CHRISTEPHI

Miss M and Little Guy were invited to a Rockstar themed party for a little friend's first birthday!  We needed to come up with not only rockstar outfits, but also a gift for the birthday boy.  After all, he may be the youngest of five brothers, but he's a special and unique individual!  Miss M suggested a stuffed animal.  I remembered seeing this cutie on Pinterest, so I dashed off a copy of the pattern and got to work. The tartan material is a polyester-blend suiting scrap I "inherited" from somewhere.  The scrap was just the right size for this pattern!  And since it was a gift for a young child, I sewed down the ribbon/bow and secured the button eyes extra tight. My two sweet rockstars!  The night before the party, as we were going to bed, Little Guy took my face in his hands and asked ever so sweetly if I would draw a star on his eye for his rockstar outfit.  How could I refuse?  (Apparently he had seen an image like that when we were browsing Googl

Miss M loves to read! She learned to read when she was just four. And I can't even take credit for it! I provided learning materials like the Bob Books  and I've always read to her, but she really just taught herself. (Sorry to all you mom's who wonder how parents teach their kids to read. I'm no help! Maybe I'll have a chance to figure it out with Little Guy in the next few years). Recently, she's been fascinated with germs, bacteria, and poop. Seriously. She devours anything she can find on these topics! Her two favorite books lately have been: Micro Mania: A Really Close-Up Look at Bacteria, Bedbugs, & the Zillions of Other Gross Little Creatures That Live In, On & All Around You!   which she got for Christmas and now her new favorite is: That's Gross!: Icky Facts That Will Test Your Gross-Out Factor . Both are books you'd expect to fascinate a little boy (yep, that darn gender stereotyping again!), but no, my sweet li

When Hubby and I were first married, I had a bread machine, but I couldn’t keep up with our bread needs since I was a full time student and later had a full time job.  Add in California commute times and it just wasn’t feasible.  So we mostly bought our bread.  We favored a particular brand of Country Buttermilk bread.  At over $4 a loaf, it wasn’t cheap, but there were only two of us and it was convenient. Fast forward several years and the number of mouths to feed has doubled.  Not to mention my kids LOVE their carbs!  Buying that bread is no longer an option.  And since I stay home AND have the help of my trusty bread machine, I have no excuses either! I took the original “white bread” recipe that came with the bread machine and over the years I’ve tweaked it according to our tastes.  My machine can bake a 2 pound loaf.  I use it to mix the dough, but not to bake it.  And I add the ingredients in this order (even though that’s not what the manual says...it seems to work best th

By the time we are mothers, we've each lived long enough to have things in our past that are best left in the past.  For the most part, the ugly in my past stays there and doesn't poke its nose into my daily business.  But every now and then something happens that causes me to unpack the memories and take a look at them.  The other night was one of those times.  I'm not sure what exactly brought it on, but I started thinking about the events that transpired before I was married, while I was in college, when I left a church sometimes described as a cult.  That night, while the rest of the house was asleep, I wrote this: It's been many years now since my heart was deeply wounded and, dare I say, a chunk was torn away.  But tonight as the circumstances surrounding the injury come to mind, I realize that the ragged gash has healed and for the first time I no longer feel pain at the thought of it.  The old sting of betrayal and bitterness of broken relationships has f

Late last year, just before we got inundated with birthdays and weddings and holidays (and an illegal camera placed on our property by the police, but that's a story for another day!), Miss M decided she needed a new skirt.  Since the madness hadn't started yet, I let her pick out some fabric and sew herself a skirt! She picked a pretty paisley baby wale corduroy my mom gave her and a simple gathered-rectangle type of skirt with an elastic waistband. This was really the first time I let her use my machine on her own.  She was very cautious about the needle...so much so that she sometimes forgot to guide the fabric, so focused was she on keeping her hands out of the way.  But she soon got the hang of it! Her favorite part was using the iron to press the elastic casing and lower hem.  No pictures of that part 'cause my assistance was much needed. She cut, pinned, stitched, and pressed all by herself!  I was there the whole time to tell her wha

The kids had dentist appointments today. They both did GREAT!  It was Little Guy's first time to sit in the chair.  He had gone with us last month for my appointment, but somehow he didn't get on our insurance last year, so he had to wait till now.  "Open your mouth wide like an alligator!"  He followed all their directions and was overall so compliant!  And he regaled the dentist and hygienist with sophisticated little conversations about ages and birthdays and pets and how he was not crying at the dentist.  QUITE the little charmer! Poor Miss M had to have fillings today.  She also did wonderfully!  She went off all by herself with Hygienist Sue and got all prepped. They're so good with kids!  They told her all about what was going to happen, step by step, and demonstrated for her on her hand.  (I love it when adults treat kids with respect and speak to them as intelligent beings!)  I popped over and checked on her a couple times (she was just t

Dear Readers, You found me!  I was worried I would lose you in the move, but I'm so glad you've made the effort to come see my new place!  I *think* I managed to get all my old posts and comments moved over.  I know there are a few posts where strange, scraggly code got imported with some of my photos, but over time I hope to get all that cleaned up.  In the mean time, WELCOME!  Feel free to poke around and explore.  I will be working hard to post here more regularly, so I hope you'll come see me again soon! Sincerely, Christephi

That spandex-clad snarky teenager with radio-active blood affectionately known as Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man is very popular with both Miss M and Little Guy.  So when I asked Little Guy if he wanted to build a web in the kitchen today, he was ecstatic!  All it takes is a table and chairs and a spool of kite string. We’ve done this activity before (where did all these spools of kite string come from anyway?), but this time Miss M was able to do all the “webbing” herself. The results are magical! An airy suspended web for the kids to play in (and over and under and around and through).  They’ve been at it for over an hour already with nary a word of disagreement or squabble. They even decided to eat their lunch in their “web kitchen in the real kitchen.”  Of course, they invited some plush friends to join them. The best part?  Hubby is planning to take us all out to dinner tonight, so I don’t have to dismantle their web before supper time and they can play agai