Dressing up for Halloween

Ivory was a cute little pumpkin for Halloween. She loved her costume, except for the fact that she had to wear a hat!


Emily was Cinderella this year. We're just entering the princess stage, and as a friend pointed out, Cinderella is a good role model. When people treat her harshly, she is gentle and kind in return. She has a servant's heart.


I found the idea for this costume here. My mother-in-law made the dress for our niece when she was a flower girl at our wedding. I made the accessories; the choker, headband, fingerless gloves, and the pretty, but pointless, poofs on the side of the dress. Emily thought the poofs should have been pockets - probably for storing extra candy!

Gotcha!

We've entered the messy-faced-for-months stage with Ivory. It's always fun to catch them with spaghetti sauce all over their sweet little faces. But with a baby and a big sister, it get's more interesting.



"Who me? I'm just eating my pasta."



"She got me!"

It's true. While James was taking memorable pictures of Ivory, Emily came in for a closer look. Whenever Emily is in reach, Ivory tries to get her. This time she left a mark. Emily wasn't too happy about being messy at first (although she frequently has a messy face after her fine dining experiences), but once we started laughing she joined in.

Worms, Part II

Last year, James and Emily planted a tree for my birthday. Emily's favorite part as an almost 2 year old was discovering worms.

I thought that her fascination with these rather disgusting creatures would be forgotten as a result of fall and winter and the lack of earthworms during those long months. I was wrong.

After fishing with Grandpa, her interest was piqued again. Mom and Dad kept the worms in their refrigerator FOREVER after that fishing trip. How do I know? Because every time we went to visit Emily had to see the worms and carry them around the backyard. Mom and Dad finally released them into their strawberry patch.

In the meantime, James started a new backyard project (he's so great!), and the earthworms appeared again. Emily now carries her "baby worms" around in a bucket. They go down the slide with her. They sit on her lap. When she's going potty, her worms are going potty too (thankfully outside in their little bucket). The other day I was talking to James outside and Emily asked me to hold something. I didn't look at what I was holding....argghhh! I am not into worms! We've been talking about sharing a lot lately, but I hope she doesn't share these items with Ivory.

Sweet memories!

The other day, Emily and Ivory played "kitchen" while I was getting dinner ready. I overheard Emily mentioning baby food to Ivory, and the next thing I knew, she had the baby food grinder out of the cupboard and some delightful baby food whipped up for Ivory. Ivory really enjoyed her pretend food!

A sneak peek...

at my most recent project! More pictures coming soon without my lovely, but wiggly, models.

Happy 4th of July!

We're enjoying a beautiful 4th of July and we hope you are too!

The play kitchen project

Would you believe that something as hideous as this could gradually become the sweetest little play kitchen? For Emily's 3rd birthday, James and I made our girl a place to practice her culinary skills. It was technically my project, but it never would have reached completion without many hours of work from my husband. Last fall I saw this play kitchen, and just knew that I wanted Emily to have a cute, wooden play kitchen too.



We dismantled this sad little nightstand we picked up at a thrift/consignment store. Originally, the plan was to salvage one of the drawer fronts to use as the oven door, but we found out that the detail work was plastic. So, Emily's grandpa made a new oven door for the project. One thing I loved about the nightstand was that its legs looked like an old-fashioned stove!



Her sink and a few other odds and ends came from thrift shops, and the material for the potholders and storage area, as well as the upside down letter "J" for the faucet, came from Craft Warehouse. I'm really pleased with how it turned out!