Valentine's Apron Dress

I had a nice relaxing day today which could have something to do with the fact that Laina and Mylie spent the day at their friend's house. It was quiet and laid-back over here without them fighting and making excessive amounts of unnecessary noise. So I took advantage of that and did some sewing.

The girls are doing a photoshoot next weekend and I am planning on sewing all of their outfits to coordinate. So Evelyn will be wearing the Peekaboo skirt and now, Mylie will coordinate in her knot apron dress that I sewed from the book that I talked about here "Little Girls, Big Style" Now that I have actually used the book, I would HIGHLY recommend it. It teaches lots of techniques and I think it would be an excellent tool for a beginner sewer!

The pictures are terrible, I think I will try again tomorrow in some natural light. Mylie is sick (again) with some kind of croupy, respiratory thing, but aside from coughing and sniffling, she is feeling good. When Mylie is sick, you can always see it in her rosy cheeks, and pale eyes. She just looks different somehow.

Now I just need to make Laina's set and we are already for the shoot!

Trip to the mall with kids (and other stories)

Watch out! I will ramble on tonight... consider yourself warned!

Okay, actually before I start that, I want to share a picture with you. I took this photo of Mylie in the rain yesterday, and I really liked it despite some flaws (like dark eyes, and too much stuff junking up the background) so the talented Heather (who is like, my idol of all things photography and a fountain of useful knowledge) offered to edit my photo for me, and here is the outcome! So thank you Heather, and Crystal too, whose idea it was to crop the boots in the second one.

And now on to my mall trip story.

I decided that I desperately needed a new pair of sweatpants. Actually maybe I should rephrase that. I wanted a new pair of sweatpants. Why? Because all of my other pairs were dirty as a result of letting my laundry piles build up into mountains that threatened to engulf anyone who dared to walk near them. So off I went to the mall with Mylie and Evelyn in tow.

I found a sufficiently cushy pair of sweatpants at American Eagle (which I am actually probably too old to shop at, but I digress). So I went into the big changing room they reserve for the disabled or those with children and large strollers. The changing area was pretty busy with young hipsters trying on cute clothes while I stuffed myself into some frumpy sweatpants. Soon, Mylie bellowed loud enough for the whole mall to hear, "Mama, did you just fart?"

I heard muffled snickers coming from outside the door as I hissed, "No, I did NOT!" (for the record, I really didn't) By that time, I had my pants off and was about to pull on the sweats when she said, "Hey Mama, you wearing your Christmas undies?"

I quickly pulled the pants up to cover my underwear that was allover Christmas print (hey, what am I supposed to do, pack them away with the decorations?) and gave her the stink eye. She stared back, unable to understand why I looked angry. As we exited the changing room, she stepped on the creaky wood flooring and exclaimed, "That's what made the farting noise!" I could feel the stares as my little gong show made our way up to the cash register. I could tell they were all thinking, there goes that lady who farted in her Christmas undies....

Moral of this story? Don't take your 4 year old in the changing room with you. They will humiliate you every time.

A Hodge Podge

There will be virtually no coherence to the post tonight, I have the attention span of a hummingbird right now (or something really tiny and fast, you get the picture).

First off, things you should not do:

*leave a marshmallow candy heart unattended in my house, especially with Destructo-baby on the loose:

*absentmindedly agree to whatever your children suggest while you are cutting out fabric (because they might ask if they can use the dance makeup)

*allow your husband to "help out" with the laundry, which COULD turn out to mean that he used the dryer on 1) Matilda Jane clothing 2) Loves Me Not clothing 3) Janie and Jack wool skirt
not to mention countless other Gymboree and Gap pieces in that load. I KNOW he meant well, but he is the one who installed the retractable clothesline in the laundry room for me to hang them all on!!! He knows the drill!

And for the next bit of hodge podge, we had some sad/ scary news for our family today. Our cat Badger has been peeing all over the house for a couple of months now even though she has a litter box and outside to use if she so desires. This has caused some embarrassing situations, namely the time Laina's teacher called me aside after school to let me know that Laina had come to school with her backpack that the cat had obviously peed all over and all of the books inside and her lunchbag had been ruined. How the heck did I not notice when we were leaving for school? I don't know.

Anyways, I had been thinking for awhile that I need to take Badger to the vet and see if maybe she had a bladder infection or if there was something we could do about the peeing everywhere. Then yesterday, I mentioned to my husband that I thought Badgie was looking skinnier lately, like her fur was hanging loose. Adam disagreed, so we weighed her and she had lost HALF of her body weight. The thing is, she was really fat before, and her size hadn't really changed, but her fur was just looser. I feel terrible for not noticing it sooner.

So we took her to the vet for tests last night, and today got the results. Which were not good. We are taking her for a round of antibiotics and potassium tomorrow, and then on Monday, she goes for an abdominal ultrasound. But from the sounds of it, we may have to make a tough decision to have her put down if what the vet thinks is wrong is confirmed by the ultrasound. She is a very sick little kitty who is very much loved by my girls. She is extremely gentle, and will allow even Evelyn to do whatever she want to her without ever scratching or biting. She sleeps on Laina's bed every night, and has done so ever since the first night we got her 4 years ago, just before Mylie's birth.

Badger seemed kind of traumatized by the vet visit and hung out in the towel cupboard all day, nestled up against the bath toys.

.

I hope we don't have to say goodbye to sweet Badger.

The Pink Panther

Not too much to say today, my anxiety is bad right now because Mylie went to be with a bad stomachache and I fear the worst, so I am going to go bleach every surface I can find.

Before I go and make my house smell like a pool, I took some pictures of Laina in her Pink Panther costume that I made for her to wear for the Ice Show. It looks a bit short, but it is just because she is reaching up, and I haven't made the skate covers yet.

Pretty flashy right? Woohoo, sparkly pink velour!

A Trip to the US of A

You know what I love about living so close to the US border? The shopping. Oh and being close to my sister and her family who live in the US. But again, let me stress how much I LOVE the shopping! Especially Target. I ♥ Target. I could spend hours in there and not get bored. We just don't have stores like that in Canada!

So today, I needed to go down to my sister's to pick up some loot that I had shipped there. Don't worry... I haven't violated my shopping ban... yet. But the trip to my sister's brought ominous tidings of the ban's imminent demise in the form of two catalogues that were waiting for me. The Hanna Andersson spring catalogue and the Mini Boden. As Adam drove us back home, I flipped through the pages and wondered, how am I to resist such cuteness?

Part of the loot I picked up was a box full of gorgeous, soft, fluffy chiffon waiting to be sewn into pettiskirts.

Speaking of waiting to be sewn, Laina's Pink Panther costume is all cut out and ready for me to get started tonight. I really despise using traditional patterns now that I have experienced the wonders that are PDF patterns!

And I worked on my photography assignment again today, with my adorable neice as my subject this time, trying out the lighting in my sister's house. She was such a little sweetie about it and she smiled tons for me, but I am sad to say, most of the smiley pictures were underexposed, so these were the only salvagable ones.

I get a kick out of this one because it looks like a mugshot!





I tried again in the same situation as yesterday but shifting her position somewhat. The results were dismal.



That is a rather abrupt way to end a post... so, umm, that is it for now! Until tomorrow!

Controlled Chaos

That was what today was... controlled chaos. Normally, Tuesdays are crazy and just go, go, go until I collapse in an exhausted heap. But today was nice! We got to all of our activities on time and I got everything I had planned to do, done. It is a good thing there is always tomorrow like my lovely friend Christine
reminded me yesterday, because another day like yesterday would have done me in!

I worked on my photography assignment again and had a bit more success today. If I keep practicing like I have been, maybe by the deadline I will actually have some decent pictures to share! Here were my efforts today.







and the general consensus with my GF girls is that this was my best, lol. Sorry to Adam, I keep sharing pictures, but at least this time he is shaven!

The day when my efforts were futile.

That about describes my day. My efforts to get things done, and get on top of my to do list were completely in vain. But such is life, right? I wanted to get tutus done... but that didn't happen. I wanted to buy the material to sew Laina's Pink Panther costume for her upcoming Ice Show... but the fabric store only had one bolt of fabric that would be appropriate for what I needed it for, and there wasn't enough left on the bolt. By the time I realized that, I didn't have enough time before picking Laina up from school to drive all the way to the next fabric store that would have carried such a thing. I wanted to work on my first week's assignment for the photography course I am taking... but the lighting sucked today because of our crappy weather. Also, the kids were uncooperative. Even after I bribed them with slurpees. Being the costume coordinator for the Ice Show is proving to take up a disproportionate amount of time to what I thought it would.

What is the point of all this? There is no point! I apologize, I think I am just complaining! But on the plus side? Evelyn said some cute new words today including "Bearpaw", those delicious little processed foodstuffs that she loves so much.

Here are the outtakes from my attempts at my assignment! I will have to try again tomorrow.