fun in the bathtub

Anchors away, my friend!

We got inspired by reading Curious George Rides a Bike, and decided to fold our own newspaper boat. It wasn't as easy as I remembered it being as a child. I think my newspaper is the wrong size! Once I got it all folded, Kate wanted to see if it would float, so we sailed our boat in the bathtub!

The book highlights various ducks, insects, and wildlife hitching a ride on Curious George's boats, so Kate's first question, once I told her we could float it in the bathtub, was, "Who can ride in the boat??"

Running out of real estate

Kate loves to squish inside our baby bathtub with lil' sis. Since Rachel is REALLY into kicking & splashing with her feet, this can't be too comfortable for Kate, but it's worth it just to be close to sister.

A bonus: Kate favorite game to play in the tub (when she's not sharing with her sister) is scuba dizer! She fell in loves with scuba dizers when we took our trip to the aquarium this summer. How to play scuba dizer? Lay on your belly in the bathtub & kick your legs while blowing bubbles in the water. The other pretty amazing thing she does in the bath is lay down on her back so that her hair & ears are submerged in the water but her "face" is still out of the water. Pretty brave, I think.

Rachel loves bath time. If she has any evening fussies, a bath takes care of that quickly. She splashes & kicks & giggles & coos. She even practices her newest accomplishment, saying "mamamamamamamama." Kate can't believe that her little sister is saying a word! And, of course, nothing thrills a mom's heart more! Josh's view, "What about dad??? Da-da-da-da-da."

dress-up

Look who's wearing the cowstume this year??? This golden oldie has been worn by Lydia, Lauren, and then little Rach.

My beautiful ballerina & the cutest cow on the block!

What is it about costumes that are soooooooo irresistible for parents? I don't care two licks for the candy at Halloween & trick-or-treating would be Kate's worst nightmare (having to smile at strangers?????), but I just can't resist a little kid in a costume! We went to the Fall Festival at our local mega church, and Kate had a lot of fun. Although they also have typical games like ring toss & fishing & cake walks, we spent most of our time in the inflatable games area. Sometimes, I get little glimpses into how much Kate is really growing up. We don't go to places like Monkey J oe's very often (a play place with loads of inflatable jumpers & slides), so the changes in Kate are pretty obvious. She used to be too small to go on most of them; she also used to be too shy to just play in front of so many strangers. Last night, my shy Kate was bouncing a long with the best of them, and clambering up using hand holds & sliding down big old slides. She still had a moment of anxiety when she saw a guy dressed up in a full body gorilla suit. He was a little scary even to me! Not to mention that when we happened to catch a glance of him, he was shoving another adult. Probably a very friendly shove, but nevertheless, a bit frightening for the little girl staring up, up, up at a big, hairy, black gorilla!

what's going on round here

Eating
for the first time!
This just happened last week. Today I fed her some cereal twice, still just one or two teaspoonfuls.

Taming lions at the zoo
Fun Saturday trip to the zoo a few weeks ago. Kate's favorite were the giraffes.

Sleeping
I got so pooped after folding the clothes, I had to take a littlest snooze. (Well, I guess I only folded a few before I got tired, but who's counting)

Playing
A recent craft from her morning childcare -- a guitar! She had so much fun imitating Uncle Ben & Christopher. She even got out another chair on which to prop her music. Now she can't decide whether she wants to learn the violin or the guitar! *Note the guitar is made incorrectly so had to be played backwards in order to be correct! Oh well.

New blog plus giveaway

A new blog I read these days is having a giveaway -- and I get a few points for posting about it here -- so without further ado, here's the link to The Budget Mommy, who happens to be giving away some Nalgene sippy cups. Click here to enter yourself or just to check it out.

sing a long

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping?
Parma Jean? (pronounced in the French way) Parma Jean?
Ding ding dong, ding ding dong.

In my mind, "What? Farmer John? That's not how it goes. . . " Thankfully, before my over conscientious mommy mouth could kick in, I realized she was saying Parmesan. . . and that was too cute to correct. So, mum's the word.

Incidentally, almost any condiment that sits on the table & is shaken onto the food is called Parmesan at our house. Well, not the s & p. But Cinammon sugar is!

My favorite is when I DO try to correct her pronunciation, it usually goes something like this:

K: Who is in that picture?
Momma: Grandma Louise.
K: Grandma Wouise?
M: No, honey. . L, L, Louise.
K: Oh, L, L, Wouise. She repeats the correct sound & then continues on with her mispronunciation. I love it!

craftiness

I have been bitten, and bitten badly, by the craft bug. Many naptimes & nights find me sewing, reading blogs about sewing, or staring at my fabric stash WELL into the night. I even *daydream* about sewing when I have a spare moment. I find it to be incredibly cathartic and addicting. It's something I can do when the house is quiet & my stash of books has been depleted. After a series of late nights, Josh reminded me that I didn't REALLY have a reason to wear myself to the bone, after all, I wasn't working under a deadline. :-) I just smiled.

To combine my hobby with actual usefulness, I've decided to start working on Christmas presents. So, instead of having all-nighters the nights leading up to Christmas, I am just having them in September & October. I have several children projects & 1 garment in the works. I also have a real hankering to do a quilt. I just want to try it! So, I had to make up a project for one of my kids, even though they both technically have quite enough coverings for their cute sleeping little bodies. Looking at some of these Modern Quilting Blogs is enough to make me start salivating!! Of course, I imagine that my first outings won't look exactly like these, but I have to start somewhere.
Here are a few of my fav blogs:
http://tallgrassprairiestudio.blogspot.com/
http://www.filminthefridge.com/
http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/
http://myauntjune.blogspot.com/

I have also fallen in love with tutorials! I wonder how people ever sewed before the world of fast, free information WITH PICTURES! Can't get much better than that. I've completed a few projects, but as I'm working on gifts, I can't exactly post pics of them until the recipients, um, receive them. I will note that most of the recipients are children, and since they don't check my blog regularly, I just may post pictures of them before Christmas. ha! So, I'll leave you with some pics of my fabrics. Not all of the groups of fabric are necessarily all going to be in the same project -- they just "matched" enough for me to take a picture of them together. :-)

Herein lies my biggest projects. I approach with fear & trembling.
Projects #1 & #2

Project #3

Projects #4 & #5

Project #6

Come outside & play with me!
This is a dress I finished in the late summer, right before we went on our vacation. I'm hoping it will transition okay into a Jumper. What do you think?

She rarely accomodates a mommy photo shoot, but she finally looked at the camera & flashed me one of these gems.