To the Moon

Posted on January 24, 2022 by lexicolton

Well just a reminder to check out the contest in my previous post if you’re looking for an activity for your kiddo!  No one has entered yet so there are very good odds of winning!  On another exciting note Julius tried skiing this weekend!  He had to walk up many flights of stairs in his ski boots though and by the time he got to the slopes he declared he was too exhausted.  He kept asking when we were going to go on the chair lift and take a break.  So… we’ll have to work on that!  I was so exhausted after teaching him for an hour that I didn’t ski the rest of the weekend… I might need to work on my stamina as well!

Right now I’m sitting in the basement while Julius plays with his brio trains.  He loves these things.  We got a TON of them from one of my co-workers and Julius has asked me all their names (many of them are characters from Thomas & Friends) and he makes them have conversations with one another.  It’s really cute to listen to.  Renews my faith in humanity type of cute.

Speaking of cute, a few days ago Julius and I got on the topic of “magic”.  I’m not sure how.  But we started naming things that were magical “Santa”, “unicorns” etc.  Julius at one point said “popcorn” was magical.  I asked why he thought that and his response was, “because it’s a bag, then it’s popcorn”.  I had never considered the magic of popcorn!  I did then destroy his interpretation of popcorn magic though by explaining how the bag turned into popcorn.  Science really is magic.  There’s probably a scientific explanation for Santa too but I won’t look for it.

Well, since I’m getting ready to take down the rocket ship from Julius’ birthday, I thought this was the perfect time to finally give you an overview.  I made the ship from a refrigerator box from our fridge saga. It only took me about a night to make, but the hardest part was getting the box into our basement…  Talk about challenging!   One other challenge – I thought using tempera paint would make the project recycleable… turns out our trash company won’t recycle painted cardboard even if it’s only been painted with water based paints.  Something to consider for next time….

DIY Cardboard Rocket Ship

What you’ll need:

  • 1 fridge box
  • 1 other large box (mine was from a baby carriage)
  • 1 bottle of red tempera paint (or color of your choice)
  • box cutter
  • packing tape
  • wood glue
  • markers (I use paint markers)
  • optional – cabinet knob for steering wheel
  1. Make sure the top flaps on the box are opened up fully.
  2. Mark a vertical line down the center of each box face.
  3. Use a metal ruler and a blunt edge (I used the back end of a chop stick) to make a bend in the box face along the line you just drew.
  4. Open the box out and bend along the line you just made.
  5. Repeat step 3 and 4 for for all 4 faces, forming an octagonal prism shape (My box had slightly different widths for the sides, so my rocket wasn’t an equilateral octagonal prism)
  6. Cut the box flaps down to the fold you just made, forming 8 flaps.
  7. Cut a small angle off the sides of each box flap to form a trapezoid.
  8. Fold flaps in towards the center until they meet.  Hold together with packing tape or wood glue to form the nose of the rocket.  (There will still be hole in the center.) (The following picture shows the finished top.)
  9. Cut out fins of the rocket using the other large box.  Simply cut off 4 box faces and form a curve from opposite points.
  10. Cut windows into the rocket ship and a door.
  11. Make a window frame (or window frames) by drawing two concentric circles on scrap cardboard from the box used to make the fins, then cutting them and removing the center circle.  I then glued them over the holes I cut for windows using wood glue.
  12. Paint the entire rocket outside and fins (both sides).
  13. Tape or glue the fins to the sides of the rocket, equidistant from one another.
  14. Inside the rocket draw assorted control panel looking buttons.
  15. Cut out a steering wheel from scrap cardboard.  Poke a hole through the steering wheel and through the back of the rocket ship.  Use a cabinet knob through the steering wheel to hold in place (make sure you use a large washer on the back side of the rocket to prevent the screw from pulling through the rocket.  (I couldn’t find any washers and in a rush I used a random piece of some other project).
  16. Fly to the moon for a picnic.

    Snuggles in the rocket

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 2 Comments

Tea Under the Sea

Posted on January 18, 2022 by lexicolton

Well hello cats and kittens!  I apologize deeply for missing a post last week.  I ended up having to help out one of my coworkers due to a family emergency.  It was a great experience but boy do I think that was enough of that role for me.  For those who did not notice, the last blog post had a contest included for those who want to enter.  I don’t blame you for not reading to the end of that saga though if you missed it!

Well speaking of cats and kittens – Patricia has a lovey!  Until recently, she has taken almost no interest in stuffed animals.  One night though I left a crocheted kitty doll in her crib, and she apparently cuddled it all night and woke up talking to it.  Success!  Only downside?  The crocheted kitty was Julius’ toy… a fact I had forgotten.  Before Patricia took notice of kitty Julius never played with it, so I thought he wouldn’t care… of course I was wrong.  Luckily he has mostly acquiesced and has been letting Patricia snuggle with it and carry it around.

Sleeping with Kitty

Snuggles

Patricia also loves books!  A few weeks ago she started enjoying sitting in our laps and turning pages.  I would say her current favorite is Moo Baa La La La by Sandra Boynton which I’ve been reading her at least twice every night before bed.  She still hasn’t been talking much, but I am pretty sure she is saying the same sounds every time for Dany.  It sounds more like Doodle.  So maybe she’s trying to say doggy?  Or perhaps she is saying one of the twenty pet names I call Dany like “Dany Doodle”.  Hopefully we’ll figure that one out soon because she says it everytime she points at Dany.

Speaking of Patricia, we celebrated her first birthday with a cake smash over zoom this year.  I had some pretty grand plans and the zoom call included a green screen, a bubble maker and mermaid costumes.  Scroll down to see the celebration.

Theme
Patricia is my little mermaid.  She just loves the water.  When she was a baby just learning to stand she would squeal with delight when she heard the bath running.  Then she would pull herself up the side of the tub to peer into the water.  Julius is very nervous about water getting in his eyes when we wash, but Patricia will happily dump water over her own head.  I had been wanting to throw a tea party themed sip-and-see when Patricia was born, but that theme apparently wasn’t weird enough for me.  Instead I combined the two and decided to throw a mermaid themed tea party for my little water bug.

Invitations

I decided “Tea Under the Sea” had a cute ring to it, so I sketched out an idea and cut the invitations using my cricut.  I then used adhesive tape to tape some of my favorite Harney and Sons teas to the inside and then shipped them out to my family members.

Decor

For the party I thought it would be cute if Patricia looked like she was under the sea… so I bought a bubble maker, taped green fabric to the wall and used the zoom green screen feature with a free background I found online.

I decorated Patricia’s high chair with a blue and green “one” banner I whipped together with my cricut and taped it to her high chair.

The setup

This is what it looked like to us.

This is what it looked like over zoom

Cake

I’ll be honest, I had the most fun making Patricia’s tiny smash cake.  I baked it in ramekin dishes with some of Julius’ cake batter dyed blue, and then froze it.  And I froze Julius’ leftover birthday cake frosting to frost the tiny cake and cupcakes and I had just enough.  Patricia ate the cake extremely daintily, there was no smashing involved.  After I took the cake away, I brought a banana in the room and she got extremely excited for that.  At least she got what she wanted for her birthday.

Patricia’s tiny smash cake – cupcakes for scale

Patricia daintily tests the cake.

Costumes

A Lexi party wouldn’t be complete without costumes.  At first I was going to make all 4 of us mer-people tails, but I realized that we wouldn’t be able to fit anyone but Patricia in the zoom shot.  Instead I made Julius and Patricia tails.  Patricia’s was blue/green and Julius’s tail was yellow by request.  Patricia used to ask to wear her tail everytime she would spot it hanging up, though I’ve since moved it to the costume closet in the basement.

Overall, we had a light turn out due to some scheduling conflicts, but she got to zoom with her cousins and it turned out really cute!

Patricia given her cake and Julius ready to immediately blow it out for her.

Silly goose.

The rest of the non-virtual party goers.

 

 

Posted in Parties | Leave a comment

Contested Vacation

Posted on January 3, 2022 by lexicolton

Wow, is it Monday again?  I’m going to be honest – I didn’t write last week’s (meager) blog post last Monday like usual.  I wrote it on the 23rd when I started feeling crappy and Will and the kids went to the playground to see some of Will’s Nashville friends (which I will be perfectly honest, I was not thrilled about since our kids were at the time, sick).  Anyway, the last couple weeks of “vacation” have been a mix of nice time with family, crippling anxiety, and feeling like absolute s**t.

Let me give you a run down of our vacation and you can tell me if my anxiety was unwarranted.  After being in Nashville for 30 minutes following a two day drive from Massachusetts, Will’s cousin Walt, who had arrived only hours before, got a phone call saying he’d been exposed.  Strong start!  That was on top of finding out on our drive down that Will’s brother had been covid exposed to a co-worker several days before, and he and my sister in law had decided to cancel their flights down so they could test negative for 5 days.  Their results luckily remained negative and we were able to see them for Christmas.  As for Walt, out of an abundance of caution, he ended up leaving the next morning and his side of the family cancelled their flights to Nashville and stayed in Chicago for the holidays.  Unbeknownst to us at the time, this was a lucky move as Walt did not have covid, but two of his other family members did.  (They are both okay, luckily both were boosted.)

Next, Patricia spiked a very high fever the Tuesday after we arrived and started having coughing attacks.  Since everyone was on edge about omicron, and we were planning to visit with a different group of Will’s cousins and his elderly grandparents we decided to get PCR tested.  This was easier said than done.  As those of you with infants know it is very difficult to find a place that will covid test patients under 2.  Many urgent cares won’t even see patients under 2 (for whatever reason)!  Since we were not anywhere near our home pediatrician, we spent an entire day trying to get a PCR test for Patricia.  The silver lining is we discovered that a rapid PCR technology exists and we got PCR results (all negative) within the hour!  Unfortunately by this point Will’s family had cancelled the gathering with Will’s other set of cousins and grandparents because his aunt had just found out she’d been exposed to someone with covid.  (Luckily she tested negative many days later.)

With a clean bill of health, we went forward with slightly diminished Christmas eve plans, and had a great evening.  Unfortunately the night afterwards was another story.  After we tucked Julius into bed on Christmas eve, he woke up at 2am coughing and wheezing and completely unable to breathe.  All four of us were in the same room so Will and I woke up immediately and were both looking up the nearest emergency room to take him.  It was one of the scariest moments of my life.  He told us through tears that he didn’t want to go to the emergency room. (This is odd because he normally loves going to the doctor and begs to go to the hospital or urgent care whenever he gets a sniffle – no, I’m not joking.)  Since it seemed his breathing had gotten better we acquiesced (I really didn’t relish the thought of being in an emergency room in a red state in the middle of the omicron surge on Christmas day).  Julius returned to sleep with only a couple additional interruptions but Will and I did not sleep at all the rest of the night, instead listening to Julius’ wheezing to make sure it didn’t sound labored.  The next day (Christmas) Julius slept in until 9:30am CENTRAL.  That is two full hours longer than he has ever slept in his LIFE.  ON CHRISTMAS.  Poor guy.

Of course I was freaked out that Julius had covid, but some rational people assured me that since we’d all only been covid tested 2 days before it was unlikely.  And more likely that he had caught it from Patricia.  Julius bounced back quickly (with the exception of spiking a really high fever for 12 hours that went away the next day).  Of course through all this Will and I were not feeling great either.  Who knows when we caught it, but being in a car and hotel room together for 2 days and then sleeping in the same room it was doomed to happen.  Of course mine must have turned into a sinus infection or something because I progressively got worse and I am still in that state.  I haven’t gone a day in the last week without heavy napping.  Writing this blog post is the most strenuous thing I’ve done all week!  What a vacation!

Well that was mopey!  This post is reading more like a dead journal than a blog.  Let me liven it up a bit… WITH A CONTEST!  It has been several years since I’ve had a CONTEST.  I’m going to try to do a few this year*.  If you’ve gotten this far, you rock!  I’m going to give one lucky winner a rocket ship kit!  These are very similar to the Home Depot kids kits and whoever wins will require a hammer, Phillips head screwdriver and wood glue to construct the kit (or if you so desire I can build it for you).  Julius started doing the kits when he was a bit under 3 years old, with my supervision.  To enter the contest please comment with your new year’s resolution!  You have until January 31st to enter, which is the date I’m giving myself to come up with a new year’s resolution…

If you don’t want to wait… below are the instructions to make your own kit!  It fits 1 regular and 1 small peg doll as passengers upon completion!

Rocket Ship Kid’s Woodworking Kit

What you’ll need for each kit:

  • 1″x5″ board
  • 1″x3″ board
  • 1.25″ dowel
  • 2 #6 x 3/4″ screws
  • 4 #16 x 1-1/4″ nails
  • template here
  1. Using a chop saw (or other saw) cut 1″x6″ board into 8″ segment.
  2. Print and cut out the template above and use the template to trace the rocket ship nose in pencil.
  3. Using a band saw (or scroll saw) cut around one side of rocket ship nose, removing a small amount of wood at a time, slowly forming a curve.
  4. On 1″x4″ board mark a 1″ segment. Set chop saw to 31.6 degree angle.  Position saw to cut up to the first 1″ mark. Cut.
  5. Set chop saw back to 90 degree angle (normal position). Cut along your 1″ mark to form first rocket fin.  Repeat steps 4&5 for other 3 fins.
  6. Using a 1″ forstner drill bit, drill into the end of the dowel 1/2″ to form a hole.
  7. Using the chop saw, cut dowel with hole into 1″ segment.
  8. Using a 3/4″ forstner drill bit, drill into the end of the dowel 1/2″ to form a hole.
  9. Using the chop saw, cut dowel with hole into 1″ segment.
  10. Sand all pieces.
  11. Mark the letter “F” on the bottom center side of the rocket face, and mark a fin with “F”.  Aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket, drill through the center of the fin into the rocket using a 1/16″ bit. Using an awl trace around the location of the fin.
  12. Mark the letter “L” on the bottom left side of the rocket, and mark a fin with “L”.  Aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket, drill through the center of the fin into the rocket using a 1/16″ bit.
  13. Mark the letter “R” on the bottom right side of the rocket, and mark a fin with “R”.  Aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket, drill through the center of the fin into the rocket using a 1/16″ bit.
  14. Flip the rocket over.  Mark the letter “B” on the bottom center side of the rocket face, and mark a fin with “B”.  Aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket, drill through the center of the fin into the rocket using a 1/16″ bit. Using an awl trace around the location of the fin.
  15. Place one of the cylindrical seats/windows in the center of the rocket face.  Drill through the center of the cylinder into the rocket using a 1/8″ bit.
  16. Flip the rocket body.  Place other cylindrical seats/windows in the center of the rocket face, slightly above where the other hole was.  Drill through the center of the cylinder into the rocket using a 1/8″ bit.

    Finished rocket kits.

Assembly Instructions

You will need:  Safety goggles, sand paper, wood glue, a phillip’s head screwdriver and a hammer.

  1. Sand all pieces until smooth, remembering to sand with the grain of the wood.
  2. Find the fin piece marked “L”.  Place a small amount of wood glue on the long part of the fin, and place it in the position on the rocket body side marked “L”, aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket.
  3. Hammer a nail into the hole marked in the fin.
  4. Find the fin piece marked “R”.  Place a small amount of wood glue on the long part of the fin, and place it in the position on the rocket body side marked “R”, aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket.
  5. Hammer a nail into the hole marked in the fin.
  6. Find the fin piece marked “F”.  Place a small amount of wood glue on the long part of the fin, and place it in the position on the rocket body face marked “F”, aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket.
  7. Hammer a nail into the hole marked in the fin.
  8. Flip the rocket body over.  Find the fin piece marked “B”.  Place a small amount of wood glue on the long part of the fin, and place it in the position on the rocket body face marked “B”, aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket.
  9. Hammer a nail into the hole marked in the fin.
  10. Using your screwdriver, start a screw on the hole on the inside of the window/seat cylinders.
  11. When screw starts to protrude through the center of the cylinder, apply a small amount of glue on the flat side.  Align it with the hole in the center face of the rocket, and screw until fastened.  Repeat for other screw and other cylinder on the reverse side of rocket.
  12. Paint as desired!

*I think I owe many of you pokemon hats from the last contest.  I am so sorry.  When I ended up becoming an actual hatmaker and didn’t have time to make any and completely forgot!  If you still want one, let me know and I’ll make it happen.

Posted in Crafts & Sewing, Home Improvement | 4 Comments

May All Your Rumpuses be Wild

Posted on December 27, 2021 by lexicolton

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year dear readers!  May 2022 be the best year yet!

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | Leave a comment

No bull

Posted on December 21, 2021 by lexicolton

We are having a fabulous time on VACATION!  Fun to see family, even though the pandemic has made it a bit harder to imagine this is an ordinary Christmas year.  Let’s hope for a return to pre-pandemic normalcy in 2022.

Because the house was supposed to be packed with people we are staying in the same room as Patricia and Julius.  Julius is very excited by this and is so sweet when he goes into bed.  Not only is he very quiet when he enters the room, but he tells Patricia “goodnight I love you Patricia” when he snuggles into bed.  It is my favorite thing.  Today he was running around in the cozy coupe and Patricia desperately wanted to participate.  He swapped between pushing Patricia around in the cozy coupe and (me holding) Patricia in the back of the coupe while he drove.  He did not even have to be told Patricia needed a turn, he readily switched off at appropriate intervals.  I am so proud of him.

You know what else I’m proud of?  Finishing up with Halloween craft blogging in December!  This is the last entry in our extensive family Halloween costume tutorial!  Last but not least is Will’s wild thing costume.  I am a bit sore about this one.  It is basically a bull that stands upright and has big giant men’s feet.  I bought Will a onesie with zip off feet, but for our photos he zipped them off and left his loafers on…  I guess our wild thing has been civilized.

Hairy Man-Footed Bull-Looking Wild Thing Costume

What you’ll need:

  • scrap fleece dark grey fabric
  • scrap white fleece for teeth
  • stuffing
  • scrap yellow fabric
  • Peltex interfacing
  • black embroidery thread
  • 1 15mm snap set
  • embroidery pattern here
  • hood pattern here*
  • hot glue gun
  • spray adhesive

*My husband has a men’s large size head, so you may need to size up or down the pattern.  Do not forget to add 1/2″ seam allowance when NSA (No seam allowance) is indicated.

  1. Cut hood pattern pieces and nose pattern pieces from grey fabric as indicated.
  2. Match hood pieces, right sides together, and stitch along the back.
  3. Fold unfinished edges under 1/2″.  Pin.
  4. Cut out teeth from white fleece, by cutting roughly 1″ triangles into a 2″ wide strip of fabric 8″ long. Pin to the inside of the hood in the center and stitch seam of the hood attaching the teeth in the process.
  5. Cut interfacing as indicated.
  6. Fold interfacing where indicated.
  7. Hot glue interfacing nose front to folded interfacing for nose as indicated.
  8. Stitch nose bottom to nose top, right sides together.
  9. Stitch nose front to assembled nose piece, right sides together.  DO NOT TRIM SEAM ALLOWANCE.
  10. Turn inside out.
  11. Spray outside of nose interfacing with spray adhesive and insert into nose fleece.
  12. Fill nose with stuffing.
  13. Place nose on bottom of hood and mark where it will go.
  14. Use the embroidery pattern above to applique eyes onto the hood just above the nose marking in step 13.  Center a 5″x7″ hoop on the seam and a line parallel to and 1″ above where the top of the nose will be.  Stitch guide lines, spray yellow fabric and attach over guide lines. Stitch tack down stitches.  Clip as close as you can to the tack down stitches leaving yellow circles.  Stitch final stitching.
  15. Hand stitch nose to bottom center of hood as marked in step 13.
  16. Fold ears in half and pin them to right and left top portion of hood.  Then stitch. (Note:  If you want to make this work better, cut 4 pieces of ears leaving 1/2″ seam allowance.  Place two together, stitch and turn inside out.  Then fold ears in half and pin and stitch.  Repeat for second ear.)
  17. Cut out 4 pieces for horns.
  18. Place two pieces together and stitch along all edges but the bottom.
  19. Trim.
  20. Turn inside out and stuff.
  21. Hand stitch the horns onto either side of the head, just inside where the ears are. 
  22. Attach the snaps to the bottom points of the hood as directed.
  23. Pair with a grey onesie and you’re ready for the rumpus!
Posted in Crafts & Sewing | Leave a comment

Getting Organized!

Posted on December 14, 2021 by lexicolton

Well I am sorry for my tardiness friends I HAD to get my garage cleaned.  That sounds insane but after over a year without the use of a garage I have been desperate to get it back.  You see, we first moved the cars out of the garage in November of 2020 so I could house some refrigerator boxes for Julius’ Winnie the Pooh adventure.  After that, we kept the cars out so I could work on Julius’ climbing wall in secret.  After the climbing wall was completed I added in a set of rings/a swing and we kept the cars out so Julius had somewhere playground like to play even while it was very cold out.

Julius enjoying his “indoor” playground.

Then in February we decided we were going to re-do the basement, so we started moving our entire basement into our garage.  This meant I first had to extend the shelves in the garage (we had a kind of odd set of two shelves when we moved in and I was always lamenting the poor use of vertical space).  After that was complete I moved another set of shelves from the basement into the garage. We started organizing and transferring things from the basement to the garage, slowly donating items we hadn’t used in years along the way.

In May the basement people told us they were running behind so we started slacking off on our basement moving.  Then Tesla came and they told us where all the powerwalls needed to go and we moved the giant mass of basement junk over slightly so they could do their work.  Then Tesla left and we started moving things like mad up from the basement because we’d gotten a one month warning from the basement people.

Tesla called us back and said they couldn’t pass the inspection without entirely drywalling our garage.  This meant we needed to move everything in the now-over-full garage to the center and also take every single item in the garage off the walls including the climbing wall and any shelves that did not have drywall behind them.  Oh no.  We somehow did that in one night, leaving our garage even more of a mess.

Here’s the only photo I have of the mess after they drywalled everything – it may be hard to tell but there is almost no where to walk in the garage. Doesn’t seem to be bothering Patricia though!

Since Tesla and the basement people left (end of August) we have been slowly moving things to new homes in the basement, their new place in the garage or donating them.  Three nights ago we finally had a breakthrough!  I could see most of the floor, and 90% of the items in the garage belonged there!   I went to Home Depot and bought dozens of hooks and got to work.  I stayed up way too late but it was all worth it because Julius told me “Mama the garage is so clean!  Good job!”  He did tell us later “everything but the snowblower and the gas cans are put away.”  I wonder if he’ll be confused when he sees the cars in there tomorrow morning.  Anyway, please enjoy the pinnacle of my organized garage!

Before (this is before Tesla dry-walled everything, but before I took anything off the walls!)

After! You can see the garage?! check out our power walls, and our new spot for ladders, plus the wreaths I hung from the rafters on a PVC pipe.

Before – we had to remove all the shelves on the left.

After – we ended up moving our tiny fridge to the garage for when we have company. The middle shelves I moved up from the basement and reinstalled up here. the shelves on the right used to only go less than halfway up the wall.

These new shelves now house all my holiday storage (and things I need occasionally like tablecloths).

Before – yup the climbing wall had to come down… what a pain.

After – climbing wall re-installed and better organization for the climbing and tumbling mats.

Before – shortly after this the climbing wall and shelves were removed from the wall and we had almost no room in the garage.

After – climbing wall installed again, plus lots of tool storage, with Julius’ bikes underneath.

Posted in Home Improvement | Leave a comment

Birds of a Feather

Posted on December 6, 2021 by lexicolton

Only 2.5 weeks until Christmas?!  Where has the time gone?!  Just a couple weeks ago I thought I was ahead of the Christmas curve – I’d bought most of the gifts I intended to buy, and I’d ordered Christmas cards.  Then Thanksgiving happened and everyone got sick and I fell behind.  Just when I thought everyone had recovered fully this weekend, everyone got sick again!  Luckily we got to see Santa first.  Unfortunately that meant I am way behind on the gifts I planned to make this year.  I reeeeally need to start early next year.  I know I say that every year but with Julius and Patricia being born only a few days apart, just before my favorite holiday, my fall has become extremely busy.

Even so, I am proud of myself for getting all the Christmas cards out already.  This must be a record!  For the cards this year we got our fabulous photographer, Shayna to take more Halloween costume photos.  I am totally in love with them.  I cannot wait to show them to you on Christmas, but I don’t want to spoil them for those who have not yet gotten our mail.

Oh my gosh, I have to tell you a crazy breakthrough.  Patricia LOVES hats.  Before this week Patricia would rip hats off her head as soon as they were placed there.  Now she ASKS for hats to be put on.  The more hats the merrier.  Yesterday she walked around the house all day with both a reindeer hat and a unicorn hat on.  She still doesn’t verbalize exactly yet (or we haven’t figured out the verbalization) but she has gotten very good at hand gestures.  So she’ll point at a hat and lean forwards so you can put it on her.  And in a crazy twist of fate she now cries when you remove a hat.  Honestly it is adorable and my dream come true as a haberdasher!

So my costume for Halloween was extremely easy.  I just made a hood/hat thing and a tail (that can’t even be seen from any of the pictures, so I won’t bother showing you how I made it) which I combined with a store-bought onesie.  Onesies for adults are extremely easy to find nowadays, thanks to the pandemic and the “fashion” of pajama wearing.  Much like Julius, I have worn my costume several times now because it is so darn cozy!

Wild Thing (Feathered bird thing) Adult Hood Costume

What you’ll need:

  • scrap fleece pink fabric (darker would be better, but I didn’t feel like buying anything)
  • scrap white fabric (mine was terry cloth)
  • scrap orange fleece fabric
  • stuffing
  • scrap yellow fabric
  • black embroidery thread
  • 1 15mm snap set
  • embroidery pattern here
  • hood pattern here*

*I have a ladies’ medium size head, so you may need to size up or down the pattern.  Do not forget to add 1/2″ seam allowance when NSA (No seam allowance) is indicated.

  1. Cut hood pattern pieces from pink fabric as indicated.
  2. Match hood pieces, right sides together, and stitch along the back.
  3. Fold unfinished edges under 1/2″.  Stitch.
  4. Cut out all pieces for beak from orange fabric.
  5. Pin two top pieces of beak right sides together and stitch along top.
  6. Pin bottom of beak to top, right sides together, stitch.
  7. Turn right side out and stuff.
  8. Cut feather pieces out of white fabric as indicated.
  9. Pin top feathers pieces, right side together and stitch along two longer edges.
  10. Turn inside out and stuff.
  11. Pin 2 side feather pieces, right sides together and stitch along two longer edges,
  12. Turn inside out and stuff.  Repeat for second side feather.
  13. Use the embroidery pattern above to applique eyes onto the hood.  Center a 5″x7″ hoop on the seam and a line parallel to and 5″ from the front of the hood.  Stitch guide lines, spray yellow fabric and attach over guide lines. Stitch tack down stitches.  Clip as close as you can to the tack down stitches leaving yellow circles.  Stitch final stitching.
  14. Hand stitch extra material of beak, down over the opened end of beak.  Stitch beak to hood, just below eyes.
  15. Hand stitch top feather to hood by facing the unfinished side just above the eyes, with the finished side pointing towards the beak.  Stitch.  Flip the feather back towards the back of the hood and discretely stitch to the top of the hood to hold it in place.
  16. Hand stitch on of the side feathers to hood by facing the unfinished side just above the eyes, to one side of the top feather with the finished side pointing towards the beak.  The point should be pointing towards the centerline of the hood. Stitch.  Flip the feather back towards the back of the hood and discretely stitch to the top of the hood to hold it in place.  Repeat for last feather.
  17. Attach the snaps to the bottom points of the hood as directed.
  18. Pair with a yellow onesie and you’re ready for the rumpus!

Julius is staring into all our yellow eyes.

 

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 2 Comments

You Make My Heart Sing

Posted on November 30, 2021 by lexicolton

I hope all my (American) readers had a fabulous Thanksgiving!  This time my siblings and their families all came to visit us!  It was awesome!  Everyone has gone home now which is sad, but I’m hopeful we’ll get to see everyone again soon.  Julius and Patricia both had a great time with their cousins.  It was so cute watching the little guys all play together.

Have I mentioned recently that I love the little guys?  Patricia has turned into quite the Chatty Cathy – she still doesn’t say any real recognizable words consistently yet, but she talks like we understand her… oh and she started nodding her head for “yes” this week.  (She’s been shaking her head “no” for a while now.)  It is really cute.  Julius got a set of “Bob Books” for his birthday and has started learning to read.  He has gotten very good at recognizing his name and writing it, and just today wrote Patricia as well.  Also he earned some serious brownie points at Thanksgiving.  We all went around the table saying what we were thankful for, and Julius was a bit bewildered and didn’t have an answer, so we skipped him and returned to him at the end and he said “I’m thankful for my mama”.  Pretty much the cutest thing ever.

I’m thankful for my little wild things too.  Speaking of wild things, Julius still wears his Halloween costume all the time.  Unfortunately Patricia’s costume was far more work and she hasn’t worn it since.  It’s too bad because it’s so cute!  I used a baby pattern I had on hand and added my own features for the body.  I wasn’t planning to put eyes and a nose on any of the wild things, until I saw this adorable rendition.  I’m glad I did!  This costume took me a few days to make but it was worth it!

Wild Thing (striped feathered, hairy thing) Costume

  • 1 yard orange fleece
  • 1/2 yard yellow fleece
  • 1/3 yard pink fleece
  • 1/2 yard grey fleece
  • 1/4 yard (or less… just scrap mostly) white fleece
  • sublimation printer and pattern here
  • scrap pink fabric for nose
  • scrap yellow fabric for eyes
  • black embroidery thread
  • 1/2 yard plush fur
  • zipper
  • Eyes and nose embroidery pattern here
  • fur/hair & horn pattern here
  • Simplicity S9215 hooded zip up onesie pattern or equivalent
  1. Cut out pattern pieces from orange fleece as directed, with the exception of the hood, which you will cut from pink fleece and the hand pockets, which you will cut from yellow fleece.  You should also omit the pockets. 
  2. Cut 10 x24″ pieces of yellow fleece
  3. Sublimate the scale pattern onto grey fleece, 2 8.5″x11″ sheets per leg half, overlapping the pattern so the scales roughly line up.
  4. Cut out scaley leg from the bottom of the pattern piece (2 and 1) drawing a line from hip to crotch.
  5. Pin scaley leg, right sides together, onto of your cut out orange fleece version of (2 and 1).
  6. Stitch.
  7. Repeat for all front and back leg sections.
  8. Lay stripes across back on orange fleece, 2″ apart.
  9. Repeat with the front pieces, but make sure to line up the edges so they align with the lines on the back.  Make sure to also make them line up in front.
  10. Stitch each stripe along top and bottom of strip.
  11. Repeat layout and stitching for arms.
  12. Finish bodysuit as directed except when making the hood.  When the pattern calls you to form an edge on the hood – cut out teeth, by cutting roughly 1″ triangles into a 2″ wide strip of fabric as long as the opening of the hood. Pin to the inside of the hood and stitch, forming the seam of the hood.
  13. Embroider eyes and nose following pattern above.
  14. Cut out two pieces of hair from the pattern above.
  15. Pin pieces of hair together and sew along curved outside edge.
  16. Turn right side out, and stitch to hood, so hair goes right between embroidered eyes.  Continue attaching the hood as indicated in the pattern.
  17. Cut out 4 pieces for horns.
  18. Place two pieces together and stitch along all edges but the bottom.
  19. Trim.
  20. Turn inside out and stuff.
  21. Hand stitch the horns onto either side of the head in the black hair.
  22. Make and attach tail as in instructions here.

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | Leave a comment

A Grand Day In

Posted on November 22, 2021 by lexicolton

VACATION!!!  This week is Thanksgiving!  I am very excited that my siblings and their families are coming to visit!  This is the first year I’m hosting people at my house for the holiday week, so we’re working to get everything ready – places to sleep and food to eat.  Julius is very excited to see his cousins and has been talking about it for weeks.  Since this week feels like a party I wanted to kick off the festive air and share what we did for Julius’ birthday party!  A few months ago when I asked what theme he wanted for his party he told me “Wallace and Gromit” which was his favorite movie at the time.  So I planned this awesome Wallace and Gromit party for Julius and a week before the party he broke down crying, “I want a CARS party with Lighting McQueen”.  Despite the near drama over the theme he was super excited by everything and had a great time.

Wallace and Gromit 4th Birthday

Theme

Julius loves “A Grand Day Out”, the first Wallace and Gromit short, which was one of the first movies he ever saw.  If you are unaware, Wallace and Gromit are a British human-dog inventor duo who get up to all sorts of trouble.  In “A Grand Day Out” they run out of cheese, and decide to build a rocket ship to get to the universe’s foremost supply of free cheese, the moon.  Since Julius’s birthday is in November it was too chilly for a Grand Day Out so instead we did “A Grand Day In”

Wallace & Gromit

Give Away

I just cannot help myself making up goody bags for the kids so this time the give-aways included Home Depot aprons that I personalized with names names cut with my cricut from heat transfer vinyl.  The aprons were polypropylene,  So I could only iron at 265 degrees Farenheit.  It took a lot longer to fuse at this temp.  In addition to the aprons I gave everyone a pair of kids’ s afety goggles, peg dolls of Wallace and Gromit and a rocket wood working kit.

Each bag contained a rocket project, Wallace & Gromit pegdolls, a personalized apron and safety goggles.

Activities

Much like Wallace and Gromit, Julius loves to build things.  We have done every single Home Depot Kids’ Workshop kit since the start of the pandemic.  At this point Julius can put them together with little help from me.  I wanted to make a Wallace and Gromit themed wood working kit, so I decided on a wooden rocket ship.  The kids would have to glue, hammer and screw the ship together.  Afterwards they could paint it in the color of their choice.  I did the woodworking craft in my work shop and set out little hammers and screwdrivers for the kids.  On the far side of the work shop I set up a little table with paint.  I think both kids really enjoyed the craft, and Caleb, who I pre-built a rocket for, seemed to like painting it.

Paint setup

Wood working setup with wood glue, paper towels, hammers, screwdrivers and sandpaper.

Kids hard at work on their rocket wood working project.

The kiddos hard at work painting.

Caleb is doing a fabulous time decorating.

I also made a giant cardboard rocket ship out of the refrigerator box from our new fridge.  It took up a lot of space – so we pushed the furniture aside in the basement and set it up downstairs.  It was very difficult to get the fridge box into the basement, but afterwards the rest was easy!  I’ll post an update on this part at some point in the future.  The kids ended up eating lunch inside the ship too.

Julius eyeing the rocket ship.

Playing with the cardboard rocket.

Lunch

A Grand Day Out is basically a picnic on the moon.  To emulate this I had lots of delicious picnic foods, including – of course – cheese and crackers.  The fun part though was that I bought tiny picnic baskets at Michaels, and let the kids pack their lunch into the baskets.  Then they got to have a picnic in the rocket ship.

Picnic baskets for the kiddos.

The picnic spread, clockwise from bottom left: PB&J sandwiches, olives, egg salad and chicken salad sandwiches, veggie platter, grapes, juice boxes, cheese platter, pepperoni, crackers

Kiddos having a picnic in the rocket.

Cake

Since it was a small party I made a half batch of cake and cupcakes.  I used the same vanilla cake recipe as last year and this time I really didn’t like the recipe.  For whatever reason it came out really dense.  I thought I could attribute that to my crazy round cake attempt, but even the cupcakes were dense.  It’s almost like I overmixed it – but I followed the recipe to a tee!  (Maybe that was the problem?)  The cake was a rainbow inside and shaped like… the moon.   For the cupcakes I experimented with the airbrush machine my mother in law got me a few years back.  I thought they looked pretty cute but they dyed everyone purple!  Yikes!

Moon cake with rocket landing and purple star cupcakes.

The kids look so happy for cake. Look at the twinkle in Julius’ eyes!

 

 

Posted in Parties | Leave a comment

A Year of Patricia

Posted on November 16, 2021 by lexicolton

Wow I have SO MANY things that I have been working on that I cannot wait to show you!  I feel like I can relax finally.  Between working 14/7 and Halloween plus two kiddos birthdays within a 2 week window, I have been pretty burnt out.  I also have been sick the last week which didn’t help.  The good news is that we had a fun time with the kids’ parties and Halloween and now I have a backlog of crafts to share!

Speaking of birthdays… I cannot believe I have a one year old now!  It seems like just yesterday I was pregnant with my little bunny (and scared of leaving my house at all costs).  She has grown up so quickly.  She’s been walking for a couple months and is completely mobile.  Yesterday we went for a walk and she was annoyed to be pushed in the stroller.  She wanted to run around and chase Julius.  My mom took her to get shoes a few weeks ago and they only had one pair of shoes in her tiny size in the whole store!

Patricia has been doing a lot more communication lately both verbal and nonverbal.  She claps whenever she likes something (I guess if you’re happy and you know it really drilled that in) and she is constantly pointing to things.  Today she pointed to the mermaid tail I made her (more on that in a future post) and plopped onto my lap so I could put it on her.  It was adorable.  She babbles a lot too.  I feel like I can see the gears turning when I talk to her too, and I really believe she understand me.  And she still ADORES her brother.  Even though she goes to daycare and have other toddler “friends” she adores Julius.  She’s constantly chasing him, giggling at him and hugging him.

I know I started the Halloween posts and should post more on that, but I’ll just take a quick break to show you yet another craft that I considered making when I had Julius, and only implemented a couple months after Patricia was born…  Age blocks!  They were not hard to make, but I wish I’d done a couple things differently… since I’ll never make them again I’ll share the feedback so you crafters can incorporate it!  I should also mention that the cost of wood when I made this project was like 2/3 what it is now…

Age Blocks

What you’ll need:

  • 4″x4″x8″ piece of untreated lumber
  • 2 12″x12″ pieces of contact paper or removable vinyl
  • Paint
  • mod podge
  • Stain (optional)
  • stencil pattern here
  1. With chop saw cut 2 4″ long pieces of wood and 1 8″ piece of wood.
  2. Route all the ends of the cubes and column with roundover bits.
  3. Sand all faces.
  4. Apply stain (if desired).  This is where, if it did it again I might not stain…  the stain made the paint difficult to stick, and I decided not to finish the cubes, so the paint was prone to pulling off before it cured. Also if you want your child to be able to chew on the blocks, stain is not food safe…
  5. Cut out stencils on vinyl using Cricut.  Set your machine to the vinyl setting 
  6. Cut around each stencil, leaving a wide border.  Apply to the face of your block.
  7. Cover with mod podge and let dry.
  8. Paint over the mod podge.  
  9. Remove stencil.   Repeat for all faces.  The long block will be month, years, weeks, grade.  One cube should have 0,1,2,3,4,5 other cube should have 0,1,6,7,8,9).  

 

 

 

 

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | Leave a comment