SoooOOOoooo.

You know that thing that happens where you have a major life thing going on and it’s too early to really talk about it, and then you wait and wait and wait some more, and then maybe you can share about it but you aren’t sure, and then you finally think “Okay I can share now” only it’s been SO DARN LONG since you updated the blog that you no longer quite know where to start? And besides that you haven’t been sewing anything anyway because nooo tiiiime and mostly people come here to see about the sewing anyway?

HI THAT IS ME. YOU ARE WELCOME.

Lets jump right in shall we? I haven’t been here because I’ve been busy growing things. These things, to be specific.

(Please admire my horrific at the park self-portrait. It’s pretty awesome.)

Want a closer look? SURE.

In case you aren’t sure that would be two whole babies in there. At the same time. Both at once.

CRAZY. And also wonderful and awesome and amazing. We couldn’t be more thrilled. We’ve had a kind of complicated pregnancy history so to have two healthy babies that appear to be completely fine and growing fine is nothing short of miraculous. It is going to be AWESOME.

We learned a few weeks ago that the twins (fraternal) are both girls, which is also REALLY fun – we like girls. Poor Sam is going to be surrounded by women, but as a good friend pointed out, he’s going to be an awesome husband one day! He’ll be fine I’m sure .

So as you can imagine there’s been a lot of fallout from the whole two babies at once thing – mostly the rather stark realization that our three bedroom townhouse is *probably* not going to cut it with 4 children. So we have found another house and are working on selling ours and will hopefully move at the end of June. Our babies are technically due Sept 8, but based on my history and the fact that twins generally come early anyway we’re expecting to deliver them around 36 weeks – so maybe the second week of August. But we’re going to watch and see what happens. Hopefully we can keep them in there that long and things will be good.

I am finally feeling better and able to function a little bit, and I have a ton of projects lined up in my head that I want to work on….but the practicalities of staging a house and packing and all the rest of it are making it hard to actually get anywhere with that. But I’ll try! In the meantime I’ll check in here a little more often (though it will probably be a little more “life stuff” and a little less sewing for the next while….but then, HELLO – two little girls to sew for!).

Feel free to check in periodically and remind me that I can totally handle this – I’m probably going to need the reassurance! But I really do think it’s going to be great fun.

Thanks for being patient the last few months – I’ve missed this space!!

OH HEY – you know what? I did sew something. A dress. For a wombat. Anika’s class mascot. Obviously.

Merry & Bright – and Christmas Jammies!

Better late than never, right?

We had a lovely (if mildly crazy) holiday this year – we were at my parents’ house with my sister, brother, and grandfather (as well as my parents and Connor the dog), which made for a full house – especially at a time of year when “outside” doesn’t act as the additional rooms in quite the same way.

But it worked – we had a great time.
We sat down for dinner the night we arrived only to discover that Anika, Shannon and I had managed to fully Embrace The Stripes.

We are awesome. Obviously. Also, and apropos of nothing, I ALMOST bought the sweater Shannon is wearing when I was in Boston and then I didn’t. And now I am sad. (But it is great on her).

Sam has met my grandfather before, a couple of times, but when you are two the frame of reference for things you remember are pretty short. Nevertheless he decided Grandad was just fine pretty quickly – and ended up seeking him out and asking to snuggle with him and read “tories!”

The slippers, by the way, are Sam’s current favourite thing. I bought them in a moment of weakness at the grocery store while I was trying to entertain the kids until Anika’s prescription was ready – best $4 I ever spent. He insists on wearing them, even inside his sleep sack at night. It’s pretty funny – and also, don’t try to tell him they are penguin slippers. They are DUCKS thankyouverymuch.

Christmas Eve I surprised the kids with one of the few things I managed to make this Christmas – Christmas jammies (made from Melly’s Holiday Pajamas).

These are really lovely – the instructions are pretty simple to follow and the kids LOVED them. They fit them beautifully – I made them each a size down (based on age) – so Sam’s are 18 months and Anika’s are a 5. But they fit them both perfectly. I worried that Ani’s are maybe a touch short but after seeing them on her non-stop for the last 2 weeks I really think they are perfect. They might not last next year but that’s ok!

The piping is definitely my favourite part of these pjs – I messed it up a little around the collar in one place (grrrr) – I just couldn’t quite figure out how to pull it out of the way and have it join neatly. But I’ll try again – this pattern is definitely a keeper.

I find the fabric for Sam’s pjs absolutely hilarious. He was with me when we were picking out flannel and for some reason FIXATED on this Christmas colored OWL fabric. Those are tons and tons of tiny little owls. He, of course, is convinced that they are penguins – but whatever; he loves them. (And I do mean LOVES). I had like 8 other choices all picked out for him – “Hey Sam, polar bears!” – but no deal. The owl/penguins were what he wanted. I think he looks from a distance like he’s wearing a smoking jacket or something – it’s pretty adorable.

This next picture would be the part where my father told Anika she could be the official ice-cream tester for Christmas dinner.

Nuff said I think.

And of course there was the obligatory reading of the Night Before Christmas and the Polar Express with Gran before bed.

Next year I’ll make Gran some matching jammies too.

It was a special Christmas for sure – the kids are at really fun ages.

I’ll leave you with one last shot – Sammo, finally old enough to not be in bed by the time we are eating Christmas dinner. He got to join the party and was SO proud of himself it was ridiculous. Note Junior Asparagus perched carefully beside his bowl, watching him eat.

Hope you all had wonderful holidays too!

Sammo.

I know. I know I know I know. Blog silence. Boo.

Very sorry. It’s just that….well, life. And other things. I started a small business. (I’m now an Independent Consultant for Arbonne. The products are awesome. It’s a fun mental game to see what I can do with this. Also? Taking a lot of time. But that’s par for the course I guess.)

So I’m breaking my radio silence with a brief Sam story.

Sam is….very very VERY “two” these days. Extra two. With a side order of tantrum. It’s….trying. But he’s also really fun and pretty articulate for his age, which means we’re treated to a lot of discourse on just about anything. He seems to have accents for particular words that pretty much slay us – he doesn’t pronounce his “ings” properly, preferring instead to adopt the more southern “ins” for the end of words.

For example, I picked him up from school the other day and he had a gash on his cheek. I said “Sam, what happened?” He said “I was wunnin’ in the cyassyoom. Miss Yisa says NO NO Sam. No wunnin’. We wun outside.” (Clearly he also has trouble with L’s and R’s at this stage in the game.)

He also adopts wonderful turns of phrase that are all his own – one of my favourites is “Last mornin’.” It’s like when you say “Last night I did X” only for Sam it’s “Last mornin’.” So I’ll say “Hey Sammo, where’s your ball?” And he’ll say “Um. I don’t know. I was playin’ with it last mornin’.”

It’s completely adorable. Where was I going with this? Oh right.

So the other day, one of us left the door to the pantry ajar and Sam wandered in. We generally try to keep it closed so as not to risk any craziness with food allergy boy – but we were in the kitchen at the time and didn’t really worry much about it.

We left him for a minute or so, hearing some rustlings, and then finally said “Sam, what are you doing in there?” and opened the door.

He was standing in the middle, clutching a package of those Welch’s fruit snacks, which for some unknown reason we just call “fruit things” in our house. They are those gummy fruit snacky things.

I said sternly, “Sam, you need to put those away. We aren’t having fruit things right now.” He says, completely outraged that I might be thinking the worst of him “I just singin’ a song!!” and then…he burst into song. I didn’t get it recorded because I’m not that fast with the cell phone (darn it!) but it went something like this:

“Boot thiiiiiings……boot thiiiings. BOOT THIIIIIIINGS. Boot thiiiiiings.”

(F’s are also hit and miss.)

(Sorry for crappy phone pictures – there wasn’t a lot of time to grab the DSLR).

While he’s singing he is swaying gently on the spot looking completely earnest and for all the world like a Christmas caroler in a Normal Rockwell painting (less creepy, but no less earnest).

Then he turned around, put the “Boot things” back in the box, looked back at us and said “I all done.”

I seriously fear for when this kid has things he REALLY wants to be covering up.

In other news, this was Miss Anika’s letter to Santa:

She’s working on her writing and I am working on not correcting her at every pass so you know – it is what it is for the moment. (Her reading is coming along amazingly well though, so you know). I especially enjoy the picture of her and Santa at the bottom. And apparently the Lego years are upon us.

She turns 6 on Thursday. I don’t want to talk about it. (But I probably will. A lot. Because you know what we promised her waaaay back when she was like 2? That she could have earrings when she turned 6. Guess what we’re doing at 5pm on Thursday?? Hold me.)

For those keeping score at home, I HAVE in fact been sewing. Christmas presents mostly. Stay tuned for some pictures.

 

 

 

Birdy Door.

Yep – that’s right folks! It’s time for the annual Why My Sister Is Awesome post.

It’s late this year, because HER sister is NOT AWESOME.

Shannon’s had a fairly changerous (what? It’s a word) year this year – but she remains completely spectacular (and with great shoes) at all times. She’s in new digs (also amazing) and is generally kicking ass.

Plus of course she lets me play with her hair, even when it’s short.

Anika continues to pretty much hero worship her….as she should.

Sam adores her too – he insists on doing things like calling her to sing the entire Veggie Tales theme song to her. Over Skype. Of course.

With any crazy life churn comes a certain amount of insecurity and soul searching. Shannon is great because she isn’t afraid to tackle these things head on….but even so I think ALL of you should leave comments here telling her how incredibly great she is – everyone needs reminding once in awhile. Even if you don’t know her – tell her she’s got great hair . (Morton girls appreciate shallow compliments every bit as much as deep ones. Thank you, the management).

Here’s to bigger and brighter things this year Shannon – it’s going to be amazing!

 

 

Life, and another Pattern Test

So you know, sometimes I think “Wow, I have all these posts to write for the blog!” and then I even make a list of them and then inevitably, SO MUCH LIFE happens that they only ever get written in my head.

I look at things like this whole “NaNoBloPo” month (one post a day for a month) and I think “gee….that must be an interesting experiment and really get the creative juices going, but also? HAH. No.”

I actually think that I would maybe stand a chance if it happened to be in, say, February or March – a month that is suitably drab with nothing really pressing at the end of it (like, say Christmas!) but November? Uh…no.
Life continues apace here in the Bhat-Cave. I keep wanting to sew more – I have patterns printed and cut out for at least four things, and I am desperately wanting to buy this pattern and make it (you can make it with different sleeves and as a tunic length as well, and seriously it looks just DELIGHTFUL)…but I need to knock a few things off the to-do list first and I just keep running out of minutes.

I did get a chance to do another pattern test recently, for the lovely Petite Kids Boutique. This time it was the Ella Dress!

 

This is a really fun dress – it’s designed to be a sundress (and it’s adorable that way too) – but because the back is tied the way it it, you can adjust it to easily accommodate a long sleeve t-shirt underneath it (definitely important when it’s November and you live here!).

The dress is adorable and REALLY easy to sew. The skirt is full and bouncy and all kinds of fun.

As usual the attention to detail in these patterns is great – it really walks you through how to produce a great finished product.

I’d asked Anika to put a long sleeve shirt on underneath it before we headed to the farm to take pictures. I neglected to notice that she put a shirt with really bright owls on the front of it though. Whoops. Oh well – she was delighted with the whole thing.

Check it out – it’s a really fun dress!!

The Short, Tragic Life of Star of David Goldie the Goldfish

So this is what happened.

Once upon a time beautiful Lisa and Steven invited us to their wedding. It was awesome. Wonderful celebration and wonderful couple. All good.

But you see, these lovely people had decided to use goldfish in vases as their centerpieces. Which, cool! Do you know how amusing it is for kids at a wedding when there are goldfish on the table?? Pretty darn great.

Then we won the centerpiece. But in fairness to us, I’m pretty sure that even if we HADN’T won, we would have been leaving with a goldfish. Sam pretty much charmed the table when he announced that the fish’s name was David. (Me – Really Sam? David? Sam – Yes. David. Okay then!).

In the car Anika announced that she REALLY wanted to name the fish Star. We laughed and were like “Great! Lets call the fish Star of David. Funny! Hurrah!” Then we got home and when the kids woke up the next morning they both simultaneously (and apparently without any discussion) started calling the fish Goldie. I stopped trying to “help” at that point – it wasn’t like the fish was going to fetch; he didn’t NEED to know his name. It’s fine.

So we got home and we had this.

That’s right – a fish in a vase. We talked about needing to get him a bigger bowl pretty quickly. After all if we were going to DO this fish thing, we needed to be Responsible Pet Owners.

So I took the kids to a fish store nearby. I thought it would be fun! We’d talk to someone knowledgeable, pick up a bowl, pick up some fish food – heck, maybe go hog wild and pick up another fish to keep David/Star/Goldie company!

Instead, what happened was I met what MIGHT be the world’s only Goldfish Activist. I’m sure he was a nice man and perfectly reasonable in all other walks of life….but in this one? Notsomuch.

Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi! Hello! I need some help. You see, yesterday we won a goldfish at a wedding – he was the centerpiece. And since he’s only in a small vase right now we think we need to find a bigger bowl for him, and probably some food. Can you help us?

Him: Oh no.

Me: No?

Him: No. You cannot keep a goldfish in a bowl. Goldfish can live for 20-30 years and can grow up to two feet in length. You cannot possibly keep a goldfish in a bowl.

Me: Are you serious?

Him: Oh yes. Not in a bowl. No. You could maaayyyybeee get away with a 10 gallon tank for the first couple of months (looking at me as if I’ve just suggested keeping Sam in a shoebox until he is 8). But after that you would FOR SURE need at LEAST a 30 gallon tank.

Me: Dude…I live in a townhouse. I didn’t even especially WANT a fish. I have NOWHERE to put a 10 gallon tank let alone a 30 gallon! (Thinking to myself…these things cost 17 cents!!! You sell them to people to FEED TO THEIR PREDATOR FISH!)

We left. We did not get food or a bowl. We just left and I came home and talked to Brandon and was all very emotional and “but what do we DOOOO?” about the whole thing really.

We concluded that we needed to go somewhere where perhaps they were a little less…fish centric. More reasonable about dealing with people. So I resolved to go to Petsmart later in the day.

A little later in the afternoon I looked in on Goldie and thought “Awwww….that’s cute! He’s making a bubble nest!” Then I thought about it and realized that I’m pretty sure that goldfish don’t MAKE bubble nests.

I googled, and learned that nope, goldfish do NOT make bubble nests. They DO, however, gasp desperately for air when in a too small vase. WHOOPS. Off to the second pet store.

I actually met a semi-reasonable human at this store. She had the attitude that was more “Look, if you came in here and told me that you wanted a pet you could keep in a bowl I would not tell you to get a goldfish. However you already HAVE the fish. Lets find something you can manage.”

So I procured a bowl, some bowl cleaner stuff, some goldfish food, and some rocks and a pink castle (Anika was with me). I set Goldie up in his new digs.

And you know what? It was kind of awesome! The kids loved talking to him; I liked watching him swim while I worked at the kitchen table – nice right?? All good!

And it was good for….lets see….three days? Ish? I THOUGHT Goldie was just fine and happy. But then we came down for breakfast one morning and Goldie was lying on his side on the rocks. Ani said “Oh look! Goldie’s lying down!”

Cue discussion about how pets die sometimes. And how when the little gills are not moving AT ALL there is probably not a lot of point taking the fish to the vet. Burial at sea for Goldie.

And now…NOW. Now I have a $45 goldfish bowl, rocks, food, and bowl cleaner. And no fish. I’m pretty sure we’re going to end up with a beta in there soon. I liked having the fish around and it was pretty fun for the kids. So perhaps we’ll try it.

Does anyone know if Betas can eat the goldfish pellet food stuff? Because I used like four of those pellets out of about a zillion. And I have NO plans to get another goldfish any time soon (because I do not WAAANT a 30 gallon tank.)

But I can now say we have owned a pet. Short lived…but we owned a pet. So long Goldie, and thanks for all the…oh nevermind.

London Pants!!

About a month ago I was really lucky to be included in a group of pattern testers, testing out the London Pants pattern from Petite Kids Boutique.

If you haven’t seen it before, there are some AWESOME patterns available there – just gorgeous. Definitely worth checking out! You can find her on Facebook or on Etsy.

Can I tell you how much fun I had making these pants?? They are GREAT. They are SO cute, and they have a really great funky vibe to them. I really really like the finished product.

Anika told me she really likes pink and black together these days, so for hers I got some black twill and used hot pink buttons, thread, and contrast fabric for the cuffs.

I made her a Size 5, which fit her perfectly – if anything it was a little big in the waist, but that’s pretty typical for my kids. The length of the 5 was dead on for her though – maybe even a little too perfect? If I was making them again I might consider lengthening them just slightly. But they are great for right now!

(That’s if she agrees to wear them of course. Girl is SO BEYOND STUBBORN when it comes to her clothes – OY).

I made Sam’s out of black denim. I used the black and white seersucker as the lining fabric and orange topstitching.

I made the Size 2 for him, and they are definitely too big. Rolled up they fit him like pants rather than crops. But again, that’s Sam – he’s not a big guy; he’s starting to reach a point where he kind of fits into his “age” for clothes but pants are still hit and miss. He has a bunch of 12-18 month pairs that fit him beautifully except that they are too short. He has some Size 2′s that he can’t keep up. The boy is a mystery to me really – but I love these pants so much that I might make him a second pair in the size down until he grows into the next ones!

I can’t recommend this pattern more. The attention to detail is AMAZING and each step is so clearly laid out. The finished product is professional looking and so well constructed – they really are fantastic. The pants are sized from 12m to 8 years, and they work for both boys and girls which is like CRAZY bonus for me! And I’m willing to bet that based on the cut of the pants you could extend the pattern beyond 8 years just by lengthening a bit. DEFINITELY worth a try.

They are great fun – if you’re in the market for a good pants pattern, check this out for sure!