kirstencan

Working Together

Because April is Autism Awareness month, I feel like I should contribute.  But I'm not feeling horribly wordy about Autism at the moment.  So I asked my friend, Ami Chopine, if I could repost something from her blog.  She is one of my neighbors, and was Thomas' teacher at church last year.  I really liked this post (especially the end!):

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At church today, I sat with my class of kids in sharing time, when lots of classes are together doing music and having a short lesson. These lessons are basic, but this doesn’t mean adults can’t get something out of them.

Today the teacher held up a poster board with several simple pictures on it. The room was supposed to look at them all and then remember them when the pictures were removed from view. I know I didn’t remember them all. But between all the kids having looked at them, every single picture was remembered.

It occurred to me at that point that this is how we work in real life. So much more gets done when we all support and value everyone. Of course that isn’t any big revelation but I love it when we get reminded in little ways like this.

There was one picture, the last one, that only one kid remembered: the one in our group with autism.

This isn’t just about team work, workplace productivity. I think it has a lot of implications to the great search for truth. We all find different parts of it and we all gain more when we come together and share what we’ve learned. Everyone’s voice is important.

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Guess whose kid that was at the end?  Yup.  That's my boy.

I really liked this post because (it's just so true and) because it's about more than awareness, even more than acceptance, but the fact that we need each other.  Every one of us. 

Thanks, Ami!

Elastic Thread

Erin's been telling me forever that sewing with elastic thread is easy.  I didn't really believe her (silly me).  But with the Heather Ross elastic thread sundress tutorial + Erin's tutorial (Sunny Day dress + top) + Sarah saying it was easy, too, I had to try.

It is a tiny bit tricky starting out, but I learned so much that I will definitely be trying again.

I used white seersucker, which I love.   There are many flaws, but that's what I get for not reading the directions all the way through before I started!

I had this in mind for a beach portrait dress (more on that later!), and for that it will work fine.

(She's getting pretty used to my photo shoots with her, and it's yet another reason why I love having a girl!)

For the record, I was going to try a combination of Heather Ross + Erin's directions, but mainly just used Erin's.  To do it again, I will just make a tube with the seam in the back (I think that's what Sarah did?) and follow Erin's directions from there.  Thanks, Erin - you were right!

100 Days

I realized recently that I'd passed the 100 mark on my Project 365!  I started this photography project without knowing how well I'd be able to keep up.  But it's been fun, and challenging, and I've enjoyed it.  I looked through my set and made myself choose my favorite five photos to share today (I usually have a hard time picking favorites of anything):

(click on them to see them in flickr)

I could have picked 5 just of feet.  Apparently I really like to photograph feet.  Who knew?

This has been great to help me know my DSLR better - although some are taken with my point-and-shoot when I'm out and about.   Some days I take a lot more shots than other days, so I have more to choose from, some days I just get nothing good.  Some days I almost forget.

But all of them have memories attached.  It's kinda amazing to me, because it's like a visual journal - even with just one photo.  Looking at the one photo for that day usually reminds me of other things we did that day.  Cool stuff, and I'm glad I joined in.

Now here's hoping I didn't jinx myself and that I manage to finish the other 200+ photos for the year!

It's Earth Day Again!

Happy Earth Day! (you know, assuming bloglines picks this up today, which seems unlikely)  A couple of years ago I gave a little presentation to the women at church about 'Living Green(er)'.  The PDF of that is still available, if you're interested.

I re-read that post today, and my 'green' goals then were:  use reusable shopping bags and use cloth napkins.  Hey, I did pretty good with those goals!  I had collected canvas totes to use for shopping, but I never took them.  They were bulky and odd sizes, and just weren't working for me.  I'm afraid they were awkward for the cashiers as well.

Eventually I bought some of those shopping bags from the grocery store - they are bigger than they look, they're surprisingly tough, and hold a TON.  And I love that they have a flat bottom and fold up and store neatly.  And now I try to remember to take them with me to any store I'm heading to (and I've never had a store make any comment about that, just in case you were worried!  Most of them actually give a discount per bag that I bring, actually).

And it's been a LONG time since I bought paper napkins.  Woo hoo!

This year we'll celebrate earth day by having some family garden time - hopefully planting a few things and making it nicer back there.  We really want to involve the kids more in our garden.

My goals for this year are to waste less food, learn to preserve food from our garden better and shop at the farmer's market more. 

I'm so sick of people only looking at The Environment as a crazy wacko political issue.  Bottom line for me is that I believe we have a responsibility to care for our earth, which gives us so much.  Let's all try to do a little better, and teach our children to respect the Earth and not be so wasteful. 

Okay, so what are your Green Goals for 2009?  Come on!

 

A Super Party

Thanks for your birthday wishes!  Thursday's party went really really well.   It was fun - even for me!  We woke up to snow, but it soon melted and it was just cloudy the rest of the day.  A bummer for pictures, but better than snowing all day!

I ended up with a lot of extra invites - because the first place I printed them cut the sides off a little (beware printing photos with text!) and I had to reprint them.  What to do with extra cutie invites?

Look over the table under the balloons - a mobile.

This goes in the 'Oh yes, I did' category.  They're backed with scraps of paper I used for a party favor.  All the little flying supermonkeys make me smile.  It was a spur of the moment crafty idea but I'm glad I went for it!

Cupcakes (always) with superman wrappers and a superhero candle holder (wood peg person + drill + paint + sharpie).

Here's a super cool decoration - a superhero print from Regina!  She was nice enough to suggest a swap, and this came in time for the party! 

When the guests arrived we colored superheroes.  Everyone got a big (1/2 page) and a small one to color.  They are from this Small Object printable.  I just added masks, belts and capes (and ponytails for Princess) with a sharpie to turn them into superheroes.

Next we had a bean bag toss (the beanbags are pictured above) to 'earn' our capes and masks.  The boys loved the playsilk capes!  I dyed a bunch recently, and used the red, green and blue ones for the party.

Feel free to laugh at this next part.  Monkey really wanted to do a 'pin the superhero on something' game.  So I got out some posterboard and started sketching a city.  Then I added everything I could think of that would keep a superhero busy.  I couldn't decide if this was cool or dumb, but my boys LOVED watching me draw it, so we went with it.

Included disasters:

• Giant angry octopus
• Person trapped in burning building
• Bomb in need of diffusing
• Robber stealing money
• Villain with evil laser weapon
• Giant robot
• Meteor shower
• Cat stuck in tree

We thought of doing this with a blindfold, but Monkey would have none of that - so the kids just took turns sticking their little colored superhero to one of the problems and they all liked it.  We saved the city!

A celebration was in order.  Bring on Freeze Dance (the best party game EVER).  The house was a whirl of capes as everyone rocked out to the Ramones cover of 'Spiderman'.  We had made a mix cd of 'superhero songs' including 3 different versions of the Spiderman theme, some Danny Elfman score music from one of the Spiderman movies, one really old Superman song, a cheesy Batman... oh, and Underdog.

It was pretty awesome. 
Much giggling and rocking out.  And yeah, big sister is in there - cape, mask and all.  She loved it, too.

After presents and cake we let the boys loose in the playroom with the Legos.  Good stuff.

They were sent home with their capes and masks and goody bags.  The best part of the bags (I think) were the little blank books.

The original idea for favors was to make more superhero peg dolls, but I just ran out of time.  I threw in some other cheapo Spiderman junk instead.

The superhero stamp I made got used for the invite envelopes, the goody bag labels, the blank books, and on stickers for the cups on the table.

So that's about it - oh, not pictured, but there were also little signs that said 'POW!' 'WAP!', etc. just stuck here and there around the house.

I didn't keep track of the cost of this party as well as my others, but almost the only thing I had to buy were the silks and masks - so it was still really inexpensive.  The masks are just those inexpensive plastic ones from the party store - but I cut all the noses off to make it more superhero-like.

So that's about it - now the decorations are down, the new toys have (mostly) found places, and the print, mobile, and game poster are all hanging in Monkey's room - he loves it all and had a fabulous (if exhausting) day!

 

Supermonkey is four!

This is the invite we sent out for Monkey's birthday.  He desperately wanted some type of Superhero party, which I was trying to talk him out of - but when I saw Regina's party I thought - now that's not so bad! I can do that kind of superhero!

Anyway, these printed great, and I did use my corner-rounder punch on the photos.  And I carry one around in my purse because it makes me smile!

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me: What was the best thing about being three?
Monkey: All of it.

me:  What will be the best thing about being four?
Monkey:  Still being cute.

Amen to that, my cute boy!  So now I have to go get our donut picnic ready, and then wish me luck as I will have 9 little caped boys running around my house this afternoon.

You know you'll be hearing more about that soon!

Happy Birthday to my sweet cuddly Monkey.  So glad we get to celebrate with you today!

Handmade for Easter

Here's Princess' Easter Dress.  Last summer I found this Heather Ross fabric on sale on etsy and picked up a bunch planning on it being her Easter dress.  It's very springy!

I picked out this Project Runway pattern (Simplicity 2714) and my mom made it up.  We're so lucky that my mom loves to sew!  We altered it quite a bit from the original pattern.  Mom lengthened it (and then added more to the lining to create a double-layered skirt) because it was just too short.  She also raised the sweetheart neckline.  We pleated and then added elastic to the sleeves, because the 'flutter sleeves' just weren't fluttering.  They stuck straight out and she looked like a linebacker.

But I love it.  It turned out just so sweet.  Can I say that I love the whole 'Easter Dress' thing?  Apparently it's just not as popular as it once was, but I grew up with my mom making my sisters and I new dresses every Easter (and Christmas) and there's something very springy and fresh about a new dress.

For the kiddos baskets, I made them each a softie.  I kinda stink at making softies, but Monkey had fallen in love with a little racoon beanie toy that I'd found on clearance to add to a baby gift.  So I decided to try and make him one. 

Happily, Monkey LOVES 'Ratcoonie'.  Funky though he is.

Thomas got a semi-lame rocket (whipped up in all of 15 minutes) because I wasn't thinking straight (should have made him a monster - duh).

I like Ratcoonie's tail.

Princess got a Black Apple doll.  This is Marie.

I think she is just the right mix of pretty and weird.  Don't look too closely at her face.  I really wanted to paint it, but after re-painting it FOUR TIMES called it good, although it's not what I was hoping for.

But Marie is well-loved, being carried everywhere - and apparently enjoys hanging out and listening to piano practice.

Mission accomplished.

Check it out - I made a tie.

So, the Easter duds were all planned, but the sweater vest I bought for Thomas ended up being entirely too big.  We'll save it for another year.  I showed him some photos of sweater vests, and some of shirts with ties.  He chose to wear a tie.

Aaron says that that is just wrong.  He hates ties.

Anyway, my mom had a pattern for a toddler-sized tie, which is really a long tie piece + a neck piece that velcros in the back.  The hardest part was figuring out how to enlarge the pattern to the right size.  After that, it went together in like 15 minutes tops.

 
I ordered some of this Traffic Jam print (Alexander Henry) after I 'okayed' it with Thomas.  He should have some say in his wardrobe now, right?  The print is way cute, but the fabric isn't as soft as a lot of other designer stuffs.  I guess I'm getting spoiled.

More Easter duds coming your way next week.  My favorite part is Princess' new sandals.  How I wish they were mine.

Happy Easter!

Curtains: 2-for-1

Another closet updated - here's Monkey's.  I picked up these (bright! matchy!) curtains at IKEA - um, a few months ago - and finally hung them up last week to replace the bi-fold doors.

Monkey is in and out of that closet all the time.  That's where the dress up box is, and he's set up a nice cozy hideout for himself under the built-in shelves.

Also, he loves maps, and loves taping things to his wall (!), hence the upside-down crumpled map of North America as a decoration.

(And if you spy a few dresses in his closet, it's because Princess doesn't have a closet in her room - so that's where her dresses go.)

Anyhoo, about a week or so after we got the curtains up, I finally took them down to hem them - heh.  And with the 14 or so inches I cut off... I made a little valance for his window.  Very little - but it hides his roller blind (which was covered with sock-monkey fabric, but that fell off) so it looks a little more finished...

... and circus-y.
Oh well, good enough.

Someone has a birthday coming up...

So I've been making these...

and these...

You can see where this is going, right?

Stay tuned!