Enough to Make My Heart Flutter

A few years ago on the eve of the "Boston's Best Day" (aka Patriot's Day), a stroke of genius hit and I decided to sew all three of my girls mob caps to wear to the 5:30 a.m.  re-inactment of the shot heard round the world.  Well, much to my dismay NONE of the girls would wear them!  I was so disappointed and stuck them in the bottom of the dress up box.  Just the other day while rummaging for something else in the basement, I came across the mob caps and brought them up with high hopes for this Patriot's Day.   This little cutie took her cap from my arms, promptly placed it on her head and asked if she could sleep in it to keep her hair from getting messed up!  She slept in it, all right, and came home from school and immediately put it back on top of her braids.  In the midst of all our dinnertime/homeworktime chaos, I found her peacefully reading the story of Abraham Lincoln while wearing her sweet mob cap.  Now that's enough to make my mother/historian-wannabe heart flutter!  Love that girl!

p.s. Want to sew your own historically accurate mob cap?  See here for directions.

Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?

We celebrated our oldest's 11th birthday this weekend.  Among other festivities, she asked to take in cupcakes to her classmates.  Just to spice things up a bit we decided to make them earn their cupcakes!  In order to get a cupcake, each student had to compute their favorite equation.  Apparently some of the kids grumbled as they figured the equations on their napkins before getting the cupcake, but overall, it turned out to be quite fun!  See if you can answer any of these off the top of your head!  

For her birthday date out with mom and dad, guess where she chose to go?  Yep, the bookstore!  We went in to Harvard Square and had a blast browsing through the Harvard COOP and the Globe Bookstore.  We love that she is such a bookworm (though I think it does run in the family)!

Rockin' Birthday

Once again, to prove that I do stitch in addition to running around taking everyone everywhere, here is a fun birthday present I made.  The Twin's little friend loves High School Musical and Camp Rock, so they thought it would be fun to make her a guitar pillow for her bed.  I just sketched out the design for my pattern and used scraps already in my stash.  As you can see it was quite a hit!

Cheap Thrills

One of my favorite things about Boston is that folks put seriously good stuff out on their sidewalk for those of us with no pride to take and enjoy for FREE!  I hate to admit it, but much of our home has been furnished by really great curbside finds.  Well, now our winter fun has been furnished by a kind gentleman (in a fancy suburb) who set out this vintage 10 ft. toboggan for our sledding pleasure.  For goodness sake, it is long enough to fit our whole family!  It was quite a sight when we tried to fit this into our fully-peopled minivan while still dressed in our church clothes!  I just love that cute tongue peeking out on the driver and eager anticipation on the passenger--what a fun day of sledding! 

A Cure for Boredom

1. Rummage in your mother's "de-clutter" pile

2. Unearth 2 mis-matched plastic Easter eggs that never made it to the Easter bin last year.

3. Discover that half an egg fits perfectly over a kid-sized nose.  Note that 2 eggs divided into four parts is just enough to cover all siblings' noses.

4. Attach to sibling's faces with scotch tape

5. Make goofy faces

6. Beg parents to digitally document the cure for boredom

7. Dream about what goodies might magically appear in these eggs in two month's time.

8. Move onto other boredom-busting activities.