My Town.

There used to be a storefront at the mall that was remodeled into a make-believe kid-sized village.  The inner walls were lined with cubicles that were designated as the police station (complete with jail), the schoolroom, the ice cream shop, the dress-up parlor, the train station (with brio train sets), and many more.  There was an indoor "road" where kids could ride the little tricycles and pretend cars, and a grouping of tables in the center to have lunch, or for parents to chat.

We only went a few times before it closed its doors, but here are a few pictures:

Noelle liked to hang out in the library.

Natalie in the dress-up room.

This picture is from the schoolroom.  Theresa had been trying to play a school game where she was the teacher, Mrs. Poop-poop-a-loop.  The other kids weren't interested in playing just then, which hurt her feelings.  I found this on the chalkboard shortly after, which broke my heart, too.

Are You Happy Now? ;)

I recently had a complaint that I haven't updated the blog in a long time... you know who you are  ;)  ... so I'm throwing a little bone along with an apology. Besides feeling like I'm drowning under my responsibilities and having a one-year-old menace to chase, I've also been missing a camera or two. And a cell phone. My memory is at an all-time low. Anyway, no pictures, no blogging. Simple as that.

Andy recently took a trip out west to visit our 2nd son and his bride, and he purchased a camera out there, which was promptly regifted to me as an early birthday present.  It's already been two weeks, and I haven't lost it yet.


 

Speaking of the Menace...

He used to be so easy to photograph! Now, whenever  he sees a camera, he dashes toward it.  It's hard to capture him doing whatever you wanted a picture of.  Anyway, the new camera has a feature called Color Pop, which highlights only the desired color - red, blue, green or yellow.  Here's the Bandit with a yellow filter:

And here are the girls with a blue filter:

Noelle has the braids.

And Regina, last but not least.

Puppies Galore!

 A very nice lady we know invited us over to play with her puppies...she breeds dachshunds, and had two litters totaling seven puppies.

When we went for a visit, they were about six weeks old,
toddling all over the place.

Clare thought they looked like potatoes with legs.

Here is Noelle petting one of the mamas.
They were just as sweet and good-natured as the pups.

We could have stayed forever.

 Theresa couldn't bear to say goodbye.

December 2013

Thanksgiving week, November 2013, was when Andy installed a wall-mounted gas heater in the rec room.  Prior to then, the rec room had been pretty darn chilly in the winter, and we didn't use it much. 

In this picture, the four youngest girls are nestled in for a movie/sleepover in the rec room, stationed in front of the toasty heater.  

Portrait Time Again.

I bit the bullet and had the kids pose for wall pictures.  Actually my husband's mother is to blame thank, because she needed nice recent pictures of the twins for the newspaper's birthday page.  They ARE turning 7 next week, you know.

So I went for it.  Natalie was straightforward and simple.  Two shots and we were done, although she did have me take the prerequisite "posed"  shot.

"Take a picture of me reading!"

Final shot.

Regina, wild-haired child that she is, was also done in four shots or less.  The abrasion near her eye and the shadow at her hairline are evidence of her tumble down the stairs yesterday - or "lasterday," as she so eloquently phrases it.

Theresa was more challenging.    The phony smiles don't fly with me, so we had to try several different tacks before I was satisfied.  I still haven't chosen a favorite for the wall.    The hair flip was HER idea.

Philip just stared, dumbfounded, at the orange flash indicator light.  I had to take about two dozen pictures to get a few good ones.   I am partial to the middle shot on the right, although I love the dopey look he has bottom right!

Noelle was the real pill this time.  It was either a tilt of the head, or a fake smile, or half-closed eyes, or a blink...I am still waiting for a consensus before I choose a winner.

Noelle's "action" shot.

Group shot!

PatchWorks

In May we had the opportunity to attend a free educational performance about life in the early immigrant coal-mining communities in central Pennsylvania.  Three young, energetic performers, using minimal props, perform shows to educate local kids about our coal-mining heritage.  Sign me up! 

We got there early enough to get ringside seats, and the girls enthusiastically responded when the actors called for volunteers.  The skit was an ilustration of the endless ring of daily chores that the coal miners' wives and daughters had to perform.

The actors did a quick run-through of what each volunteer would have to do.  Monday was wash day; Tuesday was ironing, Wednesday was baking, Thursday was house-cleaning.  I forget Friday and Saturday, but Sunday was a day of rest. 

Theresa had baking day - she had to toss the dough in the air, catch it, and knead the bread. 

Natalie had house-cleaning.  She had to sweep the floor - ch-ch-ch. 

Noelle had Sunday, the day of rest.  When it came time for her to practice, she stood there like a dead fish with stage fright.  Totally froze.  Didn't know what to do to demonstrate a day of rest.  However, the show must go on, so the actors moved right along with the skit.

The rest of the volunteers did their parts perfectly.  Theresa kneaded the bread.  Natalie swept the floor.

Then came Sunday.  

Everyone in the room turned expectantly to Noelle.  She stood stock-still for a heart-stopping moment.  The room held its collective breath.  Would she freeze up?

Then she smiled, stretched her arms out in a leisurely yawn, and put her hands behind her head as if she were kicked back on a hammock, as the room erupted in laughter and applause!

Blossoms

Several times over the last few years, I've had portraits taken of the younger girls, but Sarah has always been excluded - partly because she's always off somewhere, partly because I just didn't think (and justifiably so!) that she'd be interested in participating. 

April 2009

September 2010

 But each time she's seen the results, she has protested, "Why am I not in this picture?!?!"

This landmark photo may be the first time we've gotten a picture of all of our daughters, together, at the same time.  Happy Mother's Day to me!

May 12, 2013

Sarah, 22 holding Regina, 2.  Clare, 11; Theresa, 9; Noelle & Natalie, 6.

Christmas Skirts.

My mother asked me if, this year, I would make Christmas skirts for the girls instead of buying them Christmas dresses (as was her yearly tradition before being moved to a nursing home).  Um, how do you say 'no' to your mother in a nursing home?

Finding festive fabric was the first hurdle.  We don't have any big fabric stores within an hour or so, and our walmart didn't have a scrap of anything Christmasy.  Go figure.  Another reason to hate that place.  It took me about two weeks of looking before I remembered a place that MIGHT have some, and I was right.  They also had a great selection, and charged half the price I would have paid anywhere else!

If all things go well, I can knock off a skirt in 3-4 hours.  And thankfully, things went well.  I had all the skirts (plus a tree skirt) done in the space of a week, and we found pretty sparkly turtlenecks to go with them at Kmart.

News Flash: Camera Is No Longer Defunct.

My dear, thoughtful husband gave me a new camera battery, charger, tripod and car charger for Christmas last year.  Through circumstances not entirely my fault, I cannot find neither car charger nor house charger, therefore the battery was completely dead from May until now.  Rest assured, the tripod is fine.

On an unrelated note, my cell phone started to go on the fritz this summer.  I could have survived without the camera (although I did use it multiple times daily), but when the internal speaker died and I could only answer calls on speakerphone, I gave up.  You can only get away with THAT in so many places, and it was terribly difficult to hear the caller if there was any background noise (-background noise??  - in this house??)  So I dug up a really old, primitive model - the kind that only makes calls and takes pictures - and have been using that until my upgrade is available.  ;-)

The camera on the new/old phone stinks.  Pictures are grainy under the best conditions, and there's only room on the phone for about a dozen pics.  The phone is so old that it doesn't even have a slot for an SD card.  Barbaric.

We have two other cameras floating around.  One is my husband's, which I hesitate to use for fear that it, too, will be sucked into the trash vortex I live in.  The other was my mother's, and surprise, surprise - its battery is also kaput.

The upshot is that I have scarcely taken a picture all summer.

Yesterday, through sheer tenaciousness (and good fortune), I found our good camera - the first one, with the dead battery.  Desperation prompted me to actually look at the adapter plug opening, to see if we had any lying around that might fit.  There are only a few dozen unused usb and charging cables stuffed in drawers around here; could there possibly be one that fits the camera?

Success!  The good camera now has a full charge, AND in finding it, I also found some lost pictures from May, which I present to you now:

Reader Rabbit. Reading Eggs. Whatever you call it, they're reading!

  

Natalie and Noelle are 5/12, and Theresa is almost 9.  

Noelle started reading when she was three, and has been reading independently for over a year now.  Natalie and Theresa were sort of foundering behind, making some progress but never taking off on their own.  We had been using Headsprout since the twins were three, but Theresa hated it, and Natalie was just sort of dragging along, clicking through the lessons and getting overwhelmed.  Once you hit a certain level, some of the lessons get pretty lengthy.

In January I started a free trial subscription to Reading Eggs.

http://readingeggs.com/try_lesson 

At first glance I wasn't sure I wouldn't like it - the exercises seemed too short, the  songs seemed silly, there seemed to be too much glitz - but it turned out to be captivating for Natalie, Noelle, Theresa AND Clare (10 years).

It soon became a favorite part of their day, and they would even ask to play Reading Eggs some more instead of going to bed.  The lessons were shorter, true, but there was lots of reinforcement and very gradual building of skills.  They were learning without even realizing it!


The program is really quite elaborate - kids follow the lesson path through world after world, meeting new characters as they build on skills introduced in each of the 120 lessons.

They even have an older version with reading comprehension, spelling and grammar.  The kids earned eggs during the lessons to trade for items to furnish their "house", or to play games or songs on the jukebox.  It's been 8 months since they started, and we're still singing some of the songs we learned!  Unfortunately, I had to let the subscription lapse due to finances, but I'm going to renew again once we start school.

Long story short - we started using Reading Eggs in January.  By March, Natalie and Theresa were both reading independently too!  Now there's no turning back - it's like jumping in the deep end.  Now that they know how to swim AND read, they're set free.  Natalie used to be a guesser - she'd see the first letter of a word, and make a dozen guesses as to what it was, rather than trying to read it.  We called Noelle "Reader Rabbit" and Natalie "Cheater Rabbit" (all in fun, of course) .  But now Natalie has made the jump and is officially a Reader Rabbit, too!

Now we just have to get the twins riding two-wheelers.....

Natalie, plowing through the entire Little Critter series 

And just so you know, this was not a sponsored post.  I'm just sharing something I found that works, with no compensation from Reading Eggs.  But if they wanted to give me a free subscription, I wouldn't complain!

Patchwork Tiered Ruffle Skirt

July 31, 2012

I saw this adorable skirt for sale on a somebody's home sewing blog.

Adorable, yes.  But I am not willing to part with $30 per skirt per little twirly girl.  Do the math.

Then I found a set of free instructions for a similar skirt here.

Difficulty level:  Beginner.  Sounds good to me.

Since fabric stores are going out of business left and right, the only place to go around here is the local Walmart.  So I bit the bullet and went.

I knew there wouldn't be any associate available in crafts to cut fabric for me, so I went the convenience route - fat quarters.  Sounds like a drinking game, or a dessert, but it's actually a cute little bundle of quarter-yard fabric pieces, already assembled in coordinating colors.   I was in heaven.  

Thankfully Andy had all the children with him that night, so I had the luxury of perusing the material without interruption.  It was laughable - I plunked myself down on the floor in the middle of the aisle with my fabric choices spread in front of me.  Cheetah prints for Theresa?  Lavender and pink ballet for Natalie?  Colorful batik for Clare?  Decisions, decisions. 

I limited myself to two choices that night, because I had no idea how easy the project would be or if my sewing machine(s) would even cooperate.  I went with rich colors and matryoshka dolls for Noelle.  This bundle just screamed Noelle!  And when I showed the girls the fabric, this is the bundle Noelle snapped up immediately, squealing with delight.

First I cut the material into blocks.

Then we laid the blocks into rows, deciding how we wanted the patterns arranged.  9 blocks in the top tier, 14 in the middle, 19 on the bottom.

Every sewing table needs a bottle of soap bubbles wrapped in zip ties.

Clare is sewing each tier together in a long strip.  She did almost all the piecing together.

This is the 1950 Singer that we rescued from a yard sale.
It is the preferred machine among the seamstresses in this household.

Then I topstitched the rows to give it a cleaner appearance and make the inner seams lay flat.  Clare didn't want to attempt this part because she was afraid her stitching wouldn't be straight and well, this would show.

Then we really got into the project and I forgot to take any more pictures of the process.

I made the casing for the elastic, and hemmed the bottom.  She put in the running stitches, and she really had a knack for gathering the ruffles.  I pinned the tiers together, and she sewed them.  Everything went smoothly, but then we had a fight at the end and I wouldn't let her finish putting in the elastic.

Suffice it to say that we started sewing around 11:00, and the skirts were on their bodies by 3:00.  Total cost for two twirl skirts - under $20, with lots of blocks left over for other projects.  About six hours time commitment.

P.S.  I finished a third skirt today, August 16 - the cheetah print for Theresa.  It took me about three hours of sewing time, but that was spaced out over three weeks.  It turned out the best so far!!!