We got to celebrate brother this weekend and although I do not have any pictures of his finished quilt (he is all cozy with it in dreamland right now) I do have some pictures from his firetruck party! It was a fun little party with friends, sun, fun and cupcakes. It is hard to believe that the little man is another year older. I feel like time is flying by. A few of our friends have wee little ones and just to flash back to that time is amazing. It is overwhelming to ponder going back to night time feedings, bottles and burpings. I loved it when I was there but I love these stages as well. I think that every stage will be my favorite. Each stage is hard with new adventures to conquer but I love learning to be present where I am and where they are. I want to be where they are. I am not great at it but I am learning. My time with these little ones is passing faster than I ever imagined possible. I want to drink deep, I want to teach, I want to love well. I know, I have had this conversation and these thoughts before but it is true! I want to be and remain fully present for each year of life! I am thankful for the princesses and firetrucks that we have celebrated this month. A year will make a huge difference who knows how we will celebrate next year but that does not matter yet. . .what matters is here, today and this moment! So hard! So fun!

We celebrated Sister this past weekend with a royal party! She invited a few prince and princesses over and while we were hoping to play in the backyard the rain had other plans for us. The royal party was held indoors but the princesses and princes did not seem to mind. It was so fun to see all the kiddos dressed up and playing together. It was a wonderful time and sister really enjoyed it which was fun to watch.
I used this tutorial for the crowns and we filled the gift bags with paint to decorate their crowns with. Super fun and easy!

The work of Mushroom Meadows on the gift tags. She actually made a few things for the party including the incredible invitations! Thanks again to her! If you have not seen her work check out her Etsy shop! I am a huge fan!

We continue to finish up Sister’s room and add little touches of happy things. We knew that when she had her own room that we wanted a way to display her art work. She is very sincere when she tells us a million times a day that she would like to be an artist when she grows up. She loves to tell us about her art work over and over as they all have a story and they all bring her great joy! We finally got around to draping ribbon on one side of her room to hang her artwork from this weekend. It was such a sweet thing to see her excitement as she dug through the art box to pick out the pictures that she would like to display. When all was hung she just kept looking at it and smiling. Such a simple thing that brought so much joy! I love that she has her own space where everything just seems to have her name all over it.
Another touch she added this weekend was flowers. We had a warm snap about a week ago so it forced all of our Daffodils up early and then of course we had a light dusting of snow yesterday. Sister was very excited to pick a few flowers and place them in her room. She was giddy and kept showing them to Brad and I both about a million times. I think that her husband could be in trouble with this love of flowers although she would like to be a flower gardener as well when she grows up!
Sorry, I could not pick just one flower picture!

She is teaching me a lot about embracing beauty and enjoying it, whatever it may be, even dirt!

Sister got to celebrate Valentines Day with her friends at school yesterday! She was a happy camper as there is nothing like happy little letters from all your friends and tons of sugar all in the same hour! We are still coming down off the sugar high! Here is a little peak at Sisters finished V-day box which I had promised!

Wishing you lots of happy little letters and a perfect amount of sugar!!!

Sister received preschool homework for the weekend of making a Valentines Day box to house all her little Valentines in. I understand why this is homework as it takes a large chunk of time. We worked for about and hour and a half today and she still wants to add a lot more. I think that she has a lot of her mama in her! It was really fun to work on it with her but yet so hard not to have my hands all in it! I love watching her thought process and just her all in attitude of creating the most incredible Valentines Day Box known to mankind! The picture was taken at about an hour into the project so it has come a bit farther. She still wants to add some ribbon and some other goodies so I will have to update if and when we ever finish the best Valentines Day Box ever!!!

In honor of the first day of school I thought that I would share a few pictures of sister’s backpack. I used the Easy-Breezy Back Sack pattern from Lizzie B Cre8tive.

I was excited with the way that it turned out!!!

Preschool open house is tomorrow!!! I do feel as though I am in a daze as we all anticipate what school will look like for us. Will she make it to the door of her room without melting or for that matter will I make it without melting! A new adventure is waiting to begin. I am excited for the open house and time to meet sister’s teacher with her. It will definitely be a big change to our routine. The first day is next Tuesday so in preparation I had to make her a little dress as I felt the need to cover her in love as I send her off.

Somehow I lost the armhole pattern piece and ended up buying a new pattern only to discover that I could not find the left over material (no, I don’t need to clean the craft area, really, it is organized). I substituted bias tape which turned out pretty well although when that was finished of course the material turned up, alas! Also, can you tell that ironing is not something that happens around here often!

The button on the back is really sister’s favorite part about the dress!

Yes, well I might of started the quilt early but I finished it just in time for the birthday party! I like the way that it all came together. It is still a little over the top pink for me but I think that sister will like! Everything is all wrapped up and ready to be opened tomorrow at her party. The cupcakes are finished and I just have a few treat bags left to put together. I finished half of her birthday outfit a few days ago but the shirt is still waiting! There is still time…right!? For now I am off to clean up the icing and sprinkles that are all over the kitchen!

We dance a lot at our house so when I stumbled upon this it hit deep! I had to pass it along. There is a music video and then a little clip of him (Steven Curtis Chapman) explaining the story behind the song. Grab a box of Kleenex on your way to the website! Happy Dancing!!!

http://www.stevencurtischapman.com/cinderella.htm

Yesterday was the big day! I voluntarily drug myself out of bed (with the help of my husbands pushing) at 4:10am. Why you might ask…well, the only reason that I can really give for that is solely because I am out of my mind! You see yesterday was preschool sign up day. After months of talks and negotiations in our home we settled on a preschool and decided this was the year to start. The preschool has ages 2-4 and sister will be three when she starts in the fall. Wednesday was actually the first day of registration but it was only for those people who had already been in the program so those with siblings who are already in the program or those returning to the program. Thursday was the day for newbies. Calling the day before we (a friend and I trekked through this craziness together) found out that there were only three spots left for the 3 year old classes which meant we needed a plan! Registration started at 8:30am and we knew that we would have to be some of the first people in line to get a spot at all so thus the early rise. We were headed to the line by 4:30am. It is really really dark and cold at 4:30am and people are still in their cozy beds and nothing in the world is open at this hour (that would have something yummy and warm to drink that is). Upon our arrival we discovered we were the first ones there so after a little celebratory dance we settled in for the wait. People actually started to arrive shortly after we did. We are not alone in being totally out of our minds!!! A little before 6am we were able to get into the building so that was really exciting to be able to warm up a bit. We passed the time by sitting and chatting. My mom generously brought us beverages and my friends husband brought us breakfast bars (the brain was not working at 4am or we could of thought to bring these things for ourselves). We were able to have a bit of uninterrupted conversation which is pretty rare and fun but mainly the conversation was about how totally and completely out of our minds we really are. The funny thing is that neither one of us would of been devastated if we had to go on the waiting list. Maybe it was the thrill of being first or maybe it was just the fun of doing something totally crazy together, I don’t know. 8:30am finally came and not a moment too soon as that early rise was starting to hit me again. With a quick filling in of a form and a handing over of a check it was all over. No balloon no sticker just okay, you are all signed up. We decided that we needed to celebrate so we hit Panera for breakfast and chatted more about how truly crazy we are and the hope that we had that someday our kids would be so excited that we had camped out to get them into preschool. Now that sister is all signed up for preschool I feel a little out of my mind that I on my own free will signed up my child to go off into the big world. Wow! I am glad that it does not start until August.