sigh of relief

Very much relieved to announce that my camera is back...I had a friend fiddle with it and voila, it works, something to do with a button not quite in the right position. So I was able to capture a little ogre ice cream attack (in honor of Shrek). It was quite scary...the ice cream attack I mean.

mmmmmm Yum Yum. Can I have another one pweeese Mama. Happy Memorial Day Weekend.

hmmmmmm

I wanted to take a photo this morning. I had the three shots of bubblegum amoxicillin lined up like I was the most switched on bartender at breakfast...and I want to take a photo of all that innocent pinkness that chases away scarlet fever. And whhirrrpffft. Is my camera not well ?..OMG my camera is not working. Not good. Excuse me whilst I go lay down and try to process this latest calamity.

I'll leave you with some of yesterday's photos. Above, a local museum garden...we have driven by this maybe a 1000 times, first time we stopped!

And yesterday afternoon with Bear we stopped at an historical homestead and watched artists working plein air

Unsolicited Advice for parents of twins

TIP 1. If you do not already have one, acquire a king sized bed, immediately. Co-sleeping happens whether you agree with it, plan for it or not. When there are 4 in the bed and the little one says......rollover! They will all rollover and the Daddy falls out and goes to sleep in a little persons bed.

TIP 2. Do not buy toddler beds, buy the most comfortable sturdy twin beds and mattresses you can afford. Because you will be sleeping in them.

Ahhh musical beds, the most fun you will ever not have.

This was the scene this morning. It was a humid night. The Breadwinner is in the land of the Little Mermaid. I thought I might have the whole bed to myself and have a lovely night's sleep. The older I get, the more I need quality sleep to function in a pleasant way. And then add suspected peri-menopausal insomnia and night sweats. I told you I was OLDER.

SNAP!!!

The twins have added "snap" to their game playing skills. I have been waiting for this - card players!!! I remember we taught Bear card games at this age... and if the twins are soon able to entertain themselves with a game of cards that is like winning lotto. And dare I dream that all three girls will sit down to a game of cards one day soon? Of course games have winners and losers, and we have some competitive little ladies. Playing fair and not being a bad loser are going to become a constant refrain in our house.

We taught them Snap last week with an old pack of Rugrats cards when we were at dinner. We didn't teach them the yelling part as we were in a "fine dining" establishment at the time and it would have messed with the romantic evening some people were lucky enough to be enjoying. I can hear in the next room that the Breadwinner has just added the cry of "SNAPAROONIE!!!" and table slamming thumps to the version he is now playing with Boo. Won't be able to pull that game out in that restaurant ever again! The Breadwinner is doing a lovely job of entertaining Boo whilst her partner in crime is laid up with the bug. Boo fell ill Thursday afternoon and naturally Yum Yum followed Saturday morning -snap! I'm not feeling quite so fantastic either -snap! We really must find a nicer game of snap... Angelica, Chuckie, Spike, Didi, Grandpa, Boris. We don't even watch the show and now we know their names... sad! I'm sure we have some in the cupboard.

So in other news, that doesn't involve cardsharks, fevers and sore tummies, it is with regret that our dishwasher has died. I have a different 's' word for that. At least I have a pretty dishbrush to help me.

Hey You..

Yes, I mean YOU, the only person reading this. I have a question...

Is the layout all funny when you read this. I can't seem to sort out the layout but then I wonder if ijust maybe t is MY screen that plays the funny tricks? Does there seem to be too much white space (mind you , I 'd LOVE some white space in my house right now), and do the words sometimes run onto the pics?

Just wondering... can you leave me a comment. Please.

Yee Gads I suck

Umm no sewing happening here. Just a lot of thinking about the things I should be doing whilst wasting my time with the Housewives of NYC in the middle of the night. Insomnia. UGH.

And yesterday we unintentionally stood up a playdate...got my playgrounds mixed up. I feel really bad for the little girl, I messed up her day. Still Boo and Yum Yum had a fun time at the other playground. Here Yum Yum is eating the raw eggs that were served as breakfast on the train.

I think I'll postpone the kids sewing until next week...I am behind on my assignments and have a garage sale to prepare for.

Getting back to those skirts I made last year...

The skirts were not very exciting technically , but very quick to make! I had seen a few bandana creations in the bloggy world and was inspired to try it myself. But I am not really one for following instructions, particularly if it involves sewing two squares together. The thing is, I didn't want to do any cutting but the length of the bandana was too long for my little people. My solution was to fold the bandanas to make a layer which is almost apron-like. In order to do this the reverse fabric needs to be reasonable as it will be the top layer. Then I simply stitched the sides together up to the point where the fold was and then stitched a casing. Put in some elastic and voila...bandana skirts. For $2. Each. Three lines of stitching and some elastic.

You can see that Yum Yum's skirt , the pink one, does twist on her body so that the seams are in the middle instead of the sides. She's skinnier than Boo so I think that is why that happens. I was thinking that it would look cute at the back if there was a large dark blue bow attached to the casing and a smaller one at the front, or I could just take it in a pinch...or she could just fatten herself up a bit! Another feature that my girls would probably approve - pockets. Maybe just one more bandana .... cut, edge, attach patch pockets to the "aprons". The $1 bandanas came from Walmart and have softened up nicely.

Feeling a little Bloggy today...(many random words to get out of my head)

I have my back to the laundry piles, the Littlest Pet explosion and am listening via baby monitor to Boo and Yum Yum discussing their dresses for the ball. I know that there is this morning's Barbiefest on the floor of their room tangled up in blankets, and am expecting a dress-ups pile-up at the top of the stairs. They have had ballet this morning and have since changed into "comfy" clothes consisting of skirts made by mummy last year. Those clean clothes will now be discarded at the scene of their most recent costume change. So ignoring the mess I am taking 10 minutes to give some thought to their clothing.

I seriously wonder why I bother providing them with regular clothing, be it practical, cheap & cheerful, homemade, handmade, cute, pretty, darling, funky, trendy, funny, expensive... whatever ..because they would quite happily wear their dress ups all day and everyday. Except on the days when they would wear their swimsuits all day instead or if they had glitter and sequins on everything else.

I read on one of my fave blogs, Elsie Marley, that there is to be a week devoted to sewing for your kids....and an interesting post on Indietutes about keeping your own creative ego in check so that kids might actually wear what you make them.

So ...I ask myself should I be contemplating some sewing next week?

NO- I have an awful lot of other things I should be doing. Really. A lot.

NO- they don't "need" any more clothes. The store of Bear's "hand me downs" goes back to our arrival here in the US when she was just a little older than the twins are now. She was petite and gentle on her clothes, and I was a rather enthusiastic shopper ...and so begining with this summer it is feasible that we could dress the twins entirely in "hand me downs" for the next 10 years give or take a snowsuit, snowboots and other things that one kid doesn't normally have two of.

But you know what...I am still going to do it!!!

YES- the challenge calls for 1 hour a night. I waste many more hours a night procastinating, dithering online and not getting anything done anyway.

YES- It would make me really happy to do some sewing. It's a stress reliever for me.

YES- I have a lot of fabric (understatement) and I have many partially completed items, repairs, cluttering my workroom and many creative ideas cluttering my brain.

YES- I have a feeling that my girls will be excited about what I make them.

YES- There are things I want to teach myself about sewing esp with knits. This would be the time to try .

And in order to show that I am serious and to up my credibility in the crafty blogging sphere (ie. zip) I will share with you something I made for them last summer. Those skirts I mentioned earlier....

And, just as I was about to impress you with my sewing skills, there was intense wailing over the baby monitor. The following two hours was spent consoling an injured Boo who had managed to hurt herself quite badly. What I have pieced together is that she was upside down (OK- that part is still puzzling me) on her bedhead trying to turn on her nightlight (huh?) which is actually in a pocket hanging on the bedhead...she fell smashing herself just behind her ear on the pointiest hard thing she could find, the corner of the nearby bookcase. Fortunately no blood was involved. It was not the afternoon I had planned. I expect that she will have a very sore ear/neck and a big bruise tomorrow...and that I may still be taking her to see a DR just-in-case tomorrow. I did manage to get to my own re- scheduled medical appointment to be told that my blood pressure and ECG are great. So now I know I can feel totally crap but my blood pressure will still be awesome. I have to go see a Dr tomorrow to check my TB test ( story for another time) and I know that I can ask him to look at her because we FINALLY discovered a pleasant local Dr who requires no appointments and does urgent care- as well as medical reports for the Immigration Department and who takes our insurance. So ......deep breath, I so need a good night's sleep. We all do.

and the beat goes on...ladee dadee dee, ladee dadee da

We've been flying off the furniture, going to birthday parties, getting dirty feet, dirty finger nails, having naps, playing outside with water, gardening, cleaning, tossing crap, singing, BBQ, corn shucking, sorting shoes, dressing for warm weather, dressing for wet weather, wearing swimsuits, being silly, having tantrums, getting really maaadddd, eating chocolate, playing soccer pirates, getting sniffy with the pollen, having "volcano visitors", and just generally busy "doing". Now looking forward to a Mother's Day visit to Stormking and to catching up on my overdue photograaphy assignments...

now I need a cuppa!