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Ever since someone told River that Halloween is about a month and a half away……she has been trying to decide what she wants to be….one day it is an elephant, then a robot, then Buzz Lightyear, then a cat…….she keeps insisting that she has to take everything out of her dress up bin….”to see if there is anything good in there for Halloween!”
I follow Meg’s blog over at Whatever. It is a wonderful blog filled with colorful photographs. She does a craft every Thursday. This past week she did a great craft project with butterflies. I got inspired to do the same craft. Usually, I let River just paint or glue whatever she wants..but I thought it would be fun to do a more focused project.
At first she complained because she was in a “painting mood,” not a “gluing mood”…but I convinced her it would be fun!
Of course, she wanted giant pink wings! She had a great time gluing…..I think she worked on this project for over an hour!! When she was finished, she insisted that the butterfly be turned over and more gluing needed to be done…on the other side!
When she was finished, I insisted that I take “adorable” photos of her and her butterfly…she didn’t agree and wasn’t happy with the photos..though I took them anyway!
This past Sunday we took part in the Bike Philly 2010….except it was raining. And it was freezing. But it was still fun. I love Philadelphia and I love bike rides where they close off the streets. I think that is a pretty unique experience…to get to ride along the street, without any cars.
This was just a laid back bike ride where you road at your own pace…..except it was a bit crowded and there were a lot of inexperienced cyclists who didn’t really know the rules of the road….
But it was really fun to bike along all the historic roads in Philadelphia…the bridge, the art museum, the Franklin Institute and so many other great spots.
We were prepared for the weather….we had on rain gear and warm clothes…but a lot of people were not prepared for the bad weather. I felt bad for the little kids who were riding in the downpour…without rain gear..and freezing…..especially the kids who were on tag alongs…connected to their parents bike…and the parents bike didn’t have a mud fender…so all the rain and mud was just flying up in their faces!
We also saw a lot of crazy trailers! Some were way overloaded or didn’t have covers….I love our trailer…we have two, but the one we normally use is a Trek Transit Deluxe. It is awesome for many reasons. (I think I should do a post just about why I love this particular trailer!)….let’s just say that River stayed dry the entire time!
It was a fun morning…and a bit of a bummer that it rained…..but it was still a great time. We were all happy to have some hot chocolate when we got home! (Sorry that the photos aren’t that great…but it isn’t easy to take photos while riding your bike…and my little portable camera didn’t like the rain..by the end…the lens was a bit foggy!)
I have a lot of frogs. I don’t collect frogs. If someone came to my front steps, they might think I collected them. They were my moms and I “inherited” them. They do make me smile because they remind me of my mom.
Katy, over at No Bill Dill, had a blog post yesterday about her first memories of sewing. It got me thinking about my first memories of sewing. I was impressed that she actually had the item that she had stitched as a young child. Then, last night, I suddenly remembered the little paper dolls that I had…actually my youngest daughter now has them. And they aren’t made from paper, they are made from some type of plastic.
I got them when I was about five years old. My grandmother’s church always had a bizarre at Christmas and spring time. All the church women would make crafts to sell at the bizarre. I purchased these wonderful dolls and played with them constantly I immediately realized that they didn’t come with enough clothes and I had to make more!
(I don’t think I named the dolls until several years later…as I can see by the cover of the folder!)
I remember asking my mom for some material. She had just finishing sewing an Easter dress for me and had some left over material. So, I cut out some outfits for my dolls. I don’t know if you would exactly call this “stitching”….it was more like cutting and gluing. But I did have to stitch on the snaps….and it took a long time to sew on all those snaps!
But I did keep the dolls, all these years. And my children all loved playing with them!
I can’t believe school started today! And I can’t believe how different Tuesday and Quinn look compared to last year! Last year, they looked so much younger…but then again, back then, I thought they looked so much older!
Tuesday had more confidence going off to school today….she’s a pro at middle school!
Quinn loves school and is always so excited when summer ends and school begins! He decided he wanted his hair short and I don’t even recognize him! He has had his hair long for such a long time!
Our town library is huge! I mean HUGE! It used to be a very small town library that was warm and cozy…but they knocked it down and built a humungous 21 million dollar library! I still can’t believe it cost that much money! It is a nice library, but I actually miss the old library. The new library is so massive and cold feeling. It seems like a lot of wasted space and energy!
But we go to the library a lot! River loves it there. Besides the books, one of River’s favorite things about the library is the statue outside. It is called “Sunday Morning” by sculptor J Seward Johnson. The library had it on loan for two years, but when the two years ended, the library purchased it through donations and fund raising….it was a bargain for only $65,000! I guess when the library costs $21 million, what is another $65,000!
She loves to stand on the statue plaque and pretend she is a statue..but then she starts to giggle….Quinn told her to sit by the statue and they would both pretend they were statues…that just made her giggle more!…but Quinn was good at being a statue!
Since Summer is almost over….we had to have one of our favorite meals……corn on the cob and fried tomatoes. Sometimes I serve this with some type of rice, but this time I decided to make a 5 bean salad that is served with feta cheese and hard boiled eggs. It was quite delicious…..