Girls Weekend

This weekend it was just us girls. We had a lot of fun and kept very active. Oscar has been gone on his Man Trip 2009 to Colorado for adventure and relaxation. While we've been here we had a visit from Aunt Dana. Her visit was also a lifesaver because she babysat the girls for a few hours while I went and did a Home Inspection on a house we're hoping to buy. This is exciting in itself, and will warrant future blog posts dedicated to it. Sunday we went fabric shopping for the skirts I'm making for the girls (photos to follow with a dedicated post soon). We did a lot of playtime and sewing yesterday. Today we went to Jammin Java with our friends Miss Katie and Allison. We enjoyed a concert by Miss Belle. Fiona and Allison REALLY enjoyed the concert. They were both dancing on the dance floor and really having a great time. Katie and I were cracking up. Luli was a little off today, she sat next to me the entire time. She sang a lot of the songs along with Miss Belle but just wouldn't go dance. I think she's growth spurting and maybe that's why she's feeling awkward. This evening I finished 3 more skirts and they came out really nicely. I'm hoping to get some modelling of the skirts in tomorrow so I can post them! In the mean time we're really excited to see Daddy again!

"Let's Get Fired Up"

Luli came home from school with a new phrase she learned from a friend. She's been running around saying it with much gusto and if I were attending a high school football game this would perhaps get me excited. As for it coming from my four year old, I feel a wee bit uncomfortable with it, and I'm not really sure why...

Followers!

I just added a new element to the blog, the "follow this blog" gadget. If you read us often, or want an email when I post something, you could sign up to Follow the blog. At least, I *think* you get an email when you become a follower...I'll look into it further.

Museum of Natural History

On Monday we ventured into the city with our friends Katie and Allison. We got an early start with all of our car seats fitting into Miss Katie's car. This was fun for all the kids and nice to not bring both cars into the city. Luckily Mr. Brent, Miss Katie's husband, works right in McPherson Square so we were able to park at his building and take and abbreviated metro trip to the museum. The train ride was lots of fun for the girls, Fiona and Allison's first experience with the Metro, and Luli's first that she could remember. Walking to the museum we held hands in one long line, Luli, Katie, Allison, Me, Fiona...very cute! however difficult to maneuver at points.

We found the museum and locked up our coats. We both decided to make the trip strollerless and that was definitely the right decision, logistically this would have been a nightmare. We found the dinosaurs immediately and looked them all over. Allison was a wee bit scared, and Luli tried to reassure her by explaining they were just bones and they couldn't hurt her, and they were nice dinosaurs. I was really fascinated by the size of a wing for one of the dinosaurs (that was crazy long!) And I know the T-Rex has small arms, but seriously that was just ridiculous how small they were. After exploring the dinosaurs we went to the fossil cafe and had lunch. I packed the girls lunch and enjoyed a highly overpriced cobb salad.

After lunch we headed upstairs to check out the Hope Diamond. The little gals were not nearly as impressed as the big girls! They were much more interested in this sand/quartz formation that looked like the Stay Puffed Marshmallow man.

Then we were onto the butterfly exhibit, we've been wanting to go there since last year and I thought the exhibit had closed already. The tickets were a bit much but I'm really glad we went in. My girlfriend Dana is really afraid of butterflies and she would have totally freaked out in there. They are flying all over the place and land on you and it's pretty cool (if you're not afraid of them). The kids really enjoyed it, but needed to take off some layers because it's a humid 84 degrees in the exhibit.

After the butterflies we thought it best to end our museum trip, the girls had behaved so great that we didn't want to push it. We headed back to Mr. Brent's office to say hi and do some drawing there, then home. I really thought Fiona would conk out because she was basically just walking sleep at Mr. Brent's office, but she rallied and stayed up the whole time. Needless to say it was an early/easy bedtime for my girls and Allison!

Hopscotch

Around Christmas time I had several birthday parties to attend and I was/am on a big making gifts kick. I was trying to brainstorm original ideas and it struck me one day when it was really cold and Luli wanted to go outside and play hopscotch...INDOOR HOPSCOTCH! So I thought it through and made three sets, which turned out to be quite time consuming. Luli received her's (and Fiona's) at her fourth birthday party in January, rather than the intended Christmas gift! I was really pleased with how they came out and I'm happy to share the result with you all.

Necessities

9 vibrant colored felt squares (x2)

Corresponding colored embroidery floss

Water soluble marking instrument

scissors

Flannel material for been bags

Machine washable fabric glue (not necessary but definitely a sanity saver)

Needle

TIME!

I found a font on the computer that I really liked the number looks of, then made the numbers really large so they'd be my pattern. Cut out all the numbers 1-9, then trace them to a felt square. I do recommend you trace them to the side of the square so you can use the other half for another project or another set of hopscotch numbers. Then cut out all the numbers. Set out the 9 uncut felt squares and then play around with color coordination by moving numbers around the squares until you find the set up you like best. I had to stand back several times and enlist Oscar's help in getting the right set up. I recommend you glue each number to the squares because it's so much easier when sewing. Though minimally glue in the center of the number because getting your needle through the glued area is a real pain. I then used the embroidery floss that matched the full square (ie. red square with blue number gets sewn with red floss) and simply sewed all the way around.

Bean Bags: I used this rainbow flannel that I already had laying around and thought it went well with the colorfulness of the project. I cut out a piece that I guesstimated on size, then used that as the pattern for following bags. Folded the fabric in half, sewed up the three sides with an opening to insert beans/rice/whatever. I used rice to fill (because you can also use that as a cold pack from the freezer) then I folded in the opening and edge stitched around all four sides catching the opening. I did this on my machine so it did require some constant rice moving attention.

When giving as a gift I like to include the directions to playing hopscotch, because I had forgotten so I figure maybe other people have too. I found them here. I would also like to note that the felt is crazy slippery on hard surfaces so make sure you use it on a rug or carpet.

NOTE: I went with machine washable glue because I figured jumping on the squares would get them dirty and eventually they'd need to be washed. I'm not really sure how the felt would hold up in the machine, but time will tell.

SNOW!

Can you believe it? We finally got snow! We're predicted to get 1-3 inches and of course most of the schools closed. Oscar's at work and we're playing in the white fluffy stuff. Tonight it is supposed to change over to ice, so maybe we'll have the whole Santiago Four at home tomorrow. But for today it's the three gals enjoying the snow, and hot chocolate. I did eventually convince Fiona to hop in the sled for a pull with Luli, but couldn't get pictures. I was pulling the sled and picture taking was pretty tough during that, if I stopped Fiona would have popped out and escaped. It was pretty cute seeing both of them in the sled, and fun for me to run around the street in figure 8s.

Logan came out to play also, and Luli pulled him in the sled. Once Logan got the hang of sitting up in a moving sled he really enjoyed it...look how cute he is (stunning eyes!).

Check out the album on the left of all our snow pics.

Birthday Slideshow

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com