Mr. and Mrs. Happy Food Plate

Recently I wrote about the Mr. Happy Food plate that my very craft talented friend Melissa made for Lou for his birthday. He's been absolutely loving it and giggles when he comes to dinner. She made up a few more (hopefully there's one in there for Bee!) and wrote up a tutorial for her blog.

Ribeye steak, grilled zucchini, garlic bread, pasta and alfredo sauce- this is a meal since Bee has become a vegetarian.  We all had steak, so I made up some alfredo noodles for her.  Lou eats everybody's meal.  I am trying to work with her vegetarian mood, but hubby is less than eager to accommodate. She will still eat sausage and fish.  Those aren't really animals.

She has a boy version and a girl version now!  We are very excited to get our hands on one of these or get our own made really soon.  You can make your own too.  Head on over to Mommy's Little Monkeys and say hi and get the full directions.

tricky vegetables

We've had a couple funny surprises in the garden.  One of our green pepper plants grew these:  I tasted it and it was the hottest thing I've ever tasted.  SPICY.  Those certainly aren't green peppers.

Look at this funny yellow squash.  It grew connected to a buddy.

He and all his friends were tasty just the same.  They yellow squash had been our most productive plant so far. 

invented spelling

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I love invented spelling.  I love little-kid-sounding-out-word spelling.  God love her, Bee has inherited my spelling. She can read anything, but spelling appears to be more of a challenge. She loves making books and magazines and made some fun things this summer.  

Here's a book called The Dinosaur Bone. Dinosaur is spelled Dineusr. Illustrated is spelled ilrstratd.

Here's the first page:  Once there was a little boy.  The little boy wanted to find a dinosaur bone.  He went outside and he went in the garage and got a shovel.

 

Here a few pages later:  He didn't know what to do with it.  He went to his mom.  His mom said, You found a dinosaur bone.

Here's a magazine she's been working on .  It's a butterfly garden magazine.  Here's a page that says, Some leaves will change color.

Here's another page,  This is a woodpecker eating.

Here's another fiction story, The Fairy Who Wanted New Wings. 

A few pages in:  One Christmas day the fairy discovered that she was growing new wings.

Here's a song.  I love you, yes I do, very much, I do.  I love the whole world.  Yes, I think I love you.

Soon she'll spell things right (or mostly, as in my case) but for now, I'm going to enjoy this invented spelling. Her goofy, silly spelling.

gumballs for good behavior

 I've mentioned before that we are struggling with behavior at our house.  Certain ones of us more so than others.  We've tried a number of different behavior charts, etc, but in searching for more ideas, I found this gumball display with a sign reading 'chews wisely'.   (I'm also seeing it at a bulletin board in an elementary classroom with some behavior plan worked in).   We're really going back to basics with discipline stuff and it's stressful and embarrassment when we have to have a time out at the grocery. 

I got this idea from Wendy from Craft Goodies.   I made ours out of paper on hand in the not-being-used scrapbook supply box.  We are earning paper gumballs for good behavior.  Bee and Lou went to Bee's room the other day and started nicely playing polly pockets and batman guys together- gumball.  They both did their summer schoolwork without complaining- gumball.  We had a trip to the grocery with no crying (oh my goodness, surely we've all been there- drama!)- gumball.  Bee had a friend over and Lou played along nicely- gumball.  

We talked about a reward and rather than go with something gumball themed, the kids want to go to a nearby amusement park.  Great choice.  We've never been and were planning on taking the kids at the end of the summer anyway.  I should get a gumball for that.

Here's Wendys. She uses it for activities to do with the kiddos this summer.  It's magnetic and way fancy. 

new dress

I went searching for some thin knit fabric for another dress using this pattern and I found this busy red white and blue.  It was on clearance and I had a coupon.  Score.  I left off the collar this time, lengthened the sleeves and added side pickets. I forgot I was going to change the shoulder a little.  I guess I'll have to make a third with that change. 

This fabric and this pattern are so comfortable.  It's like that whole year in college when I wore flannel pajama pants.  Bee took my pictures.  Here's one where you can see the length.  It's longer than the last one.

Instead of a belt of the same material, I made a white one with some rings my sister gave me from an old belt. 

There's a little texture on the white fabric, I don't know if you can see it in the picture.  It's why I liked the fabric.  

This little ric rac flower has been a new hobby.  I've made several.  You would have seen pictures if I hadn't lost that whole SD card of pictures.  I'll retake them some time.

I'm feeling pretty patriotic today in my red white and blue.  I'm like a big flag, a big floral flag.   Happy 4th to you, no matter what you're wearing.

packing tip

I have a little packing tip to share.  I used to be able to go in and do our packing for a trip in one 'sitting', but now our packing is a several day long process with laundry needing to happen here and there.  

Here's what we've come up with to help out.  A few days out, I make a packing list for each of us and tape it to the bedroom door.  Inside the room is a laundry basket.  When each item is 'packed' in the bag, it's crossed off the list. This allows me to pack in bits and pieces, which is how most things get done around the house.  This trip, I was able to help Bee understand the list and let her do several items by herself.  She took care of Sunday dress, swim suit, cover up, undies, and pjs by herself.   

Two days or so out, when almost everything is in the basket, they get dragged into our bedroom with the list on top.  The last minute items are packed as they come through the laundry. 

Then the kids are given a backpack to fill with car toys and busy work.  I go through the baskets one last time when I pack them into the suitcases.  So yeah, my room pretty much looks like this for a few days.

So while I was finishing up packing, the kids were in the tub.  We had just gotten out of the pool so I threw them in the tub together in their suits.  They kept calling and calling for me.  Look at what these two sillies were doing.  Goof balls.

shirt to skirt

Skirts are my summer staple.  I'd live in them year round, but you can't very well teach preschool in a skirt and I'm not partial to cold legs in the winter.  Even Katie Couric doesn't wear hose anymore, so that's less of an option too.   (last winter I went to pick up a few pairs and there were like 4 options instead of 100.  Silly Katie, look what you've done)

My sister sent me a link to Sew Like My Mom where she explains in more detail the construction of the shirt skirt (the waist is shirred with elastic thread). I emailed right back,  "I've already made one, just haven't posted pictures!"  It's the easiest skirt ever and fits on my "lazy summer must be comfortable" scale well.  Plus it's a re-purposing project, so it's a "love mama earth" project too.

This is made from one of hubby's old work polos.  They changed his logo last year and he had all these shirts for me to hoard away for projects.  I relocated the pocket to the lower side. It's not really one you'd use, but I thought I'd mess around and see how I like it.  I have two other men's polos waiting on my ironing board for the quick make into a skirt. 

Here are some other skirts that I've been living in this summer:

the garden skirt

the 1 yard skirt

tank to a skirt

dress to a skirt

Here's another idea with a men's shirt I'd like to try soon. Grey Luster Girl shared how she turned a mens polo into a ladies top.

cover up- so red

This is how I do things. At 10 oclock the other night, I finished up with things upstairs and thought, "I've been sort of tired, I should go to bed early." Then I walked downstairs to say goodnight to hubby (he was working late in his office) and spied some red knit fabric on my shelf. An hour and 20 minutes later, I had a new swim suit cover up. I was still tired the next morning, I'm not sure how that worked out.

This is a super simple construction.  One rectangle in the back and the same sized rectangle in the front, cut in half.  A drawstring is added and bottom and wing sleeves are hemmed.   There's slightly more to it than that, but not really. 

I added pockets because I have a new addiction to side pockets.  My friend Melissa had a similar one on the other day at the spray park and I kept looking at it.  I think this red fabric jumped out for me because it was in a pile she brought over last summer.  So I think I'm going to be spending a lot of time in this!  I was getting a little over my Jimmi Hendrix cover up from two years ago and my towel dress from last year. 

The red is pretty bright, but in person it's not too bad.  I intended for the top to be a little lower cut, but I guess my sewing machine prefers me to be more modest.  I asked Lou what he thought and he said, "It's too short."  His daddy gave him a high five.  Bee rolled her eyes and took more pictures for me.

Bee took these two pictures of Lou.  They are funny together.   But, look at that!  That's a number 5 he's writing.  It's been our number the last few days we've been working on.  Good boy!

Bee's still enjoying this towel wrap from last year.

I'd be happy to make up another one of these and show more detail in the construction of the cover-up, if anybody is interested.  I could use a second one for sure!