Archive for November, 2012

Thankful Feast

Posted in Celebrations, School, Sewing on November 20th, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

The kindergarten classes at Molly's school have a Thankful Feast every year which they invite their families to come to school for. There was a good turnout, including our whole family.

Thankful Feast

Molly's friend Catherine - not sure what this expression was.

Catherine

Kaylin's giving three cheers for the Thankful Feast!

Yeah for Kaylin

After the feast, the kids went back to class for 30 minutes. We were invited to stay if we liked. Leah immediately jumped into the class (Ms. Colella said it was ok). Here she is dancing around the circle, loving being a kindergartner for a few minutes.

An extra (smaller) kindergartner

I had made the girls new Fall outfits earlier in the week, which they requested to wear to the Thankful Feast. Molly's Music box jumper was my first Oliver + S pattern. Leah's skort was the same Isabella pattern I made for her birthday. She loves the shorts underneath!

Fall outfits

Cherub Choir November 2012

Posted in Church, Molly, Video on November 19th, 2012 by c-had – 1 Comment

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Molly and her choir at church sang three songs this Sunday. Can you tell which one the kids have the most fun singing?

We’re on a roll

Posted in Molly, Playdates on November 19th, 2012 by jen – 1 Comment

Molly was requesting to go roller skating. So I called up some friends and we all headed to the Skate Arena.

First time roller skating

Allison & Molly had fun hanging out and hanging on railings and walls.

Hanging out & hanging on

Matilda had a harder time getting the hang of skating, as did her mom!

Giving it her best

The skating rink (also known as the arena at our local gym) uses a section of the indoor track as a practice lane. Simon was doing a great job with his dad.

The practice lane

Jake showed up with his bike helmet and was ready to go!

Prepped and ready to skate

Molly eventually realized that she could skate better on the carpet, rather than in the rink. All the kids had fun, so we'll definitely try it out again.

Skating on her own

More Memphis moments

Posted in Leah, Molly, Trip on November 11th, 2012 by jen – 1 Comment

G'Mom's birthday is later this month, so we had an early birthday celebration. Chad was impressed with my fast baking skills when I decided to whip up some cupcakes during nap time and they were baked and decorated in 1.5 hours.

Another early celebration

JJ sure likes hanging out with Aunt Jen - especially when he's wearing the snazzy pajama pants I made for him.

With my Aunt Jen

We also checked out the excellent Children's Museum of Memphis while we were there. It has a a tons of fun stuff for kids, including the cockpit of this FedEx jet that Leah is flying for us.

Children's Museum of Memphis

Leah and Emmie are ready to fly this jet wherever we need to go. Emmie said we were going to New York, though Molly radioed from flight traffic control saying we were supposed to go to South America.

Pilot and copilot

The museum has two areas with green screens where they show the kids on TV screens superimposed over some other video feed. The band here is rocking on the beach to Surfin' Safari.

Rocking the green screen

Emmie selected Justin Bieber's Never Say Never, and the younger girls filled the role of his backup dancers. (Chad clearly had a bit of fun with these green screen pictures!)

Bieber backup

Molly and Leah decided to soar through the sky a bit as well.

Sky diving

We also played at the toy river they had set up. Apparently, the little toy shark is very exciting.

A shark!

We visited Grampa at his office before having lunch at the Bar-B-Q Shop (which was outstanding). The girls wanted to go to Grampa's office so they could draw on the whiteboard.

Visiting Grampa's office

G'Mom and Grampa took us to paint pottery on Monday night. Molly saw this castle piggy bank and fell in love with it. Now she says she needs some money to put inside!

Painting pottery

Leah painted herself the perfect sized ice cream bowl.

Nice work Leah

With G'Mom and Grampa helping the girls, I was able to paint a piece too. I turned the girls' handprints into owls, inspired by this blog. And I left strict instructions for Mom to keep this one in Memphis. :)

Whoo loves you?

We had a great weekend all together, but we did miss Uncle J who was on a mission trip in South Sudan. On our way home from the airport, we stopped for dinner with Aunt EA and Scott to avoid rush hour traffic. If you are local, you must check out Cheesetique in Arlington. Mmmm, it was so good!

Our weekend in Memphis

Posted in Leah, Molly, Trip on November 10th, 2012 by jen – 1 Comment

Our county uses schools as polling centers, so Molly was off of school Monday and Tuesday for the election. We took the opportunity to fly to Memphis to visit with my family. Leah was thrilled to sit in the seat like Molly and we were excited to not have to carry her carseat through the airport!

We'll fly away

G'Mom and Grampa took us to a giant county park near their house. It has a spectacular playground, including this extremely tall and fast slide.

Super playground

Molly's favorite part of the playground was this teeter totter.

Teeter totter

So much fun

The girls had fun all together on this basket swing.

Now we're swinging

Emmie must have thought that G'Mom and Grampa's house was really frigid! Or it may have been that she was excited about her new gifts from G'Mom.

Is it that cold, Emmie?

Molly loved her new sparkly clothes so much that she decided to cheer about them!

Sparkly cheerleader

JJ was happy to watch all the dancing and cheering!

Happiness

I couldn't resist making JJ a fleece monster hat. He'll be sporting a super fun hat this winter.

Monster hat

Emmie was the recipient of a cute monster hat too. She was also excited to model her new cherry corduroy jumper.

A new outfit for Emmie

Saturday night we had an early Thanksgiving dinner. In preparation, Aunt 'Chelle needed to snap the green beans, so she enlisted some extra help.

Our future chef

You can never get enough holiday food, right?

An early Thankgiving

The girls all enjoyed playing games together on any available iOS device. They were even seen playing old school board games!

Still playing

JJ was sick over the weekend, but he did have some smiley moments.

Smiley

Molly found that JJ's puppy played Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes, so she spent one afternoon trying to teach him all the moves. He was very entertained!

Entertaining JJ

More to come tomorrow…

Sharing the candy love

Posted in Leah, Molly on November 9th, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

As we did last year, the girls participated in the Halloween candy buy-back program at our dentist office. The girls were told that they could each keep 15 pieces of candy.

Counting candy

Molly made sure to count her 15 pieces, as well as the pieces that she was going to donate.

Double checking her count

Ms. Melissa helped the girls weigh their candy and rewarded them with a thank-you goody bag and $1 coin. When I asked the girls if they wanted to donate part of their candy again, Molly was most excited about the goody bag!

Handing it over

Dodek Dental also set up a table to draw thank you cards to be included with the candy. The donated candy will be part of Operation Gratitude's care packages sent to deployed US Military.

Thank you cards

Molly was very intent on getting her card just right for the soldiers.

Getting it just right

Live.Love.Craft

Posted in Crafts, Sewing on November 8th, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

I was all set to help host a baby shower for Christy last weekend when we realized that we'd be in Memphis visiting my parents. So, I volunteered to help with a few of the decorations. I made a wreath for the front door at the shower, inspired by this wreath.

Baby shower wreath

The baby's room is yellow and grey themed, so the shower was a nod to that using Gold and Silver. I saw this garland and knew it'd be perfect. (Thanks to EMK for the action shot!)

GoldSilverGarland

When I saw these monster hats, I bookmarked the page to make them later, but then I decided that they were so cute that JJ had to have one. And Emmie needed one too, right?! Now Molly and Leah are asking for monster hats.

Monster hats

My mom's birthday is later this month, so my sister and I decided to make her a variety of Christmas ornaments. I was excited to play with vinyl on my Silhouette for this project.

Name ornaments

I also made reusable bowl covers for her.

Reusable bowl covers

KCWC Fall 2012

Posted in Sewing on November 7th, 2012 by jen – 2 Comments

In early October, I again participated in the Kids Clothes Week Challenge. The challenge was to spend an hour a day for seven days working on kids clothing. It could be time spent cutting patterns and fabric or sitting at the sewing machine. During the week, I worked on several things for my girls, my niece and nephew, and a baby gift. Chad called it my "crazy week of sewing" since I couldn't just spend an hour a day sewing when I was in the middle of a project.

My mom had given me the leftover fabric from making this blanket and pillow for Leah, so I made jammies to match.

Strawberry Shortcake jammies

Leah might be a tad excited about her hat too!

Hats too

Emmie was the lucky recipient of this corduroy Tianna dress. I was finally able to give it to her this weekend as an early Christmas gift.

Cherry jumper for Emmie

Michelle also asked me to make jammie pants for JJ to match Emmie's Christmas nightgown. They are the tiniest little pants.

The smallest jammie pants

My last project was this Katelin dress, a long awaited shower gift for Eric and Christy. We are so thrilled that a little girl will be joining their family in December!

A long awaited shower gift

Halloween festivities

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly on November 3rd, 2012 by jen – 1 Comment

Molly's school had a Parade of Words for the kids on Halloween day. Each child was asked to describe their costume with a specific word. Kindergarteners described with nouns. Other grades described their costumes with adjectives, adverbs, verbs and phrases. It was a creative way to add a little education into the holiday festivities.

Parade of Words

The kindergarten team dressed up as a box of crayons. What's your favorite color? Ours is orange! Yay Ms. Colella!

What's your favorite color?

As always, our first stop is to Trick-or-Treat at Grams and Pop's house. The girls love the full size candy bars there.

First stop

The girls were happy to take a picture with Grams and Pop before heading on to Keira and Maya's neighborhood for Trick-or-Treating. Molly is Rapunzel and Leah is Strawberry Shortcake.

Happy start

Molly and Matilda were both Rapunzel from the movie Tangled. Note the important difference though. Molly will quickly point out that she is Rapunzel from the end of the movie (when her hair is short and brown), while Matilda is from earlier in the movie when she still has very long blonde hair.

Rapunzel x2

Rapunzels are joined by Merida and Strawberry Shortcake (who's not technically a princess, but pretends to be one when she wears the crown Leah has on). Add in Izzy and Optimus Prime, and we've got the whole gang.

The whole gang

I think they may be excited to get started.

Let's go!

Molly and Simon were typically out front. We had to keep slowing them down so the others could keep up.

Leaders

Leah definitely liked getting some candy.

Happy girl

Leah took her time to pick out exactly the piece of candy she wanted at each house, which often meant she was struggling to keep up with the bigger kids who'd grab and go.

Picky

Of course, every now and then you need to inspect your loot!

Inspecting her loot

Back at Keira and Maya's house, the girls inspected what they received and picked out 2 pieces of candy to eat that night.

Got plenty

Molly chose this huge gummy Lifesaver, but had a bit of trouble actually biting through it.

Now that's chewy

After sugaring up, all the kids had fun attacking the giant Frankenstein, though Leah looks to be too excited to participate.

Attack!

Pile on

Pumpkin carving

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly on November 2nd, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

Aunt EA's boyfriend, Scott, brought the girls two pumpkins, so we took advantage of a hurricane day on Tuesday and carved them.

Pumpkin carving

Leah was a bit more hesitant to get her hands (or spoon!) dirty to scoop out the seeds.

Leah's not so sure

After the girls bailed on the pumpkin carving, I worked on their designs. Molly insisted on keeping them inside so the bugs wouldn't get them, so we had a few friends watching over our dinner.

The finished pumpkins