No not the end of my blog.I’ve been very busy lately. I not only have Grace and the two little boys (luckily not on the same days) I also have been watching Grace’s big brother Jordan (he’s 5). Grace and Jordan play great together! They leave Joy out a little bit, but Grace is easier to watch with Jordan around. He’s very quiet (unless playing with her), and polite and isn’t a real rowdy boy. I watched them two times already and have one more scheduled (perhaps two? I have to find out), Well on Tuesday when their mom Jen picked them up she informed me that they have decided to put Grace (almost 3) in preschool/daycare at the school that Jordan is attending….. So I wont be watching her anymore. Jen said they love me, and Grace loves coming here however they really want her to go in Preschool as they didn’t put Jordan in it and regret it. So next Tuesday may be my last day with her….. Our adventure has been fun.

I started watching Grace last fall. I was just over 3 months pregnant. I was tired. But we had fun! Everyday (until it got to cold) I would push the girls in the stroller for a short walk. We played indoors mostly, however I did take them out a few times to play in the snow pile at the end of the driveway (we didn’t get much snow, and it’s a lot of work to bundle them up for 5minutes of play). She learned my rules quickly, and I learned she was a bit defiant. She picked on Joy sometimes but Joy learned to stand up for herself too. She taught me that I really have to be aware of what I say, because you just have to say it once and they can pick up on it (no I didn’t teach her bad words). I was lucky as I only had to change 1 poop diaper EVER! (guess she poops at home ~ then she got potty trained). Yes I got to go through the adventure of potty training, well not so much. She was away for two weeks and came back potty trained! That doesn’t mean we didn’t have spills. She forgot one time while watching a movie and peed on the carpet. I also got to experience having her vomit on my floor. (not fun). Really all in all it was a good experience having her, learning how to react and discipline other peoples children. It sounds like we had rough times, and we did. Heck I was pregnant for most of it, then with a new baby for the rest! I only took one week off of work after having Olivia so she was right in the thick of it. This spring we had a bunch more fun, going for walks around Mac Park, playing in the backyard, doing more painting and just having fun! (I have much more energy now not being pregnant!) One thing you could almost always count on was she would eat just as much (if not more) than me at any meal/snack time! She always had a runny nose, and she LOVES her naps! She asks constantly for a nap, and takes a LONG one everyday. It was nice as her nap time was just before Joy’s and usually lasted as long or longer than Joy’s. I am going to miss you Gracie! We had fun. We had our schedule down pat. But now I get to move on, grow again and explore more things with these two boys I have. God Bless you Gracie and I hope we run into you sometime soon.

Here they are! The finished products!

Lilly's dress

Lilly's reverse hat

Ava's Dress

Ava reverse hat

You know your baby was storing up her poop when after you not only need to strip her down to her birthday suit but yourself as well!!! Laundry going! To bad I can’t throw the couch in too!

I now have two more chillins I watch for Daycare. Gabe (4yrs) and Solomon (1yr). They came and played for a couple hours one day, it was fun but not enough time to really do anything. Then Yesterday (Wednesday) I had them for the first full day….. Wow, Boys (at least these ones) are much different and Girls!!

Outside we have a little water table. It has two little sail boats, a bucket and a water wheel (you dump water into another bucket that slowly releases the water over the wheel so it spins). On Tuesday Grace and Joy played with it. Sure they got wet, but most the water stayed in the table and it was as clean as when they started. On Wednesday Joy, Gabe and Solomon took to it….. Well the boys also found her ‘mud pie’ making table, the water, sand and bits of grass ended up all over both ‘stations’ all over them and most the water onto the grass. The boys were coated from the tips of their heads to the bottom of their toes with mud and water! Joy, had a couple drops on her outfit. Gabe at one point even dumped a full bucket of water on Solomons head! Sol didn’t even flinch, Joy would have had a hissy fit and that would have been the end of it!

The boys definitely played rougher on the toys than they had ever been played with before. Joy is  a very gentle girl. Not that the boys were overly rough, just a lot rougher than she is.

We played, then when the little kids took a nap Gabe and I had fun making creatures out of egg cartons. After we played in the living room. Just as I was about to get Gabe to help me clean up their dad showed up, Since Sol was still sleeping he came upstairs. I hadn’t noticed what the living room looked like until then…. GASP!!! Every single toy, kid chair, etc was tipped over on either it’s side or right upside down! The living room has been messy before, but never with the toys in such positions before!! Gabe was helpful straightening the room up, thankfully! I couldn’t believe how the living room had looked so crazy!

I’m sure I’ll come across differences more and more as time passes. I just find it so funny how differently they play with toys.  Needless to say I slept good last night! I look forward to our adventures next week I hope this smoke clears out so we can walk to the park…

Lesson #1 ~ It’s harder than you think to photograph and blog every step of a project!

Lesson #2 ~ Take your time and do it right the first time, because undoing is time consuming!

Lesson #3 ~ If you have a ‘model’ use them. (such as a daughter the same size)

Lesson #4 ~ When measuring your child, measure not only their height, but shoulder width, waist, bust,etc. Because after you sew a dress you don’t want to re-sew an entire new one!

Lesson #5 ~ Button holes are frustrating and even more so when you undo them!

Lesson #6 ~ When attaching Pockets, ensure they are on the right side of the dress!

Lesson #7 ~ Take pictures for your blog before gift wrapping them, because then you notice you sewed those pockets on the wrong side before giving them to the person as a gift! (Luckily this is the step I just did!).

Lesson #8 ~ Practice does make perfect.

Lesson #9 ~ It’s easier to do everything right when you don’t have distractions (such as kids around).

Lesson # 10 ~ Just Sigh. Shrug it off and keep trying

Ps~ as soon as I unattach and reattach the pockets I will upload pictures.

I’ll start with the sewing. I decided to finally attach the buttons and sew the button holes on Ava’s dress. I am a little sad as every time I look at her dress I see more and more mistakes. I wanted the dress to be perfect. Guess it’s not. I will work even harder on perfecting Lilly’s dress. Wish me luck. Anyway, back to the buttons. I sewed them on no problem. The button holes however, not so good. Apparently my machine needs me to do something else to get it to sew the button holes. I can get it to sew the ends just fine, but the long part….well that’s another story. It’s currently sewing one side as a zigzag and the other a completely different stitch! I don’t know how to get it to do the button stitch properly. Any ideas? I’m hoping my mom will be online tonight so I can ask her.

weird button stitch

Then the sickness. This weekend we kept ourselves busy! Friday Leah and I took the girls to a lake approx 30minutes away. Leah was good at killing the leaches! And Joy had loads of fun playing in the water with all the minnows. Olivia took a nice nap and otherwise was happy to play in the playpen (with a mosquito net to protect her). It was fun, we got eaten alive when we went to the car to leave! (apparently the mosquito’s were waiting till we tried to leave to get us!). Leah and I layed in the sun almost the entire 4hours we were there ~ not much to show for it tan wise though. Then Friday night I took the girls shopping. Saturday our little family went to breakfast at Mcdonald’s with Orlund’s family, then went shopping. The girls were tired so that cut that day short! Sunday we went to Church then in the evening went swimming at the pool. And Monday (also a holiday) we went to the Wild life Park. Lots of fun however only covered half the park before it was bedtime. Lots of fun, but a very LONG, HOT day.

Now today, Tuesday, Both the girls have stuffy noses, fussy attitudes and all round grumpiness! I’m tired. I have a house to clean, Laundry to do, sewing to get done……….ugh…..

I apparently work rather slow when it comes to sewing! I think I’m scared to make a mistake, however the only part you can’t ‘fix’ if you do screw up is the cutting. And I’ve had the material cut for a week already! I have finished two hats, one for Ava and one for Lilly. The hats are completely reversible. The jean material is what the dresses are made out of, and the other color I will use as an accent on the dress (little pocket or something, haven’t decided yet).

The hats were easy to do, however I did have to google how to do one of the seams. Once I figured that out I was good to go! What do you think?

Ava's hat & Lilly's hat

Inside Ava & Lilly's hats

That is one of Joy’s favorite lines. She can mean Baby as in Olivia or Baby as in one of her many dolls. Just now as I was feeding Olivia (and putting her to sleep) Joy announced that “Baby Pooh!” as in her cabbage patch doll. I shushed her out of the room, finished putting Olivia down and came out to help change ‘baby’. Joy laid baby down and we started. I pulled off the sticky part of the diaper (yes Cabbage Patch dolls come with their own diaper now). As I pulled the front part back I was shocked ~ POOH! There was a little turd in the dolls diaper! I took another look, nope not pooh. phew! It was a rock that apparently Joy decided should be what the baby’s pooh would look like! I am happy to say we cleaned out baby’s diaper and she now is as fresh smelling as when we got her (apparently the diaper releases more of the ‘baby powder’ fresh sent. Yes the dolls smell baby powder fresh).

One other little tidbit I have to write about ~ JOY WENT PEE ON THE POTTY!! This is even MORE exciting than the pooh! (when she poohed on the potty that is). She always has known when she needs to pooh, so telling me she had to pee was AMAZING! Yes she said “I pooh”, but she went pee. I had just gotten her out of the tub and was toweling her off when she made the announcement “I pooh” so I rushed her back to the toilet and sat her on it. *tinkle tinkle* I looked at her with BIG eyes! “You pee?” I said “more?” she said/asked with a mischievous look on her face *tinkle tinkle*. I WAS SO EXCITED! she got two stickers as a ‘reward’.

Two, One of Joy’s favorite words. I have two things to post about ~

1~ God said that Women could find a good husband in the four corners of the earth…….Then He made the world round! (I was lucky with one of the few men to escape before that! lol)

2~ Joy went Poop on the potty!!!!!!!!!!! Very exciting! We were in the Kitchen when she looked at me (with that look) and said “I poo!” So I snatched her up, ripped off the diaper and threw her on the potty. A few seconds later we were celebrating her first Poop on the potty Yipee!! It’s a start

I have been working diligently on the little dresses for the 4 girls. Well okay on Ava and Lilly’s. I discovered that apparently I don’t know how to read the back of the pattern for how much material is needed. I was able to cut out both Ava and Lilly’s dress and Ava’s hat, and still have HALF the fabric I bought left, out of the amount of fabric I thought I needed for Ava’s dress and hat! I guess I need lessons on how much fabric to buy (now I have lots and lots).

I have sewn the sides on the dresses and sewn the hat together (the two parts just not joined them). Here are a few pictures I’ve taken so far.

Laying out the pattern.

the two dresses pinned. They are pretty BIG for these girls...