Walking Girl and Working Girl

Mary is finally and truly walking!  It only took 16 months, but she's no longer screaming like a banshee if we set her down on her feet.  It's even her preferred mode of getting around now.  It seemed like that would never happen.  She is still clinging to my hip 99% of the time, but the other 1% is now spent walking!  Yippee for our Walking Girl!

While Mary is walking, Bridget has been working.  As I've mentioned (and belabored the point), Bridget needs to be busy if we are to have any peace in our household.  Somehow -- magically! -- Happy Bridget comes out to play when she has a craft or a project to work on.  Lately, I've been capitalizing on this, and she's had a lot of work to do.  She doesn't mind at all.  Make 12 instruments out of paper and tape?  No problem.  Make glasses from anything you have on hand?  No sweat.  Make a tedious design on the sandbox bench at the park?  Check.  Cut out 50 coupons?  Yes!  (Why didn't I think of this before? And I guess this would be the point where I admit to even having that many coupons that need to be cut...)  Anything that will keep her busy and give her some purpose.  In fact, she is usually the one to come up with these "jobs," and is all too willing to get them done.

      

    

Here she is after deciding that she needed to educate people (her simple family) on how to make an "8."  She spent a lot of time making the sign and then marching around the house with her know-it-all-ness.  Thank God she did this.  I was really worried if I was making mine the right way.

While Bridget has always had a couple pet names in this family (Bridgey, Bridgey Widgey), she has some newer ones that she approves of.  On the list of acceptable names are:  Crafty Girl, Freckles, Dimples, 20 Questions and now, at her request...Working Girl.  You want us to call you Working Girl, Bridget?  Yes. We can do that :) I think this is too funny to not latch onto and run with.  Considering the amount of ridiculous drama she creates every day, I will think of this as a small victory, and it guarantees me a little smile every time I call her by that name.

So, yes, she can be a working girl for now.  For later, though?  She has a plan for that, too.  A few days ago, I jokingly told her that I'm sure she's going to be an actress and an artist when she grows up.  She glanced up from her masterpiece of the millisecond with a very serious face, nodded and agreed. "Yes. And a singer."  Oh my.

Watch out, world.  Bridget Stecher AKA Working Girl is coming,

Halloween Strawberry Shortcake Sweetness 2012

Yep, we did it again.  (Okay, I did it again.  Matt can be spared any responsibility for this!)  We squeaked out another themed costume for all of the girls.  It may not be the last, judging from the enthusiastic response from Megan, the one I was most worried about.  At 6, she didn't bat an eye at coordinating with her little sisters, and she and Bridget even loved pointing Tessa, Annie and Mary out to their friends at school during their Halloween parade.  It helped that they were dressed as the Strawberry Shortcake gang.  It also helped that Megan was Strawberry Shortcake ;)  It's no accident that she's been the "main character" for the last few years.  She has been Dorothy, Wonder Woman, Alice in Wonderland, and now Strawberry Shortcake.  I'm thinking about possibilities for next year...
But, for now, back to those Strawberry Shortcake girls!  And their costumes!!  I made them :)  I'm more than a little proud that it all came together as well as it did, considering this was pretty ambitious for me.  Even though I hadn't used my sewing machine in over a year, I naively thought I could give it a go.  I aimed low, and set out to just make two pieces for each costume: their wig and their apron.  Everything else was something we already had, borrowed (2 skirts) or bought (the tights).  But, even the task of making those elements was overwhelming, so I started with a little sketch.  I decided that Mary would be the "gang's" little puppy, since we had a little puppy costume already (vintage Bridget 2008 and Megan 2007), so I really just needed to focus on creating four other costumes.  But, coordinating the colors and components for each of those costumes was making my head spin.  I'm already prone to walking into a store and forgetting what I came for or getting distracted with so many options, so I knew I would be a mess in the fabric store if I didn't know exactly what I needed.  I'm so glad I drew this out, too, since I referred back to it many times, both in the fabric aisles and during my late-night sewing sessions.

Megan and Bridget came along with me to the fabric store.  They were so excited, and so was I.  It was a first glimpse of mother-daughter crafting time.  I guess it would be akin to a father taking his son to his first baseball game (not that we would know about that in this family!).  For me, it means sharing something I love with them, and then brimming with pride when they get into it.  It also reminds me of doing these things with my mom!



Once we purchased all of the necessary fabric and sewing supplies, we got home and...the bag sat untouched for a couple weeks!  I may be somewhat crafty, but I am a professional when it comes to procrastination.  So, this project should be especially impressive for the amount of time I (didn't) dedicate to it.  A stomach bug that ran through our entire house a week before Halloween didn't help matters.  (All of us were sick at the same time.  I could write a blog post about that, but who would want to read that?  On an unrelated note, why oh why can't kids be born with the ability to throw up in the toilet when they need to?)
At T minus 5 days, I finally buckled down and whipped up all four little pockets for Strawberry Shortcake, Raspberry Torte, Orange Blossom and Lemon Meringue.  I had to pause at this point (at about 3am) and marvel at the fact that nothing here was stapled together!

And over the course of the next two days, I made an apron pattern, sewed four aprons and attached the pockets.  No staples here either!  (Not that there's anything wrong with staples...)  Every Halloween costume needs a cute little pocket for extra special pieces of candy!

The finished aprons :)

The last two nights were spent very tediously making their wigs.  But, I don't have pictures of those by themselves.  It was a lot of sewing by hand while watching trashy TV in the wee hours of the morning.  By some Halloween miracle, everything was ready in time for the girls' parade at school.  I would not have any pictures of us leaving for school that morning if our photographer neighbor hadn't been waiting outside to catch a glimpse of our sweet girls all dressed up:

The girls were a little leery of the paparazzi on the way to the car, but I'm thankful for the shots! (And Tessa, even dressed as Lemon Meringue, still needed to carry an armful of books to the car, as usual.) 

Once we got to school, I managed to get a few shots, even though it was drizzling.  The parade was moved into the auditorium because of the rain, thankfully.  I'm not sure how the yarn in those wigs would have held up once soaked!

As it turned out, Megan and her friend Arianna were both Strawberry Shortcake :)

Over in the kindergarten group, Bridget had to correct everyone who thought she was Strawberry Shortcake, too. I guess the differences between Strawberry Shortcake and Raspberry Torte are pretty subtle.

Round 2 of costumes came after everyone had a nice long nap.  Too long of a nap!  It was a mad dash to get them all dressed, fed, and photographed before we headed out to Trick-or-Treat.  I'm so happy we were able to get some cute pictures, even amid all of that chaos.  It helped that Grandma and Grandpa, Mop, and Aunt Stacy were all behind the camera helping to get smiles.  I think Mary has turned into our biggest ham!

Tessa (Lemon Meringue) and Annie (Orange Blossom) 

Megan (Strawberry Shortcake)

Bridget (Raspberry Torte)

We couldn't very well have just the girls dress up, though, could we?  Actually, I thought we could.  It would have been fine.  Perfectly fine.  Matt disagreed, though, and was hell bent on getting the two of us in costume, too.  He had the day off of school, so he made a solo trip to the Halloween store to complete our family costumes...

I present Sour Grapes and the Purple Pie Man (with a baby toy parrot on his shoulder).

We were quite the sight as walked down the street to trick-or-treat!

We hope your Halloween was as sweet as it was here!

Recent Randomness

I think this is the most random post I've ever written.  The pictures below are a combination of gems from my phone and my camera, and none documented big events or any particular occasion.  But, I love what they show -- just our everyday life!

Mary loved cheering on the Giants for their World Series win :)

She was equally excited about SI's Bruce Mahoney win in football (a big game between St. Ignatius and Sacred Heart every year)!


She's also supportive of academics, though.  In fact, I think she's a little annoyed at me disturbing her quality time with Megan here.  She sat like this for a long time with her big sister, just soaking up some "math sentences."

Four big girls.

One of them is doing her own thing.

She's definitely doing her own thing!  Bridget has been a little bit of a, ahem, challenge lately.  She is an absolute bear to be around most of the time.  Her mood swings wildly from one extreme to the other. Apparently, she's a model child at school, the most obedient and pleasant child in her class.  However, she turns into a serious pot-stirrer by the time she gets buckled into the car after school (if she makes it that long!).

"It's a looong day, Mommy.  I can't be good all day long."  

We've been trying, desperately, to reward her for good behavior.  She has a little poster up on her wall to document her "good girl" days.  It's pretty blank, unless you count the random scribbles and drawings all over it.  Just one day with no whining, screaming, tantruming, or drama.  That's all we need for her to earn a toy from my "secret stash," and she just.can't.do.it.  (Although, as I'm writing this, she actually had a day today that may qualify.  Thank God!)

I know she's not the first or last kid to have a rough transition to the big, wide world, especially transitioning to the longer hours of a full-day kindergarten.  She is a great napper when she's not at school, so she's definitely missing a couple hours of sleep by being at school until 3.  Picking her up after school is like picking up a tiny little bomb that may go off at any given moment.  The keys to handling this bomb are holding it very delicately, insulating it from any sudden movements, and keeping it from realizing it's explosive potential with lots of distraction and activity!  Lately, our little bomb can be kept un-detonated with an uninterrupted stream of arts and crafts, lots of paper and tape, constant attention and purpose.  If she's busy, she's an angel. Recently, she had her kindergarten class' Barney the Bear over a long weekend, and she made herself very busy (and me by association, with her demands that pictures be taken documenting their every move together) with the entertainment of this little guy.  She orchestrated a seat for him at the breakfast table, and even smuggled him along for a Bridget/Barney/Mommy Costco trip.

Poor Barney was also subjected to this little photo shoot as well.  Welcome to our house of girls, Barney!  Are you sure you don't want to stay longer than the weekend?! 

In other Mary news, she is obsessed with both (clean) underwear and her belly button!  She now knows a few body parts (teeth, hair, toes, and most hilariously -- to her -- her belly button).  She rubs her belly button like it's a little lovey when she's tired.  And, if it's been covered up all day with pesky clothes, she just can't wait to have access to it :)  Kids are so weird and each one is so different.  We've never had a belly-button rubber or an underwear-obsessed baby before!  

     

Speaking of all those kids, I took all of them to cast my vote!  We were quite the sight as I juggled Mary on my hip, made sure I was voting for the right candidates, and had four more girls swarming at my feet, including Tessa lying on the floor with a coloring book below my voting booth :)  But, they were all rewarded for their civic duty with stickers,

and swinging at the "outside park" conveniently located next to the polling station!

These three little girls are still a little crazy pack during the day while Megan and Bridget are at school.

The girls are in love with a game that Bridget received for her birthday.  It's called Fairytale Spinner Game, and they all get into it.  It's so, so fun to hear them each make up their own different story at the end of each game after they collect the components and characters.  I know I would have been terrible at this as a kid, so I'm so proud of their imaginations, especially Megan's.  It's a testament to the hundreds of stories Matt has told them at bedtime every single night.  I can't recommend this game highly enough for building story-telling and writing skills.  In the words of Megan, "The moral of this game is to have fun.  It's not about winning or losing."  Okay, so maybe we need to go over the word "moral" again, but you get the idea :)

Reading is always a favorite activity.  And when I say reading, I mean "reading."  :)  You can be sure I would dedicate a whole post to this topic if our three-year-olds were truly reading.

Mary doesn't get to swing too often because her mean mommy thinks it's easier if she stays in the stroller when we're out at the park.  When she's free, though, she will swing and swing...and swing some more.  And she thinks she's pretty cute and coy, too.  I tend to agree.

That's all for randomness.  For now.