Building A Life

or Pro-jects as Millie calls them. Whatever you call them, we've been doing a lot of them the past month or so. Some have been family projects, like working in the yard, some have been projects I've been working on with Lauren as she gets ready for her baby, some have been gifts, some have been experiments in new hobbies and some have been just to pass the time. I didn't get a picture of our dining room table before I cleaned it yesterday, but it was covered in Millie's projects -- paper, crayons, markers, glue, scissors, more paper ... that girl can spend hours drawing, coloring, cutting, and gluing and be happy as a clam the whole time. In fact, today, while I was getting Merrill her nap, Millie was in the basement working on her own little gallery show. She drew a series of pictures (all with the same theme of little girls) and then taped them all up to the wall. She even taped up a piece of paper with her name on it -- her signature piece :). It made me smile.

My projects, on the other hand, are never completed so quickly. The gardening/landscaping I can do during the day and the girls are happy to play outside and dig in the dirt with me -- everything else generally has to be done at night when they are asleep. That usually gives me an hour to an hour and a half to work on something before I go to bed myself (yeah, I could probably work on staying up later, but I still don't sleep straight through the night so going to bed early is my best bet for getting a decent amount of sleep...). In that time I can choose a project to work on, read a book (this wins out usually at least one week out of each month as I read the current selection for my book club -- sometimes more often if I have something else interesting I'm reading), blog, catch up on e-mails, or spend time with Scott. Many nights just bumming on the couch with Scott and catching up wins out. So, yeah, I'm slow to finish a project -- especially long ones. But here is a sampling of what I've been up to as well as some photos of Millie's art showing.

Mary and I spent an evening at Lauren's house and put together this diaper cake for her shower. I've got to give Mary credit for most of the styling of this adorable cake -- she's like the Rachel Zoe of diaper cakes :). I totally think we could go into business! Our technique was based on this amusing tutorial given by an Aussie on how to make a "nappy cake."

I couldn't resist making this little guy for Baby Ick's room. Yeah, my crafting skills often fall at the level of an 8-year-old, but I'm okay with that! Of course, this project inspired Millie to want something similar for herself so we started another one:

This one is still in progress...

My sister and I also made a no-sew crib skirt for Baby Ick's room based on this tutorial and have plans to make matching valences. Though, now that I've taken my sewing machine out of the box and actually sewed a bit with it, I think I'll use it for the valences. We'll see how it goes. I also want to make a pillow for the toy chest in there too. What can I say, babies bring out my crafty DIY side. Which is why I'm ALSO working on a baby afghan ... This is one of the bigger projects I'm working on and it's been a bit of a slow go, but I think it will be worth it. I just hope I finish it before baby Ick gets here!

Of course there were also the cupcakes for the shower and a couple of small decorations to be put together. That's all the baby stuff though :).

Ah yes, and I did mention that my sewing machine has actually made it OUT of the box! I've even turned it on and sewn! It only took me 9 months and signing up for a sewing class to make that happen ... The project we're doing for the class is a robe. A very simple pattern, no frills (though it does have pockets), and lots of direction from a pro. It's nice because I bring my own machine to the class and learn on it -- it would be pretty silly to learn on a different machine I suppose. I took everything out yesterday to finish up a couple of things I didn't get to last week. It's far from done, but it IS starting to look like something you could wear:

I now understand how easy it is for the dining room to become the crafting/sewing room... This class has definitely sparked my interest in sewing and given me the confidence to think I might actually be able to do a little. I'm sure I'll feel even better when the class is done and I've made a piece from start to finish!

The yard has been my other big project. Things pretty much stalled once June hit because it was just too hot to be outside. At that point it was just a matter of keeping things alive in the heat. We were pretty successful, though we did lose two of the arbor vitaes that we planted in the spring. It turned out in our favor though because when we returned them to Home Depot (dead) with no receipt they could only give us the current market value and not what we paid for them. Market value was apparently $87 for both ... we had paid at best $30. We are big fans of Home Depot now. So, we pulled the arbor vitaes and continued to landscape the area around the patio -- putting in more plants, more rocks and more mulch! We also got some winterberry trees (and one Southern Gentleman tree for them to, um, mate with) to plant along the berm to eventually create a nice hedge between our yard and the neighbor's. The last thing on my wish list for the backyard is to find some new evergreens to plant where the arbor vitaes had been to give a year-round screen up by the patio. I'm hoping for some good end of the season sales soon! Then in the spring I'll get to focus on the front yard. I think I've officially been bit by the landscaping bug!

So, that's what I've been up to these days. I guess it's good to have something to fill my time when I'm not with the girls. Of course, I could also be cleaning the house...

And last but not least, here is the art showing that Millie created today. I really love the name plate she created -- just like a real artist's show! I'm now itching to take her to the art museum to see what one is really like. Plus the St. Louis Art Museum has a class for kids once a month -- I think that would be a GREAT project for us to do together!

Lauren and I took the girls to see an outdoor viewing of "Beauty and the Beast" Friday night on Art Hill in Forest Park. It was a chilly and windy night, but the girls enjoyed being outside at night and loved running around on the hill before the movie started. Though, I don't think Millie is ready for Disney movies yet. I forgot how scary this movie was until I viewed it through her eyes. She was so worried about when the next scary part was going to come that I don't think she was really able to enjoy the fun parts. She spent much of the movie either huddled behind me or under the blankets and periodically yelled out "I want to LEAVE now!!" We stuck it out and she doesn't appear to be too traumatized, but I think we'll lay off the movies again for a while. Merrill on the other hand was completely transfixed the entire time. She acknowledged that there were scary parts, but they didn't seem to bother her much. We previewed the movie with the girls just so they would know what to expect and Merrill was very concerned that the Beast was sad and she was determined to be his friend to make him feel better. As we got closer to the park, she kept saying "I don't see the monster yet!" Still working on that line between reality and fantasy :).