Updated: It was a productive weekend, sort of

The sewing bug bit me pretty hard this weekend, so I spent most of my "free" time cutting pattern pieces, ironing fabric, and sewing, sewing, sewing.

On Saturday I took Stasa with me to JoAnn's to pick out new fabrics and dress patterns. Plus I needed to pick up some notions, like thread, zippers, bobbins, etc. Only I didn't get thread because I thought I had enough pink and blue thread for what I was going to make. Wrong.

Stasa was a lot of fun in the store. She picked out two fun dress patterns and then picked out the fabrics she liked. We ended up with 10 different fabrics and two dress patterns. She actually did a fairly decent job picking out coordinating fabrics, though one of the dresses will have four different fabrics, so we'll see how that one turns out.

I ended up making three dresses (and slimming one I made a few weeks ago) and had enough leftover fabric to make two skirts for Lexi.

Dress one: McCall's 4817


This one is the top left pattern with an extra flounce on the bottom. I cut the skirt part for the 2T length, so imagine how long it would have been as a 4T. I'll be making the dress shown on the little girl, but in the four crazy fabrics Stasa picked out. This dress was pretty easy to make - I started and finished it during the girl's nap on Sunday. I wish I had bought cute little cupcake buttons for it, but instead I dug in my button bin and used two light brown ones.


Dress two: Simplicity 2269


This dress was a bit more involved since it has gathered sleeves and a detailed yoke. It took me all night on Saturday to finish this dress. I cut a size 4T since Stasa is between sizes right now and the 4T is a bit roomy on her, but at least it's something she can grow into. I love the fabrics she chose for this dress. I made another one (not shown below) in a similar blue fabric that the girl on the pattern envelope is wearing, but I need a white zipper to finish it. The pattern doesn't call for a zipper, just two buttons, but I changed it up a bit for the blue fabric. Here's Stasa modeling the green version this morning:



It would probably be cuter if it was a bit shorter, so I might raise the hem a bit, but do it so I can let it out as she grows. We'll see. I might wind up being too lazy to do anything.

And here are Lexi's two skirts made from the scraps of Stasa's dress fabrics. I didn't use a pattern for these, just a super quick rectangle gathered at the waist by encased elastic. Both skirts took me about 15-20 minutes each. Super fast and easy to make. I've made Stasa a few of these skirts before, always with whatever leftover fabric I have laying around.

Skirt one:


Skirt two:




I have two dressed left to sew and I'll post pictures of those once they're finished. I'll try to remember to take a picture of the other dress I made a few weeks ago. It's super cute with a very full skirt. Here's the pattern for that dress (Simplicity 2466). I made it out of some fun neonish animal and graphic print fabric that Aunt Peggy gave me. Stasa loves it, so I'm sure it'll be the next thing she wears.


Updated:
Here's the twirly neon leopard dress, size too cute for life:

Our morning

5:00 am: My alarm starts beeping. And beeping. And beeping.

5:04 am: I finally snooze the alarm.

5:19 am: My alarm starts beeping. Again. And gets snoozed. Again. And again and again.

5:57 am: I'm poked by Tom and told that it's time to get up or we'll be late, so I literally roll out of bed and hobble over to plug in the iron before hopping in the shower.

6:10 am: My shower is finished, the iron is ready for steaming, and I'm ready to crawl back in bed. Instead I make the bed, pick out my clothes, and brush my teeth.

6:20 am: The ironing of the clothes begins. I iron a shirt and pair of pants for Tom and then whatever I plan on wearing for the day, which is usually either a dress or a skirt and shirt during the summer. Tom shaves and finishes getting ready for the day while I'm ironing.

6:30 am: I throw my gym clothes together while Tom pads down the hall to start the Stasa wake up process, which involves opening her curtains and blinds, turning on her bedroom light, and turning on the playroom television. She manages to recover her entire self with her quilt and promptly goes back to sleep.

6:32 am: Tom goes downstairs to pack our bags and breakfast and lunch. I go in to wake up the Lexifer. If she’s already awake, she’s usually sitting her crib and talking to her baby. If not, she wakes up pretty easily and stretches, yawns and raises her arms to be picked up. I let her run around for a bit before getting her changed and dressed for the day. Plus she usually runs straight to Stasa’s room and climbs into bed with her and that always gets Stasa up and out of bed.

6:35 am: I start brushing out my hair, which almost always gets thrown into a messy bun or slicked back into a ponytail. Then it’s on to makeup and by then one or both of the girls are standing with me and rifling through my stuff.

6:45 am: I finally start the process of getting the girls ready. Lexi’s easy – I just pick out an outfit, change her diaper and throw her clothes on. She either gets pigtails or one giant ponytail on top of her head. Stasa’s a bit harder. She’s quite opinionated about what she wears each day. I pick out her outfit and get her dressed while she’s watching tv.

6:50 am: Stasa takes off all of her clothes and declares that she CAN’T WEAR THIS TO SCHOOL. She picks out a new outfit, which almost never matches, and gets dressed on her own.

6:53 am: Stasa takes off all of her clothes again, this time to go to the bathroom.

6:56 am: Stasa is finally dressed for good. The girls brush their teeth with Tom.

6:58 am: Tom and I both get dressed and start herding the girls to go downstairs.

7:00 am: The girls sit on the bottom stair to put on their socks and shoes.

7:02 am: Stasa starts throwing a fit because she doesn’t like her Spongebob socks and needs to wear her Hello Kitty socks. I explain that her kitty socks are dirty, but that we can wash them after school.

7:10 am: Stasa is now in time-out for refusing to listen. Lexi has migrated to the kitchen carrying a new pair of shoes and is struggling to change her shoes.

7:20 am: Stasa is still in time-out because she refuses to sit in the time-out spot and is spitting her tongue out at Tom. I help Lexi change her shoes while Tom calmly tells Stasa to sit in time-out.

7:34 am: Stasa is STILL in time-out, this time because she still won’t sit down AND she tried to hit Tom. Tom is still calmly talking to Stasa, though at this point her new princess figurines are also in time-out. Lexi is happily rifling through our shoes and brings me my flip flops.

7:45 am: Stasa is FINALLY out of time-out. Tom talks to her about why she was in time-out, we tell her that we love her and we need her to be a good listener.

7:50 am: We’re now all in the car and are finally on the way to daycare and work.

8:02 am: Both girls walk into daycare and both have immediate meltdowns. Lexi falls to the floor, kicking her legs and crying. Stasa clings to us and begs us not to leave. We calm Stasa down and get her in her seat for breakfast, give hugs and kisses and say goodbye.

8:05 am: Lexi has stopped her freak out and happily walks to her room. As soon as she gets to her morning room she takes off without looking back. Not even a hug, kiss or wave goodbye. It’s breakfast time and that girl takes her meal times seriously.

8:07 am: We walk back to Stasa’s room to give her an extra hug. She’s in tears and keeps saying “come back for me.” I explain that we’re going to work and that we’ll be back as soon as work is over. I also point out all of her friends who are there and ready to play. She doesn’t care and clings to me, repeating “come back for me” over and over. We finally kiss her and hug her and tell her goodbye and as we walk away she bursts into tears.

8:10 am: My heart breaks.

8:11 am: I wish I could skip work, scoop up my little girl and spend the day with her. I can’t so I hop in the car with Tom and we drive off to work. It’s just past 8:00 am and I’m already exhausted from the morning’s events.

Happy four years!

First things first. As of this past Friday, I've been blogging about our family life for four years. That's a lot of life we're sharing. ; )

When we returned from Virginia Beach we were hit hard with a nasty stomach bug. We thought Stasa had food poisoning, but then Tom came home early on Monday feeling nauseous and then spent Monday and Tuesday emptying his stomach. And then it hit me on Thursday and I traded in my bed for the comfort of the bathroom floor on Thursday and Friday. So.much.fun. Thankfully that's behind us and ::knock on all types of wood:: Lexi managed to stay bug-free.

We spent this past weekend with family - mine, his, ours. Tom's family was and still is in town to attend his Uncle Ed's burial at Arlington National Cemetery and my family got together to welcome back Pete and say farewell to Joe and Sharlene. It's been a family packed weekend. Stasa, in particular, really loved it. She loves big parties and seeing all of her family all at once. And Lexi finally warmed up to Joe and sat with him during the fireworks show.




Stasa has also spent a lot of time with her Aunt Natassa, whom she adores. Last night she was in tears when we left Tom's parent's house because she didn't want to leave "her 'Tassa." She finally cheered up, but only because we told her she would see Natassa again the next day. I'll have to definitely remember to take some pictures of Stasa with "her 'Tassa."

Celebrate Alice

My aunts and uncles planned a surprise birthday/celebrate Alice party for my grandma down in Tidewater this past weekend. Since the party was on Sunday, we decided to drive down a day early to let the girls have some time at the beach. Tom wanted to get on the road by 5:00 am, but we stayed up a bit too late watching one of the Harry Potter movies and didn't leave until closer to 6:30 am. I sat in the back of the car with the girls to keep them entertained since we'd be in the car for four hours, which worked out pretty well. Stasa and I slept a good part of the trip and even Lexi took a short nap. They both kept themselves entertained with the pile of books we brought with us. 

We finally made it to Virginia Beach only to be greeted with grey skies. Lucky for us it was still warm, though a bit muggy, so we parked and headed out to the beach to let the girls play.

Stasa was apprehensive of the water at first, but quickly warmed up to it and loved "jumping" over the waves, a fun little game I wish I hadn't started - my arms were t.i.r.e.d. after 20 minutes of that. Lexi HATED the water, even with me carrying her in and it took some time for her to calm down after that, but once she did she was completely content sitting in the sand and digging. I'm pretty sure she could have happily played there for hours. We stayed and played for almost two hours only to have the beach closed due to an electrical storm. 

(It was so weird how the sky in the background was so ominous and grey and the sky above us was blue and sunny.)

So we left and grabbed a bite to eat at a terrible Mexican restaurant that was horrendously overpriced. Their only saving grace was their frozen margarita and pina colada machines. 

While we were at lunch we heard that they closed the beach for a minimum of two hours. Since it was already after lunch time, we strolled the boardwalk in search of ice cream, found some amazing soft serve, then headed over to our hotel for a shower and quick nap. Well, Tom and I managed to get a nap while the girls played and watched cartoons.

That night we met up with a work friend and his family for some good old fashioned fried chicken from Moseberth's. I went to grade school with one of the girls who now runs the place and hadn't been there in ages. Tom said it was probably the best fried chicken he's ever had.

Then it was party day. We got up, had a bite to eat, showered, dressed, packed and headed over to Portsmouth to kill some time until the party started. We stopped at a Harley store so Tom could pick up a Portsmouth Harley shirt (representing my hometown!), then picked up some coffee and donuts before heading over to a playground to let the kids burn off some energy. Though by then Lexi had fallen asleep, so it was just Tom and Stasa enjoying the playground. 

Finally, around 11:30 or so we headed over to my aunt and uncle's house for the party. Their house is gorgeous and has so much beautiful light streaming in. It's right on the river, too, so if you walk out on the pier you can see and hear both the river lapping and the cat-o-nine tails blowing in the wind. RELAXING. What was not relaxing was having Stasa declare that her tummy hurt and then her throwing up allllllllll over their leather couch and floor. And then again outside. And again in the car on the ride home. :-/

But the party was nice and it was great seeing so many of Grandma's friends who I haven't seen in ages. So many of them looked mostly the same and even recognized me, though it probably helped that I was toting around my mini-me. I think Grandma really enjoyed the party, too, and she was quite surprised, so much so that she didn't even recognize her own sister when she walked through the door. 

After the party we took off for home with Jeff and David hitching a ride. We ended up hitting horrible traffic thanks in part to the regular old Sunday-coming-home-from-wherever traffic and the huge storm we drove into. Oh and we had to stop a couple of times to get food and gas and to let some of our travel companions relieve themselves *cough*David*cough*. We ended up getting home around 9:30, quickly put the girls to bed and then I unpacked everything and stuffed all of our clothes and beach things in the washer before heading to bed myself. I kept Stasa home on Monday just to monitor her and she was 100% better once she woke up in the morning, but then poor Tom came home in the afternoon with the same symptoms Stasa had. I'm crossing my everything that Lexi and I stay healthy. 

Yeah, I'm getting waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of myself

We didn't move Stasa to her big girl room until she was nearly two years old, so why am I already planning out Lexi's? (NO I'M NOT PREGNANT NOR ARE WE TRYING THANKYOUVERYMUCH.) 


We picked up a couple of neat framed pieces of Vince's painter's palettes and I loved the idea of decorating the room around the colors in them. They're full of color and look so fun! We'll eventually move Lexi into our smaller guest room with the bunk beds. Right now we have crisp white quilts on the beds and I love them because I really love clean white bed linens, but I don't think they're practical for a toddler. So now I'm browsing the internets for handmade colorful quilts. I found a couple on eBay and put bids on them, but man handmade quilts (at least the nice looking ones) are expensive! I don't want anything too matchy matchy, just as long as they have similar coloring, like these:



A small part of me is wondering if we should chance it and put both girls in the same room with the bunk beds as twins. This way we'd still have two guest rooms (and two closets for storage), but then I remember Stasa is a serious bedtime rebel and that might not be the best idea when transitioning Lexi. What to do. What to do. It's not necessary that the girls share a room, especially since we have five bedrooms, but then again, kids share rooms all of the time, right? Well, at the very least it's something to think about and maybe we'll talk to Stasa about it. Either way we'll also need to get a bureau for Lexi since all of her current stuff will stay in the nursery. 

Now I'm off to start pinning stuff on Pinterest since it's going to take me forever to figure everything out and then get it all together.

Morning

My favorite time of the day is the morning. I know, I know. I complain all of the time how I wish I could sleep in and how I loathe waking up for work, but really morning is my favorite time of the day. Especially weekend mornings. They're so quiet and relaxing. I almost always wake up to the chatter of one or both of the girls. We nearly always start our mornings in the play room, cartoons playing in the background, coffee in my hand, and them playing while they wake up.

We doubled our size for the holiday

Our friends and their kids stayed with us this past week which made the holiday week even more fun. Now that everything's back to normal it's kind of weird and lonely. I got used to a full house and loved having double the kids and friends around. I had been looking forward to this trip for so long and it seemed to fly by so fast, even though we had a pretty long week together. Here's how our week went:

Tuesday:
Tom and I took the day off to run errands and spend some time together before everyone arrived. Stasa was so upset that we didn't go straight to the airport when I picked her up from daycare. As we were circling the airport waiting for Sean, Anne, and the kids to come out, I was having Stas look for them. She kept asking where they were and when I explained that they were getting their bags she asked why they had bags. I told her they probably packed clothes to wear and she exclaimed "Oh yeah, Avery's bringing pants!"

Once we got home the girls were running around a mile a minute and went through a couple of outfit changes playing dress ups while the little ones played with blocks.





Wednesday:
Initially we were going to spend the entire day downtown on the mall and stay to watch the fireworks. Thank God we all agreed on a more realistic plan. We kept it low key in the morning and put all of the kids down for an early nap while the rest of us got ready and packed the cars. We ended up leaving for the Metro a little before 3:00 and at the last minute decided to head to Arlington National Cemetery to walk around before heading over for the fireworks. I like visiting Arlington and was happy that we were able to see Grandpa T's grave (and happy that it was so close to the visitor center).

The girls LOVED the train and were really good on the way there. Hell, all of the kids were really good all day and night. We spent a couple of hours walking miles around the cemetery...uphill all over the place. After the cemetery we went over to McDonald's for a quick bite to eat and then hiked over to the Iwo Jima memorial for the fireworks show with Tom's family. So, from the start of our trip to the end of the fireworks show was fantastic. The kids were cooperative, the crowds weren't terrible, the rain stayed away - it was good.

Then there was the Metro ride home. It seemed like the entire world was trying to leave through the Rosslyn Metro stop. There was a point where we were literally standing still, packed in, waiting to get through the turnstiles and we were actively sweating. Everywhere. I looked down and realized I had sweat rolling off of me onto the floor. Disgusting. The best part was getting through the turnstiles. They tried making us move over to the handicap "line" as if there were actual lines - it was like being in a herd of cattle. The strollers wouldn't fit through the regular turnstiles so we had to lift them over with the kids in them. We did all of that only to find out there was no elevator where we were and the cops wouldn't let us go down the escalators unless the strollers were folded up. Let's review: we had three strollers, four kids, one of whom was dead asleep, and more bags than I can remember. Oh yeah. And we were dripping sweat. We were finally on the escalator when this pushy lady tried to get past us. Seriously?! GET LOST LADY.

We finally got down to the platform to wait for the train only every train was jam packed. Like not even a single person could fit on the trains. Finally a cop took pity on us and promised to get us on the next train. Lucky for all of us that the next train was completely empty. HEAVEN. I think we ended up getting home around midnight. And the kids were so good. They hardly complained the entire day, even while sitting in the stagnant air of the train station. And so we rewarded them with milkshakes the next day.






Thursday:
Since we got home so late on the 4th, we kept Thursday pretty low key. We headed over to see Amy and her kids in the morning, who by the way are so adorable, then picked up lunch and the promised milkshakes. After that everyone took a much needed nap while the guys went out for a bit. After nap we went out and took some family pictures for Anne and Sean and then came home and hung out at the house and played with the kids. Oh and the girls helped Tom make pizza for dinner. After bedtime Anne and I took off to see Magic Mike. FYI the scenes at the club were fantastic - the rest was worthless. I think my favorite part was Matthew McConaughey in his practice "outfit." Ridiculous.



Friday:
We went back downtown after breakfast on Friday with plans to see the monuments, have lunch, and visit the Natural History Museum. We ended up only seeing the monuments and having lunch before heading back home. We should have skipped a couple of monuments and picked up lunch from a food truck so we could check out the museum. But with our kids melting down and Lexi wailing during lunch, we were done.

The monuments were fun and thankfully they had sprinklers just about everywhere, so we let the kids run through them to cool off from walking in the sun. Unfortunately a lot of stuff was still closed down - the Washington Monument is still being fixed from the earthquake and the reflecting pool was closed for repairs, too. We still got to see the Washington Monument and also saw the WWII Memorial and Lincoln Memorial.

After walking around the memorials we headed over to have lunch at the Old Ebbitt Grill. I love the Old Ebbitt, but really should have reconsidered Tom's suggestion that we grab food from a cart on the street. The kids were tired and hadn't napped, there was a 15 minute wait, and then when we finally got to our table Lexi freaked out. And wouldn't calm down for a long time. And then we promised the older girls we'd get ice cream after lunch because we saw about a million ice cream carts on our walk to the restaurant, but then there were none from the restaurant to the Metro station. So we ended up stopping at Caribou Coffee to get them a frozen drink. Once we got home we let the kids run around outside in the smallest baby pool ever, had dinner and then put them all to bed.




(This picture kills me - I had just taken a picture of Anne and her family and Stasa was freaking out because she wanted to stand with Avery. After I took their picture she asked nicely if I would take hers. She looks so lonely and it makes me sad. I should have stood with her. Mom fail.)









Saturday:
The guys went golfing early on Saturday morning and we stayed with the kids and went to the pool for a bit. Stasa had a complete meltdown at the pool when it was time to go and didn't want to leave and cried the whole way home. Thankfully all of the kids went down for a good nap. While they napped we all got the house ready for the baptism party and then got ourselves ready to go.

Then it was baptism time! Lexi was so loud during the whole mass. But not crying loud, just sqwuaking loud. Her normal everyday pterodactyl yell. Thankfully the priest was so laid back and patient and kept smiling at her. And just like that she was baptized.
Proud and pretty godmother and Lexi:



Probably talking to her godfather during the ceremony:



Newest Catholic:


FREEEEEEEEEEEE:


Sunday:
We got up earlish on Sunday to visit with Lauren and Zoey and I'm mad that we didn't take any pictures while they were here. I got to snuggle Zoey and didn't want to give her back - she's so so cuddly. After our cuddle session and visit with Lauren and Zoey, it was time to take Anne and Sean and the kids to the airport.  I still can't believe how fast the visit flew by. The house seemed so quiet and lonely and empty after they left. But at least we'll see them soon! We're heading out their way next month.

And that wraps up our holiday week. I hope everyone else had a fun and safe time!