Mother's Day was very nice, we decided to go to Greenfield Village since we have the member pass and were reluctant to spend too much money. No fancy brunches this year for us.
The weather was perfect, sunny with a slight breeze. Of course, everyone else decided to go there too, but we got there rather early so we managed to avoid most of the crowds. We hit the carousel first just in case Mr. Gasbaggy takes 3 times as long as the other workers to tell the rules man was working (he wasn't), then we wandered around. It's nice now that the kids are older we can explore the interiors of the buildings and actually learn a few things. When they were smaller, we had to keep on the move at all costs. They seemed to have the most fun rolling down one of the big, grassy hills. Even the teen got in on the act and we managed to sneakily get a picture of her, don't tell!

We have been busy around here! Getting ready for Lydia's ice show this weekend means lots of driving to the ice rink as usual. Last month, I joined the Coraline Mystery Box Swap hosted by My Little Mochi and that has kept me busy and worried. Worried because I knew there would be swappers with tons of talent participating in this swap and I wanted to please my partner so I thought hard about what to do. My ideal project would have been to make a doll similar to the Coraline doll in the movie but I just couldn't make one that was good enough. Thank goodness I found a great pattern for the Cyclops squid thingie and he came out great. See him over there?
I also decided to make a shrink plastic bracelet which came out so detailed and cool and I made some fabric pins. I felt bad in a way for using so many downloaded images and not drawing any myself but my drawing skills are so bad, that I knew it would be horrid. So the box is on its way to California, hopefully it will get there today or tomorrow.

Wow, it has been way too long since my last entry. To the right is one of 7 ATCs Lydia made at my request. We have this metal Ikea tree-like thing and I wanted to hang Valentine ATCs from it so she made some for me. I liked this one the best. We found some cute free downloads of vintage Valentines and she went to work.

The kids loved the little amigurumi frogs, I also made two cute little birdies for the girls, a tiny turtle for the boy and for all 3, I made some adorable hearts from a free Roxycraft pattern. The lesson learned this Valentines Day was take pictures of the goodies you make for the kids before you give them away because they will be hard to find after that. Especially with Kai because he always wants to sleep with them and they get lost in and/or under his bed. When I find them, I'll try to post a pic, I really loved how the hearts came out.

Here they are after the recital, so proud.
Tess playing 'Ballade', as promised, I already posted this elsewhere but what the heck.

The recital went well, it was in a church this time because the community center the teacher usually uses was already booked. The church was huge and a had a gorgeous and well tuned (LOL) piano. Kai did so well at his very first recital and Tess played like the old pro that she is having done this since age 7. Actually, she always gets a touch of the nerves, in the videos you can see how she's kind of hunched over due to being nervous but she plugged away and played beautifully. She was annoyed at herself for the few mistakes she made, because you know it is always perfect at home.

Kai doing his song, 'Chinese Dreams'.



This is their improvisational song, keep in mind, it is improv so there is not much melody just "noodling" as their teacher says. :)



Blogger won't let me add anything else so you'll have to wait to see Tess play solo.

Sledding!

We have been getting so much snow this winter. Normally I complain about it but I have really been enjoying it this time, maybe because there has been so much that we haven't had the nasty brown ugly version because we keep getting new snow. Anyway, David has taken the kids sledding twice which is exactly two times more than last year. Like I said, there has hardly been any snow the last few years. My dear friend Nicki is a former Michigan resident now living in Texas and she asked me for some snow pictures so here they are. I don't have any oh so pretty ones, but I like these sledding shots very much.


This awesome toboggan was given to David by a older guy he talks to when he works out at the Y.


Tess getting splattered, look at the air she's getting.


Always together, these two.


When did my baby boy get so big?!


Lydia and friend looking cute.

I made these Amigurumi froggies for the kids for Valentines Day. I was debating about making them different colors so they would know which frog was theirs but I had a lot of this green yarn, so here they are, standard green frogs. In order to differentiate between them and tie them into the holiday, I sewed little heart patches on their bums with the initial of each kid. The patten is from the Lion Brand site, they have so many Amigurumi patterns that are adorable. In addition to the frogs, I'm also making 3 little turtles. I have decided those are going to be different colors. One yellow, one blue and one either purple or mixed, I have to see what's in my stash.




Tess and Kai's piano recital is this Sunday, they get to play a song together. I am so excited about seeing them up there. He's playing a song called Jackson Blues, which is 3 very simple Blues chords while Tess does what their teacher calls "noodling", which she explains as a sort of Blues-ey improvisational thing. I know, the Blues? As their daddy says, "What do these kids know about the blues?". They must know something because it sounds great to this biased mama's ears.

One of my projects for Christmas that did get completed was making book bags for my kids and our niece in Seattle. I found this wonderful and cute download from Kitschy Digitals called the Woodland Book Lovers Kit. It came with downloads for a reading log, book plates, book marks and iron ons to add to a book bag and you could personalize them all in Photoshop. The blog showed several ways that her readers had used the kit and pretty much all the ideas I used were from them. I love the way they came out. I ended up making just 3 bags with different colored pockets for each child, they all got the supplies. No reading log for the teen, however, she's out of that stage. I also didn't make her a book bag because I was worried she would think it was too babyish or tween-ish so I bought a really cool Converse canvas tote (try saying that 3 times fast) and ironed on small pockets with the little deer on them so it would tie in with the book marks and book plates. They were a hit with all 4, it made me happy. You never know how gifts like that are going to go over. Don't you the love the gnome stuffie pin? Another awesome idea from the Kitschy Digital readers. There are a few more images of the set at Flickr .

Found this cool website that can turn your pictures into Tilt-shift miniature style photos. It is so fun to play with. I didn't have time to search my iPhoto library for a perfect picture to use but I think this one demonstrates the idea pretty well. I think I might start taking photos in a certain way just so I can use this cool application.



Neat, huh? It really does look like a miniature scene now.

I planned on blogging about our wonderful holidays and I may get around to it, complete with photos, but then again I may not. We had a great Christmas and we spent New Year's Eve up at the cottage, it was really fun for just the 5 of us to get away.
I didn't want to come home but we had our annual White Elephant party to host so we had to get back to reality. That party was a blast as usual. We get to see friends that we pretty much only see once or twice a year, we make our pledges to get together more often throughout the year but that just doesn't seem to happen. Ok, I don't want to end on a downer. We did manage to not get stuck with the worst gifts and I made sure each guest left with their heinous objects. I have to be strict or else we end up with all sorts of crap hidden in our house. One year, we found a mini JFK bust, a not so miniature Indian Chief bust, a scary stuffed Harlequin music box and a flute playing bottle left from our grateful guests. Ingrates! hee hee