Happy Birthday Claire!!!

Today Claire turned 5! Hard to believe, but true. If she's five, then that can only mean one thing:

Kindergarten orientation!!!!

Claire is VERY excited! I hope she enjoys Kindergarten as much as her siblings did. She's not at the same level academically as the others were going in, so it's not going to be as easy of a year as it was for the others. She is a lot more excited than they were (and they were pretty excited-well maybe not Ben, but with him it's often hard to tell). Let's hope her enthusiasm will continue with the upcoming challenges that await!

Laura Ingalls Wilder

In third grade at our elementary school, the students need to read a biography, write a report and then either dress up as that person or make a doll out of a 2 litre bottle of that person and then give an oral report to the class. Macy has been really enjoying the Little House books and since I am a big fan too, I had Laura Ingalls Wilder's biography and so Macy read that for her assignment.
We used a Styrofoam ball for the head and covered it with fabric that I had gathered together in the middle to make a nose. I realized while we were trying to cover the Styrofoam ball that we should have used knit fabric. Oh well, when it's Eleanor's turn, we'll do better. I guess we just left the ball white for Ben's project (His report was on Paul Revere). So anyway, that's why the fabric is wrinkly. Wouldn't be a problem if we were making Laura when she was 90 years old. We made a dress out of brown calico (with red flowers) and added an apron and a bonnet. We stuffed the shoulders and sleeves of the dress with leftover scraps of yarn from her hair and then sewed her hands into the ends of the sleeves to keep everything in. I wanted to make a little Charlotte doll for her to hold, but then Macy reminded me that this was her project not mine.
As you can see, Laura is not wearing her bonnet on her head, because we all know that she much preferred to wear it hanging by the straps on her back. That's a good thing because even though Macy sewed the majority of this together, I made the pattern based on one I found on the web and the bonnet ended up a bit too small for Laura's head. Laura wouldn't be complete without her braids and red hair ribbons! Even though I helped with pattern making and a few other things (like working the hot glue gun), Macy did the majority of the cutting out, sewing, etc. so she'll be able to enter this in the fair this summer.

Pinewood Derby

This was Ben's last Pinewood derby as a cub scout. He becomes a Boy Scout this week. The Pinewood derby has always been a favorite scouting activity for Ben (and myself), even though he hasn't always done very well.

This year Ben did 90% of the work himself as he should as a Webelos scout. I helped with the drill and getting the axles polished (I held the drill) and the hammering of the wheels into place. A neighbor helped Ben saw the bit out for his Lego man. His car is a space ship on wheels.

Patiently waiting for the races to begin.

It's hard to see, but click on the video above to see the first heat. I'm not sure why the picture that goes with the video clip isn't showing up.

For those of you who don't know Ben, he's a bit on the shy/quiet side. He enjoys scouting, but doesn't really have any close friends. It was very touching to hear his den cheering for him before the race.
In case you couldn't tell, Ben came in first in the first heat! He also came in first his second and fourth heat. His third heat he came in second. This was the best Ben had ever done in all the years he's participated in the Pinewood derby. Even though he did well in each heat, there were a lot of other great cars with faster speeds and so we weren't expecting much other than the joy of doing so well in his individual heats. Imagine my surprise when they announced den placements:



That's right, Ben placed third for his den. While this wouldn't have been good enough for him to go to the district races (he wouldn't have been able to go anyway because by the time they took place, Ben would no longer be a cub scout), it meant he received a ribbon. He was very pleased and so were we.

Happy Birthday Kate!!!

Happy Birthday to my sweet, sweet, wonderful baby girl. Two already! Who would believe it? Not me!

Let it snow!

This was in December. We got about 22 inches of snow. It was a lot of snow, but it was pretty and we had fun. We get one of these storms every 5 or 6 years. We thought we were done. Nope!This was yesterday. It was a bit more than 22 inches. We had no power. It was cold. We couldn't play in it because we had no way to dry out or warm up. I worried about freezing pipes, but our house actually stayed fairly warm. The power came on about 9:30 at night-I was already asleep.
Here's the snow on top of our compost bin. Our neighbor's fence is almost covered.Those trees behind our swing set are supposed to be standing up, not lying down like that over our neighbor's fence. Please don't break our neighbor's fence!!!
This is how it looked this morning. It was very cold, but I had fun shoveling all this glorious snow. No school for the next two days. That's going to mess up our summer vacation to Disney. Did I mention there's more snow forecast for Tuesday? What a winter!!!

Happy Birthday Ben!!!

Happy Birthday to my sweet boy who turns 11 today!!!

He's a jolly happy soul.

Claire wanted a Christmas dress for her Christmas program today at school. I've been working on this smocking plate off and on for a little while now. This was just what I needed to get it done!The material was salvaged from a jumper dress I had made for myself when I was teaching. I had several with different fun fabrics. This is the last one that I've cut down to make into a dress for my girls. The fabric is a perfect match for the smocking plate!
Here's a close up. I'm sad to report that later in the day after this photo was taken, Claire got ketchup on the O in the first "ho". I hope it will come out, but if it doesn't then I won't be able to enter it in the fair. The risk of letting the item be worn in between fairs!

Edited to add: The ketchup stain came out! Don't worry, I'll let Claire wear this dress as much as she wants, even if it means it can't be entered in the fair. I just always hope it will stay nice so that I can enter it in the fair!