communion....hmmm

I do have a preschool post for this week, but these last few weeks of school have been so busy, at school and then around the house in general. I've only had time for quick posts.  The past two weeks also have brought us so much rain and crazy storms that we've been camping in the basement many evenings and nights.  It's really cutting into my project time.  Thankfully though, other than loosing the shed roof and some big limbs, we were spared the destruction and flooding many of our friends have had. 

So, here's a short one.  It verges on sacrilegious... maybe...or it's sweet and innocent.  We're going with that one.  Bee brought out her seder cup from her meal at school.   She's been drinking from it here and there.  She filled it with grape juice- nothing weird about that.  Then she went and grabbed a piece of bread and a bowl.  She cubed it up and offered us communion.

Bee has taken communion before, only after fully explaining why we take communion. Our church has no specific age requirements- so we were good there.  Our sweet college-aged neighbor was over chatting and she asked Bee if she had blessed the bread first and if she knew what to say when she served the bread and juice.  She prayed over the bread ... then she told us to all take a second piece since it was good bread.

I'm not sure if this was ok, but I figure since she's offering up the other sacraments at times, who am I to say.  She's married and baptized our pets, cats and fish.  Perhaps she feels a calling.  She did it with a sincere attitude, that's got to count for something.

our date

I took hubby on a date for his birthday last weekend.  We went out to eat and then I took him to see girls in their undies.  Well, practically!  Our bank teller is in the roller derby and has been inviting us for awhile now.  Neither of us had ever been and frankly, none of the other moms that I talk to have either.  I didn't know what to wear, but we went. 

It was interesting!  There was a diverse group of people in attendance, many drinking, some in fishnets.  That's my bank teller in the lead spot in the first picture.  This is during warm ups.  Most of the girls wore something similar to volleyball shorts, but shorter and with more glitter.  They also wore some variety of black torn stockings.   When we first sat down (a friendly bouncer told us where to sit for the best viewing) Hubby just said, "I have no words to describe this.   And frankly, I don't know where I'm supposed to look." 

Thankfully the program they gave out included the rules, because we were LOST.  It was a rough sport, but interesting to watch.  We sort of did figure out the rules.  The girls had fun names, most appropriate, some not so much.  I'm not sure why some of them pick the names that they do because I'd be embarrassed to tell someone about my hobby and my name, "Yes, I'm in the roller derby, my name is Miss ho-killer." 

It's probably not something he'll be asking to go back to, but it was a fun night without the kids.  (There were lots of kids there, but I just can not, CAN NOT, imagine taking the kids there!)  There may be a league near you.  Here's the league website.   I think it would actually make a better girls night out than date!

cake pop fail

I attempted to make cake pops for hubby's birthday this weekend.  I had some wonderful ones at the preschool Easter party (thanks Melissa!) and wanted more.  I say I attempted making them because they did not really work well. 

You just make a cake and mix it and the icing in a bowl.  You form them into balls and then dip them into melting chocolates.  I used almond bark.  Most ended like this.

But they tasted good.  Then we got belly aches.  I don't know what happened.

Bee's seder meal

Bee's class celebrated the passover on Good Friday with a seder meal.  The children were asked to dress as someone from the bible.  Every girl in Bee's class came as Mary. Obviously, this isn't a public school.  She goes to school upstairs from where I teach preschool.  It's worked out great this year.

The outfit was drama.  I got a glimpse of what it will be like when she's a teenager.  I put together the outfit that you see the other little girl wearing in the first picture.  She had a dozen issues with it.  I tried to let her choose other fabric from my stash. Nope, nothing would work.  I reminded her that some friends would be in bathrobes and towels on their heads.  We ended up with a trip to the fabric store to get new fabric.  She found a friend who was happy to wear the undesirable outfit.

The children and the families got to sample some foods from the passover celebration.  That chicken leg is supposed to be a lamb leg.  Close enough. There's also some parsley that was dipped in salt water, a boiled egg, horseradish, unleavened bread/ matzoh bread wafer, and some apple pie filling that is supposed to be like charoses, representing the bricks and mortar that the Jewish people had to build with.  See, we all got a lesson.   One of the teachers told the story of the Jewish people's exodus and some of the traditional passover traditions.

This belt was drama for her too.  She said the Mary picture in her bible showed Mary with a brown belt that didn't fasten or tie.  Hmmmm.  I added some elastic and she was happy.  No tie, no closure.   I googled 'Mary costumes' and apparently any character can be made into an inappropriate costume.   I would think the mother of our savior would be off limits, but I've been wrong before.

The head piece was drama and the sleeves were drama.  She had specific ideas and designs.  She has a picture bible that she referenced.  Surely I can make whatever is drawn.  Of course.  She wasn't 100% happy with the end result, but she did have a nice costume and she said that she was thankful for it anyway.

Bee's best friend at school also seemed happy with the inaccurate (according to Bee's reference materials) costume.   She even brought baby Jesus with her to school.  

I heart faces- pets

The I heart faces challenge this week is pets. This isn't our pet, but it's our neighbors. We pet sat for them last summer and really enjoyed it.  This is Macy.  She's a labradoodle and the most well behaved dog ever.  If I knew our dog would act like her, we'd get one.  Until then, we'll stick to the cats.  This photo was taken with my point and shoot last summer.  It makes me smile.

Happy Easter and Bee's Easter outfit

When I shared Lou's Easter outfit last week, I said that Bee wasn't interested in a matchy matchy outfit.  When I was asked this week to pattern test again for Jessica at Happy Together, I decided to use that as an excuse to make her something anyway.   I will be sharing another post about the dress and pattern later, but wanted to go ahead and show the kids in their Easter outfits.

I shared about Lou's outfit here.  The top fabric of Bee's dress is leftover from Lou's pants.  It's from the random pile of fabric my neighbor Abbey gave me.  The bottom is from some fabric that my sister in law gave me.  It was designed to be a bed skirt or curtain, but I think it added the right amount of girly-ness to the dress.

It had to be lined, but I think we are both happy with how it turned out.   They both love that they match. 

I can't believe that in the past three Easters that I have never made them matching holiday outfits.  With how cute they look now, I may have started something.

I threw on some over sized buttons at the last minute.  She loves that they are trick buttons.  I can't wait to show more about the dress. I made this and another one with some fabric Bee chose. It was a fun pattern to work with.

Enough about our outfits.  We are off to church.  Hope you find lots of eggs today. Happy Easter.

If you're at our house, enjoy some birthday cake- happy birthday Hubby!

Egging and some empty rolls

I don't know how I don't have any pictures of this, but we egged Bee's friend's house last week.  It's a fun kind of egging!  I first read about it at Sun Scholars.   You hide a dozen plastic eggs filled with goodies in a friend's front yard.  You leave an egg carton on the doorstep then ring the bell and run.  They search for the eggs and then 'egg' another  friend's house.  For the carton we made up, I glued a cute poem and graphic to the front.  Again, not sure how I didn't get a picture, but I got the poem from Sun Scholars.   I borrowed the graphic from this blog.

Another last minute Easter thing we  made were these empty tomb rolls.  I read about them on the afternoon of Good Friday and just happened to have some bread dough rising for rolls that night.  I turned some of my dough into these guys.  Not enough though, they were so tasty, they got eaten right up.  They are rolled in cinnamon sugar and have a surprise inside. 

They are empty.  The tomb is empty.  I wish I would have had these for Lou's school Easter party.  Next year!

Want to know how they get 'empty ' on the inside?  The dough is rolled around a large marshmallow.  

The bread bakes and the marshmallow melts down.  Can you see some of the sticky goodness at the bottom of the roll?  I used this roll recipe for the dough.

I read about the Empty tomb rolls here at feathers from my nest.  She uses some kind of freezer roll dough and likes the results from that too.

Lou's Easter outfit

Here are a few pictures of silly man Lou's Easter outfit.  My neighbor gave me a pile of fabric and one the pieces was a white and blue striped fabric.  It wasn't searsucker, but not linen... I'm not sure what it is.  It was pretty much begging to be made into little guy Easter pants. 

I grabbed a white polo from last years family pictures and one of the mama's from preschool embroidered it for me.  I just gave her a scrap of the fabric and said, 'do whatever.'   I was pretty specific you see.  She did a great job and I was happy with what she came up with.

When did he get so goofy?

There was talk about a coordinating outfit for Bee, but she said no.  I only had enough of the stripes left for a simple skirt.  She wasn't interested and already had a dress she wanted to wear on Easter.

(He shares Bee's interest in toe examining.... whose weird kids are these?)

I included my favorite detail on little boy pants, big pockets.  Big 'ol pockets.

It's a birthday weekend here, but I should have some time for some projects.  Looking forward to that.