happenings

Man, I can't wait for June. I wouldn't have thought those words would ever enter my thoughts or come out of my mouth (not in Florida, anyway) but there you have it. It's been back-to-back crazy ever since February and it doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. But June is when we take a homeschool break, and that at least I can look forward to with some degree of certainty.

This past weekend we celebrated my oldest's ninth birthday, and a great time was had by all. I planned (and built, and planned some more) an adventure party which involved dirt, an obstacle course, bloodworms, and a lot of falling down.

You can read more about it over at The Grigoryevs, our family blog.

I also finished my friend's wedding dress. It was a relief to be finished (and to see the giddy smiles and hear the giggles that the finished product was met with). It also made me want to do MORE. I loved the whole process of making something pretty and special. I would love the chance to make one from scratch, rather than revamping an old one, if only because there were some slightly jerry-rigged bits that, as a perfectionist, made me feel a little twitchy. 

 In the interests of keeping things under wraps until the actual wedding has taken place, I don't want to show the whole thing. I felt bad that I put those other pictures up on the cat pee post--it didn't even cross my mind that a wedding dress needs to be a secret until the big day! Duh. But I can show you the little flowers I made to sit at her hip:

 I enjoyed using bits of the original dress in the embellishments. I used tulle from the petticoat we got rid of and some of the fabric-covered buttons from the jacket that came with the dress in these flowers. The groom is wearing a blue seersucker suit, so she wanted bits of blue in the flowers to reflect the color of his outfit. Fortunately I had a few blue beads in my collection of random things. 

I can't wait to show you the whole thing. !! I hope she gets good pictures for me to use, because between finishing the dress and throwing a b-day party (in the same day) I totally forgot to take a picture of the final product! Dang, I hate that. Still, it looks way better on her than it does on a hanger, so we'll keep our fingers crossed that I get a good pic of her wearing it after the fact.

This weekend I'm throwing my good friend Jenn a baby shower at my house. This is the first time I have ever done anything other than a Christmas or birthday party, so I'm pretty excited to use my girly ideas to make it pretty. Not too pretty, because she's having a boy, but still. Pretty. Fortunately, we're in agreement that there will be no lame, embarrassing games to play. No gross "guess the baby food" or "guess what candy bar I squished into this diaper" stuff.  And since this is her third baby, we're not doing presents--just food, praying for their family, and hanging out. Which means I get to focus on the prettiness. And the food. Eeeeee! Exciting.

And lastly, if you enjoy random things that kids say, you should read these posts. And yes, I gave my six and nine year-olds a bit of coffee yesterday. Try not to judge.