same time Sophie caught the knitting bug and made this scarf

The ensemble

Ben

I am not sure if I have posted pictures of Ben in his new glasses.  They are SO cute!!! We got them at Dr. Bauman and Dr. Mitchell's office in Stowe (shameless plug for Dr. Mitchell who is a friend.)
http://www.drrobertbauman.com/

Here is Ben sporting his new glasses and a free tiki hat we got in the mail.  For some reason I can't find it anymore...

March Snow

Spring was coming.  The snow was melting.  And then it snowed and in one single snowstorm we had more snow on the ground than we ever did all winter.  3/7/11

The cars were literally buried.

The snow was too deep to use our wimpy but wonderful snow blower and so the dear sweet man that I am so lucky to have spent HOURS shoveling the snow.  First he had to bring it across the road since there was no place to dump it.  Finally we just moved his car and used that space to dump snow.  We lost a parking spot and created a mountain of snow.

The kids had no place to play because the snow was too deep for them to walk in.  Since the cars were buried, they were able to climb right on top.  Then they spent some time jumping off the car into the deep snow.

I am pretty sure eventually we will see grass.  When we do, I'll let you know.

Equality

I need to start with a disclaimer.  I love each and every one of my children equally.  However one of them is in a rapid rate of growth and change and as such he has a lot more pictures and posts on here.

There, now I can go on with another Noah unload.

I know Noah has a funny face here, but he is so cute in this sled.  He loves being outside and doesn't seem to mind the cold (so long as he is bundled in multiple layers.) 2/26/11

Noah and Jacob are pals.  Jacob takes pretty good care of Noah and Noah loves Jacob.  Here Jacob was watching a show and wanted Noah to watch too.3/3/11

Somebody is getting VERY mobile and discovered my plant.  Unlike Ben as a baby Noah just likes to play in the dirt rather than eat it.3/6/11

Do you think these two are brothers?

Ben 3/15/05

Jacob put his sunglasses on Noah.  I thought he would pull them off, but he loved them.  I even think he knew he looked cool. 3/7/11

 

3/14/11

3/15/11

And in case you think that Noah looks just like Ben...

He is very clearly Jacob's brother too. 3/30/07

And finally (I think so I can claim equality...)

Sophie 3/29/03 There are some similarities, but I think she looks the most different.

A Visit

On February 23rd we went to visit Aaron's sister.  Good food, good conversation and best of all the cousins got to play.

 

 

On That Note

Speaking of imagination.... Here are some photos of Jacob's creative talents at work.

Flour dust makes great tracks

Up close

A somewhat ridiculous competition to build the biggest Duplo gun.

Space Shoes

On January 25th Jacob had a friend over.  We are doing a preschool share with her (and maybe someday we will actually have it.  We have had to cancel so many times for illness.  Has this been a hard winter for anyone else?)


Anyway...after preschool I was visiting with her mom and she came into the room.  Her mom asked her to take her boots off and she said, "I can't! They are my space shoes.  Then Jacob came in with his space shoes and they got in their rocket.  They were all decked out in space attire.  Isn't imagination wonderful?!

A second photo from a different angle so that you can see their space shoes.

Noah

1/20/11

1/21/11

Same, but up close you can see the bruise on his nose from falling out of the high chair.

Daddy likes to play and Noah doesn't seem to mind it at all 2/6/11

My favorite outfit.  My sister Kathryn has great taste! 2/21/11

Bo is such a patient dog.  He lets Noah play with his ears and tail and collar and Noah climbs all over him and he just takes it.

Bath is the sink 2/14/11

Prepping for his first hair cut. 1/25/11

It was so hard to make that cut, but he was bald in in some spots and long in others this just evened it all out.

Aaron gave him a dum dum and he took that thing down to the stick in a matter of seconds it seemed!

Clubs

Back in the beginning of the school year Sophie and her classmates made a club.  It turned out to be a great learning experience.  Lessons learned...


#1 Clubs must include everyone.  This was learned when Sophie told me the members of the club and it was every girl in the class except one.  Not cool!  Sophie was very mature and went to the other girls and advocated for the girl as did some of the other girls.


#2 Clubs including money are tricky.  This club was called Cookie N' Co.  Its purpose was to make and sell cookies to earn a pizza party.  Then one of the other parents suggested that the girls donate a portion of their profit to a charity.  It was a great idea and the girls did it, but it just wasn't anything a bunch of 8 and 9 year olds would have come up with on their own.  Then in the end they all had an argument because some of them wanted to donate all the money to a local farm that had a fire and some just wanted to do a portion.


#3 Decision making as a group is difficult.  The first meeting lasted hours as the girls discussed and tried to figure out how much to charge, where and how much to donate, what to call the club, what kind of cookies to make, who would advertise, where to sell the cookies (they never did decide on that one).  Plus 8-9 year old girls are fickle even when a decision was made it would change several times.

#4 In order for a business plan to work you need a venue to sell your wares.  The girls didn't have it for weeks so we just made dough and froze it until we could figure out how to sell the cookies.

#5 Clubs are short lived.  The girls lost interest in the club so I was doing everything.  I finally just baked all the cookies one night and said we were done and that if Sophie wanted to have her friends over to bake cookies for fun they were more than welcome.  Really I think that is all they ever really wanted to do.

#6 Fair weather friends...there were a couple of girls who never came to the Friday meetings to make cookie dough, but when it came time to sell the cookies for real money, they were right there like they had been part of the group all along.  When the money for the pizza party was collected Aaron and I encouraged Sophie to exclude those who didn't contribute (I know it contradicts # 1).  I am pleased to say that Sophie didn't care, she just wanted to have fun with her friends and all were invited.

#6 Earning money is fun!  After the cookies were baked I brought them to the school and the girls brought out a table and made a price list and those things sold like hot cakes.  With in a few minutes the girls had $40!

The girls that were able to make it for the pizza party

Same girls without a pizza box.  We had a chinese fire drill where I pulled over and the girls had 10 seconds to throw a snowball at the windshield since they couldn't all trade seats (one was in a booster seat, another was the only one tall enough to sit in the front...)