Snippets

Ella and Miller started swim lessons yesterday.  It is amazing at how quickly they can just pick it right back up.  Ella was definitely swimming on her own last year, but was a little rusty before her lessons started.  After two days she is now a little fish.  She is most proud that she can now float on her back.  She has not verbalized why she loves it so much, but I know the reason.  She is now like Annie (remember Annie floating in the pool with Daddy Warbucks?)  She now floats and floats, even singing while she floats.  Of course I am probably ruining it for her because every time I see her floating I remind her that if she ever gets stuck in the pool or lake and cannot swim she needs to turn over on her back and float.  

Miller let me get more shots of him as their lessons started.  I did not want to stand there too long with the camera because I did not want to cause a distraction.  

It really seems like we were just here doing this.  Somehow it has been a whole year!

Ella came running in the room the other day so proud of her self saying, "Mommy, Mommy, I need a rubber band!  I braided my hair!"  She has been working on braiding her hair for a little while now.  This was by far the closest she has gotten.  This time she actually used multiple strands of hair to complete her braid, she just only used two instead of three.  She is close.  But don't you worry, we put a rubber band in that braid and she wore it proudly all day!  Such innocence.  This is one of the reasons I am so sad about Ella going to kindergarten.  As she gets older this innocence will start to fade.  Ella is so proud that she braided her hair and thinks that it looks awesome hanging in front of her face.  Even if someone told her it was not a braid she would just shrug her shoulders and say, "yes it is," and keep going without missing a beat or feeling the slightest bit of self consciousness that someone did not like the way that she had fixed her hair for the day.  I know that this innocence and self-confidence in her ability to be who she is, no matter what others think, will not last forever.  But while she has it, I try do what I can to encourage her to be who she is.  Of course, my pride would rather her have a big cute white bow or ribbon in to match her outfit.  But deep down I would rather her be proud of herself for braiding her hair all by herself.  Saying all this, don't be fooled, we often have arguments about the clothes that she decides to wear.  Pretty much the rule is I choose (or give her two options) for school and church and the other days she has free reign.

(You can tell I have not blogged a lot lately because I have about 10 different blog posts in one.  Sorry for that, these are just little snippets of our week...)

You know the Lee girls are getting older when they can wear pigtails!  I love pig tails!  I have so many snapshot pictures in my head of Ella when she was little with her big chubby cheeks, a huge grin and the cutest pigtails.  I have tried a couple of times recently with Sara Wells, but her hair just stuck straight out and did not curl at all.  As much as I do love little girls in pigtails, they looked terrible.  We got to the lake for our swim lessons and it was soooo hot.  It had been about a week since I tried, so I thought I would try again...

 Just enough curl for them to flop over just enough(instead of sticking straight out) and look so cute.

Yesterday after swim lessons while Ella and Miller were zombie like on the couch watching a movie (don't you remember that feeling of being so tired after you swam all day that you did not feel like you could move another muscle) Sara Wells and I made pudding pops.  There is just something about summer that makes me want to make homemade popsicles.  I don't know why, but the thought of them just makes me happy.  We tried a few last summer and they were ok.  The kids favorite was lemonade popsicles.  I just made lemonade and poured it into the popsicle molds.  I thought they were way too icy.  To me they tasted like lemon ice cubes.  I also tried chocolate pudding pops.  I made chocolate pudding and then poured it into popsicle molds.  The kids liked these, but they to were too icy.  When I was looking up recipes, I actually found this complaint from several other people.  Yesterday we tried strawberry.  I was going for fruity and refreshing.  They were ok, Miller and Sara Wells liked them, Ella only ate half of hers.  I used cool whip along with milk, strawberries and the pudding mix.  It definitely made the popsicle not so icy, but still not making the kids jumping up and down.  Do, you any of you have any fun summer popsicle recipes?  If you do, please share!

And I will close with this...  It has been a long time since I have shared any of my projects lately, but I have been sewing recently.  It took about a week to get my sewing room set up after the move, but it has been functioning in full gear (The sewing room might actually be what I miss most about this rental house.  It is right off the den, is much bigger than mine and has a very large window.  Of course if we really lived in this house, it would never be a sewing room because it is in the main part of the house, just like the formal living room would never be a play room, but its a rental and I am enjoying it while I have it!).  Here are a few things I have made in the last week or two.  

(I really wish I had made this flower come up a little bit higher on the outfit.  

Oh well, not going back to fix that!)

This is the best I could do getting a picture of the girls together...

And here is Miller's favorite new t-shirt.  

I will admit, those teeth were very tedious to sew on.  But so worth it!

I tried to make the dinosaur look mean, but to me he just looks like he is smiling.

It does not seem to bother Miller though.

I am sure that you will notice a few new t-shirts on Miller here and there over the next several posts.  It is so funny, Miller loves his t-shirts that I make him and is very particular about which shirt goes with which pair of shorts.  It may be true to say that Miller has a bigger opinion than Ella.  When I was talking with Murray about this, he said, of course he does, what little boy wouldn't want to wear shirts with dinosaurs, alligators and pirates on them!  Whatever the reason, it just makes me happy that he loves to wear the clothes I make him.

Hope you have a happy hump day!

And don't forget about the popsicles!