Wednesday, January 30, 2008

sick day sewing projects


Annabelle is sick today, so I'm staying home with her. I can't get too much school work done while also watching her, but I did throw together a couple of quick sewing projects. I took a pair of pants Shannon was getting rid of and made stuff out of the legs. I made a laptop sleeve to protect my laptop while it's in my school bag and a tote bag out of the other leg. I like piecing things together out of already existing items because part of the structure is already there. It's not quite as hard or tedious as cutting something from a pattern. I also like making bags because they are very forgiving--they don't have to fit, and if the stitches are sloppy, it's less important than if it were on your clothes. Even with stopping several times for Annabelle, these pieces only took me an hour to make. Here's another view:

Sunday, January 27, 2008

366

This year I'm doing a 366 project. That means that I'm taking one picture every day for a year (this year has 366 days). I take pictures almost every day anyway, so this is an easy project for me. I'm posting them as a set on Flickr. You can see them at this address:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/slynne78/sets/72157603687437391/

You can also see it any time by clicking on the picture collage in the sidebar.

Friday, January 25, 2008

First step!


Annabelle took one step yesterday! Rebekah said we can't call Annabelle a baby anymore because she can stand up by herself. We don't have a picture of her walking, but yesterday I caught a cute one of her emptying the DVDs out of our cabinet. Notice the snazzy new leg warmers.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Weird Things Meme

LeLe tagged me for the weird things meme. I'm not going to tag anyone else because I can't keep track of who has already done one like this. But since she requested, here are some weird things about me.

1. One of my comfort foods is a concoction someone showed me when I was in elementary school, and I have made it for myself since I was a little girl. You take white bread, spread ketchup on it, top that with pickle relish and then a slice of cheese, and then microwave it until the cheese melts. It sort of reminds me of a McDonald's cheeseburger without the meat. I only eat that when I'm alone because it's weird, but it still tastes as good to me now as it did when I was 8.

2. I don't think my mother has ever called me Sarah. She calls me Sarah Lynne or Sister, but never just Sarah. (I'm not complaining--I like it)

3. I use a hundred different pet names for my kids. My most common ones are Snookie-boo, Lovey Bovey, Honey Baby, Bookie-choo, Hunny Bunny Wunny, and Baby Jaby. I try to only do it at home because I'm sure some people would find it annoying.

4. I look up my students on Facebook.

5. I get really involved with the novels I read, to the point of having a physical response--shaking, racing pulse, nausea--and sometimes I have to put the book away for a while to recover. I never read thrillers because I don't think I could handle them. Once I had a full-on panic attack because of a book. I often talk out loud to my books while I'm reading. Sometimes I hide them because they upset me so much (like that episode of Friends when Joey put The Shining--and later Little Women--in the freezer).

6. On the subject of books, I won't buy a book that has a movie picture on it or the words "Now a Major Motion Picture." A movie and a book are two different things, even if one was based on the other, so I don't like the conflation of the two. But also I'm sort of a book snob, and I don't want to appear as if I buy books just because there are movies based on them. I also don't buy books with Oprah's Book Club on the cover because I don't want to appear as if I buy books just because Oprah told me to.

7. I never ever sleep through the night. I wake up at least once, usually twice every night.

8. I miss my kids when they go to bed.

For good measure, here are some weird things about the other members of my household:

Shannon always has to be making some kind of noise, like clapping, tapping, flicking a pop top on a Coke can. He also has an amazing talent for tuning out everything around him. I can be sitting right next to him talking and he doesn't even know I'm there. He absolutely LOVES break-and-bake cookie dough and frequently makes a special trip to the grocery store just to buy it--we call it "Cookie Night." He bakes the whole package as soon as he gets home and eats them hot out of the oven, but he never eats them the next day. Only the night they are baked.

Rebekah does something I called "rebooting." If she is having a bad morning, sometimes she will lie back down in her bed and get up and start over again. One time when we came home from preschool, she got upset between the car and the house and got back in the car, buckled up, and then got out again. After that she was fine.

Annabelle loves the bathroom. We have to keep the door closed all the time because as soon as she sees it open, she crawls as fast as she can (and she's really fast!) to the bathtub and tries to get in. Once she stuck her hands in the toilet and played in the water. She almost knocked over her high chair once when Shannon started running her bath water while she was still in her chair.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Standing up!


Yesterday Annabelle stood up without help and without pulling up on anything. She just stood herself up and looked at us. Rebekah said, "Mommy, why isn't she falling down?" She only did that once, but several times she pulled up on something and then let go. She'll be ready to walk any time now. The picture above is not too good because the lights were off when I took it. Annabelle got up about an hour after she went to bed to practice her new skill. We had to keep the lights dim so we wouldn't wake up Rebekah.

Earlier that day Rebekah wanted to play basketball, and since it was cold and wet I suggested that we stay in and use Shannon's new collapsible cooler for a goal. Later I went into the other room to feed Annabelle, and when I came back I found this:
She had a bit of a struggle getting out. She got herself tipped over, but every time she tried to get out, she rolled. I confess, I watched her roll around the living room a few times before I stepped in and rescued her. :)
BTW, this picture features one of the amusing features of our living room. There's not a good place to put an entertainment center, and we wouldn't use the fireplace with a baby around, anyway, so we put the TV on the hearth in front of the fireplace. It goes great with our low-budget child-proofing--we just pile pillows up in front of the bricks.

Friday, January 18, 2008

bundled up

The girls are ready for the Texas-style wintry day. Cold and wet, no snow in sight. This is what we call good chili weather.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

wrinkly nose


Not quite the "nosy smile" that I wrote about a couple of days ago, here is one of Annabelle's many wrinkly-nosed expressions.

She's got the joy joy joy joy . . .



After dinner, Rebekah got out some modeling clay.

Rebekah: Can I play with this?
Sarah: Not right now. It's too messy.
Rebekah: But Jesus said yes.
Sarah: What?
Rebekah: Jesus is in my heart and I hear him saying yes.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Annabelle update

Annabelle is now nine months old, and she is a speedy little crawler. For the past few days she has been standing up on her own--I think the record is twelve seconds. She seems like she is ready to walk any minute now. She weighs 22 pounds now, about the same that Rebekah weighed at her age. Last week she didn't feel so well, and it turned out she had two ear infections. This is just the second time she's had one, so we're doing pretty well on that front. She is feeling much better now and is back to her perky self. She expresses herself loudly, whether she is happy or sad, and she has a great big laugh. I wish I could show what we call her "nosy smile"--when she's really happy, she wrinkles her nose and smiles with her whole face. We haven't managed to catch it on camera yet, but that is my mission next week.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

free rice

This message probably sounds like spam, but I promise it is a real post from me, Sarah. I just wanted to share this website with you.

If any of you need a brief diversion, go to www.freerice.com. It is a word game that tests your vocabulary, and for each word you get right, 20 grains of rice are donated to fight world hunger. You don't have to sign up for anything--you don't even give your name. The "rice" is donated in the form of money to the United Nations World Food Program. The connection between your word game and the donation is when you click on a word an advertisement appears at the bottom of the screen. Companies pay for the ad space, and the Free Rice organization donates that money. I've looked into it, and it appears to be completely legitimate.

And, besides, word games are fun.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Overdue Christmas wrap-up

Wow! It feels like Christmas was a year ago! We started our travels at night a few days before Christmas and stopped in a hotel to break-up the long drive. Unfortunately, the hotel's crib was already begin used and we discovered that Annabelle MUST sleep in a baby bed. Every time we put her in the floor or in bed with us, she thought it was party time. After a long night, we went to Hooks to visit Mamaw and Papaw Evans (or G.G. and Great-Papaw, depending on who you ask), where Rebekah tried to "speak" to the dogs in their own language, barking through the window, while Annabelle took a dip in their water bowl. This is why we don't have a dog! From there it was on to Arkansas where the girls got to play with TEN cousins!


We had an early Christmas celebration (which Annabelle slept through!), and drove home on Christmas Eve, so as not to miss Santa Claus. He came through for Rebekah, bringing exactly what she asked for--a violin and a piano (electric keyboard). We're hoping the toy versions encourage her interest in music so that maybe next year she can start taking instrument lessons. She has definitely inherited a love of music from both sides of the family. Annabelle got a very simple toy that has been one of the favorites--a set of stacking/nesting bowls that also fit together to make four balls to roll. They both play with that toy every day.

After Christmas, Mom and Dad came down, and we had our third Christmas celebration. They gave us a PlayStation 3, which I resisted until I learned that it plays Blu-Ray DVDs. I got a dancing game that lets you play your own CDs, so I've been dancing to a lot of 80s pop in my living room--that is officially my new work-out plan. And rest assured, you won't be seeing pictures of that here!