Oh, Yeah, The Royal Icing

In my bout of sentiment I forgot about the Royal Icing. Pretty, but not that tasty, and strawberrry cake mix is not my favorite. But that just means I have an excuse to try making buttercream for Sunday. T minus 2.3 days and counting till party

And Now She Is Three

Today I was driving with the kids in the car when I caught myself saying "Evie! Look! A firetruck!" Of course, she couldn't have cared less about a firetruck. But sometimes the mama-of-boy in me still leaps out with a "look at the digger!" or "See the train?" All things that came out of my mouth multiple times a day when Briton was three. Briton is now almost seven and can a) spot the train/car/digger/firetruck on his own and b) isn't really interested in things that go these days. Now if a Triceratops crossed the street at the intersection in front of us, well, that would be a different story. But sometimes I still find myself pointing out the things that Briton would have squealed with delight for once upon a time. Girls are just a different kettle of fish. or at least, mine is.

I am daily amazed at how girly my girl is. What kind of cake do you want Evie? Pink! What color toothbrush? Pink! Which shoes do you want to wear today? You guessed it. PINK! Or sometimes red, since they are nice and shiny and have a pink poof on the buckle. Last year about this time I remember rolling my eyes at some mother talking about taking her toddler to get a pedicure. I would never. I told myself. I'm not sure why I even bother to think those kinds of thoughts. After seven years of parenting, you would think I would have learned. Yes, this morning, I took Evie to have her very first pedicure. And know what? She loved it. She loved picking out her nail polish (three guesses what color it was) and she loved having them file her nails. She held perfectly still while they painted them and after for a good fifteen minutes while they dried. She is my little pink girl. And I love it.

Time is passing so quickly this time. Faster even than with Briton. It seems such a short time ago that I sobbed because I had to leave her in the ICU and go home when they needed my room for another mom in labor. Just yesterday that she slept all bunched up on her tummy taking up a tiny part of that huge crib. And now she is three. She has long pigtails and a sassy little pout and changed clothes no less than seven times today, once appearing with a full blown princess gown, ready for a ball. Now she is three and everything has to be pink and sparkly. She has named her new doll "Three" and sings mixed up lullaby's to herself while flipping through Highlights High Five. She makes snotty faces and is not always the one wronged anymore in battles with her brother because now she knows how to fight back. Now she is three. And next she will be four. And I think my heart has broken just a tiny bit today. No more toddler. No more baby. No more diapers or sippy cups (unless she's feeling like she wants one, and then big girl cups WILL NOT DO!) Now she is three.

Paint and Other Things Kids Hate to Pick Out

My children seem to have a deep and powerful loathing for Lowes. When Briton was two we were deep into renovating our first house. And it needed some serious renovating. The last guy who had lived there was named Spider. No last name required. Just Spider. The house had been decked out in black velvet and dingy paint complete with real spiderwebs everywhere. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time, and a lot of money, at Lowes. After Evie was born we were again renovating a house and again, spent a lot of time at Lowes, and so maybe their dislike for the place is justified. But you would think at almost three (Tomorrow!) and nearly seven, they could hold it together for ten minutes while I chose paint colors. Wrong.

I'm not sure what is is about Lowes that they so dislike though. I used to spend hours at the hardware store with my grandfather every summer. He would putter down the aisles, weighing out nails and screws and nuts and whatever else he needed for the project of the moment. I would entertain myself mixing up screws and nails and nuts, all nicely sorted (until I arrived) in little bins. Once I had mixed to my hearts content I could go check out the selection of Radio Flyer trikes and wagons, pet the cat that always seemed to lived in hardware stores back then, and be ready to go about the time grandpa was.

OK, so maybe I don't let my kids mess with the hardware. And yes, there are no Radio Flyer Trikes at Lowes. Or cats. So maybe I see their problem. But with another major house renovation starting in less than a month, they are in for a shock. They've spent the last two years blissfully free of weekly (ok, sometimes daily) Lowes visits. But not for long.

The good news is, though, despite their whining and arguing I was able to pull paint samples for nearly all the rooms and tonight will put together a board with all the colors and ideas I've found in my weeks of brainstorming.(I told you I was nutty with the organizing thing) Of course, if Will hates it, I'll be back to square one. But at least I feel like I'm making some headway into the looooong list of things to do before we close on the house.

And maybe, if I can make there during the scant open hours, I'll take the kids to the local hardware store next time instead, where Gracie the dog will let them pet her to their hearts content and there are plenty of bins full of shiny screws and nails for them to mess up. Sorry about that, Meadowbrook Hardware.

More Fairy Party Dodads...

I love flickr.Anytime I'm searching for ideas for something I spend a few minutes (or hours) nosing around on flickr. Not that I've ever posted a photo there (sorry dad!) I'm the worlds worst photo organizer. iphoto organizes them by date when I download them and that's how they stay. But I love that other take the time to post there photos so that I can go and search out things I need inspiration for.

Before we moved to Charlottesville I spent a good number of hours looking at every photo tagged with the town on flickr. It helped convince me it was a good place to live. I've looked at room designs and found bird photos for Briton and all sorts of thing that I needed a lot of examples with minimal effort. Today I spent a happy twenty minutes looking at cupcakes. Yeah, go ahead, laugh. But then go type in cupcakes on flickr and see what you find. Today there were458,588 photos tagged with the word "cupcake" Tomorrow I'm sure there will be more.


So now that I'm (mostly) decided on what kind of cupcakes I'm making (I say mostly because we'll have to see how the royal icing turns out, could be a disaster, in which case I have a tub of pink Pillsbury frosting on standby) I can get to work finishing up the crowns.


I had planned to sew these, but my sewing machine is not being very friendly these days, it either needs a major cleaning or to be replaced, both of which cost about the same and neither of which I feel like shelling out for at the mo, so instead I opted for fabric glue and felt.


Felt is fabulous. It doesn't fray, it sticks to itself, it comes in lots of colors. Maybe it's the feltboarding kindergarten teacher in me, but I have a deep and enduring love for felt. So with that in mind and a table full of ribbon, stickers, glue and some interesting scrap booking borders I found on the sales rack at Michael's, away I went. I ran out of ribbon, which means another trip to Michael's (Oh, I wonder what I'll find this time, so many crafts, so little time) and I haven't tried them on a child's head yet to see if they stay on, but I think they are pretty cute. Hopefully the girls will think so too. T minus 5 days and counting to party time.

And in Other News....

We have our first egg!

Bad Diva

I have to admit it. I've been a bad domestic diva this past week or so. You see, normally I'm pretty organized. I'm beyond a list maker, I'm a schedule maker. Don't laugh! It's the only way I get things done. If I don't have everything scheduled, color coded and compartmentalized, it doesn't' get done. I do all the laundry on Tuesdays, I bake on Friday, I answer letters, pay bills and do any paper work on Wednesdays. And within the day I have a time for everything. And my month is divided up by which room I am making my way through cleaning wise (this week I am working on the kitchen and playroom with today's tasks being clean the cabinet fronts and sort the bookshelf, see-I'm nuts!) Ok, I guess you can go ahead and laugh. It is pretty funny. I even have a color coded weekly chart for summer activities. Because the thing is, I'm actually terribly lazy if given a chance. If I don't write down EXACTLY what I need to do and when, I do nothing. I sit on the couch and read trashy novels or watch movies or daydream. I get into the mindset that I can do it all later. and then later never comes. Which is why I live a color coded life.

But for the past, oh, say, week and a half, even color coding can not keep my mind from spinning in circles.

School let out so my normal schedule has gone to pot and I'm trying to transition everyone into a new one. I've got a birthday party to plan for the weekend, crowns to make, cakes to bake, decorations to find.

Oh, and the there's skateboarding lessons, swim lessons, ballet lessons, art lessons and all the other classes, activities, free movies, parades, concerts and events that make Charlottesville a great place to live

And then there's the house, the new house, whose closing date is looming and whose new paint colors are not chosen even though we are now down to 31 days to do everything inside that needs doing before we move in. I haven't even begun to think about packing (and really, I wont, since I cant even wrap my head around packing boxes only to carry them across the street, blah) I have contractors to call (No AC and we're moving in in July, HAHAHAHA!) papers to get to loan officers, mortgage brokers, insurance reps.

Plus I'm trying to get a new book proposal written and sent out in the next month. Plus.... well, life still needs living. Kids need to be taken to the pool and the park, and the library. Summer reading challenges need to be met, math skills need to be kept up, and above all, fun must be had. It's summer after all. And my kids will only be almost (three days left) three and nearly seven for one summer in their lives. I don't want to miss that.

So I guess it's ok that I haven't done a lot of baking (no cookies in the house to speak of, although that's probably better for my now daily swimsuit wearing self) or a lot of sewing or a lots of making or even a lot of blogging. There is still a part of me that wants to get it all in. Write, craft, sew, bake, skateboard with the boy, dance with the girl, kiss the husband, keep the house clean, design the new house, pack the old and have a fun summer. Is that too much to ask?

Probably, but if my color coding has anything to say about it, I'll give it a whirl.

Spontaneous Sewing

Today I did two things that I haven't done since I was in college. First, I sat out next to a pool (with sunscreen on of course) for no other reason than to just sit by a pool in the sun. Well, I did do some writing while I was there, but there were no kids to watch, lunches to hand out, arm bands to inflate, just me and a chair.

The second thing was some spontaneous outfit sewing. I used to whip up clothes for myself all the time. If I felt like I needed a long swishy green skirt for a party that night or a wrap dress for a dance that weekend, all that stood between me and the outfit in my head was a trip to the fabric store. Most of my sewing over the last eight or nine years has been baby related. Yes, Briton is only six (almost seven!) but even before I had kids, my friends and colleagues and fellow students were having babies and my sewing switched gears from skirts to quilts and then later from quilts to Halloween costumes. And lately most of my sewing has been of the home dec variety, slipcovers, pillows, you know the thing. So when I realized that I had an event to attend this week and literally nothing suitable to wear, my mind went whizzing back to that pillow case book and hit on an idea.

I actually didn't use one of the patterns in the book. But it was a good jumping off point. In fact, it's fairly similar to a strappy tunic they had which I loved. But I needed something a little bit fancier so I used the basic idea and fashioned a halter top out of a cream cut work pillow I've been carrying around for years to use for something someday. And someday was today.

So why pillowcases. Well, two reasons. first of all, since the end has a neat and substantial hem, it makes anything that needs a finished edge that much easier. And secondly, pillow cases are usually cheap, and most people have them around. In fact, I use sheet sets in a lot of sewing. It's one of the best ways to get a very wide piece of fabric for not a whole lot of money. Sheet sets are great for curtains, shams, duvet covers and quilt backings.

Pillowcases are the same, a relatively cheap way to get a good piece of fabric. The only drawback is that whatever your making needs to be as big around as a pillow or less but for a lot of people, they'll work for skirts, shirts, aprons and of course, the pillowcase dress that is beloved of little girls. But I'm getting a little preachy, so back to the halter top.

Before cutting I folded the top corners of the case at different angles and lengths and tried them out in front of a mirror until I found the look I was looking for. Then, marking one side, I folded the case in half lengthwise and cut along the mark so that I had a perfectly symmetrical cut. I wanted the back to fall straight across so I then unfolded the case and cut off the triangular piece on the back side.

With the case inside out, I tried the top on for size, pinning a ribbon at the neck line to give me an idea of how it would fall. You want it inside out so that, if your like me and you need a few darts at the bust line, you can pin them while you have it on and then slip it off and stitch the darts in place.

I used the remaining fabric to create a combination liner/facing by splitting the end of the remnants (which should, if you cut accurately, give a shorter but identically angled pair of pieces to the front of the top. Still inside out, I put in the facing then turned it right side out and pressed the seams.

At this point the top is almost done. I flipped down a half inch of the neckline to create a gusset for a ribbon to slip through for the neck tie and tried it on for size again. It needed some small darts in the back to lie snugly but I could have let it go the way it was and had a looser fit.

All in all, the whole project took about 45 minutes which included dragging my sewing machine out of the basement and hunting down some coordinating thread. In fact, I might just have to whip out a few more from some plainer cases for to the pool tops for the summer. Instant gratification sewing, my favorite.


**So this isn't the best picture of me since I was taking it of myself and I forgot to smile, but you get the idea....:)