The amazing three dollar shirt

My regular readers will know all about my obsession with buying fabrics and craft items.  I am sick. Seriously.  So sick that I like to just buy fabrics to fold up into neat piles and look at them.....even if I have no project in mind at all.  (You wouldn't know that I like to fold them into neat little piles by looking at my craft room right now....)  Anyway, I have all these adorable fat quarters.  Every time I see a cute fabric, I buy some.....it satisfies my urge to purchase fabric, without committing to a bunch of yardage. (cost)

I found some clearance fat quarters at JoAnn's (not my favorite) and scooped them up.  I think they were a buck apiece, which is pretty cheap.  Instead of just letting them lay around looking cute, I decided I was going to make something.....thus, the amazing three dollar shirt!  This was SO easy, and maybe took me 45 minutes to make, but I think next time I could make one way faster since I've already figured it out.  Seriously, it took three fat quarters and a piece of elastic.  That's it!  Sissy got compliments on it all day.  I am loving that it is gray, too.  For some reason I am all about her wearing gray lately.  I think it's the combination of gray on milky white skin and blue eyes that looks so pretty to me!  Plus, it doesn't have teddy bears or other dumb kid junk on it and THAT is the best thing.
     Forgive me the quality of this picture...my model was demanding and unrelenting, and having a "Naomi Campbell" moment.  It's a little blurry because she wasn't having any of this posing business.  It was after naptime (note the rat's nest hair) and had milk and snack on the brain.

Just a swingin'.....

The twins love, love, LOVE the new playscape so it turns out it was worth the 24+ hours it took to put it together!  They have refused to swing since they were about 18 months old, so I am pleasantly surprised that the swings on this thing are such a hit.  One drawback.....to swing, one must be pushed.  So much for doing my own thing while they climb on their new toy.  Nope, I am out there the whole time, too!
Oh well, with smiles this big, who can resist when they hear "Mommy?  You push me?"

Big, BIG day!

Yesterday was just about as eventful as they come.  My brother and Holly came home from Albuquerque.  I decided to redecorate my living room, and started researching THAT.  My best friend found out the gender of the baby she is expecting, Livi crawled two "steps", and Sissy........(drumroll please).........pooped on the pot!  The last few days she has been wearing no diaper.....but not going on the potty.  Clearly she is all bladder, and just holds everything until naptime or bedtime when she can let it go in her pull up.  I am telling myself that this is a step in the right direction, because AT LEAST she doesn't want to go in her underwear. The last time she pooped in her diaper, she told me Dixie (our dog) did it.....(that poor animal gets everything blamed on her!)
Sissy had an accident (pee pee) at the playground earlier in the week, and she did NOT like how that felt, which is good for us all!  She was cracking us up, because she made Mimi come over and SEE where she peed.  Telling her wasn't good enough.  Anyway, yesterday Sis came to find me to let me know she needed to go on the potty.  (yeah!!)  We went and sat down, and the tears started.  I'm not exactly sure why sitting on the potty makes her cry, but it does.  It took a few times of sitting there before she actually went.  She did NOT want to do it, but Mommy might have "strongly encouraged" her to stay seated.  Finally, success!! She was so proud and had to tell everyone...she is wearing them again today, so keep your fingers crossed that I am halfway on my way to potty training these two!
(How TINY is she in that picture???  She was barely walking that day, and loved her little tutu.  I can't believe that tiny thing is potty training, and telling me what to do all day.)

The Quarantine is Over!

After three LOOONNNGGG days of suffering with fever, I am relieved to announce Bub is fever free as of tonight.  I'm not sure who suffered more in this house...me, Sissy (who couldn't stand all the attention he was getting), Liv (who almost had to learn how to change her own diaper) or the sick kid himself.  He was so pitiful....wanted to be held, and laid all day on the pallet I made for him on the couch.  This is VERY unlike him....I normally see him whiz by the doorway about three times during the day and then at mealtimes.  He is only super needy when he is sick.  I knew he was getting to feeling better around lunchtime, when he bit Sissy in the back.  Illness or no illness, he had to go to time out, but personally I think he'd had enough of her pestering.  It was like poking a mean dog through a cage.  You get what you get.  This little illness trapped us at home, so we attempted a little potty training.  I am starting with Sis, instead of beating my forehead against a proverbial wall and attempting two two year olds at once.  She did allright, but might have constipated herself with her fear of doing THAT on the potty.  The highlight of my day was watching my two girls play on the floor together.  Baby can sit up now, and loves having her little toys spread out on the floor to play with.  It made me happy to see Sissy interacting with her in a way that didn't involve smacking her upside the head.  Sis laughed and laughed as she put a bunch of items on the baby's head, and baby obliged.  She showed her the little fake bottle that came with one of her baby dolls, and we both laughed when Liv tried to suck on it.  There may have even been some snuggling going on with these two.  They might end up loving each other after all!

How juicy is this baby?  Just looking at this picture makes me want to squeeze those cheeks!  I love the little look on her face, like she is thinking, "Hmph. What are you going to do about it??"

Friday morning.....

While they did this...

I worked on these....

A bib, two burp cloths and a diaper and wipes case for an order...

Livi played happily in the bouncy seat,  and my house smells yummy because of a lemon candle I found at Marshall's.  Now everyone is in bed, and I have four billion things to do.  I need to clean my house, finish laundry, iron, sew, study the instruction manual for the playground we are installing tomorrow, schedule an appointment at the body shop to repair the dent in my back bumper caused by a "hit and runner"....but I really want to watch "Australia" on TV....choices, choices.  

The baby has only been on this earth for seven months, and already she has a list of aliases a mile long!  Just so I remember these ridiculous names years down the road, I document them here; not that this is a topic that anyone outside of our immediate family will find the least bit entertaining.  

We hardly ever call her "Olivia"....that seems too formal, too stuffy for this little thing that I know so well, and who loves me so much.  That seems like a name fit for people who don't know her, or more appropriately, written on her hospital name badge as an adult when she is a neurosurgeon.  :)  Her first nickname was "Livatino"....branching off Livatino, there is "Teeno" and "Teen".  This gets a little confusing at times, because Hayden also answers to "Teeno" or "Teen"....which came from "Chickatino"which in itself mutated into Sissatino and a variety of other names we won't list here.  Back to the baby....  Getting a little further away from it's original derivation is "Pibblitino" which has also become "Pibblet" and "Pibs".  (My favorite use of this is Sissy running in from the other room hollering at me: "Mommy!  I think Pibs is hungry!  You better nurse her!")  Along the same line as "Pibblitino", we have "Nibbletino" which of course can be shortened to "Nibblet" or "Nibs" in a pinch.  There is also the old favorite "The Baby" or "The Tiny One".  If someone were to listen in on a conversation between my husband and I as we discuss our children, they might very well think we are talking about dogs. (As in: "Did you feed Lish and Skeen?  What about Pibs?") Okay, okay, the names are really silly.....but I love that we use them.  Getting a nickname from Shawn or I is like being branded.  It's about familiarity, and love....so it makes sense that these babies of ours have so many of them!