2015 County Fair

Titus entered Toby, his soapbox derby car.  Isabele entered her button tree pillow, her hand stitched apron, and a pocket doll.  I entered the winter twill dress, a flutter sleeve hankerchief top, a skort, my jellyroll lap quilt, and Brian's sweater.  Will post pictures in a couple days when we go see how the judging went.

4th of July

Isabele loves the American flag...so she is being very patriotic this 4th of July. I did her hair with many ribberbands, braids, and ribbons from Hannah.   She loves it!

Upcycled t-shirt to Isabele tank top

I have a huge box of t-shirts that Isaac made and sold some of on ebay years ago.  Trying to use them or sell them or something.  I found a free pattern and tutorial on making tank-tops for kids, so used an old shirt to try it before using my better fabric.

 The old shirt.

 Turned to tank top.  Then embellished.

 

Yes, I did the tatting - trying to pick it up again and this was some "practice" stuff that I didn't have a use for other than practice.  I thought it would go great with the beads I told Isabele I'd add to the neck.

 

I think it worked out great, and I'm sure Isabele will like it too.

Baby Sling(s)

Hannah sent me a link to a babydoll sling a couple weeks ago.  I finally got one made - two actually.  I didn't have a pattern, just a couple pictures from someone's etsy account.  I made the first one for Isabele.  It was a hit.  So, that night, I made one for Titus.  I like the way I made Titus' better, and need to make a couple more.  Great gift idea for girls and even boys.  Titus carries airplanes and action figures in his, though in the picture, I did stuff Brian's old doll (in much need of some repairs), Herbie, in just to see if design number 2 would work better for larger dolls.  (It does). 

The kids were not very excited about posing for pictures on this occasion.  But you get the idea at least.
When I make the next one, hopefully this afternoon, I'll pay attention to how I did it so I can stick it in my ideas/instructions book.  if anyone is interested in one, or the instructions, let me know.

Isabele on Lucy.

 pitts

Isabele riding

Isabele

Isabele can almost run.

She talks all the time and repeats everything.

Today (October 4th) we started potty training and she's doing great!!  

She loves to do everything that Titus does.  

She's so girl.  Loves to wear crazy colors and knows how to put on a show.

She smiles from ear to ear, never just a little.

She is good for Titus.  She pushes his comfort zone from time to time ... 

Rainboots and Bare Feet

The Ft Wayne Zoo

We made a trip to the Ft Wayne Zoo this fall.  It was a beautiful day and the zoo was pretty empty.  Some of the rides were 1/2 off, so we went on the Sky Chairs and on the train.  I think the kids had a good time.  Their favorites were the zebras and the giraffes. 

Rockets

Brian got some model rockets about a month ago to shoot off with the kids.  His brother Mike had recently gotten some and was talking to Brian about them.  Here are some pictures from the first launch day.  Since then, we have gone twice more and both kids like to push the button.  The first day, Isabele launched hers.  It took Titus a bit longer to get into it, but he launched one all by himself on our second outing.  Here are a couple of pictures from the first trip.

Painting Her Toenails

I guess this is one thing you can do with your watercolors when mom isn't watching.

She can't say I wasn't being tolerant today, and have anyone believe her.

Sleep? Guess I don't need that.

Sleep is hard to come by for me in consecutive hours.  If it isn't Titus trying to climb into bed with me, then it is Isabele crying mummy, mummy, mummy.  Last night was especially wakeful.  Isabele woke up at 10, too hot and thirsty.  Fixed that and put her back to bed.  I went to bed about 10:45.  11PM, Titus was in my room wanting to sleep with me, for no apparent reason.  Back to his bed.  I'm tired of being poked by a 3 year old all night.  Needless to say, sending him back to his bed did not provide me with more sleep.  I think it took till about 12:30 for him to really be all the way asleep.  During that time, Isabele woke up.  It is so hard to know what she understands and what is going on with her.  Teeth?  Growing pains? Hunger? Brat attack?  Finally it dawned on me that maybe it was some or all of those, other than Brat attack, so I gave her some tylenol and took her upstairs for a graham cracker.  After eating the cracker and having a drink of water, she was ready for bed.  So, back to her room we went.  And finally she went to sleep.  Titus got me up 2 or 3 more times, but went back to bed nicely.  And they both got up for the day at 5:40AM.  I guess I really don't need sleep.

The one and only sweet / amusing thing between 11P and 2A was that Isabele at one point wanted me to "sing" "sycmore".  What??  "sycmore".  I sing 4 songs to them at bedtime each night: "The BIBLE", "Zacheus Was a Wee Little Man", "Jesus Loves Me", and "Amazing Grace".  Apparently the part about the Sycamore tree, stands out the most to Isabele.  So she got Zacheus very quietly sometime in the middle of the night.

I have been told that this too shall pass, and that I won't remember it.  I know that eventually they will outgrow needing "mummy" in the middle of the night.  As far as not remembering it, that's probably true too.  Lack of sleep is pretty powerful.

Recyled and Ruffled

Words

Isabele is 8 days short of 17 months old.  She has a vocabulary of 10 words (that I understand): mama, dada, Tita (Titus), yea (yes), no, ojo (Spanish for eye, and yes, that is what she means), pes (please), taku (thank-you), rithere (right there, her way of asking "what's that"), and sisisi (sit). 
I think there might be another one, but I can't remember it right now.

Titus- well, I can't count all the words that he knows. 

Mimicking

Okay  -  here goes.  I'll apologize in advance to my children, who I sure will not appreciate this story when they are old enough to understand it, but it was way too cute to forget.  I should preface this with the following information:  Titus is now just over 3 years old.  Isabele is 16 1/2 months old.  They have been mimicking each other in the past several days.  Mostly Isabele doing what she sees Titus doing.

Today's weather was beautiful here in Indiana.  We were outside for 6 or 7 hours.  At one point I was in the back yard with Brian discussing landscape options and plants and whatnot.  Titus had been throwing a ball back and forth with Brian and Havoc.  Then Titus disappeared.  No worries - he's gone over to one of the trees, out of sight of the neighbors and mostly out of site of Brian and me.  He had to pee.  So, down go his pants, up goes his shirt.  Business taken care of, down goes the shirt and up goes the pants.  Back to playing ball. 

A few minutes later, all of us still in the back yard, I look over and see Isabele standing by the same tree with her shirt pulled all the way up to her neck.  She's playing with her belly and then finds her pants.  While trying to keep her shirt up, she starts trying to figure out how to pull her pants down.  She runs her hands along the top of the waistband, then down the sides and up.  She pats her bottom.  Then goes back to the shirt and her belly button.  Then she puts her shirt down and goes back to working on the tricycle that she was playing with prior to her little "pee on the tree" attempt. 
How I'm ever going to potty train her, I don't know ...

Breakfast

After fixing a big breakfast of eggs and ham cubes and oatmeal yesterday and the kids eating okay, but not great, I went with the English Muffin and fruit theory this morning.  I'm thinking now I should have gone with the big breakfast again.  Isabele had her early morning (6AM) snack of dry fruitloops while Titus slept.  Then she ate half of a banana, a glass of milk and half an English Muffin - a normal intake for her some mornings.  Titus ate an entire English Muffin, half a banana and a glass of milk.  Again, normal some mornings.

Then I took a shower.  Titus appeared with a yogurt.  The following conversation:
Me: "Are you hungry?"
"No."
"Then you can't have the yogurt."
He looks at me.
Me: "Are you hungry?"
"Yes."
"Fine.  You can have the yogurt."
He nicely shared the entire container with Isabele.

Then, while I was putting on my make-up with Isabele sitting on the stool in the bathroom, Titus appears and says, "Here Isabele, here is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for you."  I said, "And did you make one for yourself?"  Off he went to the kitchen again.  I followed shortly thereafter to check on his progress as I had looked inside Isabele's sandwich and found only Orange Marmalade - no peanut butter.  He was on the stool with the Marmalade and the bread and a butter knife.  I got the peanut butter out for him.  Then he wanted a little help.  So now he is sitting in Isabele's highchair eating his peanut butter and jelly sandwich and working on his 2nd glass of milk.

I guess he could manage to not starve for a day or two in this house.  And he may even feed his sister, too.

Isabele and Titus' Monster Hat

Do we really need to say anything about these? 

She Really Can Sleep!! and an Update.

Isabele has now proved it.  She really can sleep all night.  She went to bed last night at 7:30 and woke up this morning at 6:35!!!  Now we all know that she can do it.  She is no longer nursing which is just fine with me.  She's just over 16 months old.  She's not a very good talker, but understands almost everything we tell her.  She walks very well and is working on walking fast / running to keep up with Titus.  She climbs up the stairs, but doesn't go down.  She loves her "pretties" (bracelets) and whines and pulls away if you even touch her arms like you are going to look at them or take them off.  She isn't going to let anyone have them.  She's currently sitting on my lap, happy as a lark, eating dry cheerios and talking in Isabele language. 

Weaned?

Isabele went to bed tonight without nursing.  Maybe we are done.  We shall see how she sleeps tonight.  From lights out to me walking out of their room with both kids asleep it was a total of 12 minutes.  It is so nice to be able to spend at least an hour outside with the kids playing in the sunshine.  It sure does wear them out!

A Glimpse of the Past Week

 

Let's go.  Here are your shoes mom.

 

I've got a hat and a glove.  Now can we go?

 

Putting together a new set of storage boxes for Brian's plane project.

 

She's helping too and watching the big boys so intently.

 

Coloring and lounging.  It's so good to have a dad.

 

The wallpaper is all gone and Juan is setting up to put the skim coat on the walls in the living room.

 

Isabele in her paint clothes after a messy morning.  Here are the rib jigs for the Acrosport II.

 

Titus - the independent little helper.