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The un-blogged summer, part 1

I'm just now getting around to editing and sorting photos that I took over the summer and never got around to blogging about.  So I anticipate that there will be a bunch of 'un-blogged summer' posts over the next few weeks.

On one of the really hot days, Papa set up the sprinkler for the kids.  They haven't had a lot of experience with it since it's a huge water waster and we have a spray pool down at Zack's old preschool to cool off in.  Both of them were really into it for a short time, but the water was freezing and once they got chilly the charm wore off.

Lily and Zack chasing each other ...

Lily showing off in her 2 dollar thrift store bathing suit...

 

And this is the kid who gets one drop of water in his eyes in the shower and it's a total freakout ...

 

It's important to protect yourself ;)

 

She was starting to get cold and ran around avoiding the spray at all costs ...

 

Check out the vertical leap! A 1/2 inch at least ;)

Warming up in the sun. They were so cute setting up their towels next to each other and chatting :)

A load of horse poop.

A few weeks ago we went to the barn where Heather has her horse (she rides in exchange for helping out at the barn) because Lily is in a major horse phase and also because I needed some manure for the garden beds.  Lily is all about the horses these days.  She got cowboy boots, a new pony shirt from Auntie Heather, plastic horses and a new stable for her birthday.  She wore the first 2 on our outing and was chomping at the bit (pun totally intended) to get there. 

Upon arrival she ran right over to the ladies that were there with their horses and we really had to hold her back because she has no fear and no idea that these animals could squish her in a heartbeat.  She stood there talking to it and trying to feed it some hay.  Zack was interested as well, but hung back at first.

Then he came around and joined in on the fun.

 

 

Aren't those boots the cutest things you've ever seen?!  Zack is trying to gather the nerve to pat the horses nose. 

 

Lily's idea of heaven...

While the kids were hanging out with Heather, I went down to get the buckets of manure.  Zack held my camera while I did the digging in a giant pile of horse poop.  Oh, the things we do for our gardens.  He also took some unflattering/blurry shots of my butt, me, and some horses ;)

 

I was hauling the buckets out to the van by hand when Heather showed up with 'the mule'.  The kids were having a blast riding in it, and were a little bummed out that they couldnt go with her across the street to feed Punkin (her horse) because it was too dangerous.  So we stayed behind and played with Stormy the barn cat, and watched one of the riders grooming her horse. Zack was fascinated with the grain bins and stuffed some feed into his pockets to take home.  He later admitted that he'd actually eaten some to see what it tasted like.  Goofball. It was getting dark, and hard to take photos, but this is the kids on the 'mule' (while Heather is trying hard to not be photographed).

We stayed until dark; Lily of course wants to go back, and Zack told me on the way home that it was "the best time EVER", he's so easy.

Halloween 2009.

It was a dark and spooky night ...

 

Ok, it wasn't so spooky (and not quite dark yet), but it was really warm, incredibly windy and there was an almost full moon so it was perfect for tricks and treats. The forecast was for rain later in the evening, but we managed to get home with all the loot before it started to rain.

Earlier in the week I pulled out Zack's old spider costume from the box I keep all their old ones in and let Bootsie try it on and she wore it everyday from the second she woke up. It was not the easiest thing in the world to take on and off especially since we are potty training, but she has been feeling sick the last few days so we indulged her.

 

She even did a little housework in it.

 

We got a little behind with all the stuff we did this month so our pumpkin carving didn't get done until the Halloween afternoon. Zack and Lily both wanted to help scoop it out, but once they saw the goop it was a total no-go. 

 

Zack did however, do the tracing for the zombie face we carved and he was so into it! He gets so intense when he's working on a project.

 

 

I remember as a kid how the day seemed to take forever when you're waiting for it to get dark. Both kids were pretty patient through dinner, but they were itching to get dressed up so I got them ready and took them out for some photos on the front lawn. Lily had been sick, so even though it was warm I put a turtleneck on her for warmth ... she still looked adorable if I do say so myself :)

She kept running through all the leaves and I was so worried that she was going to trip over the dress and rip it to shreds before we even left the house, (she didn't) because it did get ripped on the school Halloween party when she climbed into the van (I fixed it).

 

 

 

And then there was my boy, my sweet little knight. He was a little nervous about wearing the hood part originally because he thought it made him look silly, but after I explained that the whole point of dressing up is to look different and that he looked awesome, he was fine with it. His sword broke before we left when he bent over with it tucked in while throwing leaves at daddy, but a little tape did the trick.

 

It was really, really hard for Lily to wait until it got dark ...

 

Now, Mama? Now?

 

Then we got a few shots with the parental units. This shot is VERY much me and the kids, Zack being annoyed at having to stand still, and Lily trying to give me a kiss.

 

Daddy has the worst habit of talking while I'm taking pictures so he always is caught with a weird face. Zack needs to teach Lily where to look when the camera is out ;)

 

Check out Zack's treat bag, by the end of the night it was more than half full, and I guess I'm the only parent I know of that will let him keep it all. I always ask him when I want a piece of his loot, and he's only allowed a few at a time but my theory is that he did all the walking and he earned it. Plus, he has enough limitations on him, candy just isn't that big of a deal for me since he makes healthy choices most of the time.

 

And this little princess was a trooper, she walked a ton and went to every door saying "frick or freet!" She loved the whole adventure, and with a little help from mom holding her hem up on the stairs, she went up to every door with her brother. He helped her pick out the pieces and pretty much showed her the ropes on what the Halloween scene is all about.

 

And the best part of the night for me? Getting raves on their costumes at pretty much every house we went to :)

3 Year Pictures.

I took Lily out to the yard to take some pictures of her on her birthday. She is still a willing subject, albeit one that is constantly on the move. She's wearing one of the jumpers I made for her that I knew would match one of the presents she was going to get (brown & pink cowboy boots) and her 'fancy shoes'. Notice the tops of one of her shoes is completely rubbed off because she was playing cars on the asphalt surface outside of Zack's school while waiting for him one day. She has a bit of tomboy under her princess exterior. 

Tangent: What is up with the quality of shoes these days? I realize that Target doesn't carry top of the line stuff, but I was still surprised to find under the teeniest tiniest layer of fake leather I saw that there is cardboard underneath. What? Cardboard? Really? And unless you want to pay through the nose, buying American is hard to find. Tangent over.

 

She's been trying to get her uncooperative fingers to show how old she is for about a month, and right before the big day she figured out that holding her thumb and forefinger together is much easier than holding down the popped up digits with your other hand.

 

Uncle Jim sent her a card that had princesses on it and she refused to put it down. She's pretty happy about turning 3 wouldn't you say?

 

I got her a bunch of headbands because I needed one for her Cinderella costume and she loves putting them on. There's something about her wearing them that makes her look so much older.

 

This picture is blurry, but I still love it. When I first saw it, it actually brought tears to my eyes because it says so much about who she is right now. My happy little girly girl who tells me "I yuv you mama" about a billion times a day.

 

(It's a good thing I took pictures of her in her pink headband because Zack just snapped it in two. Ugh.)

She's such a mini-me of daddy.

Her hair has grown so much in the past year! She is extremely patient while I put her piggies in and sits very still ... about the only time in the day that happens :)

 

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to. I think Zack said something that she was none too pleased about.

She's got a killer pout.

 

She can be a crazy, wild handful sometimes, but just look at that face! Man, I love that girl of mine.

This is Hallowe'en, this is Hallowe'en ...

Yeah, so we've watched the Nightmare Before Christmas at least a dozen times in the past few days (Lily calls it the "ah mare missmess") and that song has been stuck in all of our heads. Zack sings the same lines from songs over and over and it makes me a little mental. Anyway, last Saturday it rained here all day, so we never bothered to get out of our pj's and I cleaned and put up all the decorations.

This is the dining room table in the sunroom. I finally found the box of my Nightmare Before Christmas snow

globes and was very sad to discover that the water had leaked out of one, was 1/2 gone in another and one was on it's way to being half gone. They were on display in my room when we had the fire and the heat from the apt below us melted the glue that held the insides of the globes upright. 5 years later I'm still discovering ramifications of the fire and cleaning up soot off things. Sigh.

They are still awesome though, and luckily the 2 that lit up still do and the 2 that are music boxes still play. Lily is obsessed with them and keeps getting in trouble because she pulls them too close to the table edge. I do need to move them anyway since you aren't supposed to have them in a window because of the magnifying effect of the sun through the glass causing fires. No thanks! Had enough of that!

 

See what I mean?

Here's the "Mayor". His head turns around to reveal his angry face.

 

And Lock, Shock and Barrel on the window next to the mayor. There is also a framed picture of LIly and 

Zack from 2 years ago that I only pull out on Hallowe'en.

And my favorite characters from the movie ... the vampires! His little umbrella cracks me up.

 

I had the Oogie Boogie too, but the ex got that when we split up our stuff.

This is Lenore. She is from some of my favorite comics by Roman Dirge, introduced to me by the 

aforementioned ex.

 

Back in the day I had the extra cash to buy the killer decorations and I got these birds off of Martha Stewart and they are so 

realistic. Lily woke up from a rare nap and saw them and kept yelling "Mama! Mama! Bird! Bird!" it 

was cute :)

 

Our little basket of Hallowe'en books that I want to add to. It also holds a matching game we got in a kids meal, and some collapsible treat baskets from Kelloggs that our supermarket gave out 2 years ago. Nothing gets thrown away if it has holiday decorating potential :)

 

And our light-up pumpkin that lends an eerie but awesome glow to the living room. 

There are also some great decorations on the front porch, but I have issues putting our house number on the web. Once I get around to photoshopping out the numbers I'll show you :)

There will be applesauce, apple pie, apple crisp ....

and every other kind of apple snack I can dream up since there is a 20lb bag of apples taking up the whole fridge! There is a really great article in Backwoods Home (to which I subscribe) that has tips on storing them for the winter and I'm going to give it a shot since I don't have a root celler (yet!). Anyway, as you may have guessed, we went apple picking on Monday since Zack was out of school for Yom Kippur. The weather was perfection - sunny and warm with a nice fall breeze. Monday is the only day daddy has off that he doesn't sleep through so it was a nice family outing, something we don't get a lot of. 

The GPS got us there quicker by going backroads, but it had the drawback of aggravating Lily's newly discovered carsickness. Zack is unaffected by it, but she can't deal with curvy roads at all. Luckily there was no barfing this go-round.

Here's Zack leading the charge 

I knew that I wanted the Cortlands because they are good for cooking and are hard fleshed which stores better. I doesn't hurt that they are my favorite tasting too. We walked and walked and finally found a good tree and pretty much picked all our apples off of it. We ate a bunch that had fallen to the ground from other, less careful pickers. We had a very wet cool spring/early summer so this year is a bumper crop for apples and peaches, I swear the branches were still laden even late into Sept.

Mmmmmm yummy.

The chuckleheads posing on the ladder. This is what you get these days when you ask Bootsie for a smile!

Lily working on her 'bend up, twist and pull' technique. She was more interested in eating than picking though.

The mama trying not to kill herself on the steep ladder, pick apples, hold onto her bag and tell Doug how to use my camera all at the same time. Good thing women are good multi-taskers.

I bought hayride tickets while Doug put the apples in the car and we rode over to the farmstand. Lily was very excited to spend the day with daddy and she sat on his lap, and Zack sat with me. Taking pictures on a bumpy hayride isn't easy and especially so when your son is goofing :)

Lily still lets me take her picture, while daddy tries to avoid making eye contact with the camera at all times. She's the rough-houser in the family so her personality meshes with daddy's perfectly.

Zack was all about feeding the goats and got in a bit of trouble at one point with pushing his sister out of the way to go over and over. We tried to explain how she doesn't get to do the things he did when he was little on her own and needs to have some freedom to explore too. 

This contraption is very popular with kids (both goat and human),  you put goat feed in a little cup that is taped to a belt that is cranked up by hand to the goats waiting at the top.

The kids sat on the tractor for a quick picture since we had a big line waiting behind us. We have pictures of Zack on this since he was very young and sometimes you get to sit for a long time and sometimes it's crazy crowded. While we were patiently waiting our turn, we once again got jumped in front of by someone who didn't want to wait. This ALWAYS happens to us. This time, an older gentlemen and his grandchild I'm assuming, stood at the front of the tractor, looked at the line and right when it was 3 or four kids in got right in front of Doug and plunked his kid on it. Now, Doug showed amazing restraint in saying nothing, and looking at me with the 'are you kidding me with this again?" look. Normally he cannot keep his lip zipped when this happens. 

At Santa's Village we all waited for 45 minutes in a very hot hallway, and everyone was aware of who stood where in line since you were all standing together for so long. When we got to our turn, Zack got shy for a moment so I pulled him aside and whispered words of encouragement. During that moment of about 30 seconds the guy behind us runs up and puts his kids on Santa's lap. Doug was FURIOUS, and so was I, but I can restrain myself or let it go. Lily is looking at me with big eyes thinking she's missed out on Santa, but in the end it all worked out. Suffice to say, that guy probably won't be cutting anyone again anytime soon :)

On the way over to pick out a carving pumpkin daddy stuck Bootsie in this crate and the look on her face as she stood stock still had us in stitches.

I love how she does this little twirl with her shirt when she's nervous. Zack does it too, but lifts his up halfway instead.

They were like kids in a candy store and shouting "This one!" "No, this one!" while running up and down the rows.

Ah, the perfect size.

We are total dorks, and giggled ourselves silly over this when we looked at the picture on the camera.

Aren't they so cute? I think they are starting to look a little more alike as Lily gets bigger, don't you?

A great day was topped off by daddy cooking up some delicious turkey meatballs and we all stuffed ourselves to the gills!

Jumpers.

     So I've been making these jumpers for Lily and loving how they are turning out. In fact, I've been sewing lots of things lately for Zack too, like flannel shirts and short sleeve button down shirts. My first attempts were ok, but I've perfected my process and things are coming out much better. I'm looking into getting a serger (even though my machine does a mock version) because I've been thinking about selling some of my stuff and you need that pro finish for durability as well as looks.

     I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about it, since there are zillions of people selling kids clothing on Etsy and it's tough to compete. Sometimes I talk myself into the 'you can't do this' mindset and it keeps me from jumping in feet first. Trying to work on that one step at a time.  I did set up a name for myself on Etsy just in case I decide to pull the trigger, it's called Bobbins and Spindles :)  There are so many people who say that you have to do this or that to be successful over there, and some stuff will be trial and error I'm sure, but it can be intimidating.

     Anyway, here are some cute pics I took of Lily today in the newest jumper I made, it's completely lined (no seams to be seen inside and can be reversible) and made of high quality cotton. There are buttons at the shoulders and it could be dress length, but I went with more of a long top that can be worn alone in the summer or like she is with long sleeves and jeans. 

Here's a closeup of all the topstitching that goes around the neckline (and hem as well).

I was pricing some of the OshKosh ones at Target that weren't even lined and they were asking 22 dollars or more for them. At most I'd probably only charge $18 and hope that people would see the bargain :)  So, if I don't get cold feet you may see me as a seller on Etsy!

Next American Idol she isn't, but dang she's cute.

I took some videos with my old digi camera again to capture some of Lily and her funny little ways. Yesterday she was all about the singing, and she's forever getting words wrong which is totally adorable to me. Zack tries his hardest to get her to sing the right lyrics, but to no avail.

Untitled from Marlene Gibson on Vimeo.

She watches Dora a lot and that's where she got this one from :)

Untitled from Marlene Gibson on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

He's officially a first grader.

It's awfully quiet in here this morning that's for sure. Both Lily and I are eagerly ticking off the next 20 minutes so I can go pick him up and hear about his first day. 

Despite being up a little too late because of his summer sleeping schedule and just being wound up about the first day, he got up without a fuss at 7:30. It was feeling very fall-like in temp this morning so he had a bowl of grits to warm him up. Yes, my son likes grits and we don't even live in the south ;) I took him outside for some pictures (which he lets me take without complaint) and I think I might need to take some when he gets home because it was still a little gloomy out. 

I don't know what the deal is with the goofy face, but he looks far too big for my tastes in his new blue jeans, Airwalks, and the shirt I made for him. His backpack is the same one he had last year because it was still like new and he said he didn't mind using it again.

He saw one of his new classmates that he knew from last year and who lives down by the school, and he wanted to stop into his old class to say hello but the teachers were busy with all the new kindy kids and their parents. We found his class, I talked to his teacher for a minute and that's when he started to cling onto me and not let go. I had to do some reassuring, but he was fine after that. We found his cubby and a spot at a table with his name printed out for coloring in, and then I asked him if he was okay (he said yes) and then I left. I walked back home hoping that all the newness isn't too overwhelming for him :)  I still can't believe he's in first grade, when the heck did that happen?

Sewing bonanza.

I've been hit by the sewing bug! Usually around July I start thinking about the kids costumes and getting them done. Lily wants to be Cinderella so I found a pattern and whipped her up a costume in about 2 days for 1/2 the price it would have cost for a cheapo Disney version. The hem isn't finished

because I knew she would get taller by Oct 31. There's also a headband for her hair and man does she look adorable in it!!

Then I thought to myself how much cheaper it would be to make her clothes as opposed to paying 10 or 12 dollars an outfit at Target. She is still small enough that a yard of fabric goes a long way. So I grabbed a few patterns that were only 2 bucks (usually they are 15 or so) and made her some shirts with pants. Not the greatest picture, but you get the idea. The pattern has to be adjusted for her since she is tall but still slim so a big size will fall off her shoulders but is just right for length.

One of my favorite tops of hers she outgrew so I made this with a remnant fabric I found at Joanns.

I was excited to find out that my machine has an overlock stitch that acts like a serger so all my seams look much more professionally done :)

Then came this pair of shorts ...

I'm still tweaking the inseam on some of the patterns for a better fit for her shape, but they are so cute! I'm working on a top to match.

And just today I finished up this little ensemble that has the cutest cherry fabric. The matching strip was an inspiration and I sewed 2 little buttons and some ribbon to mimic the cherries. It looks so good on her, but she never stops moving so it's hard to photograph!

I'm starting to think about fall outfits now, and I think I'll be picking up some clearance fabric to make Zack some button down shirts for school.

I wish I could do this for a living as it's just so much fun!!