Oh the weather outside is frightful, but these pants are so delightful….

Finally back in the swing. And just in time too, as it started snowing today…

Made the Glitter Glue Princess some snow pants that coordinate with her requested long coat for this year.  I used an OOP Jalie Pattern (8910), and removed the pockets – the top of the pants will be buried under the long coat, so there really is no need.  I used Malden burgundy heather colored 200 weight fleece.  These are essentially to keep the snow off of her lower half for snowblowing, snow angels, and snowball fights, so they don’t need to be water proof, just water resistant.

Here are some shots – something in my camera is making the water spots, and they are not part of the design.

Excuse the leg pose here – she is not trying to break her ankle.

The details on the leg – the seam has length in it in the event that she sprouts like a weed over the winter…  I added width to install the zippers for ease of getting in and out.  She requested no elastic in the bottom of the leg.

For an extra treat, here is an added kitty pic…  Most people rarely see this cat when visiting our home – she is a bit skiddish.

So this is what it’s like to be 10…

This past week was the Glitter Glue Princess’ birthday.

She requested Shepherd’s Pie and green beans for dinner:

She wanted an ice cream cake this year – this was filled with strawberries:

On to the presents:

She got a renewal to her Club Penguin membership, and these little guys:

And lastly, what she wanted the most – a Kit doll:

No words….

A vision of students today.

My friend K just sent this to me, and I had to share.

Yes it is a year old, but still a good watch.  It comes from my old college, which is all the more reason to share…

In my day (yes, I’m that old), we had computers, but no laptops and no www – it didn’t exist yet.  However, we did have Usenet and the Virtual Machine, which is how I met S.  That is another story for another day…

I didn’t have the internet, but I still didn’t have enough time in the day.  *sigh* Some things about college haven’t changed.  I can only guess how much different this picture will be when Glitter Glue Princess gets to this stage in her life.  No doubt, she will still be trying to cram extra hours into the day.

Grandma came visiting… and left some lovelies!

Grandma dropped by this afternoon to give the Glitter Glue Princess a wonderful gift.   See for yourself!

All of us have had a part in this quilt:  I hand-dyed the blue/pink fabric this past summer, and Glitter Glue Princess sewed the white squares.  She and I worked through the stitches on the old machine with cams that Grandma gave us. Here’s a closer up shot:

The edge is sewn with hearts and her name – so cute…

Grandma also gave her a matchy pillow case, and a log cabin dolly quilt (I’ve tried to tell her she could hang it on her wall too).

What a lovely present, and it isn’t even her birthday yet!!!

What happened to the parents?

I took the Glitter Glue Princess and her bff to Splash Universe in Shipshewana, IN this weekend.  It is a giant indoor water park with 2 water slides, a lazy river, a 500 gallon bucket that drops water on kid’s heads, and my personal favorite, an adults only hot tub.  This was her birthday trip – her choice instead of going to American Girl Place this year.

After doing our usual tour in Shipshewana – the cheese factory and quilting fabric store – we checked in and went straight to the water park.  The girls loved it.  My knees started aching almost immediately, so I was pretty much spent by dinner time.  We went to an Amish restaurant, and skipped the christmas tree lighting parade going on to go back to the hotel.  Girls continued to play.  I continued to soak in the hot tub.  Then the girls found the arcade and promptly spent $20 between the two of them.

I tried getting the girls to bed at 10, just to keep some semblance of a schedule so I wouldn’t regret it the next night…  The powers that be were simply not going to allow it.  There were children RACING and screaming down our hall till 11 pm, despite my best efforts to stop it.  Even the manager was out there telling them to get back to their rooms.  Yelling didn’t work.  Begging was out of the question.  I understand that it was a party type of place, but this was ridiculous.

My question was where were these kid’s parents when they were trouping through the halls? There were children as young as 5 out there.  Is it common to set your kids loose at the beginning of night?  Did they lock their kids out of the room for some “private time” – what the heck was going on with this?  I’ve never experienced anything like this.  It still sounded like a thunderous herd in our room at 11 pm when I simply gave up from exhaustion.

The next day, we had a breakfast buffet, more arcade time, and then a couple of hours more in the water park before driving home.

The girls enjoyed it, but I think we may have to try some other place if we do a water park again.

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On a separate note -

I’m feeling a severe sewing deficiency going on. Must…get….SEWING!!!!!!!

I need to get Glitter Glue Princess some fleece pants made for her snow pants (she didn’t want some to match her coat this year – too old – but she still wants some to wear when we snow blow the drive).  Also on the list are some pajama pants, a fleece jacket for me, and some tube tops to wear under our shirts to keep our backs and tummies covered from the cold breezes.  For Christmas I need to get a “Slanket” knockoff made for the Glitter Glue Princess as well (*sigh* THIS is why children shouldn’t be allowed to watch infomercials!).  I found this link if anyone else is working on the same thing…

Nope, not going there…

No election opinions here….  Move along….

Many more people can say it so much better than I can.  I’m staying out of it.

In the meantime, Glitter Glue Princess’s birthday is coming up.  I’m working on getting stuff ready for that.  I’m taking her and one of her best friends to a water park/hotel this weekend in leiu of going to the American Girl Place Store this year (but of course, she still wants American Girl stuff).  More on that later.

They just kept coming and coming….

This is a post about the massive VOLUME of kids who come to my house for halloween.

We had at least 350  – 400 kids come by, but in halloweens of past, I could tell you it was more like 500..

It has always been like this.  When we moved into this neighborhood, and there were only 2 families living out here, we only bought 1 bag of candy, thinking noone would come out here.  We were woefully mistaken.  We ran out in 5 minutes flat.

As the neighborhood grew, so did the number of kids.  The neighborhood is connected to an established neighborhood as a mile-long cul-de-sac.  It became a problem with parents following their kids at a snail’s pace around the entire cul-de-sac, so the city actually decided to block the roads with the fire trucks, forcing everyone to walk – it didn’t slow them down, they still come en masse.  It just makes it fun for those of us who really *live* here to get in to our own neighborhood for an evening.

It is simply not an economical proposition anymore ….  With this volume of kids coming through, the quality of candy goes down so people can afford to hand it out – mountains of little tootsie rolls, and lots of cheap penny candy that doesn’t cost a penny anymore….  But I found a way to make it cheaper.  I buy rings, balls, and pencils by the gross from Oriental trading.  I bought pirate stickers and glow in the dark spider rings for this year.  I’m stunned every year that noone else does this out here. Since I was planning for 500, I still have some left over for next year at least…  Glitter Glue Princess gives out real candy with the trinkets to her friends, but that only takes a couple of bags instead of the mountains everyone else uses.

We have our fair share of teenagers who just walk around with their pillowcases for candy and no costume on – when asked what they were they say they’re invisible, a gansta, etc…  The best answer from last night was from a kid  who told us he was a human – loved it!  We had a kid show up in a hawaiian shirt with leis around his neck, and boxing gloves who told us he was….. Hawaiian Punch!