When You Don't Have A Backyard

You sometimes have to use other means to encourage your children to play while you do something else.

While they look happy here, I regret to say that this did not end well.  Time for a new strategy.

It's Done!

My first quilting project is complete, as complete as it's going to be anyway.  I didn't do any fancy hand or machine stitching on it due to the fact that I was incapacitated for about 6 weeks and unable to sew.  I thought if I tried to do anything extra like that, the quilt would NEVER get done!  So my quilting-enthusiast friends, I ask your forgiveness for saying that I've quilted. :)

But here it is:

The top all sewn together with the lining.

The lining--in case it's hard to tell, it's just a pink sheet with a darker pink "ropey" stripe.

I also made the binding from the same sheet.  This was much cheaper than buying material, and I could get the lining, binding and backing all from the same source!  I paid about 170 rubles for the sheet, as opposed to at least 100 rubles/meter.

Backing and double binding sewn on.

My stitches got a lot bigger the further around the binding I went! :)

And finished at last!

I'm quite pleased with the finished product, and can't wait to wrap or cover my little lady with her quilt.  I just hope she waits another month to use her gift!

Hopefully, A Gift

What do these piles of little squares and rectangles represent?

Well, some will be Xs,

and some will be Os.

And hopefully they'll come together to make a quilt for our Nadia.

While I've sewn clothing before, this is my first attempt at a quilt. My grandma was a mistress of the quilting skill, and now my cousin has taken up the reins, so to speak. I'm not looking to become a proficient, but I'm really enjoying piecing this quilt for our Little Lady.

We'll see how it turns out! Thankfully perfection isn't a requirement, just cuteness.

A Normal Day

Since getting back to St. P, I've had a particularly hard time getting settled into any semblance of a routine or feeling "normal" (whatever that might really mean, of course). After being here for almost 2 months, I think I actually had a normal day yesterday! Naturally, I had to commemorate the event with a blog post.

But now as I'm typing, I'm realizing this normal feeling is hard to describe. But our day was, well, normal...I got up at a fairly decent time. We had our family breakfast and Bible reading. I did laundry. Read my Bible while Isaiah played his guitar and watched cars out the window. We did some Tot School, and had the sidewalks been even close to clean, we would have had time to go outside. Since they were rather impassable (another post!), we just painted some more. Ate lunch. Isaiah "napped". I did homework. We played. We sewed. He pooped. Had supper. Family time next. Isaiah went to bed. Did a little more homework. Watched some Olympics and sewed some more. Hung out with Thomas. Went to bed.

It was a good day. I am thankful.

Mid-Week Crisis

**Post begun on Wednesday and finished after calmness returned**

Already. Yep. Isaiah has already been put back to bed twice. He's really droopy and not wanting to do anything that's not his idea. I'm already tired from nose pops and corrections. It's 9:00am.

And the day didn't get much better as it progressed, in fact in all honesty, Mama had to put herself in time out for her own attitude. Yes, you read that correctly. It wasn't that I needed time to myself away from my Little Man, I thin Isaiah probably needed me to go chill and calm down. So I put him in his room to play and had some serious conversations with God about my heart.

Maybe I should do that more often. The rest of the week was much better, for all of us!

Sewing Projects

Just found this post that I had started and never finished!  Before making Isaiah's Peter Pan costume, I made him these lined dress pants.  (again, thank you, Sandra!)

I bought this tan material last year to make him some pants, but I never seemed to get around to it.  Now as the weather is colder, Isaiah doesn't have many warm dress pants.  I had this flannel that I bought, sort of by accident (long story!), but it turned out to be quite handy for lining these pants.

The rounded area at the inseam is to make room for him to wear his braces under the pants.  And as it turns out, this really helps with winter boots as well!  This wasn't in the original pattern, but it wasn't too hard to make it work.

I just love this pose!

And now Isaiah has some nice warm pants to wear to church!

Better With Two

Isaiah doesn't really like to be alone.  He'll do it, but he doesn't like it.  I try to let him have some alone time for a little while every day because I think that it's important for him to know how to entertain himself.

Friday mornings I try to get some major cleaning done, you know, the big stuff like mopping floors and cleaning the toilet and the tub and such, things that are better done in a block of time.  I often clean Isaiah's room first so that he can play in there while I clean the rest of the house and therefore not be crawling around on wet floors.

So where am I going with this?  One morning I woke up late and wasn't able to get my quiet time in before Little Man was up, so I put him in his room to play while I did my reading.  He was not thrilled about this situation, and by the time that I was done reading, he was more than ready to be OUT OF HIS ROOM!

We were having company, so in my mind, "not cleaning" was not an option.  What do you do?  Well, I don't know what you do, though I'm sure that you have some wonderful ideas.  What I do, however, is this:

And Isaiah loved it!  We got this Kelty Kids TC 3.0 thinking that we would use it for traveling purposes to have more hand carrying capabilities in airports.  I have now found another use for it, and both of us were quite happy.

Don't worry, he's completely secure!  We even dance around to the music that I must have playing while I'm cleaning.

Harvest Festival

Today we had a special treat.  The school where Thomas directs choir and speaks in chapel has an annual Harvest Festival.  This event is probably similar to some Halloween festivities, in that anyone who wants to can dress up in the designated theme.  The Harvest Festival is in actuality a fundraiser for the school, just in case you were wondering.  There are games that you buy tickets to play, food, and a costume contest.  This year's theme was The Movies.  You could come dressed as any character in a movie, though they did request no scary costumes.  

Having been the wonderful recipient of several incredibly-made costumes by my magnificent mother, I really wanted to make Isaiah a costume (this also gave me a chance to see something accomplished!).  I decided that Peter Pan would be a nice easy costume to make (and here is a special shout-out to my sister-in-law, Sandra who gave me the simple pattern book that I used as a basis for the costume.  Thank you Sandra!!!!!).

Here's the first try-on session. Isn't he a cute Peter Pan!  Unfortunately, we got stuck in traffic on our way to the school, so he wasn't able to be in the costume judging, but that's ok.  He was still stinkin' cute, and we had fun!

Posing for his daddy

My friend Deanna was Tinkerbell.  I don't know why we have a serious Peter Pan in this shot.

Isaiah and Lydia, naturally!  Lydia was an adorable fairy all in pink!

We decided to skip the dagger part of the costume, in case you were wondering, maybe when he's a little older.

My little Peter Pan is keeping me young. :)

More Sewing Projects

Once again sewing has been helpful for me--seeing something completed can be very therapeutic!

Here is our devan with the new cover that I made for the back, seat area and arm covers.  Pillows from IKEA, actually the cover is a sheet from IKEA, too.

Isaiah's curtains made from material from Russia and America.  You just can't see the American material because it's the lining, but it's wonderful because it makes his room nice and dark!

The curtain rods here are a little different.  Since I didn't want to take these rods off the wall, I decided to make loops and button holes in order to hang his curtains.  There are 10 beautiful blue buttons that it took me weeks to find.  Apparently buying buttons in bulk isn't often done here.  But at last I prevailed!

Dilemma Solved

Well, as you might recall I sewed an outfit for Isaiah that needed a little tweaking.  I rallied my courage and decided to go ahead and try buttons and therefore, buttonholes.  Here's the not-perfect, but completed result:

Not the best picture of me, but Isaiah looks pretty cute, I think.

"I'm gonna get you, Daddy!"

Sewing Projects-II

Well, I have completed my first full garment for Isaiah.  I must confess that I'm quite proud of myself.   Without directions or an official pattern, I muddled my way through to make this little romper for Isaiah.

I'm already thinking of how to adjust it, of course, or how to make the next one better.  The snaps on the shoulders aren't really strong enough for his crawling style, so I'm trying to come up with a better idea.  Unfortunately it will probably involve buttons and therefore buttonholes (oh well).  For now, I think that the outfit is big enough for me to actually sew up the shoulder straps and just slip it on over his head.  Any suggestions?

The work in progress--oh yeah, and my sewing machine

The adorable model in his new outfit--it's light blue, in case you can't tell.  I didn't make the shirt underneath.

Striking a pose, while going for the toys

Sewing Projects I

So as I mentioned before, I got a sewing machine!  I was on the lookout for some patterns, but I still haven't found any here.  Thomas asked me to hem some sweat pants for him, so I began my first project.  Thankfully everything went well, and the pants are now the perfect length.  Whew!  With that encouragement under my belt, I really wanted to get into a serious sewing project, but I still didn't have a pattern.

Well,  I thought to myself, surely sewing a small garment for Isaiah can't be that hard, I mean I did  go to college and grad school (and graduate), surely I can figure this out!  I searched the internet for tips on making your own patterns (still hoping to find a print-at-home pattern for a boy's outfit).  I did find some good tips, and tons of girls' stuff that wouldn't work.  But even better I found an old romper that is now a makeshift pattern...we'll see how it turns out...