Last Friday, I had the day off work (my work as an employee, that is), and I woke up with a cold. Not how I wanted to start my three-day weekend! At least it's just me; the rest of my family is cold-free.
Friday, I spent much of day preparing a new free sampler for Bite-sized Scrapbooking. It includes the first three layouts issued for BSS in February. In those early weeks, I wasn't providing a sneak peek or a sketch, so I needed to create those elements for the sampler. Please go and download the sampler if you're interested! It will give you three inspiration layouts and a good idea of what subscribers receive.
When the kids were out of school, we all went to Cherrylane Greenhouse near Grand Coulee to shop for plants. Laurel came with us, too, while Bronwyn stayed at a friend's house. We all LOVE going to greenhouses. This is one of my very favourite things to do every spring. We hadn't been to this place before, and we went because I had purchased vouchers on SwarmJam. It was a lovely greenhouse and the people running it are super nice and eager to help. We had fun picking out a bunch of plants. I let the girls get whatever they wanted, so we'll have an eclectic variety of flowers! I'm very excited that I picked out seven perennials for our yard (one was Sophia's request, actually). I love perennials, but we don't have many. I decided it's time to start investing in perennials. I will write more about the plants we purchased in another post.
Saturday, I took Sophia to her piano lesson, then shopping for dressy sandals (for her piano recital) and a birthday gift for her friend. (She went to Haley's party later in the day.) The shopping took much too long but we came home with good purchases. Sophia's feet are the same size as mine and it was challenging to find sandals that weren't too high or too expensive. We found some at Walmart for $15.
It was mid-afternoon by the time I started working on Madeline's clothes -- my real plan for the day. Clothes, clothes, clothes. There's no end to them, it seems. Madeline is quite particular about her clothing, so she easily rejected about half of the clothes that were available to her (and those were separated into two piles: donate and keep for Georgia). The remaining third is still more than enough. Madeline's dresser and closet are full and we didn't even open any of the other three bins of 7/8 clothes in our basement. I'm still going to have to go through these soon because I would rather get rid of at least half of those clothes NOW, than have to go through six bins of 7/8 when Georgia gets to that size. Can you feel my pain? At least the job of going through Sophia's clothes will be much easier. She actually doesn't have that many clothes that fit her any more. I hope she has enough but we'll see about that next weekend.
*Okay, I need to insert here that we did not buy all of these clothes! In fact, we have purchased very little. In addition to a few gifts of new clothes (which the girls LOVE), we have received hand me downs from three families. Our girls are always overjoyed to receive these clothes and I am very thankful for them because we can't spend much money on children's clothing, but the price we pay is the considerable space they take up in our house and the time I spend sorting through them. I am not ungrateful; just slightly frustrated.*
I continued dealing with children's clothing on Sunday because we had a bunch of bags and piles and bins that contained a mixture of sizes. This photo shows just some of the 10s (which are too small for Sophia), 7/8s, 6X/7s, and 6/6Xs I sorted that day. But here's the best part: While I worked on this, I had the laptop set up so I could watch Penny De Los Santos teaching Food & Culture Photography on creativeLIVE. The course was three days long (May 13-15) and I only caught about 20% of the live broadcast over the weekend, but what I saw was absolutely riveting! Neil and I both wished we could see all of it, so we purchased the course for $99, which I think is incredibly inexpensive for 24 hours of video. Certainly a bit of a splurge, but now we can watch the whole thing on the TV downstairs whenever we want. I'm so glad I noticed a tweet from @thepioneerwoman about this course. After seeing Penny's short video, The Power of Food Photography, I just had to register. I don't really aspire to BE a food photographer; I'm just fascinated by Penny's photos and her approach to food and culture photography.
Meanwhile, Neil started cleaning the incredible disaster of a place we call Sophia and Madeline's room. (Neil got possession of the laptop when I had to spend some time dealing with the clothing/toy storage room downstairs.) We had not seen the floor in their room for quite some time, and he made some good progress on it before we all had to stop and get ready for the girls' piano recital. After the recital and supper, I continued working on the floor until it was finished, but I wasn't able to get to all the surfaces in their room before the girls' bedtime. I will try to squeeze this into my vacation week (next week) because it simply has to get done.
And where were the girls during all of this bedroom cleaning? Playing elsewhere and that's fine with me. In fact, I prefer they stay away; it's much easier to throw things out when they're not there to protest! Madeline did show up at one point and rescued several silly bands before they were swept into the dust pan. (I can't even imagine what it would be like to have carpet in the girls' bedrooms. Scary!) Although it seems easier to declutter without the kids' help right now, I know they need to learn how to do this -- and I'm not sure how to teach them -- so I am considering signing up for this class at Simplify 101: Organizing with your kids.
Sophia and Madeline's piano recital was at 4:45 p.m. on Sunday. It was a nice event, as always. This was our fourth one. Madeline (pictured below) played a solo on the piano (Autumn), played sand blocks in the rhythm ensemble (Waltz), and sang with several other children (MYC Theme Song). Sophia played a solo on the piano (The Greatest Show on Earth). She played so clearly and enthusiastically! It was great to hear! Unfortunately, she got stuck about 2/3 of the way through and couldn't finish. She got up, visibly upset, and came straight to me. Sadly, we hadn't brought her book along, so she couldn't refer to it.
The recital continued with another couple private students, and then Sophia's teacher asked if she wanted to try again. Sophia agreed. She played just as enthusiastically as the first time, and then... got stuck in the same spot again. :( Mrs. Young tried to help, but without the music for reference, they were both unsure what came next. What a bummer. We all learned a hard lesson about taking the book. We should have had it with us even though Sophia didn't think she needed it. Well, it won't happen again! It's over, and she's okay. (I think this helped a tiny bit: another private student had the same problem and he didn't have his book there either.) The thing is, she knew the song at home when no one was paying attention, but she was nervous about the audience. And the entire song wasn't quite etched in her brain. At the end of the recital, her teacher praised her for trying again, and several parents patted her on the back afterward, saying she was very brave. She is, and I'm proud of her, too!
On Monday (yesterday), Sophia participated in the track & field day at her school. She competed against other girls in grades 4 and 5, and came home with a fist full of ribbons: five 2nds, a 6th, and an 8th. The 2nds were in high jump, and the 60m, 80m, 200m, and 400m races. The 6th was in triple jump (she claims she thought it was a practice jump), and the 8th was in shotput. (A very determined and trained runner in grade 5 won 1st place in all the races.) Our niece, who's in grade 5, won 1st place in triple jump, 4th in high jump, and 7th in the 60m race. Sophia (and B) also had a 90-minute dance class Monday evening and she said her legs were burning in class. Not surprising, huh?!
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