Doll Onsies

To keep my mind off things, I've been sewing. My sister brought over a onsie she'd cut down to doll size following this tutorial online. She was going to borrow my sewing machine, but then she decided maybe I'd want to keep it in case I wanted to keep my mind off things. So I made a sock monkey (not pictured because he was swept off to Fina's bed straight away), but they take a lot of hand sewing. Then we were at the dollar store and found a garfield onsie and diaper cover set that we thought the koosas would like, and also one with the most glorious WTF goat ever. I brought them home since the sewing machine is here, with the plans that my sister would come over later and we'd cut them down together. Well later that night I couldn't help it, I wanted a closer look at the goat so I had to open the package. My sister said, "why don't you try modifying it?" and sent me the link.

So the glorious goat onsie is now a CPK sized t-shirt. It's being modeled by a Jesmar who apparently spawned in Fina's closet. (Ok, so Jesmars are impossible to leave behind at thrift stores even if you aren't actively collecting.)

That was so fun I decided to try the garfield one. It was easier because the design was centered. The diaper cover to shorts was kind of fun too, although this picture doesn't show the shorts at all. After that, my sister brought over the whole stack of them that she had to alter, because it goes fast and it's easy and takes my mind off things. Fina has a doll who always rudely begs for clothes, so I cut one down for her.

Her response was "where's my pants and my skirt and my underpants and my nightgown?" Then I got one of Weezy's dolls, a little baby who she had bought naked from a thrift store. I held up 2 choices for Eloise and said "does baby want the green shirt or the pink shirt?" Eloise responded "NO! Dat baby no clothes!"

I let Fina choose and made one for her anyway. I tried to follow the whole tutorial this time and make it into a onsie, but I was too stupid to do the bottom part so there you go. It was harder to make than the others because baby no clothes is much smaller and smaller clothes are more fiddly. I haven't decided whether to cut the bottom straight and hem it like a t-shirt or just leave it how it is. Anyway, it's my kind of project because they go quickly, and there's minimal cutting out and no ironing. Plus my kids aren't as picky as I was as a kid, and they don't care if their dolls wear wonky looking clothes. My sister and I were clothes snobs with our dolls because my mom was so talented at sewing.

Also here's a picture of Eloise being a ham that my sister took when she was visiting.

 

Eloise's Dinner

Last night the church brought in dinner because John is still recovering from his surgery. The lady that brought the main course brought us taco soup (somehow more delicious than when I make it, probably because I didn't have to make it) and she was like "This is taco soup, and here's some sour cream and cheese to go on top of it..." And Eloise exclaimed "CHEESE?" and started doing a little baby joy dance. We were laughing. Then we sat down to eat and in the middle of dinner there was another knock, which turned out to be dessert. She had made something that was absolutely delicious and I don't know what it even was, but she had these little bars on the plate and then she says, "and since those are too good to share with kids, I brought popsicles for them."

So that's the story of the best dinner Eloise ever had. And now if you need me I'm trying to find the recipe for the too good for kids dessert bars, but it's pretty hard to google something when you don't know what you're looking for.

Waterfall

Weez and I were bored so we stopped at a waterfall. She was adorable and charming and chatting with all the tourists. And then she was posing and demanding that I take her picture. So here's some pictures.

Smells like wet Buffalo

Today we saw bison all over the road, and all over the sides of the road, and even in the river.

Eloise kept yelling "The buffalo going swimming!!" and then laughing with glee. They didn't look so amused though.

And then we had a little nicnic in Mammoth, at the picnic table conveniently located 10 feet from our last paper machine.

Weez was being a little onery about my camera, but she looked so darn cute I couldn't resist. I put the sweater on her because it was 28 degrees when we left the house, and she refused to take it off even though it was in the mid 70s. She kept whining "I hot." and I'd be like "let's take off your sweater." and then she'd shriek "No! It's mine! I be hot!" I finally convinced her to take it off by telling her she looked like a tourist, wearing a sweater in this weather. She doesn't know what a tourist is, but she most certainly doesn't want to look like one!

Elk and Norris

When we got to Mammoth (the second time, after doing Gardiner) I noticed that there were a bunch of people hanging around the ice machine. This is of note, because nobody ever buys a paper out of the paper machine there, and i doubt they sell much ice either. I parked illegally and got out to fill the paper machine, and I saw this cool elk hanging out next to the building there.

 I was like, oh, that explains it. Too bad he's laying in the shade so we can't get a good picture, but i can at least get the girls out and show them. So I got back in the car and located a legal parking place a little farther down and got the kids out of the car.

The first thing Eloise did was exclaim, "Oh eww! There's poop!" So i took the learning opportunity and told the girls to try to figure out who pooped there.

Fina guessed bison. Even after i showed her all the elk hanging out around the building. (The big guy was out front and all his girlfriends were in the back laying in the shade.)

It's hard to tell with no other ones for context, but this one's a babby.

Fina really really wanted to walk around mammoth. But there were no parking places.

So I told her we could stop at Norris. She argued because apparently she thought the name Norris sounded boring.

It was not boring.

But it was really hot and I'm totally out of shape so I was sweating like a fool and panting like I'd just had quite a workout. I don't know why I'm still out of shape after making an effort to walk the dogs all summer, but probably because our walks were always more like meanders.

Hanging around

Fina has been a real Daddy's girl lately. I just thought this was sweet. I wasn't too excited to go swimming because it was freezing the other day, but Squeak said "Mumma? Go swimming please?" so adorably that I couldn't refuse.

Watching a bug on the side of the pool.

Fina's swimming lessons were worth it for the confidence she has now.

 

Eloise decided sunning herself was nicer than swimming in the cold water, although the water wasn't as cold as the other day, thank goodness.

Fina is such a little fish these days. And so happy in the water.

Once we told her it was time to go, she had to copy Eloise and lay in the sun for a bit. She said she couldn't possibly walk home because her legs were too cold, but it turned out she was wrong.

 Here's missy needs a hair cut, looking cute. Shortly before this she fell off the recliner and bashed her face on the coffee table so she's probably going to have a black eye tomorrow.

 I don't know what i was doing with the effect here, it would probably be less weird in just black and white. but she's still cute.

Parade...(and a PSA)

So every year I think "yay! The parade! I love the parade!" and I do enjoy it a bit, but it is hot and too long and poorly spaced out. There weren't nearly as many floats as usual this year though. And we went early and  scoped out a spot in the shade and left our chairs there to claim it, so we had decent seats, until some people came and stuffed themselves in between us and the people next to us and sort of crowded us.

Here's my mom and the girls all ready for this thing to start already. Serafina is a goof.

I don't know if she thinks this face is attractive or hilarious or what, but she likes to make it in pictures.

There's missy blue eyes watching the people walk by. She told me her favorite part of the parade was "the dogs" but there were no dogs in the parade, so I think she meant people walking their dogs past us when we were waiting for it to start.

She wants to know if we're having fun yet or what. My favorite float in the parade was one by a plumbing company that had rigged up a toilet fountain on it that sprayed water 50 feet in the air. I didn't take a picture of it though, because pictures of parades are really boring to go back and look at later.

Serafina liked the horses, although her favorite part of the parade was the candy. Her favorite float was one that looked like Yellowstone park because it had raccoons sitting at a picnic table and that is the height of comedy to a 5 year old.

Wilcoxson's was handing out ice cream bars, which was when Eloise decided this parade business might actually be fun.

I love that her tongue is blue.

Serafina got an ice cream bar too. I was glad we brought the sun hat because she was happy to wear it, and it kept her head from getting burned like at the family reunion. I had brought it for Eloise but she wasn't wearing it and Fi asked if she could.

Cutie chocolate face.

And now for the bonus public service announcement: If you decide to obliviously stand directly in front of someone for an hour so they can't really see the parade, they might get bored and start taking pictures of your butt. Just something to keep in mind.

We had a really good time in spite of these people, and Serafina loved the parade which always makes it worth going.