Bea's first year of school has been hard, very hard. It has all felt so heavy and I've felt unable to deal with it so many times. So when we get a good and encouraging note from her teacher it makes us all want to dance.
We're not out of the woods yet, but today was a good day.
This is the first year in quite a while that I haven't gotten a Stendig calandar. But since I'm not taking photos of a baby on one this year I thought I would save some money and just print out some calendar pages for our wall. This has lead to a lot of talk about the months.
And another bit of color that we created this week - new play dough. Oh how I love playing with warm play dough - and kneeding in the color is sooo satisfying. Bea and I set up a cookie shop.
Hope you're having a colorful week too!
Technorama - what a cheesy name for a nice science museum. We went on Sunday - we were desparate to do something fun and avoid the rainy weather.
There were lots of buttons to push:
Big bubble making:
Bea's favorite part were these complex marble run type things. Wooden balls went through chutes and you had to pull levers or tilt things or push knobs or even ride a teeter totter to get them to go up and around. They were all made entirely of wood. Hard to get a good picture but here they are:
Good fun for a yucky day:
I made a shirt for Claire from an old shirt of Brian's. The pattern was Burda 9503 and it gave me trouble. I couldn't figure out what the pattern was telling me to do for the cuffs so after ripping out what seemed like a million stitches I just cut them off and hemmed them. It turned out fine in the end. I love making things for the girls out of Brian's old clothes.
Before:
After:
The trees at our little park along the lake are pruned heavily each year. I think they are Planetrees. I should have paid better attention when my Dad-in-law was here. Anyway they pruned the trees today and the branches were discarded all over the ground - waiting to be collected tomorrow. Bea had a great time pretending to be a bird in a nest. The branches were really beautiful, green, straight, strong. I wanted to haul a bunch home and make I don't know what with them. But then I thought better of it.
This probably isn't very amusing to anyone but her Mummy. But here she is having a snack of crackers with nutella on top - our Chocolatey Claire.
I remember loving this age with Bea too. I remember thinking I never laughed before I laughed at a goofy little toddler. The thing that makes her so lovable is that even when she is naughty and being willful she is still cute. Today she has a fever and she just wants to be close to Mommy.
This year I made: a nightie, 3 little girl dresses, a backpack, two penguins, a bunnie, two shirts for myself, a bunch of doll clothes, 3 pinafores, two hats, a penguin costume, pajama pants, a birthday cake for a one year old, two skirts, some shorts, a dress for myself and a stocking for Claire. All with my two little hands.
I loaded up on fabric and patterns when I was in the US so I'm looking forward to starting some 2012 projects soon.
Well we're back home. The trip is always hard. This wasn't our best trip. Claire got over tired on the plane and wouldn't go to sleep. She was crying and calling out some phrase that we couldn't understand. Probably something like Mommy why are you torturing me? I was about to lose it just from being completely pooped and worrying that she was bugging everyone else around us. We tried holding her and then buckling her in her seat and then walking up and down the aisle and singing to her. She just wouldn't have it - she would not settle down. A flight attendant came over and very nicely told me that we could go back to the galley area if we needed a little more space. So I got up and headed back to the rear of the plane. As I stood up a guy a couple seats back started clapping. And then we were both crying because that was so un-nice and I just wanted to be off the plane. If Brian had been able to get to the other side of the plane I think he would have punched the guy. Her whole crying episode only lasted about 20 minutes and then she fell asleep in my arms. I however couldn't help being steaming mad for the remaining 3 hours of the flight.
Thankfully the girls slept for the rest of the flight. Then we dragged our huge bags and our dirty children home.
And now we are home. Our bags are half emptied. New toys, dirty clothes and random stuff is scattered all around the house. I have been completely useless, barely able to keep my eyes open while Brian managed to go out for groceries, entertain the girls and make dinner.
Was all the travel misery worth it? Yes!
