Happy Birthday, Bean!

Today Rory is five.  I keep reminding her that this is completely unauthorized and she keeps giving me her best "Oh, Mom..." teenage look impression.  Five!

The dinosaur obsession continues and is now joined by an affinity for superheros.  And pink.  I love this kid.  

We made some cupcakes for her class at preschool and found some Avengers erasers to decorate with.  I used a few pages from one of Andrew's old comics for a little extra fun.  (Yes, I had permission!)

Jack spied some cool superhero fabric at Walmart a few weeks ago and I soon found myself with a yard of it in my cart.  Just try to say no to a two-year-old enthusiastically yelling, "Look, Mommy!  Look!  Iron Man!  Captain 'Merica!  Hulk Smaaaaaaash!"   Last night I made Rory a birthday dress and have enough left over to make Jack something, too.  (He asked for a dress like his sister, but he may have some loud shorts coming instead.  Pajamas?  A shirt?  To be determined.)

I also made some magnetic paper dolls.  Pinterest helped me find a site with scans of vintage Betsy McCall paper dolls.  I loved that they resemble Rory.  I'm also jealous of Betsy's wardrobe.  Betsy's a smart little dresser.  She can rock corn as an accessory!  I picked a few favorites and printed them on some magnetic paper.  They work perfectly on a dollar store cookie sheet!

Happy, happy birthday to the coolest five year old ever!  I love you, Bean!

Birthdays and Babies, Part II

Rory was invited to a party for one of her preschool friends and I tried and tried to come up with a good gift to make a five year old boy.  I thought of some pretty good ideas and got some great suggestions and then found a cool action figure instead.  And I'm okay with that.  I felt like we needed to add a homemade touch in somewhere, though, so I decorated the gift with keyboard letters.  It counts, right?

I had two weekends in a row that I got to celebrate babies!  At church we had a shower for new mom Becca and the adorable Alaina made an appearance.  Beautiful mommy, beautiful baby!  Rory was thrilled that she got to attend the shower and stretched her social butterfly wings the entire time.  We made sweet Alaina a personalized name bag (seriously, they never get old) and I trimmed a plain white newborn tee with some vintage red polka-dot bias tape.  Voila!  

The next weekend my mom and I went to Shannon's twins shower in El Paso.  I was so excited to help host this one- it's not everyday you get to celebrate that one of your very best friends is going to be a mommy.  It's not everyday you get to celebrate TWO babies at one time.  Shannon and I have been friends for twenty four years now.  I've been excited to have this shower for a long time.  

That being the case, you'd think I would have remembered to take pictures of the gift.  

Oops.

I think part of the issue is that I actually finished most of it before the eleventh hour.  Weird, I know.  My natural "hurry up hurry up HURRY UP" rhythm was off.  I made the twins six burp cloths, two washcloths, two lightweight swaddle blankets, four fused plastic bibs, two knit hats and decorated onesies (one ruffly, one necktie).  My mom added some cute drool bibs and adorable outfits. We clipped each thing to a clothesline and put the whole thing into a wicker hamper. (Can't take credit for the idea- I loved when I saw it at Kelli's shower several years ago).  

Can't wait to meet these babies!  Neither can Rory.  She's already decided that they should be named Bug and Ruby.