Birthdays and Projects

Both of the kids celebrated birthdays recently- Evie in January and Owen just this past Sunday. I can't believe they are seven and four now! They are getting so big, I can barely keep up.

We had an extended vacation in the states (thanks to military Space available flying) and didn't get back to Germany until mid January. I'm not a fan of throwing birthday parties mainly because my kids have winter birthdays and we're pretty limited to what we can do inside. I threw together a little luncheon for Evie and a couple of her girlfriends from preschool. It was very low key- I recycled a craft we did at her party last year (do little girls ever get tired of making princess crowns?) and made some sandwiches, ate cupcakes and opened presents. The best part- we were done in an hour and a half and everyone was gone before we had to pick up Owen from school. I'm glad it was still a special day for her especially since she is the one who has really been missing Daddy (well, second to me that is).

Evie and her cute friends Julia and Ashley.

Waiting to blow out the candle.

Mmm... cheetos and cupcakes, no tastier combination:)

Owen wanted to have a bowling party and fortunately the bowling alley on post organizes everything so all we had to do was show up. We ordered a couple of pizzas and finished off the entire chocolate cake I had made in 2 hours. Owen decided to invite a few friends from church and a fun time was had by all, parents and kids alike. Thanks, especially to our friends that stayed and helped me with crowd control.

Owen and his wind-up, er, throw.

Evie hurling her ball down the lane-

...and hoping that it makes it to the pins, eventually (we had to help a few balls that got stuck halfway down the lane).

Sweet Bailey had the highest score of the day hitting triple digits at 101! She even beat a few of the adults:)

Cute birthday graphics on the screen and proof of Bailey's awesome score.

Owen and Kael, waiting patiently to cut into that cake!

Owen making his wish.

I love how kids crowd around to watch opening presents.

The whole gang- aren't they cute with their arms around each other?

I've been sewing up a storm lately, partly because it relaxes me and partly because I have a lot of lonely nights. I am however, the queen of unfinished projects. I still have fabric I bought in Paris last year that I'm just now getting around to using. So I finally pulled out the fabric that I had cut almost a year ago for a quilt I wanted to make for Evie and sewed it all together this past week. So the top layer is done. I still have to make the back and will probably need help from Rand's mom or mine to put it all together so maybe we'll have it finished in May but it was very satisfying to see it all come together.

Another thing I love making is clothing for Evie. I have a really good friend that I used to get together with and sew for hours at least once a month. She moved this last summer and I hadn't touched any projects since (possibly my mourning period). When I was in the states for Christmas I found a ton of cute fabric at Joanns for cheap (something I cannot get here) and began making dresses and skirts for Evie. I plan to make some matching outfits for the new baby as well. So here's what I've been working on.

This is my favorite skirt I've made so far with scraps from other projects.

Keep checking back because I am working on updating our backlog of travels from the past 8 months or so.