Oh, Hello There!

I've started this blog post in my head a hundred times or more. I have so much I want to say, but I don't have any idea of where to start! It's been a while...
Ideas for possible topics of this post I tossed around in my head:

• I miss blogging. I miss composing my thoughts and sharing a little tiny slice of my family's life with the world at large. I miss posting pictures, so that a year or 12 from now we can come back and see them and remember just what was happening on a certain date in our lives. That was the plan for this blog in the first place.

{Claire helping Grandma plant things}

• I miss your comments. I really like hearing from you all. 

• Depression stinks! (possibly due to any or all of the following: post-baby hormones, winter, or maybe my brain just doesn't work correctly all of the time, to produce the right amount of happy hormones... stupid brain.Working on improving my diet, letting things go, and lots of sunshine are helping.)

{Out for exercise in the sunshine with Emmett}

• Grief stinks, too!

• Grief really stinks when it's not just you, but your 2 year old baby suffering over the loss of her (foster) sister!! (Little Miss H, our foster daughter, was moved from our home to go live with relatives out of state a little over a month ago. We all miss her and it has been very hard to deal with. But it has been especially hard for Claire. H came to live with us when both girls were about 18 months old. Claire doesn't remember a time before H was here. They did every. single. thing. together. They thought they were really sisters and we treated both of them as such. Then one day strangers came in to our home, sat in our living room and talked for a few hours and then took her sister away, never to be seen again. How do you explain that to a 2 year old? Claire spent most of February crying over any and everything. She stopped sleeping through the night, and never wanted to leave my side. Some days would be better than others, unless she caught sight of something that belonged to H still laying around somewhere then she would crumble into a tearful mess and cry and act out and be generally miserable the rest of the day. I still have no idea how to best help her. I know she is grieving, I know she doesn't understand. And I don't know what to do about it. I am trying to just follow her lead and deal with it day by day. She still talks about H constantly and asks about her. I try to explain as best as I can, and she tries to understand as best she can and somehow we'll get through this. But it's hard. 

• Our foster care system is good/horrible/necessary/evil/uncaring/difficult/works really well/doesn't help at all! All of those things, depending on what day you ask me.

• We are selling our house, well, we are trying to sell our house. Anyone out there want a well cared for, sweet little house in a nice country neighbourhood? 

• I've noticed that I always spell neighbour and neighbourhood like the rest of the world does and not like they do here in the USA. Google spell checker doesn't like it. I don't care! It is a nice quiet neighbourhood with friendly caring neighbours! Take that Google spell checker!

• I like it when Australians say chooks, instead of chickens. I still say chickens though. Actually I don't say much of either one right now, since we got rid of all of our chickens in January... trying to sell our house you know. I didn't think prospective buyers would appreciate the chickens in the yard. If they want them they are welcome bring their own!

• The idea of selling our home is really kind of stressful! First we have 3/4 of our stuff packed away to make this small house look open and roomy. (It's 1400 square feet and there are 7 of us living in it!) Plus I have to keep it much cleaner than I am used to, so that it can be ready on a moments notice to show to buyers... not easy with this many people home all day long!  The pictures I took for the real estate listing make it look pretty nice I think, looking at them I thought that I would want to buy this house. Only we want a place with more land and hopefully a larger house! But also it is really hard to contemplate leaving here. This is the first home we've ever owned, and it has been "home" for the past 6 years. Claire and Emmett where born here. We've made a lot of really good memories here. But we all feel like the time has come for a change. 

• Our trampoline decided to go wandering due to a huge wind/thunder storm that came through the area a couple of weeks ago. It wanted to see how it would look perched in a neighbour's tree 2 houses (and over 2 fences) away from our house. It didn't look so great up there, so we got it down and brought it back over both of those fences back to our backyard where it belongs. Oh and we staked it down so it wouldn't go wandering without permission anymore. The neighbour agreed with us that his tree was a strange place to keep our trampoline after all. 

• I've been a bit of a creative slump.

• I'm coming out of my creative slump! Lots of WIP's and ideas percolating. Even a few finished things to share here soon!

• There has been some of this going on... Still not very reliably though, just when the mood strikes her ;-)

• And lots of this... 

{Emmett is almost 6 months old already!}

{Check out those beautiful chubby arms, and face! He is so very squeezable and cuddly!} 

So that is a brief summary of what has been happening around here for the past few months... Well, maybe not so brief in retrospect, but when you consider that I haven't posted here in about 2 months... A lot can happen in that time! I can't wait to start posting again now. I have tons of things to share! 

Costumes and playing Dress-up

My kids love to dress up! I mean they really love it. Matthew especially, there are weeks at a time that the child goes everywhere in costume, and not just in late October, but all year long! So when they announced in our homeschool co-op that this past Tuesday was going to be costume day the boys asked for new costumes to wear.

Matthew's costume started last Christmas. My mom made him and Ethan these really cool crocheted chain-mail helmets.

 

 Matthew asked then and there if we could make him a knight costume to match. His Grandma obliged his request by making him this cool outfit. The tunic has a medieval lion embroidered on the front. The sword was one of his Christmas gifts that Rodrigo and I made for him last year. And he also requested a leather sheath for his sword... I had no good idea how to make one, until I remembered the old leather bomber jacket that I had saved to upcycle into something else. I was worried about sewing it with my machine, because I've never sewn leather with it before... so I simply cut a sleeve off of the coat and hemmed the bottom. I wasn't totally happy with how it looked, but he was thrilled with it, and that is what's important. He also designed his own crown. 

Ethan asked me for a cape. He picked out the colors and I used the pattern for the reversible hooded play cape from the book "Growing Up Sew Liberated" (Side note, I am loving this book! I borrowed it from the library, but I might just need to get it for my self!) 

 If you click on the picture you can zoom in and see the button we used to close the cape. I made them from one of the sticks Ethan is constantly dragging home from the woods! 

He went as a forest elf.

 Claire found the wig that we were getting ready to cut and shape for Logan's costume. I turned around and she was standing in the middle of the table with this giant red wig on. Little Miss H was standing on the floor behind her watching the show.

Sadly, I don't have any really good pictures of Logan's costume. And it was really my pièce de résistance, I worked for weeks getting every detail just so...

 He asked me to make him a Mad Hatter Costume! He went with me to the fabric store and picked out the fabric for his coat. We discussed at length every single detail of his entire outfit. His hat was also entirely handmade. He helped me make the costume, he strung the thread spool bandoleer, and helped decorate his hat. I'll try to get him dressed back up in it in a few days sans the makeup so I can get some better pictures of it. It was a lot of fun making this outfit, it really seems a shame that he will probably only wear it once... But Matthew already has his eyes on it! So all of my hard work wont have gone to waste!

Posing as a truly mad Mad Hatter! 

 It was very dark in the room where I took his picture, but he looked awesome! He won first prize in the costume contest! 

 My sweet little Claire and Little Miss H dressed up as Ballerina Fairies. I made both of their tutus. Rodrigo snapped some pictures of them in front of the house before we left. Claire was a red fairy.

Check out these dimples!!

Little Miss H was a white fairy. Their wings were store bought. 

They were adorable! And they felt so pretty, both little girls kept twirling around in circle singing and giggling when I let them try on their new tutus. Claire kept saying "Pretty dress!" and "Pretty H!" and patting her foster sister's head. H just smiled and smiled. 

Trying to fly...

I love making things for my kids, they really enjoy getting mama-mades. Those tend to be some of their very favorite things to play with and wear! 

Little Miss H's second birthday

Our own sweet foster daughter Little Miss H turned two years old yesterday! I loaded up all of the children Friday morning and took them to H's birthday party. Her whole extended family showed up, Mom, Grandmother, Great-grandmother, Aunts, Uncles, and cousins... they had planned a big party for her, she was one celebrated and loved little girl!

Opening presents with her Mommy!

Claire really enjoyed herself as well... new baby dolls to play with!  Everyone was so sweet to her, making sure she had something to play with and even letting her help open one of Little Miss H's presents, so she wouldn't feel left out. 

Emmett slept on me, in the sling or on my lap most of the time, the noise of screaming playing children didn't phase him a bit.

Little Miss H had a wonderful time! She is truly one happy, well loved little girl. We are going to miss her very much one day when she goes home. She and Claire have played Mommies and Babies non stop since her birthday party!

*(I asked her mother and her social worker for permission to post pictures of her on my blog, and they both said it would be fine with them... so yippee! Now I can include pictures of H here since she has become such a huge part of our family these past few months!)