Hearts Full of Joy

little guy ties

i love to sew for my kids, and i can dream up endless opporutnites to sew for my girls, but very few for my little boy, especially as he gets older. one little man can only wear so many different pairs of pajamas. so i was delighted to find this pattern for "little guy ties" by "my little londyn". i easgerly started sewing them, and couldn't stop. my little guy is not the proud owner of 4 little ties, his dad has a matching tie, and we've also made one for a friend. i keep thinking of new fabrics that would be perfect to use.

his old ties were stained and snagged. i love that these are more washable and un-snag-able.

i thought he would like thing 1 & thing 2 the best, as they fit his personality so well, but excitedly picked out a print called "japanese words"

as his favorite. i asked him why he liked it...."i like the way i feel when i look at it". (he is japanese).

 

Noah says.....

hopscotching while wearing the cape Mia made him for Christmas.

Little man (turned 6 last month) was pondering in the kitchen yesterday before church.

"I know why Heavenly Father and Jesus made us!", he said, "so they can have fun watching us." (well, yes Noah, i'm sure they do have fun watching you....we sure do.)

Later in sacrament meeting (the family meeting in our church where we partake of the sacrament and renew our baptisimal convenants), Noah needed to use the bathroom....."Dad I know I won't get any ice cream (yes, we bribe our children to be good in church with ice cream - it works! they are supposed to use the bathroom before the meeting starts, and sit reverently through the meeting), but I think that it's more important that I take care of my health."

After returning from the bathroom, with all earnestness in his face, he rushed in, sat down, and said "what did I miss?"  This was particularly hilarious to us, as we are quite certain that he has yet to be aware of anything that has been said or done in sacrament meeting.

the year of the boy

my dear friend sarah gave birth yesterday, her eighth child and first boy! and i realized that everyone that i personally know who has had a baby this year, or who is expecting and knows the gender, is having a boy. so i have deemed this the year of the boy.

raw edged flannel burp clothes for my two new nephews: baby owen - born last month, and baby peter - born last week.

christmas cozies

always in search of fun projects for our hand made (or written, or second hand) christmas, i am looking for cozy pajama projects to use with this selection of flannels from my shop:

 

i love vintage, and feel blessed because that's just about all that's available in pajama patterns now. i'm considering some of these options i found on etsy for my littlest girls:

 

it would be so fun to live closer to my mom (for many reasons! including:) so that i could raid her vintage pattern stash for the perfect nightgown, like i did for easter dresses in 2008. 

i love this idea for little man,

but i'll use my own jenbei pattern i bought in japan to make summer jammies for my little japanese babes.

noah's room

my 17 year old took matters into her own hands and informed me that we were finally going to paint the stripes on little man's wall two saturdays ago (the saturday after pageant ended - more on pageant to come). i had originally planned to make these stripes vertical, but after separate input from both gloria and traci (who both have amazing decorating sense) i realized that horizontal would look great (and be much easier - yay!).
 
back in february brock and i had painted his walls blue, added the vinyl letters and maps, and hung the roman blinds (the blinds were all brock). the cans of paint for the stripes have been waiting in his room since we moved in a year ago, and the painting supplies have been waiting since february.

his room still needs so finishing touches, including the quilt i have cut out (shhh, don't tell him, it will hopefully get done in time for christmas).

back to school

it has been a ridiculously & somewhat embarrassingly long time since i posted. this summer has been incredibly full and amazing, and time has gotten away from me. i have neglected my blog, and everyone else's too. but school started today, and i am finding myself with just susie grace in the morning, and peace and quiet in the afternoon while she naps, so i anticipate finding some time to think, clean the house, and hopefully blog.

this morning before school.... the little ones' hair hadn't been combed yet because they leave for school much later than the bigger ones. we now have: a senior, a junior, a 3rd grader, and a kindergartner.

little man has been counting down the days until kindergarten starts ever since preschool graduation on May 8th. i love having my kids home with me, but this little one, and his sister just older need a lot more stimulation and social interaction that their older sisters did. is it just personality differences, i find myself wondering, or is it because they are different genders from each other and have a 3 year space, rather than a one year space. is it combination of these differences, or is there more to it? or less?

my kindergartner needed a pillow and blanket for rest time. i wanted to make him something that made him feel very loved and very cozy.

first i picked out some bright and lively blues and greens, but then remembered these flannels i have in my shop - woolies and shadowplay flannels from maywood. it was a delight to put this together. and now my mind is full of more possibilities for these fabrics. i made a small pillow case from the red and cream windowpane plaid print.

baby's birthday

susanna G is 2 years old.

because noah needed something to do, and i needed to get some things done, i encouraged him to get his giant construction paper pad, his gift from tashi on his birthday (and his favorite birthday present), and make some decorations for gracie's party. i envisioned him drawing some pictures. this is what he came up with:

i love it! he can be so surprising. i had gotten in the habit of having lower expectations for him because of his delayed speech and fine motor skills. he couldn't sit still for even one page of a book to be read to him until he was almost 4. but now he is really taking off, and wants me to do "school work" with him every day. lower expectations no more.

we love birthday presents that they can all enjoy together.

we were able to find one hour that we could all celebrate together, between the last day of school, scouts, achievement days, and young women's.

we were half way through the party when i realized that mia had worn this same dress on her 2nd birthday. brock points out that my subconscious must have realized it. gracie wanted to wear the same dress she wore on her birthday last year. she is wearing it today instead.

mia's quilt was a hit.

 

hazards of having an older brother

we're fast discovering that little girls with big brother are much more accident and injury prone.
 
wooden swing (the one tashi is swinging on, two posts ago) in the face. it looks much worse now, 2 days later. her eye is black and swollen and her face puffy. this was right after recovering from playing with brother in the car, falling out and skinning off the right side of her face on the driveway, which was right after recovering from brother's stick sword in the face, etc. calendula ointment to the rescue.

on the topic of baby grace, i was surprised by this coloring job she did the other day, 23 months old.
she carefully colored the paint, the painted star, and the letters.
here are some doodles on my to0do list from a few months ago. she is even more precise now, thinking she is writing. she got hold of an application form the other day and carefully filled every empty line with word-like doodles, just the right size.

little graduate

noah is a preschool graduate. his graduation was so adorable. they sang a song about a rainbow world, with lots of different kinds of people, as they waved their rainbow streamers, and he was the only ethnic child out of 35. he was also singing the loudest. so cute! we have adored preschool this year. noah has loved every minute of it, and was so disappointed when he was too sick to go, or school was cancelled. he has really blossomed during the year and moved from being a little behind, to a little ahead. and it was almost too good to be true to have the bus pick him up and drop him off in our front yard every day.

it is bitter-sweet that he will be miving on to all day kindergarten at the end of the summer. I have enjoyed my mornings with my little man. i enjoy having my children home, and don't like letting them go. although i do enjoy quiet alone time. gracie will be incharge of filling up my mornings next year.

noah is 5!

his birthday comes just two days after mia's. so it's that crazy time of year for us when a holiday and two birthdays fall in a week.

his favorite present was the jumbo pad of construction paper from natasha.

daddy tied up the tire swing that we drove around town to find in someone's "city clean-up" pile of garbage on tuesday.

the big present, combined for both noah & mia, is the fort/jungle gym/play set (we haven't yet decided what it will be called) that daddy is framing up. he planned  to have it done for the birthdays, but his time has been spent on re-modeling the building for the shop we are opening....more on that to come.

but yesterday wasn't just noah's birthday. i have a cousin and two good friends with the same birthday. and yesterday on facebook we discovered that at least 5 more of our friends were born on the april 17th, bringing the total to at least nine wonderful people in our lives who share this birthday. what a good karma day! it was a beautiful day this year, the best spring weather we've had so far, causing my shy daffodils to get serious about bursting and blooming.

noah got up and put on the same shirt he had worn last year on his birthday, but not intentionally.

 

noah one year ago, on his 4th birthday.