The Cutest Monster in the World

This video is of Drew practicing being gentle with a baby doll.  It cracks me up when he tries so hard to be gentle and even says the word, "gentle," right before he chunks the baby head first.  We have some work to do!

Drew is talking a lot now.  He can answer questions with one word answers.  His most commonly said words are:  bubble, want (when he wants something), water, bat. ball, fight (when he wants you to sword fight him), gun, vroom (when he wants to go in the car), outside, snack, eat, move, bath, swing, shoe, room, down, up, dinosaur, and coat/sweater (sweater often sounds like water to me and so he has taken to brushing his hands on his shoulders to let me know the difference.)  I am sure I am missing some big ones.  He talks so much now that I can hardly believe it.  I love it when he yells "Me!" whenever I ask a "Who wants" question, and when he yells for Hannah.  If you ask him if he needs a spanking, he will turn his leg toward you and point to where you should give it with a nod of his head.

His smile just kills me though and makes it very hard to be actually angry with him no matter how many times he hits or runs away or spits.  He obviously gets discipline, but it is usually easier for me to discipline him without emotion which is a blessing since so much of his day is spent being disciplined by me.

He has had a few struggles of late.  One issue I am having with him is that he is too big for his britches.  He gets so mad when the big kids get dropped off at something and he doesn't.  He throws a big tantrum about being left out of the big kids' activities.  He's also in a phase where he is whining/crying when I put him in bed suddenly, but if I tell him to lay down and close his eyes and that I will come back and check on him he is usually calmer and goes to sleep.  I think it is taking him longer to settle into sleep though.  He is getting ready to be moved in with Isaac (still in the crib), and I hope he does well with the transition.  The latest new thing is that he bit Isaac on the back because Isaac was protecting the Lego creations.  I hope that doesn't become a habit!

He can finish lines (the last word of the line) from the Hail Mary and the Our Father.  He also finishes the last word of book pages from his favorites.  Speaking of favorites, he is very hung up on Dr. Seuss books right now.  We have read Hop on Pop to death, but he likes them all.  He also is in love with dinosaurs right now.  I have been checking out dino books from the library since he likes them so much and the only other interest this kid has is balls, bats, and swords.  

American Heritage Girls Award Ceremony

The girls are both Tenderhearts this year and they both earned 5 or 6 badges and one service star.  Genevieve earned her Joining Award as well since this was her first year.  The whole family came to the ceremony this year since Drew is older and can handle staying up later on occasion.   

Isaac's sweet face lit up every time the he heard the girls' names or saw their picture in the slideshow.  He also was quite surprised when my name was called for recognition since I am the registrar this year.  

Drew decided to sneak by Brian and I and take off to the front of the ceremony.  He was quite the site in his PJs and his rain boots.  (It started to downpour right before we left the house.)  He ran straight into Hannah's arms until Daddy could catch up to him.  He's a fast bugger.  He is definitely faster than me at this point.

We have big plans to get badges earned this summer.  We'll see how it goes!

Here's a snippet of the ceremony...

The Baby Clothes Quilt

We'll start with the final project!  She loved it!  I made the accents lime green because that is her favorite color and I was trying to minimize the pink since that is her least favorite color and that is the most common color of clothing she had as a baby/toddler.

This was quite the project and the main reason I got so far behind on my blog.  I started out thinking of something like on A Girl With a Glue Gun, but then midway through I changed my mind and decided to go for the "Log Cabin" style quilt with baby clothes blocks in the middle.  I have never done this style before, but I have a quilting book that described it very well and it seemed pretty easy.  (Ha! It was not hard, but still time consuming!)  Since so many of the clothes were too small and I ended up with a million sizes, I had to piece them to get a 12" square when they were all laid out together (that is not the final square dimensions.)  Then I trimmed them down to 10.5" square due to some pregnancy brain discrepancies.

This was me laying them out to figure out where each block should go to keep several similar pieces away from each other.  The missing square was because as I was working on the quilt, I was also embroidering a picture that I drew of a girl praying and holding a rosary.  I also embroidered the date of her 1st Communion on there.  This was done watching movies with my husband in the evenings every know and then.  It was the last square to be finished.

The most boring and labor intensive part was cutting flannel backings for all the fabrics that seemed flimsy (that was most of them).  I went with this instead of fusible webbing because I thought it would be stronger and easier.  I have never done either, so what do I know?  Fusible webbing is probably fine, I was just loath to learn a new thing when the flannel backing seemed so self-explanatory.

Here I had sewed the "Log Cabin" strips in an alternating pattern.  

Sewing in alternating patterns should have been easy.  I laid everything out and took pictures.  Counted how many of each and put them in piles of which one should have the long strips horizontal and which ones vertical.  Again...Ha!  Easier said than done when you are a forgetful and scatterbrained pregnant woman with too many irons in the fire.  The top row is not alternating.  I about cried when I noticed this.  I drug Brian in from his playhouse project and asked his opinion as to whether or not I should take some apart to fix this.  (I did play around with it to see if I could just change the order and make them alternating, but because I wanted a specific block in the middle and a couple of other details it just wasn't going to work.)  Anyway, Brian is my perfectionist husband who is my biggest critic when it comes to my projects.  He is the only one that will straight up tell me something just isn't right.  Usually, I don't care at that point because I don't have time to redo things.  However, this time I would have done it if he said it looked obvious because I had already put so much work into it and it was for a very special occassion.  Thankfully, I went with the same color for the short and long strips and he said, "Kelle, seriously, you would have to show me for me to notice that."  I told myself  that I was moving on.  After all, with Genna's birthday party and the whole communion shebang I didn't have much time left.

After I finished the final block with the embroidery, I sewed together the big blocks in strips.  The back was a flannel fabric that I picked out to match the green on the front and also bring in the other colors from the front.  It was just shy of being long enough so I added a strip of a few more mementos from Hannah's baby clothes/blankets.  I also cut out her initials and sewed them onto this strip.  

The initials didn't show up as well as I had hoped.

Next I lined up the three layers and pinned them together as much as I could stand 5 days before her 1st Holy Communion.  For my baby quilts, I usually just tie them off, but I have done one "stitch in the ditch" quilt before.  Since this was such a bigger quilt than I was used to, I went with "stitch in the ditch" thinking it would be faster. I just had a layer of flannel in between (not batting that can move around so much) which brought me to think that a ton of top stitching wasn't necessary.  I just stitched in the ditch around the baby block squares.  I thought I could always go back later and add more if I decide it needs more, but I really think it will be fine.

The last step was putting on the satin binding that I bought at Joann's just like I used for Drew's faux chenille baby blanket.  Since I had done it before and I had tried enough new things I figured I'd go with what I know this time.  I finished it on Wednesday.  Whew!  Now I need to plan ahead more for Genna's quilt for next year so I don't get down to the wire again.  Maybe I can talk her into something really easy for her birthday party next year, like maybe a substitute family activity, to make the time less stressful and crazy for me.  She'll get a party for her 1st Communion anyway.  I better start planting seeds now.  :)
  

This shows the correct alternating pattern of the "Log Cabin" pieces if you can see it.  It also has Hannah's baptism gown (the white eyelet fabric) because we have since purchased a nicer one and hers had stains from a rather large pooping incident from her baptism that Hannah loves to hear the stories about.

This was one of the more complicated to fit together blocks.

This is a close-up of part of the strip on the back where I got to squeeze this part of a t-shirt from when Brian was gone for a year.  "Kleine Maus" means little mouse in German and that was Brian's nickname for her when she was younger.

Hannah's First Holy Communion

Getting ready to go!  We left that crazy, unpredictable little monster, Drew, with the neighbor so we could relax and enjoy the Mass with Hannah.  Some days he is fine in Mass, but some days we have to take him out multiple times and we didn't want to risk that on this special day.  Hopefully, by next year when it is Genna's turn he will be much more predictable and better behaved during Mass.

 Hannah and I rose with the chickens this morning to get her crown braid done before anyone else woke up. I didn't want to be rushing on this special day.  She wanted to put on lip gloss and unfortunately got some pink lip glos on her white dress before we left.  I tried to get it out with Oxiclean, but I only lightened it up.  Luckily, it was int he folds and not on the bodice of the dress.  Dry cleaners, here we come!

She was very excited!

Banners displayed

Hannah was waiting downstairs with the other first communicants.  

She was a little nervous about this part since she only knows one kid in the whole group.    She didn't really want me to leave, but she handled it like a champ.

Brian sneaked this picture since they didn't want us taking photographs .  They want us to buy them from the professional photographer instead.  

The girls with Father Charlie

 During Mass, Genna told me how excited she was for her sister which was just so cute to see.  I definitely got teary eyed multiple times starting right as they processed, but I really cried when Hannah ran up to me after Mass and buried her face in my dress to weep with joy.  How happy it makes my heart to see how exciting and meaningful this day was to her!

Our whole family after we got back home and picked up Drew, but this is before the all day party ensued.

"Hurry and take this picture so I can get out of this dress and play, Mom!"

Hannah chose this cake design from a selection I gave her to look at on my Pinterest "First Communion" board.

We had many friends join us to celebrate with brats (homemade by our friend who was raised in Germany), hot dogs, a veggie tray, a cheese and cracker tray, chips and homemade salsa, another fruit display "cake" which I forgot to get a picture of this time, and cake, of course.

My layout and design of the cake- I found the idea for this cake here.  

I changed the cake up to use jellybeans for the Hail Mary beads and Mentos for the Our Father beads.  I did, however, venture out and experiment with fondant to make the Bible and the cross.  It was not nearly as difficult as I had imagined.  I couldn't find purple fondant, so I bought the icing spray on color and colored the Bible and cross this way.  I made those on the Tuesday before the party.

For you amateur cake decorators out there, like me, who may be curious about the details of the making of the cake, I made three round cakes and stacked them with icing layers in between.  I iced the whole cake in buttercream icing (Wilton's recipe) and barely had enough icing even with having a double batch.  Then I did a shell border around the bottom.  I added dots with the smaller dot tip (don't recall the number) and placed pearl sprinkles individually on each dot.  I used these to cover any imperfections in the cake and was much happier when I had done that with the result.  I was at first frustrated at how much time and energy I had put into this cake to have crumbs showing through all because I ran out of icing (and the ingredients to make more icing.)  I even managed to write "God bless Hannah" like I was requested to, without messing up the whole cake.

The favors (behind the cake in a vase) were just purple flower lollipops and First Communion pencils that I purchased at Party City.  I tied a note with a picture of St. Clare of Assisi onto the lollipops.

I made the Fig Newton Bibles that I found here at Shower of Roses.  I don't know if you can see the vases of silk flowers in water, but I got that idea from here.  I already had purple and white silk flowers, and the vases were cheap at Walmart.

Hannah had so many wonderful friends give her such thoughtful gifts.  She got jewelry, icons, a personalized ornament, a Bible, a prayr box, and may other beautiful things.   We got her a crucifix necklace and a little one that stands up in addition to the quilt I made her.  Next post, I promise.  This one is getting too long!

The next day, at Sunday Mass, Genna was so sad that she has to wait a whole year to receive Jesus in Holy Communion.  She's like my little Blessed Imelda.  Then Hannah leans over to me right before we go up when she realizes that the extraordinary ministers of Communion on our side don't know she can have Communion now and asks if they will give it to her.  I reminded her about the whole not crossing your arms anymore and she was comforted by that.  How sweet!

Mother's Day

I ordered Edible Arrangements for all the mothers in our lives, and I guess Brian got the hint that I LOVE them as well and he surprised me with one on Mother's Day.  Other than that, Genna made me breakfast in bed and even made my bed that day and has several days since.  The kids all made me little crafts and cards.  I was also treated to a nice Italian dinner at Carrabba's.

I took Hannah to get her First Communion pictures done that day and worked on her quilt during nap time.  Everyone else in the house napped that day because we went to bed so late the night before.  A friend of the girls had a birthday party at putt putt golf and then we went to their house afterwards for dinner.

A funny story about the miniature golf party.  Genna had pom poms and a megaphone and I asked her why she won those since I had heard who won the trophy and saw the participation medals already.  She told me it was because she got the highest score.  I was hesitant to say, "You mean the worst score?" because I didn't know if she knew the highest was the worst.  I hated to burst her bubble.  She seemed really excited about her prize.  I asked another mom to double check the story I was given, and, yes its true, Genna got the worst score and was given the cheering equipment, seemingly as a subtle (and completely missed by Genna) hint to join cheerleading and not seek out a career in golf.  (Really she only got 10 more strokes than the winner, I found out later.)  Genna is the type that couldn't be happier playing any sport as long as she is around people and gets to be social, no matter if she is good at it or not.  Hannah is quite the competitive one and wouldn't enjoy anything she didn't think she could excell in.  Isaac had a good time with the younger set playing miniature golf, but he asked me when I took him to the bathroom, "When do we get to play real golf, Mom, with the sand traps and water hazards?"  He knows about these things from Hannah since she is in the First Tee Program (which she is really enjoying) right now learning how to play golf for real.

Big Brother Practice

Ever since Genna got her American Girl doll for her birthday, Drew has been wanting dolls too.  He carried around her new Brave Barbie for a while that day.

Since he is not allowed to play with the American Girl dolls, I went to the basement and got out the old baby dolls.  I figured it might be good for him to practice for the new baby anyway.  He is the roughest of all my kids and has ran right through the crawling baby at co-op many times which tells me he needs some real practice being gentle and watching out for babies.  I have always put my newborns right on the floor (on a blanket) the minute we get home from the hospital and never has anyone run over them or done anything to hurt the babies.  All of my kids have been calm enough to control themselves and stay off the blanket like they are supposed to.  This time around, we may have a different situation on our hands.  I may have to set up a pack-n-play on the main floor to keep this baby safe from Drew.  I am hoping he will calm down by then a bit because I just don't have room for a pack-n-play on every level.

The kids taught him how to feed the baby.  He was a little disappointed he couldn't use real food, but we are trying to teach him how to pretend.

I was always so worried with Isaac about making him boyish enough that I never encouraged this kind of thing with him.  And you may be wondering after the headband incident and if you knew one of his new favorite words is princess (AKA "Pinseh") why I would encourage this.  It is because he is the roughest toughest thing this household has experienced and a little softening up wouldn't hurt him for sure.   Young ladies, if you want a sensitive and romantic guy with a love for hunting, fishing, and golf then Isaac is your man, if you want a rustic, sword fighting, tough guy then Drew is your man.  :)  But for now they are mine!

Drew is really enjoying being read to now and his vocabulary is growing like crazy.  He will answer questions about the book with actual words now instead of just pointing.

Barber Shop

It was definitely time for the boys to get a haircut.  Drew's was looking cute still, but Isaac's was just getting crazy.  I wanted to do them at the same time since Drew is always wanting to be a big boy and do everything Isaac does.  It makes it easier to get him to sit still for the haircut to watch his big brother go first.  Plus, I only have to get the clippers out and do all the clean up once this way.

The boys got lollipops for good behavior since that's what real barber shops give them.  The girls were very unhappy that they don't get lollipops at the salon or when I give them a trim.  :)  I am sure that will all change now.

Butterfly Field Trip

See the giant moth?  The kids all drew a picture of this one

We went with some friends to a butterfly exhibit at Brookside Nature Center with both live and dead butterflies to examine.  We made a smart trade off with a friend and took their 5 year old daughter and left Drew to play with his buddy.  It was much easier for me since strollers were not permitted in the butterfly room.  I would have been chasing Drew all over.

Isaac enjoyed handling the dead butterflies a lot.

The girls stood around trying desperately to get a butterfly to land on them.  They ended up being briefly successful, but I had several on my shoulder and one on my nose without even trying.

Afterwards, we had a picnic before heading back home.  Fun and busy day!

Birthday Girl

Genna's party was one day before her actual birthday.  On Monday we celebrated by opening gifts that had been arriving in the mail over the past couple of weeks.  She received enough money to plan a trip back to the American Girl store in Virginia and get Caroline's pet calf and another dress.  We'll have to do that this summer.  She also was the beneficiary of some gift cards to places that have clothes that fit the American Girl dolls so she can get Caroline's closet started.  Brian and I did get Genna Caroline's pet cat and an extra fancy dress for her also.

The biggest gift of all was this specially requested giant stuffed horse from her Mimi and Papa Boat.

We also went to the restaurant of her choice.  She had a hard time with this because everyone was trying to sway her and she doesn't like anyone to be unhappy.  I could tell she really wanted to go to Red Robin and so I had to stop the wishy washy party and make the final call.  She really likes to please Hannah, and Hannah wanted Mexican food with chips.  I told them we could still get chips at Red Robin and everyone was happy.  They all got balloons, and Genna had her complementary birthday dessert (with singing.)

Drew tried to wear this headband to the restaurant, but we slyly slipped it off as we  got out of the car.  :)

Happy birthday, Genevieve!

My Seven Year Old: American Girl Craft Party

Disclaimer:  I am way way behind on posting!  This was two weeks ago.  Barring technical difficulties or travel, I don't think this has ever happened before.  Hopefully, now I will get back into the swing of things again.

Genevieve had a craft party at Michael's just like Hannah had for her seventh birthday.  It is traditionally (in our house at least) an American Girl themed party with no boys allowed.

I found this idea for an American Girl doll box cake here with a face and here without a face.  I changed it by making the face hole a Saran wrap covered catalog cut out of Genna's favorite doll, Caroline.  I also did the "American Girl" label using the cut out and Saran wrap too since I am just bad at writing on cakes.  This was a small cake since we didn't have families and siblings like we usually do to account for.  I used one 10 x 10" square cake pan and cut it in half to stack it and make it a rectangle.  I thought this would be a snap, but since I cheated and got the can icing for the pink stars it was harder than I thought.  I had to come up with a plan B since the icing in those cans is just too thin to actually stay where you put it to begin with.  I don't know how many times I have to make this mistake until it finally gets through my thick skull.  Note to self:  Don't cheat!  Make the silly batches of colored buttercream icing OR get some guts and use fondant.  I made the icing for the white parts and the crumb layer, but cheated with the cans for the two colors.  Halfway through the party, one side of the icing pealed right off the cake.  Beautiful!  :)  This is what happens when I am pregnant because I try to save time and take short cuts.  Oh, and I am half brain dead.  :)

Bad picture quality, I know!

The spread

I made mini turkey/cheese and ham/cheese sandwiches, brought cheese balls, a veggie tray, and made a fruit "cake." 

This was a giant hit and went almost as fast as the cheese balls did.  I plan to do this for Hannah's First Communion also.  It's almost like an Edible Arrangement, and I love those.  I got the idea here.

At Michael's, they have a party leader who runs the craft for you which is my second favorite thing about this kind of party.  My first favorite thing is that it is so cheap compared to most places that do parties.  I just bring the food and the craft.  Two nights before the party, I go to pack up my box of stuff to take to Michael's and realize that somehow I didn't order and receive the main craft from Amazon after all.  I am not sure how this happened.  I was "Super Plan Ahead Mom" and ordered all the favors, plates, cups, etc a month or more ahead.  When I got the box, I guess I didn't check it carefully enough or I thought another box was coming or something because I had it mentally checked off in my head, but it just wasn't there.  I tried to find a store within reasonable driving distance that had the craft that I wanted originally, but no one did.  Then I went to a couple craft stores looking for something else Genna was interested in, was appropriate for a group craft, and wasn't too complicated as to lose the attention of the rest of the girls there.  I found a bottle cap necklace kit and bought two for the party.  Disaster averted.

Here are the girls crafting away with bottle caps, beads, and string to make necklaces and bracelets.

They made little purses for themselves and their dolls to take home as well.

The girls ate the sandwiches and snacks in between the two crafts.  Then we had cale!

She made a really long wish!

Hannah made Genna this place mat   She came to me with this desire to make a place mat for her sister.  I gave her a rectangle of white fabric and some fabric markers.  When she finished decorating it, I added some fun fabric to the back and sewed it very quickly.  

Aaah!  A sister moment!

In our house we try to have special privileges for each birthday.  The seven year old (girl) privilege is getting an American Girl doll.  I'll have to think of something else for the boys.  

She was thrilled to pieces to get her American doll, Caroline Abbot.  She chose her because they were born near the same place in upstate New York.  

All the girls and their dolls!

We had about 5 or 10 minutes to kill at the end so we took pictures of the girls and their dolls in pairs.

The girls seemed to have a great time, and Genna was on cloud nine.  Success!  I love my seven year old daughter!