Adventures at our house...

Seamstress to the Stars

You should come to our house someday. You wouldn’t know it by looking at the outside, but we have a mountain inside our house that you have to climb very carefully (log staircase with a railing made just for kids to shimmy up!). We have an entire ship deck where you may get to be Peter Pan defending yourself against Captain Hook (played very ferociously by Jonathan). Maybe you won’t believe it, but we also have the Hundred Acre Wood inside our house. And Tigger, too, if Jonathan has on his Halloween costume. Yep! I knew you wouldn’t believe it. But my kids do!
Best of all, we have Sherwood Forest inside our house…yes, the whole of it! Inside our house! If you came to visit, you might have the pleasure of being dubbed The Honorable Sheriff of Nottingham, or maybe Prince John, or even Little John. But you likely won’t get to be Robin Hood. Nope. That character is reserved for Jonathan. The morning after Jonathan watched the animated version of Robin Hood I was given a very important adventure-land assignment. I was supposed to be sewing some basket liners for my husband’s Christmas gifts to customers, but Jonathan managed to persuade me to make him a “Robin Hood dress”…er, tunic. I looked around the house for something just the right color of green. Aha! There it is…an old pair of sweatpants. I started by holding them up to Jonathan for height then lopping off the legs. I tore out the seams so I had two pieces of material in the shape of a funnel. Then, feeling quite smug at how easy this whole sewing thing really was, I sewed up both sides, making, yes, I see my mistake now, essentially a bag into which my son could step, but only wear if he didn’t want to use his hands. (“Oh, dearie”, and other choice words!) Not exactly great if you want to be Robin Hood and steal from the rich to give to the poor. Grrr. So I got out my trusty seam ripper and went to work on those smugly sewn seams (perfect seams too, I’ll have you know), and I put on my thinking cap, clamped my teeth, pursed my lips and began creating. Four hours of sewing later, which really translates into most of the day because of stopping to get snacks, stopping to take Annisia to the potty, stopping to wash Annisia off and change her clothes because I didn’t get her to the potty in time, stopping for lunch, stopping to put Annisia down for a nap… four hours of sewing later, I was done. Four hours of my life sewing a Robin Hood tunic that Jonathan then wore… for the next three days. (heehee…can you tell I am pleased?!) But minutes after putting said tunic on, what did he do? Did he thank me profusely? No (although the glee in his face was fairly rewarding.) Did he proceed to go off and win the archery contest so he could kiss Maid Marion? No. What did he do? He said what he really needed was a hat and shoes like Robin Hood. Waaaaaahhhh! Why me?

Darla Markovsky, January 2009, written for MOPS newsletter

That day after sewing the tunic. No, Jonathan isn't about to backhand Annisia, it just looks that way!January 7 after Aunty Leilani showed my how to make a Robin Hood hat, cut out a feather, and I winged a pair of moccasin shoes. Isn't he dapper?!
In the whole get-up, shooting a crossbow like Nutsy in the movie.

Skiing at Red Lodge

We went to Red Lodge; we drove on New Year's Day and met our friends, Pam and Bryan who had so generously gone to Costco the day before to get us lift tickets. They were only $35 per adult ticket compared to $47 at the resort. Sweet! So! A huge thank you to Pam and Bryan!! Well, Friday morning, we had rain in Red Lodge and it was windy. So we were concerned about what the mountain was like. We drove up there and found the lifts were not running because of the wind. Jonathan's ski lesson was postponed, but they let the kids play in the day care area if one of us was there too. I think it was about 10:30 maybe 11am before things got rolling. Michael and Bret went off on their snowboards and Jonathan started his ski lesson. He did great! He has been so excited ever since Michael came home with the rental skis before Christmas. (We leased skis for Jonathan for the entire season for $99! sweet deal!) So, off Jonathan went with the rest of the kiddos, with nary a look back at Mom. You can see from the first of the pics that the wind was blowing and the snow was swirling. Jonathan loves his new helmet and goggles. He was pretty cozy.

First time down the bunny slope...

...making a turn.

Riding up the magic carpet.

Here he comes with the rest of the kids.

After the lesson, the kids gathered in a circle and did something (I can't remember what.) Jonathan isn't a big group participant, so he just looked around. But when Benji, a ski instructor, asked them for their little aprons, Jonathan got spunky! He grabbed some snow and threw it at Benji. He was getting such a kick out of that! What a rascal! Benji was a good sport. He stood up and said, "You want to have a snowball fight?! Do ya?!", walked over and grabbed a big snow shovel. Ha! He asked who wanted in on the snowball fight. Three or four of the kids raised their hands. He lined them up, scooped up a shovelful of snow, and tossed it into the air above the kids' heads so it would rain down on them. They giggled and jumped around like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

After a little lunch, we went back up. I had asked the ski instructors if they thought he was ready. They said, "Oh, yeah, he's ready. Just ski off the Miami Beach lift." So we went up and he did great. We did two runs, I think. He was having so much fun. Michael skied backwards in front of him. Jonathan had learned "french fries" for pointing his skis to go faster, and "pizza" for snowplowing to slow down. He kept yelling, "Pizza, Daddy, do a pizza, you're going too fast!" Then we went up the triple chair...big mistake. He was tired by then, and the longer ride and longer looking hill bugged him. He quit. period. The only way we got him down was to give Michael one of my poles and Jonathan skied between Michael's legs holding onto the pole all the way down. Then he and I got hot chocolate! YUM!

Friday afternoon, it started snowing. And it snowed, and snowed. When we got up Saturday morning, we had about 6-8 inches of powder on everything. Michael and Bret had stars in their eyes and were itching to get in first tracks on their snowboards. So they went up and the kids and I stayed in our room. I packed up the car while the kids played and watched "Animal Kingdom" on the TV. Then we went up around noon. Annisia went into daycare again and Jonathan and I hit the slopes with Michael and Bret. It was only about 12 degrees, but we were pretty bundled up. We did the Miami Beach lift again, only once though. Then Michael headed to the triple chair again. Uh, do you think this is a good idea? Here's Jonathan on the way up...it was cold, a little breezy which meant probably a slight minus wind chill. So...what do you think happened?

Jonathan actually had a meltdown at the top. He was cold and remembered how long it took to get down yesterday. I am not sure why Michael didn't just take my pole and do the same thing, but he didn't. It was awful trying to get him down. He bawled and screamed all the way down. Uncle Bret took over at one point. Usually Jonathan really listens well to Bret, but that was even a challenge. Even promising him a "Mommy and Jonathan hot chocolate date" wasn't good enough. So, we moseyed our way down the hill listening to our cold little guy beller and excusing him to other skiers.

Here I am trying to smile my encouragement to my little guy. I enjoyed skiing with him...it meant I could stay on the bunny slopes! heehee

Christmas pics

We had a good Christmas. A big feast at Michael's parents. Then we did our gift exchange. We draw names with his family. Uncle Mike had Jonathan. They asked for ideas, and I told them I had been eyeing some Thomas the Train sets on Ebay. So I kept looking for what we thought would be great, and ended up bidding and winning a really neat set with a bunch of trains and a really cool sawmill that "saws" a log apart (magnetic connection) then you can use a crane to move the log pieces to a railroad car. He was way into that! Annisia got a Cinderella princess dress, tiara, sucker ring, candy bracelets, and a Cinderella phone from cousin Mandi. In a word, CUTE! Unfortunately, our camera burped during all of this. I think the video I was taking overrode the rest of the pics or something. Anyways, I am waiting for pics from Uncle Bret. I'll post what I have and add the rest later.

You can see some of Jonathan's Thomas the train set here. The track is really nice and it sets up into a pretty complex grouping. I don't know who has the most fun with it, the kids or the 'rents!

Crraassshhh!

Yup! That's what our computer did the Sunday before Christmas. So! I have been without a computer since then, unless you count the laptop we have on perma-borrow from Michael's bro. It, however, is slow...maybe because it's memory or whatever is full. Anyways, I promise I will get an update as soon as we get the Mac back.

We just had two weeks with Leilani. She very kindly acquired our cold and ran with it! Sorry, my dear friend...
All for now...keep checking...