In lieu of a Kindergarten graduation, Elyette's class did a "Hat Parade". Each student brings home a hat (her hat was basically a large oval donut shape out of pink posterboard) to decorate. Then these darling creations made their debut on stage for the parents.
SO CUTE!
It was my goal was to not have buy anything for this hat. Yes, I'm cheap, but mostly because I have a closet full of random junk that I just know could be treasures :). Sure enough we found what we needed for her unique and SUPER EASY (always a bonus) design that would be lightweight, since she'll be wearing this on her head of course.
We call it "mother nature". Elyette made the nest out of a styrofoam bowl, she painted brown and glued shredded brown paper all over. Then using yarn we "sewed" some chickies (from Easter) into the next, glued the nest to the hat. Attached some tulle/netting for the hat to attach to Elyette and with more yarn tied down a boa around the nest. Viola!
(he makes a good model too :))
Just hot gluing everything would have been easiest, but being the dork I am, we had to do things in a manner in which we could re-salvage the chicks and boa :). Although I'm not sure I'll ever have the heart to take this hat apart.
(sweet sisters)
My girl is growing up so fast! And since its clear I can do nothing about it, I'm THROUGHLY enjoying it while I can! :)
I didn't sew easter outfits this year, but we were cheesy and coordinated anyway.
The girls wore skirts I made them a few months ago and I wore the dress I made for my little sister's wedding. Jack wore his tie from the wedding too, with what little specks of yellow it had :)...
Aren't you proud of me for not doing orange and aqua? :)... Yellow and gray, another favorite combo.
Arriving just after 9pm from a drive to Utah Saturday evening and discovering we only had a few eggs in the fridge (and needing to throw some poop and puked covered kids in the bath) made coloring eggs a "no-go".
The Easter Bunny still came, but a very patient Jack and Elyette had to wait for Charlotte to wake up. She slept until 9:45am!!! That has NEVER happened. Driving must have pooped her out big time.
Thanks to Boz's Grandma Rae, we had a VERY tasty Easter dinner. It was a nice quite dinner with just us, Grandma Rae, Boz's uncle Chris and Grandma's friend Loraine. We has Pears in green jello, her tasty green beans, salad, rice pilaf, very tender and very yummy lamb and strawberries and ice cream to finish it off. MMmmmm. If it was left to me, we would have ended up scrounging and eating something out of the freezer. Can't beat lamb!
As for the dramatic pics:
Jack caught a stomach bug, but was doing fine, until he ate junk he tummy just wasn't ready for. He didn't actually throw up in the pic, but he did later at Grandma Rae's... thankfully outside and not in her nice home. Again, after eating nothing but the jello and ice cream.
And just as we were leaving Grandma's at about 8pm, Elyette biffed it on the drive way. Skinned up her knee and hurt her wrist. No worries, just a sprain, nothings broken.
...We're alive and well and all the more appreciative of our Saviors sacrifice and resurrection.
Just wanted to document a little about my sweet little Charlotte at this stage in her life...
Charlotte Nichole:
@12 month
Weight: 19 lbs 2 oz (10-25%)
Length: 28 1/2 (25%)
Head: 18.5 inches (75%) hehe
A little bit about this cute little fart:
If you happen to make eye contact with her, you'll
get a goofy, ear to ear grin that'll make your day. She's out to get a grins too. She's a little clown and how ever she can get you to laugh, she'll do it. Her best audience being Jack and Elyette. And of course she laughs at her own sillyness.
My favorite is her "peek-a-boo". She either hides behind something and pokes her head out or turns her head to the side (gives a little side glance) that whips her
head around to face you and starts giggling.
She sings. A lot. Its very cute. The best is when she starts singing with us at choir practice in Church. She loves trying action songs too. She's pretty good at "Popcorn Popping" actions.
She's got some moves. Most babies love a good beat and bounce to it, ha, but this kid should take some hula, cause she can shake and roll her little hips like nobodies business. Its all about twisting for her (the booty). Jack and Elyette play parts in music over and over just to see Charlotte twist. I recently discovered she must really like Jazz after seeing her twist and wiggly in a shopping cart during a whole trip to the store the other day.
She waves, shakes her head no, reaches for yes, blows kisses for good night (well unless she's too mad about it being bedtime), give good wet kisses, loves to "wrestle", jibber jabbers (probably much of it means something I just haven't figured out the meaning yet) says mama for a need (me or food mostly- ha, hence Boz claims her first word was in Portuguese- "mama" means "boob") and says "uh-oh" to everything else (very telling, I might add). She can name her mouth, nose, and eyes (likes to pull out my eyelashes for that one)- still working on ears. Nose is cute, she like to put her nose to my nose and giggle at how funny we look up close.
She likes to hide things. For some odd reason, when I'm sitting near her, her favorite hiding spot is in between or under my legs. It pretty funny. Although I didn't appreciate the pizza she tried to stash there once :). I also often find our fridge magnets all stashed behind the fridge. Must be natural product of being a third child :).
She's not walking yet, but loves to hold your hand and walk about. She a pro at up and down the stairs, which is wonderful for our peace of mind and we have no need for a gate anymore, but much to my dismay she's getting pretty good at climbing other things too (stools, park slides- then slides down on her belly :), patio chairs etc.) Its a bit nerve racking when i turn around and find her balancing on a stool in order to steal cheese off the counter. She's not even walking, do I trust her balance on a high stool!?! Scary...
She's rather easy going, but don't be fooled. When you've got 2 big siblings to battle for toys, FOOD and attention, she holds her own. She's a feisty little thing. Come watch meal time at our house and you'll get a pretty good idea what I'm talking about.
Back that up, just watch when I'm preparing a meal... it starts with wanting to be picked up or fed that instant. If she's not climbing up to try and get food, she's screeching and clawing my ankles and feet with her sharp little nails to get me to pick her up. I need to wear socks, it hurts, little booger :).
When she gets her hands on a soft toy, blanket or a object she loves, her response is to wad it up and stick it under her belly and lay on top of it. This is also how she sleeps. Bum up and blanket under belly.
You can see Charlotte through her eyes. Very expressive eyes. I love it.
I missed a golden opportunity to "April Fools" the kids today. Ya know, something fun, like putting legos in the cereal box for breakfast...
Thankfully Elyette caught the prankster bug and made plans to prank Dad. She had a number of clever plans. We went with the most plausible: Daddy's guitars got stolen while were away picking her up at school. So we went through the house and hid all the guitars and other instruments. The thieves decided to leave the drums.-- You know you totally bought it, Dad!
I asked dude if he wanted to pull a trick on dad too. His response? "Yeah! a flip!"... Not exactly the sort of "trick" I had in mind :). We went with that though: He had a story about how he did a flip and hit his head on the corner of a table. An extremely likely possibility. We marked up a bandaid and stuck it on his head, but he backed out last minute so we decided to stick it on Charlotte. I heard them telling Dad some story about her falling on a bag or something...
Ah, so proud.... :)
What good April Fools were you (or wished you were) up to ?
I love all the cute little tutus, onsies and hats and things that are out there for 1st birthday so I had to join in. I found some polka dot fabric that certainly said "party" that I thought I'd make a party hat and dress out of (she can wear a dress again and again right?).
That was the plan anyway. What I thought up in my head seemed cute and it turned out how I had pictured it, but for some reason looking at the real thing, I was no longer a fan... :P. At least not as a dress for other occasions...
Can you say "clown"! I guess that says "party", but quite frankly I'm not a fan of clowns. At least once on, she looked so darn cute anyway. This clown I like!
Maybe I'll have to add a cardigan to play it down for church or something.
So...being the freak of nature that I am, I decided to throw together some party stuff themed after the dress (well, actually themed after the fabric, since I didn't make the dress till the night before). I clearly have an obsession with orange and aqua blue because we had lots of paper scraps and things to use on hand. The only thing we bought were some lunch/treat bags to make flowers.
Honestly, I tell you, putting something together for very little (to no) cost, and up-cycling old stuff is what I like most. For lots of $$$ just about anyone can put together a sweet party, but doing it frugally? That is the creative challenge I enjoy. Granted that usually means its more labor intensive as well, but if your like me, thats fun too. My sleep would disagree, but I can sleep when I die right? :)...
Anyway, I digress, Charlotte's party:
These flowers are SO FAST and EASY. Elyette made 2 of them herself. Her's looked much better than mine.
We cut little triangles from scraps (Jack helped with this one too) and sewed them together in a long strip for a decorative banner. Again, super easy and FAST.
With scraps we also cut a bunch of cone shapes out of paper.
For popcorn
and some much coveted party hats.
Uncle Sam's a good sport :)
I've been wanting to try my hand at those cute iced sugar cookies. You know the kind that look like they probably taste nasty but look really cute. Yeah that kind. Made some of those.
This one, not so fast nor all that easy (well, not for my shaky hands anyway).
The cake was lemon flavored (thanks to my friend Heather for this yummy recipe- I halfed it for a small cake) with homemade strawberry jam for the filling, and freshly whipped cream as the "frosting". Served with strawberries... YUM!
Elyette helped curl the lemon and orange peels that we piled on top.
I used royal icing (as used for the cookies) for the letters. I'm pretty terrible at free handing stuff, so I cheated and printed her name in a cute font, put a piece of parchment over it and traced along a thick piping of the royal icing. Once it hardened I carefully scraped off the each letter and placed it on the cake. EASY!
Munching popcorn while watching her slideshow (Boz's hard work) A tradition thats getting more difficult as we're running out of music options that suit us. Suggestions?
So, obviously this was all totally unnecessary, our "party" consisted of her great grandma Rae, Grandma Debbie, Uncle Sam and us, but fun I couldn't resist.- and some sweet pics of all the fuss she'll love to have later.
Whew, last "bear pic" and probably a good thing. Its been tricky with her getting increasingly wiggly. The moment she saw the bear sitting on the bed this morning she started squealing.
And few more for good measure:
glistening nose :).
Here's the line up:
Meh, I don't know about you, but I can't tell all that well how much she's grown :). Maybe if I got the exact same positioning on everything every time (and a less floppy bear), but still cute!
