Phoenix's Smile

This is the new face Phoenix gives when I say "Smile." Really? You think that's a smile? Hmmm.

This is what I get when I ask for a really BIG smile.

Better.

Dress Number Two

Here's the other dress I made for Lu. I like this one better, but of course, it's not PINK, so doesn't get worn as much. I promise I'll post something more interesting tomorrow. Promise!

Mother's Day Gifts

Mother's Day has come and gone, but as I was cleaning off my desk today, I came across the cards and gifts the kids gave me on that day. They are too good not to share.

Lutece made me a couple of necklaces, which I wore to Church that day. The one above is made from a series of shrinky dinks she'd worked on the week before. My favorite? "Mom is love."

She was soooooo excited during the weeks leading up to Mother's Day and worked really hard to make it special for me. She made this necklace at a Girl Scout activity at the Headly-Whitney Museum, a private collection of gems and precious objects. Afterwards, the museum had a little jewelry-making class for the girls. Instead of making a necklace for herself (which is what all the other girls did), she made one for me. My sweet little girl.

The next gift just makes me laugh. When I opened up the card from Lutece, out tumbled two crumpled dollars--crumpled from being in Lu's "Spending" jar for a long time. She wanted me to spend the money on some Mother's Day flowers to plant in the yard (something we've done in the past, but didn't have time for this year).

Phoenix's card was the last gift of the day, and I will reproduce it in its entirety below--that's just how sweet it is. Stayc claims that Phoenix dictated the whole thing to him, but I think he got a little help with 5 and 6, and Lu told me she helped with 2 and 3. Stayc also said he didn't quite know where Phx was going with it until he got to "8 pink flowers." Apparently, it was all Phoenix's idea. I think I am just about the luckiest Mom in the world.

Mom, I love you!

Tonight I will give you 10 hugs and 9 kisses because I love you so much. I will plant 8 pink flowers in the garden, watch out for 7 squirrels and scat them away. I will take a bath at 6 o'clock because I'm such a good listener. I will eat dinner at 5 o'clock. I love the 4 people in my family. 3 of us need you very much. 2 children in heaven love you. Mom, you are the #1 best mommy in the world!

I love you!
Phx

Gol! Gol! Gol! Gol! Goalie?

Lu got to play goalie during part of yesterday's game. Their coach is really good about giving all the girls a chance to play all of the positions. She did really well and made a few good saves. Does she look the part here?

How about here? Yeah. She's getting ready for the ball that's coming down the field.

Of course I don't have a picture of the actual save, 'cause I was SO in the moment, but here's the goalie throw AFTER the save! (Notice her coach in the background giving her a thumb up.)

Mother's Day Chickens

This week is a GOOD week. We got our first CSA (community supported agriculture) basket of the season this week. There is nothing like fresh asparagus, delicate heads of lettuce, and organic strawberries to put a spring in your step. Heh.

This is our fourth year participating in the CSA (this one right here), but our first year visiting the farm, which they kindly open up one day a year for CSA members. This year, the farm visit landed on Mother's Day. Can you think of a better way to spend Mother's Day than to visit a farm--OUR farm, because, you know, we own one share it in?? (Yes, I know most of you can, in fact, think of better things to do, but really, this was fun.)

While the kids enjoyed looking at the crops and wading through the ground cover grasses, you can imagine that the free-range chickens were the highlight of the day for them.

They kept trying to get close enough to "pet" the chickens. It never happened, but it was truly hilarious to watch.

So many chickens, so little time.

They were also fascinated by the eggs. "Look . . . they're brown!" My poor kids, who thought all eggs were white. Hey, at least they know what garlic greens and rutabagas look and taste like (both of which we got in this week's basket).

We also got to see free-range turkeys and sheep. But the chickens, well, they were the most fun.

That is, until some woman came up to Stayc, who was talking to one of the farm workers, and said, "Do you know whose kids those are?! The ones trying to hit the chickens with sticks?!" Mortified, he quickly gathered up the kids and went to find me.

Normally, I'm the one to be annoyed at our kids' bad behavior, but I just had to laugh. First of all, our kids may be annoying sometimes, but they are simply not the type to hit animals. Second, Phoenix is *always* carrying a stick. It doesn't mean anything. Third, that woman knew *exactly* whose kids they were; it was just her passive-aggressive way of telling Stayc to mind his kids. I guess I've spent so many years with the kids at parks and activities, feeling the disapproval of judgmental moms, that I'm used to it by now. It was a good reminder--on Mother's Day--to be the kind of mom I want to be, and not the kind that others think I should be. I have GREAT kids . . . no matter what YOU think! Heh. It was a good Mother's Day.

This is what I find when I download pictures . . .

Lots and lots of pictures of Phoenix's feet . . .

Lots . . .

. . . and lots. And lots of blurry, fuzzy pictures of various objects around the house. The feet are definitely the most interesting pictures.

As long as he keeps snuggling with me, I don't mind.

New Summer Dresses

I saw this dress in the Mini Boden catalog a couple of months ago and ripped out the page thinking, "I can do that. How hard can it be? And I can definitely do it for less than $38." Actually, it wasn't very hard at all, and I made two of them. In hindsight, however, I would do things differently next time.

First of all, the t-shirts needed to much more fitted (like in the original dress) and less stretchy. These were soft and they were cheap (one of the main points of the exercise), but they were just ok. I'd get better ones next time. Furthermore, it wasn't as easy as I'd imagined to sew the skirt fabric to the knit top. On this dress I decided to do pleats. On the other dress I just gathered it. I'm not sure which one I like better. When I looked more closely at the Boden dress online, I realized that their version of it used a knit jersey on bottom as well. I'm sure that would have made sewing the two together much easier, although I had a beast of a time finding cute fabrics as it was. One of these days I'll have to start buying fabrics online.

Lessons to be learned. Lu seems to be extremely happy with the dresses (although she doesn't look it in this picture), and they only cost me about $8 each. Mission accomplished.

"Will you stop taking pictures now Mom?"

Rained-Out

The game was rained out today, but not to worry, you can still enjoy some pics from last week's game. Do you remember in my last post on our experience with Lutece and soccer that I mentioned being pleasantly surprised? Uhhmmmm, yeah, that was a fluke. She's pretty much as distracted in the games as she is in practice . . . which is pretty darn distracted.

Two weeks ago, the girls got slaughtered . . . really, truly slaughtered. We all stopped counting goals. It was like watching 5- and 6-year-olds (which is how old these girls are) play 9-year-olds. It was painful.

Last week, the girls still lost, but they were a little more fairly matched with the other team. Lu's team is very young, which is just fine. And anyway, it's all about having fun, right? Right??!!

Still and all, it would be nice if Stayc didn't have to remind her to pay attention all the time, if she didn't pick flowers in the grass while the game was going on around her, and if we could get her to wear her shin guards UNDER her socks. She is definitely an individual.