On Tuesday morning we saw a lady pushing a stroller . . . with a cat inside. Yes, a cat. London said in a matter-of-fact voice, “Mom, sometimes cats just need to be like a baby in a stroller.” Of course we just started cracking up. Then London sternly said, “It’s not funny. You can’t laugh.” How can I not laugh at that?
London loves to dress up. She’s really into princesses at the moment, but what 4-year-old little girl isn’t? She called me into her room, laughing, this morning. She wanted me to see her princess brother. Poor guy. He has no idea.
Notice not only the skirt, shoes and headband, but the choker, earrings, wand and ring. And, of course, the necklace.
Lately (since I have quit Facebook) I have spent more time on an old hobby: sewing. In all of my extra time, I should really be fixing all the little spots that need touch-up paint in our house, but who wants to do that? Not me. So I sew instead. I have really enjoyed re-fashioning items. You may remember the dresses that I made out of old shirts of Taylor’s. Here’s another example of one.
Denver was getting rid of a bunch of shirts so I took the ones I thought would make cute dresses.
The sleeves didn’t work out so well on this red one, so I re-fashioned the dress into a skirt.
It looks pretty cute and it was really easy. My latest project, though, is a fabric high chair thingy. I found a tutorial here and thought it was a great idea. Since we’re going on a 2 week vacation this summer and are not sure where along the way we will have access to high chairs, I thought I would whip one of these bad boys up and use it along our way. Ashton loves it. I used the measurements from the tutorial, but that’s about it. I instead bought an adorable Pottery Barn Kids baby quilt at Amvets (I love that thrift store!) for 5 bucks and did a bit of re-fashioning.
before
I’m happy with the result, even if it did break a needle and make my machine do funny things. I gotta get that fixed before the next project on the queue. Hmm, maybe that will give me some time to paint. Anyway, I cut up the cute little blanket, added some quilt binding around the edges, and sewed it together.
Ashton loves it! I’m so glad. I thought he might try to wriggle out of it, but he actually wants to use it! Hopefully the novelty won’t wear off before the trip. Now the question is what to do with the leftover quilt scraps. Any suggestions? Maybe a wall hanging for Ashton’s room?
Look at this cute little thing! Here she is in her new thrift store rain boots (in the summer time with no clouds in sight) helping me grind wheat. I think she looks adorable! My, how a photo can fool. You hear about the terrible twos and then people talk about how the threes are really more terrible. Well, here we are at 4, almost 5, and things haven’t gotten better. I find myself almost counting down the days until all-day kindergarten starts up in August. That means six hours of peace. I think I can handle that. Right now we’re dealing with screaming children constantly. Of course church wasn’t great. It never is with the two kids I have. Things get better once we can send London off to primary. She has all of those leaders in primary fooled, though. They think she’s the perfect little angel. If they could only see her at home, they would see how wrong they are. For the last week, there has been constant screaming in our house. I’m not quite sure what I did wrong along the way to get that sort of reaction from both of my children. And it’s not just screaming, it’s ear-piercing-top-of-their-lungs-high-pitched screams. Ashton just learned it this week. He gets mad at London when she touches him or takes things from him or is in his way, or for any number of reasons and he screams at her. Then, of course, she screams back. But often she’s the one to initiate screaming. She is so stubborn and disobedient. Many times when I ask her to stop doing some annoying thing (like play a xylophone right in my ear) she’ll look at me, to make sure I know she’s doing it on purpose, and do it again. Just to see what I’ll do. When I ask her to stop again, she’ll say, “What happens if I don’t?” I tell her that I’ll take the xylophone away. So of course, right on cue, she does it again. This time, the xylophone gets confiscated and the screaming begins. We have started taking away toys every time she screams. It seems to have an effect, but it causes more screaming, in which case more toys are confiscated. I have quite a stock pile of London’s favorite toys, but she does everything she can to get them taken away. We’ve tried positive reinforcement as well, like time on the computer when she’s good, or a sticker chart where she can earn stickers when she’s good. Nothing seems to work. In fact, as soon as she does anything that she knows will eliminate chances of getting a sticker, she asks if she can get a sticker and when I tell her “no,” she starts screaming and wondering why. I’m trying to spend more time with her, but I’m often so upset with her that I don’t want to spend time with her. I know that’s what she’s craving, though. I’m just not quite sure exactly how to remedy the situation. For now, I can’t wait to send her off to school. I think it’s high time we send the kids off on a vacation at Granny and Papa’s for a few days. Maybe it will help me to feel sane again.
I signed London up for ballet through the city recreation center a while back. Her culminating performance was on Friday at the county fair. It’s funny to watch these little kids dance. London just looks around, wondering what she should be doing and I’ll have to say, she’s not the most coordinated of the bunch. I guess that’s what practice is for. But since you already saw (if you checked out my blog about London’s previous dance performance and clicked on the video link) the real dance, you’re in for a treat today. After London finished her dance, she hung out under the bleachers, dancing more. She’s definitely a freestyle dancer. I love the moves she comes up with! Check out the video here. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.
After the dancing fun, we walked around the rest of the fair. Ashton loved the animals. He wouldn’t stop mooing. My favorite exhibit was the wood-working exhibit. There were some amazing things that were made. There were even some shops set up where we could watch wood-workers at work. One of the wood-workers showed London how to use this cool band or maybe scroll saw that was powered by pedals. He told her to remember the words, “pedal power” and gave her a wooden alligator for her to paint at home.
This pedal car was so cool! It was pulling a trailer with all sorts of things like a surfboard, skateboard, BBQ, etc. It was so detail oriented.
What would the fair be without nasty fried food? I couldn’t help but take a picture of this place selling chocolate covered bacon and deep fried butter.
Yes, folks, this was real.
NASTY!!! Just thinking about it makes me want to heave. And speaking of butter, we saw a really cool butter sculpture.
I wonder how many batches of cookies one could make with that much butter.
Yesterday was my dad’s 60th birthday. We decided to go up and surprise him for his big day. Tuesday night we drove to Taylor’s aunt and uncle’s house where we slept that night and last night, since they are much closer to where my dad was that day. He and my uncle Dee were planning on making it to Carpinteria last night. Once we got up into Ventura county, we called to find out where my dad was. Then I dropped Taylor off near where they were and he rode his bike toward them. He passed them about a mile or two later. They, of course, didn’t recognize him. Taylor saw them then crossed the street and caught up to them. He pulled up beside my dad and asked him what he was doing way down here. Needless to say, he was happy and surprised. Taylor then rode with them for the next 40 or so miles to Carpinteria.
While they were all riding, I took the kids to Solvang and met up with my mom. Solvang is this cute little Danish town. It was fun to walk around a bit. Then we headed back toward Santa Barbara, stopping to pick blueberries along the way. I had seen a sign advertising blueberry picking on our way to meet my mom and thought it might be something the kids would enjoy doing. Boy was I right. London had a great time picking, but wouldn’t eat them.
Ashton wasn’t too interested in picking at first. Mostly he just wanted to push the stroller around. Then I made him try a blueberry. There was no going back. He found a bush and started stuffing blueberries in his mouth. I couldn’t stop the boy! At one point his started walking down the row toward my mom and I asked him, “Do you want to go pick some more with Grandma?” He realized he could have more. He stopped walking, signed and said, “more,” (or, “ma, ma, ma”) and kept picking right where he was. He would have been content to stay there forever.
Once we had our fill of blueberries, we decided to go to Santa Barbara and see if we could find the men. We had no such luck and headed to Carpinteria where we checked into the hotel room where they were all going to stay. Not long after we got there, Taylor called to let me know they were close by and to be ready when they rode in. We screamed and hollered at them and I was hoping to get a little video, but I pushed the wrong button and got a still shot instead. According to my dad and uncle Dee, yesterday was the hardest day. They were glad to be where they could rest. It was fun to see them and I’m excited to see them again on Saturday when they’re all finished. I’m so proud of my dad! But I still think he’s crazy.
London graduated from pre-school on Friday. I think it’s kind of silly that they had a graduation ceremony and everything because why in the world do they need to graduate from pre-school and what did they do that warrants a graduation? That said, it was pretty cute. They had their little caps and each of them got a certificate of completion.
London and her teacher, Mrs. Greene
The ceremony took place at the park where the kids played for a bit and we all had potluck before the actual ceremony. The sad part for me is not that my little girl is growing up, but that all of the great people I have become friends with throughout this year are sending their kids to a different school. You see, we didn’t know where we would be living when it came time to go to kindergarten, so we chose a pre-school that was highly recommended by a friend. It was a mommy and me pre-school class, where the parent (or grandparent) had to stay once a week and work in the classroom, and stay another one of the three days for a parenting discussion. The third day, we could drop our child off and leave for the morning. Since I spent so much time around these other parents, some of us became really close. I hope that we can retain our friendships even though our kids will be going to different schools.
The cute little graduate. I'm having flash-forwards of what she'll look like in 13 years.
I have been wanting to start dance lessons with London for quite some time. Being thin and flexible, I thought she would do really well. I still think she has potential, but her first show last Saturday was quite amusing. It doesn’t help that we missed a couple of classes and that she’s never done this before and that she only started a couple of months ago. She’ll get better. She’s only four. She has another show coming up in a couple of weeks. I’m excited to see her progress. I think she’ll know the routine a little better next time around. I’ll post the video on our videos page for any of you who would like to see it.
It’s interesting for me to be around kids and parents of kids. Having taught elementary school and having a child almost ready for kindergarten, I meet a lot of kids who are very busy. I sometimes think they’re over-scheduled. I can see how that could easily happen. I want my children to be able to do activities that they enjoy and if I don’t sign them up for things, how will they know what they enjoy? Right now London is in 2 ballet classes (just because one will end soon and I had to sign up with the other one in April to get the amazing deal that we have since it’s now TWICE the price I pay) and a pre-school class. Next year she will be starting kindergarten and I plan to keep her in one ballet class if she’s still enjoying it like she does now. I see all sorts of her friends signing up for soccer and swimming and other activities. I’m glad we don’t have to run around like crazy all the time, but sometimes I start thinking of other activities she might enjoy. I have always wanted to teach her a musical instrument. Being a music teacher and having started violin lessons when I was four, I’m not a huge advocate of starting kids really young. It’s funny that I say that when I started really young. My mom must have been crazy. But then I see how London loves to play the piano and sometimes pulls out her violin to goof around. Sometimes she even asks me to teach her things. Is she ready for that? Am I ready for that? I don’t know. I guess only time will tell.
I have needed new running shoes for quite some time. On Tuesday, I was finally able to hit up the running store in San Diego. I have been wanting to check it out for months. I went in and they assessed my feet. I stood on some sort of computerized thing that tells how you distribute your weight between your feet. It tells information about your arches and other things. I already knew that I had high arches, but I didn’t realize how freakishly high they really are. After that assessment, I jogged on the treadmill, barefoot, while their little camera recorded me. We watched the playback, and I could see exactly how I run. This information would help in choosing the best pair of shoes for me. I tried on a number of pairs and finally settled on some that I really liked. The problem was the $90 price tag. I opted to walk next door to the clearance store to see if they had anything comparable for a lesser price. I was excited to find a similar pair for only $30. I was pretty excited about it and I think they’ll turn out to be great shoes for me, although I wonder if I should have bought a half a size bigger. I’ll just be sure to keep my toenails short. I’m excited to get running again and hopefully not have a sore ankle anymore.
In my search for running shoes, I took my kids along. London wanted her feet measured and tested as well. She did throw a fit when she was told that she couldn’t try the treadmill because she was too young. I told her I would bring her back when she’s 8. She was pretty excited, though, to get her feet measured. Then she really wanted a pair of running shoes of her own. The store we went to doesn’t carry running shoes in a small enough size for her. She was quite disappointed. I told her we would keep looking, knowing that we probably wouldn’t find anything any time soon. She knows that the 10K that I ran last month had a mother-daughter option and she decided that she should really run a race. I told her that she would have to stop complaining about her knees hurting if she really wanted to run a race. Today, after looking through her shoe drawer, she came out wearing a pair of shoes that I forgot she had. They were given to us a couple of years ago and I forgot all about them. Now, her feet are the right size for them and they happen to be . . . running shoes. She came in my room wearing them and said, “Mom, are these running shoes?” Of course, we had to go running. Running with a 4-year-old isn’t the best way to get one’s heart rate up, but it is exciting. She ran about a half a block (since she doesn’t know how to pace herself) and then started noticing flowers and other things. Eventually, I got her to run most of the way around the block. I can only imagine that she’ll be bugging me to take her running every day now. I suppose it could be worse. At least she’s getting exercise! We’ll see if she’s ready for a 5K next year.
We did some shopping yesterday. One of the stores we went to was Marshalls. I love stores like Marshalls. They always have interesting and cool things. We found a great wall hanging at TJ Maxx for Ashton’s room. But at Marshalls, we found a tuffet. Really, it was a small stool that looked like the head of a cat. It was the perfect size for a little 4-year-old to sit on. Once she saw it, she got really excited and said, “Mom, look at this cool tuppet! Can we get it?” It took me a minute to get what she was saying. Then I remembered Little Miss Muffet. One of these days I’ll post a video of London singing about Little Miss Muffet, but right now she’s sleeping and I don’t have it recorded.
This morning after I finished washing Ashton in the tub, I left London to wash herself. I heard her singing this, “Uh, it’s amazing. Uh, so amazing” by Kanye West. I can’t believe I have a 4-year-old who sings Kanye West. In case you’re unfamiliar with the song, here it is.