the sewing bug has bit

I've been frequenting my fabric stores lately (there are only 2 in my town) scouring the remnant bins mostly and coming away with bits and pieces that I love. (The blue and yellow floral prints on the bottom row actually came from a thrift store.)
This picture doesn't even include the 7 yards of HB fabric I bought to make a quilt for Maryn's bed. I need to get that stuff out and photograph it, talk about pretty. Later, I promise.

So what to do with all these pieces? Well my wonderful SIL and buddy Michelle got me interested in a skirt/dress with three ruffled tiers. I bought some cute fabric when we were in Utah together and finally made a skirt for Maryn out of it a few weeks ago.
I didn't really use a pattern (just verbal instructions from M) so I didn't actually make it correctly and it's a bit too big. But she loves it and it does look really cute if you don't know what I did wrong (no, I'm not going to tell). The sweater vest was a thrift store find and just happens to match the skirt perfectly. (I'm hoping the vest makes the skirt look more "fall-y").

In trying not to just make her a whole slew of three tiered skirts- I bought some patterns yesterday (from hobby lobby- 99 cents each people!) and am going to try to follow them and make other cute things for her.

I also wanted to show another awesome thrift store find, 6 of these chairs painted light turquoise blue (my new favorite color). We've been needing a 6 chair set for a while now and I stumbled on these last week. Also pictured is a blanket I made for a friend who had a baby boy last Friday.
In other non-sewing news: Seth got a pedometer at school last week and is supposed to record his steps each day (too bad it's lost at the moment). So he decided that he was going to run laps around our house (outdoors). He ran 20 laps- 4100 steps! It was really cute. The trend didn't continue today though because he refused to run until I found his pedometer. Poor kid may never run again!

For some reason this week, Jonas has decided the enter the terrible twos, complete with screaming tantrums and refusal to eat most foods or go to bed. I really don't know where my sweet baby went. Jon keeps saying "Since when does Jonas have an opinion?" Um, since now apparently.
He has said some cute things lately though. Every afternoon and evening when I'm trying to convince him to go to bed, I tell him "you need to close your eyes just like during the prayer". And pretty much every time I go in to get him after he wakes up, the first thing he says is "Mommy, I closed my eyes!" I think he's amazed that it actually works!
And finally, on Sunday we talked webcam with my family and saw the new baby. Jonas was really excited about it. On Monday morning while I was getting him dressed for the day, I asked him what he wanted to do today and he said "go visit my baby tousin". Me too, dude.

new baby cousin!!

Meet the newest member of our family- Aaron Jordan born earlier this afternoon weighing it at a whopping 8 lbs 9 ozs 19.5 inches. (Entering the world one week early.) Seriously- he looks like a linebacker.

Beatles 4 Sale

I was talking to a good friend today and she said "you haven't blogged in forever, I have no idea what's going on with you!" It's true. Let me explain- yes I've been really busy, blah, blah. But that isn't the real reason. See I have this problem (which I was discussing with a different good friend today)- I suffer from perfectionism. I know exactly how I want things in my life to be in my head- but my execution is so sub par for the most part that I shy away from doing things because I know they won't turn out perfect. For example- this blog. I knew as days and weeks went by I was getting behind and so much was happening so instead of just blogging and trying to catch up- I did nothing. And now it's been almost 2 months. Sigh. So instead of trying to catch up- I'm just going to start from where I am now (and hopefully go back and share info about what we did the past two months eventually).

Right now, this moment- I am loving the Beatles. Did you know that they just re-released all their albums in stereo!! Stereo people! I'm actually joking about the stereo excitement. I totally understand the difference between mono and stereo recordings- I just don't really hear the difference as far as music quality- only that some sounds come out the right speaker and some come out the left. So the stereo thing is not what I'm actually excited about- I'm excited about the music! I've only ever owned one Beatles album (Revolver) and therefore have never listened to any of the other albums in their entirety before now. I went and bought them all last week and have been listening to one every couple of days (to prolong the enjoyment).

A side note about why I own Revolver. I asked my Dad to get me a Beatles album for Christmas one year (I was probably 16 or something like that). He asked me which one I wanted and I told him I didn't know and that he should choose. So I got Revolver, listened to it, loved it.

A side note about buying all the albums last week. You may or may not know that they came out on 9-9-09. You also may or may not know that usually new albums are released on Tuesdays. So I went to Target last week on Tuesday, didn't see the new albums on display, asked a worker dude who said "we got a whole cart full of them in the back", took the 6 he fished out for me (there are 14) up to the checkout only to be denied because last Tuesday was 9-8 not 9-9. But don't worry- I went back the next day picked them all up and walked by the same dude who probably felt pretty dumb. (FYI- for those of you who are dying to have your very own Beatles collection- Target is running a deal until 10-10 where you get a $5 giftcard for every 2 Beatles CDs you buy. So I bought two at a time and rolled the giftcards- making the entire purchase way cheaper than buying the box-set.)

So back to the music- I haven't been listening to the albums in order or anything- just picking at random. And each new album I listen to I think- this one is my favorite, including the most recent one I'm listening to right now- Help. It's hard to describe the excitement I feel listening to these albums- hearing songs I know really well and have heard a million times mixed in with songs I've heard less or not at all. It's like seeing a finished puzzle- all the pieces fit together. I don't like every song I've heard so far, but I am in love with the entire package. I feel happy when I listen to this music. Partly because it reminds me of my dad and partly because the songs are so great and partly because I feel the excitement of discovering something awesome for the first time.

And now for some pictures: We saw Dan Zanes last week. THE BEST concert I have EVER been to. And I've been to some good ones. There was something about the fun folk music, dancing with my kids, not being hot and sweaty, and not smelling pot that made it a thoroughly enjoyable experience. He is an awesome artist, seriously check him out.
Maryn's first day of preschool. She goes 5 (!) days per week for 2.5 hours per day. She LOVES it.
Seth's first day of first grade. He is really liking it, he has an awesome teacher. She is so patient and attentive to the kids and their feelings but is very stern and doesn't let them get away with anything. Kind of like how I wish I was.
Wendy came to visit last week and we had a great time. For the past few days, Jonas has asked me continually "Are we going to pick up Wendy?"

And finally- we're getting a new member of the family on Monday! Carlie's going to have a little baby boy (one week early- lucky!).

Happiness all around, seriously- re-discover the Beatles.

swim team

We signed Seth up for swim team this summer- eight weeks of one hour practices five days per week. Technically, he was on the "pre-swim" team. This meant that practices were basically large group lessons and we didn't have to go to swim meets if we didn't want to.

My hope was that having Seth in the pool for 5 hours per week would turn him into this totally awesome swimmer. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that all those hours in the pool actually helped to improve his strokes. The time that Jon spent with him one-on-one was way more beneficial. But he really liked being on the swim team and he now has a sweet tan.

After hearing about swim meets from other swimmers, he asked me when he was going to get to swim in one. So we all went to the last home meet of the season a few weeks ago. He swam in two events, one relay and one race- both 25m freestyle. Below is a video of the second race, he swam against the only other 6 year old boy at the meet. You can see at the end of the video the guy who was timing him was motioning him to hurry up (I think he got tired towards the end of the race). His official time was 48.67 seconds.

The meet eventually got rained out, which we were kind of glad about (who knew swim meets were so long!).

For her fourth birthday, Maryn wanted to have a princess ballerina fairy party.  I pretty much followed the same plan as last year's party- invited a few little girls, played some games, made a craft, decorated cupcakes and went on a treasure hunt (this was new this year, I think- Jon put a great one together for the girls).  I'll post pictures soon (when I get around to getting them off my camera) but for now- Jon has put together two video segments of the party festivities. There are two or three more segments coming soon.

"let's start the fun!"

We had a fun visit in early June from Grandma B, Papa and Rach. Here is a link to the web album of pictures from the trip.  (I've also included a ton of links in this post so that if any of you want to visit us too- you can see all the fun stuff we can do together!)

We did a lot of fun things around town. Starting off the first week with Grandma, we went to the farmers' market and both local public libraries. Grandma knew all the fun kids books to check out and we came home with about 30 books from each library. The kids really enjoyed listening to all of them, especially the Robert Munsch and SkippyJon Jones books.

When Papa and Rach came, we all went to the Childrens' Discovery Museum in nearby Normal (not a joke), which was totally awesome- the coolest childrens' museum I've been to. Three floors of all types of hands-on exhibits including a huge train table city (Jonas's favorite), a fake food grocery store with a check-out lane (Maryn's favorite), climbing maze (Seth's favorite) and painting on plexiglass which we all enjoyed.
We also went and saw Up- great movie, went to our awesome local pool complex (with water slides), ate custard, played Guitar Hero and Tetris, spent time playing ball outside, got Mom hooked on FNL, ate lunch at the Flattop, visited the Amish.... We're thinking next time we might make the trip to Chicago or St Louis for some more fun activities.
Ice cream in very rainy Arthur.

Lunch at the Flattop- sooo yummy!

It was a great trip and we were all sad to see them go. Seth got very emotional when they had to leave and spent the next few days tearily talking about how he wished they lived here in IL with us. Luckily, we plan to spend Christmas in AZ- so we'll see them again soon.

Thanks for the great trip!

finish Kindergarten- check!

Seth finished Kindergarten on June 3 (after having to make up 3 snow days).

Last day of Kindergarten.

First Day of Kindergarten, August 2008

Seth had a great school year and truly loved everything about it! He had an awesome art teacher who came in every Friday morning and taught them actual art concepts along with how to cut and paste. He said that was his favorite part of school. He also had great PE and music teachers- those classes alternated everyday. In music, they did a whole unit on Indian music and each kid got to make an instrument- Seth made a tambura.
His best friend, Brennan was in his class all year. And since there are only two classes per grade in their school, they have a 50/50 chance of repeating the fun!
Seth did pretty well in his subjects- but really excelled in reading. His teacher told me that at the end of this school year, his reading level was a whole year ahead (end of first grade). We're determined to keep this ability going but having him read multiple books every day this summer. He's doing great so far. Seth also did well in math- he caught on to the concepts of addition and subtraction quickly. He like to sit and write out math problems for himself or have us write some for him. He can add multiple digit numbers together and carry numbers as well.
His handwriting is pretty poor though, he still writes using capital letters a lot. So we are trying to work on that at home this summer too.
Seth rode the bus to school almost every day. His was the last stop, so when the bus picked him up at the end of our street at 8am, it took him directly to school. I usually picked him up everyday though, otherwise he would have been on the bus for 45 minutes or so after school. He really liked riding the bus.

Seth has started piano lessons this summer and is doing pretty well and not tired of it yet. He has a great teacher who is very patient and jokes a lot- so his lessons are always fun. He's also on a swim team and goes to practice every weekday morning for an hour. Slowly but surely he is getting better and better at swimming. He understands the basic concepts but he is not very strong and his strokes are really wild. I'm hoping that after this summer, he'll be able to swim across the pool without stopping.

He is a good boy and we love him so much!