New Skills

Guess who learned a new skill?

For Taylor's birthday party we planned to play "Toss the Beanbag at the Butterfly."  The only problem was that we didn't have any beanbags (or butterflies, for that matter).  So Logan and I decided to make them. 

Logan was actually excited to learn to use this machine.  He was excited to create something we didn't have before.  

He learned "right sides together" and why.  He learned to reinforce stitches at the beginning and end by sewing backward and forward a few stitches. 

 

He learned to keep his hands out of the way of the needle.  (Hopefully he'll never have to re-learn this lesson, the hard way).

 And he learned that sewing is for taller people...

but we made it work for him.  

I think he also learned that sewing is a good skill to have and that it's lots of fun too!  

Here's how Logan's beanbag game and beanbags turned out.  

As I said in my last post, Logan was a huge help to me getting Taylor's party put together.  He helped plan, he made beanbags, he made the cardboard butterfly for the beanbags, he cut out butterfly wings to "pin" on the butterfly, he wrapped presents and he made Taylor a pillowcase for her birthday. 

He helped during the party too.  He tried to organize the games and explain the rules.  It was hard though because it was a group of excited, loud and unruly girls and he was trying to corral them.  It didn't work and he was pretty crushed for a while because he'd worked so hard and was supposed to be in charge of the games.  

James tried to console him by telling him to "get used to it, this is what it's going to be like with girls" for the rest of your life.  

Funny, it didn't make Logan feel any better.  Of course, it's all forgotten now.

But now I'm kind of in the mood to sew something myself.  
       

 

 

 

Birthday Girl!

Which one of Taylor's birthday's should I post about?

 The one she had when Nana & Papa were here, two weeks before her actual birthday?

 

Or the birthday party she had with friends the day before her birthday?

  Or what we did on her actual birthday?

 I think I'll tell a little bit about all of them. It started when my parents came into town a couple of weeks before Taylor's birthday.  We decided to celebrate with Nana and Papa a little early.  

 All she wanted was a store-bought cake, 

 a cowgirl hat,

 and cowgirl boots.  Boy, is she spoiled!

She wants to be a Rodeo Princess, not the Queen though, that's for old people.  She was into having curly hair that week.  So I braided her hair and let her sleep in it that way.  The next day she had wavy hair that she insisted was "curly."

Thanks Nana and Papa for Taylor's cowgirl boots!

Then I guess Taylor forgot that she got everything she wanted because she started inviting all her little neighborhood friends to her birthday party.  After the fact, she informed me that all her friends said they could come to her party.

I asked, "What party?"  

"My birthday party, of course." she said.

So we had a little party for her the day before her birthday.  I made cupcakes that were supposed to look like butterflies. They didn't turn out like Martha Stewart's, but they were tasty anyway.  

Taylor's into butterflies lately.  She wants to be a butterfly expert she says.  We checked out all the books the library has on butterflies.  We learned lots, including that a butterfly scientist is called a Lepidopterist. Now she has a really cool name for what she wants to be when she grows up.  

 

So at her party we played Pin the Wings on the Butterfly...

and toss the beanbag at the butterfly.  (Logan made these games, by the way, even the beanbags.  He was such a big help to me, getting ready to throw this last minute party).

We all had lots of fun hanging out with friends.  Birthdays are a good excuse to invite friends over.  

     

I even painted butterflies on her cute little fingernails.

 

On her actual birthday, we put together some left-over cupcakes so we could sing to her one more time.  

We saved one last present for the day she turned 6! and for when it was nice and quiet at home because...

it was a Nexus 7!  

   James was so excited to give this to Taylor.  He loves spoiling his kids.  And it's an electronic device, so it's right up his alley.  He was having so much fun showing her all about it.  He's just a big kid himself, he was as excited as Taylor, if not more so.   

I can hardly believe how fast the time flies.  I now have an 8 and 6 year-old.  Crazy.  

My little six-year-old is such a girlie girl.  She loves dancing and singing and dressing up. She loves being a princess and having tea parties and anything sophisticated and grown-up.  She's taken to talking with a British accent most of the time, at least with the last few words of every sentence she speaks.  

She loves helping me in the kitchen and taking care of her baby dolls and stuffed animals. Taylor and Logan are the best of friends and play so well together, it's really wonderful. 

Taylor is so sweet and brings so much enthusiam and energy and fearlessness to our family.  She's happy and excited about everything from the moment she wakes up in the morning to the time I try to get her to be quiet and go to sleep at night.  I wish I had her energy and zest for life.  She's pretty unstoppable.  

We are the luckiest family in the world, to have her with us each and everyday.  

 

 

Welcome to the World of Scouting

When Logan turned 8 years old he joined the world of Scouting.  I've been dreading this, pretty much since his birth.  I've never been involved in scouting before and don't know anything about it.  It's just been this big, overwhelming, dreadful... "thing" hanging out in the back of my mind.  

We've now been in scouting for a couple months and I'm happy to report that Logan and I both are enjoying it (and Taylor too, as she's right there with us).  He earned his Bobcat badge, which is the first one he could earn and is now very close to completing his Wolf badge.  


So far we've learned the Cub Scout motto, sign, handshake, promise and the Law of the Pack.  We've learned about the U.S. flag and the State of Oregon flag, about health, safety, nutrition, exercise, work ethic, tools, recycling, collections and our duty to our God.   

We've also been learning about Native Americans, birds and how to take care of pets.  We're even borrowing a pet fish from some friends so Logan can see what it's like to have a pet.

The first scout meeting we went to was a Pack Mtg. and it was a bike rodeo.  Logan was in heaven.  He was riding his bike with tons of other scouts.  

The last thing they did was hand out all the awards and things that the others had earned.  Logan was sad that he'd hadn't earned anything.  I had to remind him that he'd only been a Cub Scout for one day.   Give it time.  

 

At the next Pack Mtg. a month later Logan got to be a flag bearer.  He also received the Bobcat badge he'd earned.

  

Needless to say, we're having fun in scouting and learning and doing lots of things we wouldn't otherwise be doing.  I'm glad I was wrong about scouting.