Father And Son

Hubby would argue that this is not a good picture of him. In fact, he wanted to throw a pillow at me when I took this picture because he was annoyed that I pointed a camera at him during a relaxing, simple, domestic moment. I guess I did interrupt the harmony but I had to capture this. Aren't they cute together?


PS I've been crafting like mad. Therefore, there was not time for blogging. I will be back with more craft related posts.

Crime Scence

Investigation report

Date: June 21, 2010
Time: 2:43pm
Location: Kids bedroom
Suspect: 2.5 year old, male
Incident:
During a routine patrol of the area, a foot was discovered. See exhibit A.

Exhibit A


Further investigation revealed suspect sound asleep on the floor, blocking entry to the bedroom. Suspect left an 8 inch space to allow a digital camera to be positioned for evidence exhibit B to be taken. Suspect is thought to have attempted escape during nap time. Suspect might have been overcome by sudden lethargy and passed out by the door along with his accomplice, Blue Lion. Their get away vehicle, a blue Hotwheel, LP#137 is still parked in suspect's right hand.

Exhibit B


Actions taken
Evidence collected. Investigator laughed uncontrollably for over 5 mins. Rushed to computer to blog about incident. Can't imagine the priceless expression on suspect's face when this report is revealed to suspect's girlfriend when he is 16.

Paper Dolls

The kids saw me make the little paper figures for Hubby's cake and wanted to play with them. I didn't want them to ruin the cake toppers before I served the cake so I offered to make them another couple to play with. Meet Snow White and Prince Charming.


I modeled these guys, as well as the cake toppers after the kids and they love seeing themselves as toys. These royalties even have their own castle.


What a simple and fun toy.

Hubby's Day

Ever since the Girl was born (in fact, it happened the night before the Girl was born), Hubby kind of lost his birthday. You see, Hubby's birthday is the day before the Girl's so 4 years ago on that day, Hubby "celebrated" his birthday in the hospital. Every year since then, I've been too busy planning the Girl's parties (Yep, parties. This year, for instance, she had 3.) that I don't have time to celebrate Hubby's big day. Plus, you can't really have two big cakes back to back.

Most years, Hubby just ends up with a slice of the Girl's cake and a little birthday kiss. This year, I feel particularly guilty because for his birthday meal, I offered him a loaf of plain Wonder Bread, a jar of peanut butter and a little bit of jam. He even had to assemble his own sandwich. So on Father's Day, I wanted to make it up to him.

We started with a special pancake breakfast followed by the presentation of gifts. The Girl made her Daddy a card and a bracelet which he wore most of that morning. Then, the kids "took him" to the movies. I made sure they got some coins out of their piggy bank to pay for the tickets.


This was the Boy's first theater experience. He gave me a very mixed review. One second, he'd say, "too scary" so I offered to take him outside. Then he'd say, "I love this movie" so we'd stay. The Girl on the other hand was a veteran. She said all morning that she was ready to hit the theatre. If I didn't know, I'd think she was going to the opera or something.


After the movie, we went to get a simple pizza lunch. Man, was I happy to see the Boy eat again. He's been sick for a week and hasn't been eating.


We came home and the kids took a little nap and gave Daddy a break. Then we had some friends over and we enjoyed a take out dinner from our favorite Thai restaurant. The finale was the cake that I owe Hubby. Come to think of it, I am not sure if I have ever baked him a birthday cake. This is a flourless chocolate cake and I think it is my favorite plain chocolate ever.


I am not an expert cake decorator... in fact, I don't know anything about cake decorating. So I just made these simple paper dolls to top the yummy chocolate goodness.


We finished the night with a few rounds of friendly Taboo with our friends and Hubby was the only undefeated player of the night. (Watch out if you ever play with him. He is REALLY good.) In his own words, the day was "much better than his birthday". Mission accomplished.

Embroidery Part 3

The idea for this project started a long time ago when I read this blog post. Last year, I bought this plain dress and thought I would embroider one of the Girl's art work onto the dress.


Well, her drawing was not very interesting last year. They were mostly blobs of colours then so I put the project on hold. Seeing her embroidery brought this project to the surface again. We started with a drawing that we both liked.


I helped her redraw the picture onto the dress with a fabric marker. Drawing on fabric is a little hard because the fabric shifts around so much. I had to help her quite a bit. I am not sure if you can see the outline here.


With that, I set to work. I love the red/aqua colour combination so I just went with an all red plan. The embroidery itself was very simple. Except for the eyes which were done in a satin stitch, everything was done with a back stitch.


Don't you think a simple design like this totally livens up the dress?


The Girl was very excited about her new dress. She wanted to take a picture with the inspiration of her drawing, Stripy Sammy.


The cutting of the dress is quite forgiving so I hope she gets a lot of wear out of this garment. The only thing is that the neck hole is strangely small and my kids have big heads. I may have to cut a slit and make it a v-neck dress down the road. We'll see.

Embroidery Part 2

Encouraged by her success and enthusiasm, our second project involved a "pattern". I drew a simple picture with short line segments resembling stitches on a piece of muslin and mounted that on a hoop. The Girl was instructed to start on one end of each of those little lines and finish on the other end. Here, a picture is worth a thousand words.

See those little lines, they were drawn with a Sharpie.


She was so happy and relaxed during the whole process. It cracks me up that she made up this little song to go with her handy work and I love seeing her kick her little feet.


After about half an hour or so, we ended up with this.


Was she ever proud of herself. Then she got all excited and wanted me to turn this into a picture of her. "This is a Girl and she needs long hair." Well, she hasn't quite figured out that long hair equals lots of stitches. After about 3 more stitches, she gave up. So we put it away and brought it back for short periods of time over the next two days. Finally, this was the finished product.



I messed with the colors a little bit to show of the stitching because the palette she chose was very pale. I drew the stitch lines, tied all the knot, threaded all the needles and fixed a few unintentional knots and she did the rest. If you look at the outer most blue hair, you'll see that she got confused and filled in the white space in between the dotted line instead of filling in the dotted line. I considered taking it out for her and have her redoing it but decided maybe it's part of the charm of her first embroidery project.

I have a few ideas as to what to do with this. We'll see if she has the stamina to finish a few more squares for me to assemble a quilt for her. Otherwise, I can sew this onto her clothes or make another bag for her with it. A girl can't have too many bags, right?

Embroidery Part 1

I introduced the Girl to some hand sewing last week while she was stuck at home. For the first attempt, I had her sew on a piece of felt mounted on a small embroidery hoop. The goal was to get her to understand where the needle has to go in and where it comes out. I also had her put what she now calls her sewing pillow on her lap so she won't stab herself. I gave her complete artistic freedom. She chose the thread. She decided where the stitches went and she decided what to do with the final product.

"Oooooh... thread...."


"This looks like a good starting point."


"Hold on, I need to concentrate."


"Success! One stitch down..."


This video shows her goofy attempts as well as her first sewing injury.


The final product was what she described as "little flowers on the grass". We sewed the little piece of felt into a pillow for her new "pet kitty". Presenting Stripy Sammy Napping On The Grass.


So proud of her work!

Colorful Beads

I read about dyeing and making pasta beads a while back but never had time to try it out. The recipe is pretty simple. Just put some rubbing alcohol and food coloring in a container (we used small ziplock bags) and immerse raw pasta pieces until you get the color you like. We left ours overnight and the colors came out very vibrant and saturated.

The Boy watching paint "dry".


See the great colours? Oh and since you are so great at guessing which kid is which, see if you can guess whose hands are these. :-p


It's a great sorting activity which both kids love. Sometimes I wonder if my kids have OCD. They love counting and sorting.


Nicely sorted.


I fashioned a sort of needle and thread out of a toothpick, some tape and some elastic thread.


It was great that both kids were capable of threading these beads and were equal participants in this craft. Sometimes, the Girl does all the work and all the Boy gets to do is watch. Surprisingly, the Boy really enjoyed this one.


The Boy was very proud of his work and wore his bracelet all day long.


The Girl is showing off her double bracelet look.


Another sick day project accomplished!

P.S. In case you were wondering, the hands belong to both kids. There are two right hands in the picture and the one closer to the green bead belongs to the Boy.

How A Sick Boy Sleeps...

The emphasis of the title is on the word BOY.


It melts my heart to see that even when he is sick and tired, he still clings on to his toy car.

Actually, he's been sleeping horribly. Two night ago, he threw up in his sleep and cried. Then he woke up the next morning with a bloody nose that freaked him out. Last night, he was woken up by another bloody nose and a coughing spell. Poor thing. He is still a little tired and clingy today. I have my fingers crossed for a healthy household by Father's Day. Wish us luck.

A Rainbow to Brighten Our Days

Both kids have been sick for over a week now and we've been home bound the entire time. While we did a lot of napping, there were still lots of hours left. We haven't spent this much time at home since before the Girl started preschool. To entertain ourselves, we pulled out lots of crafts.

Here is the first of many craft related posts. We attempted the rainbow cupcake. I followed tutorials and watched this video. Our results were not nearly as pretty as the ones we saw on the internet but they were still exciting for the kids.

Rainbow batter:


How our cakes baked up. As you can see, they are more psychedelic than rainbow like.


I didn't use as much food coloring as some of the recipes suggested so the colour of my cakes were not as vibrant. I couldn't get the layers to lie flat either. The inside is just a huge explosion of colours.


This project was very time consuming and the result was only okay. I may try it one more time before I write it off completely. I will definitely make sky high icing for it next time.

Swim

The Girl started an eight week swimming class. I don't think she will be able to swim by the end of the eight weeks but I hope she will be comfortable enough to not death grip me or Hubby in the pool.

Check out her new suit. (Note to self: Gymboree is a dangerous place. Don't go in there alone or with any money or plastic. Don't go within 10 feet of a Gymboree store during sales!)


Another pose before we headed to the pool.


This was the first time she was in the water without me. As you can see, she was a little hesitant.


But she warmed up to the water and the teacher very quickly. I went back to the pool with her the next day and she was able to support herself on a noodle without me holding on to her or the noodle. (Well, she thought I was holding on but I wasn't.)


They don't allow pictures at the pool so these are all the pictures I got. I am very excited for her. I am hoping the Boy will see that she has a lot of fun in the water and will want to swim too. Believe it or not, the Boy is a lot more timid than the Girl.

Two

Most people I know have heard me say that I wish I had two girls so they can be best friends when they grow up. I was worried that a boy and a girl wouldn't play well together. Was I ever wrong. While I still maintain that there is nothing like the bond between two sisters, my Girl and my Boy are giving me hope that they can grow up to be best friends, too.

Look at how in love they are!


I love it when they hold hands.


Well, of course, they are each other's best companion when they share food over a favorite movie. This is the very definition of harmony.

New Do

"How much longer do I have to wait?"


"Seriously, I need to look better..."


"NOW!"

Annual Adventure

"I am so excited!"


"About what? Excited about my new favorite book that I carry with me EVERYWHERE?"


"No, you silly head. We are going on our annual trip."


"U-pick!"


"U-pick what? Belly buttons? I got one already."


"Don't you know anything? U-pick strawberries! We do this every year. Daddy, let's show him."


"Ohhh! I get it."


"Can I pick this one? It's nice and yellow."


"Daddy, we should fire the Boy. Here, look at how beautiful and red mine is."


"Fine. I will just be the supervisor and quality control/ taste tester."


"All these berries sure are heavy and it's only half of what we picked."


"We scored over 10 lbs of fresh organic strawberries. So yummy. Dessert will be spectacular tonight! See you next year, strawberry farm."