History Buff

As I have mentioned before, Amelia is very interested in history.  She is constantly begging me to tell me stories about famous people and events from long ago.  I was NEVER into history as a child and was in college before I really started to take an interest in past events.  But it was when I taught at The Miriam School that I realized just how interesting history could be--especially for kids.

I had been researching books for Amelia's age about strong, famous women.  We have talked about Harriet Tubman extensively in the past, so when I was at the library I picked up the book, "Minty".  It is about young Harriet Tubman and what her life was about growing up.

When we got home from the library, we read the story.  Apparently, it greatly affected Amelia!  During "rest" time, she built her own "Underground Railroad".  She used paper, tape, scissors, her dollhouse people, her dollhouse brooms, and a pack of hair curlers. There are pitchforks she made from her dollhouse brooms and black paper. The "tall grass field" was behind the slaves. 

"Amanda" was a slave that was sent "down the river" because she tried to run away and got caught. The river was my favorite part because she took apart all of the hair curlers in the pack and snapped together all of the middle pieces to make it.  She asked for my help with the North Star, but she did the rest completely on her own.

I sometimes feel guilty about forcing Amelia to have rest time in her room each afternoon.  But, honestly some of her best creations come during that time! (Minus the Great Hair Massacre of '09).

4th of July

Well, now you can see that I am over a month behind in my postings.  Our summer has been very busy with lots of fun activities!  Here's a quick look at our 4th of July celebration:

Rain+parade+lots of family=fun

firetruck+boy=very happy boy

dollar store trip+mom+dad=patriotic parents

fireworks+late night=tired little boy and girl

Grand Old Flag

Pool Woes

We have been at the pool this summer. Like a lot.  We are probably averaging about 3 times per week.  We opted for the family pool pass again this year, so we have to make sure we get our money's worth!  It covers 3 area pools and both kids seem to enjoy going--Amelia more than Henry, really. And it is really amazing the strides Amelia has taken this year with her swimming!  Not so much from swim lessons, but from just being poolside so often.  She can tread water and actually "swim" a bit in water where she cannot touch the bottom.  It always gives me a heart attack to watch her because it isn't pretty, but she is as comfortable as can be and much prefers the deep end to any other area of the pool.

Just before the July 4th holiday, we decided to take a family trip to the quietest pool of the three our pool pass covers.  Expecting a relaxing afternoon while resting in the cool water was what I had in mind.  However, within the first 5 minutes of our arrival at the pool, Henry grabbed the sunscreen stick and began sucking it like a lollipop. After wrestling it from him, he and I had to return to the car to get my phone and call poison control (per the instructions on the sunscreen stick).  He was not too happy to be leaving the pool since he hadn't even gotten wet yet.  I ended up having to make the short trip to my parent's house to "wipe his mouth with a cotton washcloth" and "give him some milk to drink" as instructed to do by the nurse at the poison control center. We finally got some swimming in right about at the time he should have been heading down for a nap. 

I can't decide if Henry is a handful because he is the second child or because he is a boy.  My parents as teacher educator assures me that having a second child that is a boy is a double whammy.  She should know, she has one too!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

These pictures of our garden were taken over a month ago!  You know, back when things were green and promising.

Amelia likes to take daily walks to the garden to "check on it". 

 We had a wonderful supply of sugar snap peas growing this year.  Amelia ate them directly from the plant and that made me so happy!  One day she asked for a snack and then suggested ON HER OWN going out to the garden and picking some peas.

In classic Henry fashion, he grabbed a pea to try, put it in his mouth, climbed up the slide and was spitting it out before he even hit the bottom.

He was pretty taken with the potatoes though, maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was calling them "balls" and trying to throw them.

Here is a pretty promising little green tomato.  I regret to tell you, though, that he never hit maturity.  Some sneaky squirrels have been getting into our raised garden bed--something we haven't really had a problem with the past 2 years. And then there were those 4 days we were on vacation and the garden didn't get a drop of water.....

I haven't given up completely on our cucumbers yet, but they are going no where fast. 

As is the case every year, our sunflowers are thriving!  This year, we grew our tallest one yet.  It is fun to watch them grow each year because they grow so fast.  Our sunflowers are so top heavy now, though, they are almost bent in half.

Our first year growing potatoes was a HUGE success!  Amelia loved digging them out of the ground and Jason, Henry, and I loved eating them!  We will definitely be doing those again next year!

Hello Kitty!

Amelia's sweet friend, Emma, turned 3 on July 1.  We all know I can't pass up a good theme and since she was having a Hello Kitty themed party, I couldn't help but put together a Hello Kitty gift.  Every. Single. Thing. I. Gave. Her. Was. Hello. Kitty.

I even made a few things to add to the Hello Kitty chaos.  I gave the scrunch headband a try again using a tiny bit of Hello Kitty fabric I found at Hobby Lobby. It turned out okay, but not as Hello Kittyish as I was hoping for.

I found these tank tops on clearance at Target for a couple of dollars and decided to make Emma a little Hello Kitty shirt.  The rhinestone applique came from etsy and I added the name at the bottom with rhinestones I found at Hobby Lobby.

Like I said, I got a little carried away.  I guess I love a theme.  I decided to package all the goods in a little Hello Kitty bag.  This was my favorite of the three handmade projects. I had everything on hand and it took about 3 minutes to do.

(Were you thinking I took the picture of the bag while I was driving down the highway?  No worries, I took the picture of the bag while Jason was driving down the highway in route to the party).

Here Comes the Flower Girl

Amelia is a very lucky girl! She has been the flower girl now TWICE in her life.  The first time was for her Godmother's wedding on Halloween 2009.  The second time was in June for Jason's cousin, Dana.

As you may expect, Amelia took her flower girl responsibilities very seriously.  At rehearsal, she had no problems getting ring bearer, Mason, down the aisle.  Mason is Henry's age.  I am nearly positive Henry would NOT have gone down!

On the big day, Amelia got her hair done with all of the bridesmaids.  She thought it was really fabulous to hang out with the big girls.  The hairdresser spent about 30 minutes curling Amelia's hair and putting it up.  By the time she made it to the church, the curls were gone! Amelia didn't care, though, she was  all excited because she got to ride the "party bus" down with the wedding party.  Apparently, party buses have come a long way since I got married, that things was crazy!  I was kind of regretting my decision to follow the bus to the ceremony in my own car.

I arrived at the church way before the party bus (apparently the bride  forgot her wedding dress and they had to turn around and go back for it).  I took the chance to get a picture of handsome, ring-bearer Mason.

When Amelia finally arrived, she still had to get dressed.  She was pretty hyped up, so we spent some time outside goofing around to keep her out of trouble.  I was pretty sure her dress would be ripped or dirty (or both) by the time she needed to head down the aisle.

 

Poor Mason had a big job to do right at his nap time and I'm not sure Amelia's constant coddling was helping the situation.  She really loves the little ones, though.  Once a big sister, always a big sister.

 

They made it down! (This was my view)

Jason's view: 

As Amelia will tell you, Henry was looking quite "dapper" in his collared shirt, tie, blazer, khakis, and Converse tennis shoes. Jason even styled his hair a bit.

Like I said, Amelia loves the little ones.  She and Olivia are second cousins.

The WHOLE Sinovich side of the family.

Amelia enjoyed the attention she got from all the "big girls".  She hung out with the wedding party for a bit so that she could be in a few pictures. 

 

Then, she came home for a rest and some snacking. I have no pictures of the reception.  Not one.  That is because for the first 45 minutes we were chasing Henry all over the place.  Then, the next 15 minutes I was begging my mom to come up to the reception site and pick him up.  Then, once he left with my mom, I spent the remainder of the night partaking in far too many alcoholic drinks. 

Amelia was quite the party girl that night, dancing the night away.  I had more than one stranger comment to me about how much fun she was to watch. I am really considering renting her out for weddings: Professional Flower Girl.

Also, the bride and groom had a photo booth and if I get a chance, I will scan in some of the pictures.  Amelia was in the booth a MINIMUM of 50 times.  I guess she wanted to make sure that they got their money's worth! Such a fun night! Congratulations to Dana and David!

Choo-Choose your Stop Wisely

My grade-school aged cousin, Tyler, had a baseball game a few weeks ago up at my old stomping ground in Florissant.  I thought the kids may enjoy some fresh air and baseball.  We packed a picnic dinner and my favorite huge blanket.  I thought since we were up that way we would stop by the Whistle Stop Depot in Ferguson for a little pre-dinner treat (something we NEVER do!).

Last time I was at Whistle Stop, I thought it was fantastic and charming in every way possible.  I was less impressed this time. Seems it isn't quite like I remembered it during my last visit almost 5 years ago.  Regardless, it is located right on train tracks and I'm sure it would have been MUCH more exciting if a train would have come by during our visit (like the last time I was there).

Despite the lack of trains on the tracks, Henry still enjoyed looking out the window in between bites of delicious ice cream.  There was also a sorry looking train table that both kids played with for a bit.

After finishing our treat, we headed outside to check out the tracks a little closer. Then, even better, we found an old track to play on.  If I would have had more energy, I would have tried to set up a picture where it looked like they were actually playing on the real tracks.

Kind of like this one, I guess?

 Shortly after that last picture was taken, Amelia started to veer off the tracks a bit and get into some of the weedy, overgrown part.  As I was telling her to get out of the weeds, I looked down and saw poison ivy touching her leg!  Total mom freak-out moment!  I took both kids in the bathroom and basically gave her a sink bath.  The thought of her having poison ivy was one thing, but in addition to that she was scheduled to be a flower girl TWO days letter.  Yikes!  

Luckily nothing came of it.  She either has my immunity to poison ivy or it was our lucky day because Jason is highly allergic.  That was pretty much the point that I threw in the bucket, however, and got the heck out of there. 

Stuffed

While heading out the door on a routine trip to the library, the book Sewing School caught my eye. Henry was already at his breaking point with our trip to the library, so I grabbed the book and checked it out without giving it much attention.

Turns out, I had recently started to follow the Sewing School blog in my google reader.  Amelia was really taken with this book and we got right to work. She loved what the book calls "stuffies".  No surprise that she chose to draw up Wendy as her character of choice on her first attempt at creating a "stuffie" of her own.

 After she drew on the material, I cut it out for her and then pinned it to the blue felt she used as a backing for the pillow.  Then I showed her both the whipstitch and the running stitch in the book and she chose to give the running stitch a try.

 When there was only a small gap left, we stuffed it with some pillow stuffing stuff that my mom gave us. She stitched the gap closed....

And then, Wendy was ready!  It was very exciting for us both!

She was so excited, she immediately started on stuffie #2--a car (with Henry and dad inside) for Henry!

She did several steps without my knowing and even began to sew the pillow by herself before I could get over to help her!

Today she started her third "stuffie" for a distant relative.  I can't wait to see how it turns out--could be her best one yet!!

DAD

Our annual D-A-D pictures for Father's Day: 

These aren't the best pictures.  The rain ruined my idea of getting some outdoors when I had plenty of hands around to help.  So I will hope for better ones next year (and maybe not procrastinate quite so much).