Santa Baby

It's a bit too large, but she loves this dress. Here, she is saying, "I can't hold still, Mommy! I gotta dance!"

Santa visit 2012

There was another one where they were all looking, but this one was too sweet to pass up. Santa and the Pixie are deep in discussion.

Niall's birthday

I think Niall had a pretty good birthday. We still haven't done his cake yet (he hasn't figured out what kind he wants!) so we're stretching it out a bit. His party was yesterday, but instead of a party, he decided he wanted to take some friends to the movies instead. So that's what he did. Unfortunately, Eleri was still napping when it was time to go, and movies don't really lend themselves well to pictures, so I don't have any of that.
I'll go to his class tomorrow and take his treat in. I'm thinking it will be brownies. or maybe cookies. He'll make that call in the morning.
He conned me into giving him one present a day early. It was a book about the body - one of his favorite subjects. He loves reading and looking at pictures of how we work.

 

Other than that, he only got one present, because it was a big one. If you give just one thing to an 8 year old boy...

 

It should come in a box that's too big to wrap

 

And should get the response, "WOW! Cool! ... What is it?"

John had a green machine when he was a kid, and he assured us that it was the ultimate in cool fun riding yah awesomeness. So after lunch, he had some help putting it together.

 

And after that...

 

 

 Oh yeah.

 

 

Awesome.

Niall is 8

Tonight, at 12:01, Niall will officially be 8 years old. What a ride it's been.

 

The 9lb bundle 

 

The Michelin Man (age 6months, wearing a 24months shirt)

agent of chaos

He's always had his own style

loves music

 

 can be sweet as pie

or not. :)

I'll have to get a good birthday picture of him in the morning. 

Christmas time is making time!

I finally took the time to put together and decorate the Advent calendar that Fran got for us last year. It was tedious, and time consuming, but I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I know I will be even happier when I only have to unpack it every year after this.

 

 

First, I had to sand and glue the pieces of the calendar and then use wood glue to put all of that together. The picture is just printed with our regular printer, and then I used mod podge to stick it on. Then black acrylic around the rest of the back, and eggplant purple for the rest. The little drawers are made of cardboard that I had to tape together, and the blue stars is embossed scrapbooking paper from Joann. I had to cut each of those out and glue them on, and then color the numbers with a sharpie and glue them on as well. I used a silver paint pen to write the verse. I'm really happy with how it came out. I still have to write out a verse for each drawer, but that will be easy after everything else.

Now I have to make Eleri's dolly. I've been collecting the materials for a while now, so now I'm hoping I can pull it off.

 

And of course, the rest of the Christmas knitting. You know... with all my free time. I shouldn't be sitting here typing this. I have work to do!

Sleep study

Niall's sleep study is tonight. John is there with him and just sent me these pictures. Niall is not happy about all the wires and stuff. Will any sleeping happen? I hope so.

Little bitty

Eleri had her 4 year old well visit this week. She is healthy, but tiny. Tiny enough, that if we took a year off her age, she would still be at the bottom of the growth chart. Developmentally, she does everything a 4 year old should do. She can dress herself, she plays pretend things, strangers can understand her speech, she can jump and climb...
But she's tiny. And so, we are going to be seeing the endocrinology people at Duke to see if they can't figure out why.

 

She's where the purple dots are on the chart.

Her height and weight match, and that is good. She might have a problem making growth hormone. She might make enough growth hormone, but her body doesn't recognize it. She might just be small for no apparent reason. 

I'm not worried. I think she's fine and perfectly wonderful as she is. But if she some day wonders why she's so much smaller than her friends, and if it's something that is treatable, we should now about it. So, we'll see what they say.

She is four

 

 

She's sick on her birthday, but is happy and playing. Our original plan of going to the zoo got cancelled for fever, but that's okay. She's currently trying to convince Rowan that the orange wings are NOT too small for him, and that he needs to be a fairy. Birthday pictures can be found here. 

When did his happen?

My Pixie is going to be 4 this weekend. FOUR! How did this happen?

 

She is a very scary "pampire."

We're not going to have a party this time, because Boo at the Zoo is being held ON her birthday. We love the zoo, so we're going to party with the animals. She will love it.

What else will she love? This:

 

Her own dress, just (close enough) like Sally's dress. I can't wait to give it to her. In fact, I probably won't. She knows that I'm making it because she's had to try it on in process. It's nice and long on her, and I figure the sleeves can end up 3/4 length as she grows. Never fear. There will be pictures.

I also plan to make her a dress up caddy for all of the dress up things she's getting for her birthday. Time is getting away from me, so I'm not sure that I can get it done by her birthday, but it will happen. She's not quite there with understanding the calendar, so I have time. This may be the last year I can get away with it, too.

---

Later:

Yeah. I couldn't wait to give it to her. Who could wait for this?

 

Sudden and loud

The Pixie has decided to be afraid of the hallway. Seriously. The hallway that is 4'9" long. (I just measured it.)
I was fine when she suddenly decided to be afraid of the walk from the front door to the van and screamed the entire way unless carried. I tolerate the sudden and loud fear of the vacuum cleaner. But this has become downright annoying. She can't go to her room or to the bathroom without going down the hallway. Then she has to come back. The level of whining and wailing that occurs before and after any trip down the hall is phenomenal. And no, nothing scary happened in the hallway. Nothing happened with the vacuum or the van either. *sigh*
I think she likes being scared.

I love baseball

I do. It's such a great game. And I really love having a kid who also enjoys it.
There's nothing like a fall evening at the ball field.

 

 

 

Style

She has it.
 

Rowan photo session

Fran wants pictures of Rowan so she can have one painted like she did with Ben's girls. Now that the temperature has dropped and the humidity is below gills-required, I can go outside and try to get one.
You can find the set from today here.

This one is my favorite, simply because of his eyes. He has his daddy's eyes.

First day of school 2012!

Today is the first day of 5th grade for Rowan and the first day of 2nd grade for Niall. Both of them are returning to the same classrooms and teachers they had last year. We really love that part about Montessori schooling.

Here's Rowan and Garfunkel

 

Just take the picture, already.

and Niall with Garfunkel

 

He's feeling sassy.

And both boys

 I just noticed I need to repaint Garfunkel's eyes.

Also the Denise inspired "take a picture in front of the car" shot.

 

This is the last year that Rowan will be able to hold his grade up on one hand!

Eleri and I took them on to school and walked them into their classrooms. We got Niall settled into his room and then went over to see Rowan. They were all ready to get back to it.

Summer is almost over

I haven't blogged much this summer. We've been all over everywhere. I fell off the photo365 wagon, too. Too much to do in too little time.
I just picked Rowan up from camp this morning, and we have one more week before they start back to school.
Crazy.
Here's are some stills  I took off the camp video. I think they say a lot about how Rowan feels about Victory Juction.

Oh how she's grown!

My Pixie is tiny for her age, but she sure has grown since she was a baby!
I knit this little dress for her when she was 9 months old.

 

It now makes a lovely top.

 

It's nice when a knit has longevity. :)

Garden!

The garden is doing really well! I think the raised beds were exactly what we needed to do for our poorly draining soil. I made two of them, and John bought a scoop of this compost mix to put in them. It's done the job well, even with this extreme heat that we've had. And this spot gets full sun for most of the day, too.

 

Bed 1 has the Sun Sweet tomatoes and the cucumbers. I've even ripped some of the cucumbers out. They're insane!

 

Bed 2 has the Cherokee Purple tomatoes and the green beans.

I'm still waiting for ripe tomatoes. I've been eating cucumbers since last week. The beans are still teeny.

 

Baby Cherokee

 

Baby Sun Sweets

Yes, the yard needs mowing. That's a job for John or Rowan!