Four under four

The weekend of James' birthday, my sister and her family came to town. The plan was for them to stay for James' party, which was on Sunday afternoon. However, all hell broke loose in the afternoon so they had to get out of Houston and back home to Dallas in a hurry. I am pretty sure us deciding to go to the Aquarium the morning of the birthday had something to do with it.

Here are my nieces, Vivian on the left and Charlotte (you can call her Chuck, I do) on the right.

 I don't know if you can clearly see how skinny Vivi is. She is like James, really needs to eat some more.

Don't they look precious in their fireworks shirts? Lauren was skeptical that Chuck would wear her shorts that matched Vivi's since she is very into dresses. However, she caved under the pressure of "Auntie made this shirt for you!" which I appreciated.

So the morning of the 7th, still in their fireworks shirts, we loaded up and headed to the Aquarium to ride the train, the Ferris wheel and see the fish.

Chuck was highly skeptical of the Ferris wheel. With good reason.

These pictures clearly make it look like Dewayne and Lauren were riding the Ferris wheel alone. In truth, both girls were clinging to them for dear life.

Our boys knew they were in an open air death machine and just went with it. I call it "independence".

The girls loved the aquarium and Dewayne bought everyone a stuffed sting ray after visiting the sting ray pool. Only Charlotte, Dewayne and Alex actually touched a sting ray.

 I love this photo. Uncle Alex holding Chuck's hand and her pink sting ray.

Even if we are only together for 24 hours I love to spend time with the Bailey's. It is always a hot mess of someone sleeping, someone crying, someone eating and someone yelling. But the kids love their cousins and it makes me wish we lived closer. Though once we get these children out of diapers and they stop being so terrible, we can take road trips more often. A definite benefit of my new flexible schedule.

What If

I think we all have our fair share of "what ifs". As in, what if I had not gotten that job or moved to that city? What if I had chosen a different major?

Well, I thought a lot about that on our vacation to lovely La Jolla, California last week. When I was younger my family visited San Diego and I decided I wanted to go to the University of California at San Diego. For sure. The weather is perfect here and there is a beach (you know, so great for a super pale redhead). I felt this was my place.

Of course as I got older it seemed my place would be the University of Texas at Austin.

But what if I had worked harder in school. What if I had really, really tried my hardest to get in and then somehow convinced my parents to go along with that? What would my life be like?

Well I would not have met my friend Laura in the Delta Gamma house.

I would not have moved to Houston after college, where she would introduce me to her high school friend, Alex.

So poof - no little walls.

So what if I had gone to college here in La Jolla? What would my life have turned out to be?
Here are my guesses after spending some time here.
1. My children would be named Kai and Everly.
2. I would have a girl (Everly) as well as a boy because I would not have married a man who should have been royalty, with all the males in his linage.
3. I would never straighten my hair, instead insist my (at best wavy) hair is "naturally curly".
4. I would not own anything Tory Burch (TB is all over Houston).
5. I would be so comfortable, wearing my large capri pants, loose fitting tank tops with hoody sweat shirts (you guys, it is chilly here).
6. I would own many of those natural baby carriers and use them to carry Kai to meet my mommy friends at the beach for baby and me yoga.
7. I would know what hemp is.
8. I would like how men look in flat brim hats.
9. I would be totally in shape as you can exercise outside in the middle of July. Or December. Or whenever you want.
10. My husband would take the children to the park on the beach on Saturday morning with all the other dads.

Pretty different for sure. But after spending a week in great, cool weather I was still glad to get back to 100 degree Houston. It really is my place.

Burden on my family

For the second year in a row I have signed up to be a summer seamstress as my Junior League placement. Alex calls it a "burden on my family" as I have to get my 72 hours done in three months. That equals 20 diaper bags, 20 baby blankets and 40 burp clothes, FYI.

I obviously ignore him as I love it. And as Sonia says, I would be doing the 72 hours of volunteer work either way. The baby items I am making this year are taken to the new teen moms at Ben Taub hospital here in Houston. The girls get a bag, a blanket and two burp cloth and a Junior League volunteer (not me) welcoming their new baby to the world. Is there a better use of my time? I think not.

Zach was on me to make his shark sheet and I told him I had to make bags for babies who don't have anything. They need a bag. You have a sheet. You have five sheets - simmer down.

But it is time consuming and has monopolized every extra minute I have been at home with the boys at school. Hence me not upping my blogging since I left work. But as of August 7th I am done! So I will get back on the blogging about nothing bandwagon. I know the 10 of you will be pleased.

In the meantime I thought one of you might be interested in making a bag or two as they are super simple. They only tricky part is the French seam along the side and the bottom of the bag. You don't know what a french seam is? Me either, I had to Google it, let me show you.

So here is the side of the bag. I have just put it together wrong sides facing and sewed it together.

 Then you tuck the seam in and use the sides of the bag to cover up the seam and sew it again. Voila! The cut edge disappears inside like magic.

You do the same thing on the bottom but then cut out some of the corner to make it a flat bottom. Pretty Prudent has a nice tutorial if you are interested. You don't have to make 20, one would be a nice gift for yourself or a great use of extra fabric too.

Off to finish those blankets and burp cloths.

How to make an ugly sign just OK

This was the sign I bought at Party City to use for James' party.

Does that look the least bit on theme to you? Exactly. You can imagine my disappointment when this was my best option the day before the party. Oh I know it is a perfectly fine sign if I were having a New Year's eve party or a general party. But not for a Noah's ark themed party. It was like the time my sister tried to use this sign for her Cat the Hat themed first birthday party.

I sometimes am not 100% sure we are related.

We ended up covering that mess with squares in her theme and Chuck's name. So I figured I could do the same for mine. But, of course, I was running low on time (icing rainbow cupcakes) and my sister suggested using the zebra duct table I bought for the waters (it looked like this) to cover the ribbons on the side.

And I realized she might be a secret crafting genius.

The reason it is just an OK sign? My handwriting.

So disappointing.

Shark Sheet

Otherwise known as "You know you can buy that, right?" per Lauren.

So Zach needed a new sheet for his "naps" at school. He had told me a week or so ago but I thought he was making it up and was NOT going to buy another crib sheet. We own five sheets and one crib, we don't need another one. But then his teacher tells me that yes, he does in fact need a new sheet as his keeps "popping off" when he tries to put it on. They are teaching independence and he has a hard time doing it himself. Ughhh FINE.

But I am not buying one. I am going to make it. Out of an old set of sheets that need to go but are super soft (the only criteria for Zach). And because it is me I am not just going to leave it at that.

I was already working on a new blanket for him. He was with me in Joann's at one point and spotted some shark fabric that was crazy soft and he had to have it. I had a coupon which makes everything OK.

So once I took the sheet off the bed (yes we were still using it) and cut it down to the dimensions my girls over at Pretty Prudent told me to I was on my way. Luckily this is not my first crib sheet making (please) so it went quickly.

Here is the before and after of the elastic corners. Don't be scared by my pincushion bracelet.

Since it was such a blank canvas, that white sheet, I had the idea to do waves with shark fins coming out, to go across the sheet. 

Of course I did. That is not what normal people do. But I got SUPER excited about.

I looked out on Pinterest for a template of a wave. I found some, but my sewing around curves tends to leave something to be desired. Then I saw this picture and knew I could just make simple choppy waves and be happy with it. 

I free handed some waves (super hard as you can imagine) on card stock and cut them out, then just traced them onto the fabric scraps I had. I know you too have fabric in lengths of 44" in two colors of blue fabric laying around your house.

Same thing with the shark fins, though I did make Alex help me get the scale down.

Then I just sewed each section to each other, starting with the bottom one and leaving the top free to sew to the sheet. I sewed in the sharks before doing the blue wave. Finally I sewed the entire thing to the sheet stopping as to not go over the fins and sewing the straight bottom with a small hem. You guys, super simple. 

 Done! I love it. I am so excited about how it turned out. Of course, the edges are totally raw and this sheet gets washed every week...so we shall see how my water holds up in a month or so.

Zach liked it too. Here he is taking it for a spin.

He did initially ask me to make the eye and mouth that are on his other sheet which just made my day. Turns out he DID notice my work! A year later, but I can't be picky.

But I, of course, had to tell him no, Mommy has a new vision for your sheet. Please don't try to ruin my dreams.

The cupcakes that stole the show

I had no idea when I made rainbow cupcakes for James' party that it would garner such praise. They were very, very easy to make just a tad time intensive. But way less than rainbow cakes. I mean, the labor involved in that. Baking six layers of cake all dyed different colors, then leveling it and icing it? No thank you.

But I had made three color cupcakes last year for Mardi Gras (which I am shocked I did not blog about) so I thought, could I add three more colors with the same result? Worth a shot and it if they look terrible, we will just have solid color cupcakes in rainbow colors. I could live with that.

I just used two boxes of cake mix (I can't be bothered to make it from scratch) and gel food color. I split the batter into six bowls.

Then just put about a tablespoon (those are the small spoons from my flatware set) in each liner layering in the colors of the rainbow. You can see the bottom three colors here.

My trusty sidekick insisted on sitting on the island next to me to "help". Mainly he ate some old pretzels and pointed to each color saying, "Blue?".

I baked the cupcakes for the amount of time on the box and they were perfect.

I only allowed the boys to eat one to test it. Well and Dewayne got a left over purple one too.

For the icing, again I did not make it, but did pipe the store bought version on the top of the cupcakes to look like a cloud. Well that is what my sister called it. Really it looked terrible until I nestled two of each kind of animal on top and one of the toppers (which Lita at Kindly Reply customized for me to print out). Dewayne and Lauren helped me identify the animals in the pack. It was not an easy task.

And while the icing was the least attractive part, that was the only part that James ate. But don't get confused into thinking he was impressed by any of this nonsense. He would have preferred I put a plate of icing down in front of him and back slowly away.

Afternoons with my boys

People have been asking me what I have been doing with myself in the month since I left my job. My initial answer is to shrug and wonder myself. Really my days have been busy and go by faster than I ever would have thought. I thought I would give a run down of a day in the life of this stay at home mom.

7:00 James wakes up in his bed and starts crying to get out. Once out he wants to watch Thomas and have a snack. Neither of those things happen. He then gets my chap stick and starts smearing it all over the lower portion of his face.
7:30 Zach gets up and comes in (Alex is usually showering or doing something by this time). I rouse myself and get them both breakfast. They play and get dressed until around nine when we mosey up to school.
9:30 I head to the gym in an attempt to be a skinny SAHM I see all over town. Lulemon top - check, four year old running shorts - check.
10:30 head home to shower (maybe) and straighten up the house from the morning
12:00 eat lunch. Maybe with a friend, maybe in the kitchen, maybe on the couch. I can't really say.
1:00 - 3:00 go to the grocery store, pet food store, return hideous top to Target, etc. Some light cleaning, prep dinner or work on my Junior League sewing project.
3:30 pick up the boys from school and our afternoon begins.

Some days Zach just wants to come home and play. The boys have really started to play together and it is awesome. Oh they fight of course, someone always starts crying after about 20 minutes (usually James saying "Zaaaach. Zaaaach mama") but on the whole they are great together.

However today Zach wanted to go to the science museum. Vince became a member last year so we can go for the member rate and it is nice and cool. It is also open until 6:00 p.m. in the summers so getting there at 4 gives you plenty of time to visit. I might note though - it takes us an hour max to see anything. Museum, aquarium, pools, a hour is always the most we stay. So you have been warned if we have an outing planned with you.

Zach loves to ride the Bronocosaurus which is a mechanical dino that roars and bucks slightly. James is terrified and clutches me the entire time. I usually say no but Vince let's him ride it and I was not in the mood for a battle that day.

We wander through the dinosaurs, which are really very cool, but avoid the mummy section. Apparently Vince and the boys stumbled upon them one day and Zach was very scared of the "dead bodies just laying there". Valid.

I get in trouble in the dinosaurs section when James decides to bang on a Plexiglas picture of monkeys. A security guard rushes over to tell me that he can't touch that. My response, "Yeah, I am on it." Which I was, sort of. Zach had taken off to see the giant sloth and at least I knew were James was thanks to the banging. I mean he had not crawled up into an exhibit, calm down.

We then go through the Africa exhibit which has stuffed animals (real ones) in a variety of poses. Personally I am slightly terrified of the gorilla but have to pull myself together as my two year old is trying to make out with it.

They also had a section on shells (snore) but it included a small fish tank was in the back with a few crabs. James proceeded to yell "MAMA FISH" about 25 times until I persuaded him to leave with some illegal goldfish. Zach is fascinated by the giant shells hanging around him.

There is also a McDonald's in the museum which Zach so sweetly told me, as if I could not smell the fries and read. I decided that we all needed a treat, me for getting in trouble, Zach for being a good listener and James, well, James just got it by default.

I stupidly let them get ice cream which we had to rush outside to eat. We switched cones about four times until everyone was happy with the cone they had.

This is James saying, "Cheeeese".

And I am done. Home for bath time, brushing teeth and bedtime. Then some alone Mommy time until Alex comes home. Or I get to watch the Real Housewives in peace.