A special date!

Tonight was the night -- the Girl Scouts Father Daughter Dance. So exciting!!! Well, sort of. Virginia wasn't so sure about a dance. She was worried about not knowing how to dance and people looking at her -- is that supposed to start so early??? She's only 6! Anyway, we convinced her it would be fun and off she and her hot date have gone! :)

Now just to complicate my life, this dance had a theme. Under the Sea. Seriously??? Under the Sea in St. Louis in February when it is 20 degrees outside and snow is still on the ground? What to wear? What to wear? I couldn't come up with anything in our closet that was remotely under the seaish. So . . . I decided to sew. Scary! But it turned out ok even though I didn't get the fabric until 7pm on Thursday night and I was taking care of a very sick little 3 year old.

My sweet girl and her daddy -- he bought her the special necklace as a treat for their date!

And her sea turtle skirt turned out perfectly -- even if I did sew it myself! I just hope it all stays together for the dancing!!!!

Poor Jeb . . .

Thursday around 12:30 I was just getting out of the shower -- I had actually spent the entire morning cleaning my house (miracle!) and was about to head out for errands before picking Jeb up from preschool. But it was not meant to be. I got the dreaded phone call. The one every mother prays never to get. Jeb threw up at school. Gross. Sad. Horrible. Poor Jeb and poor, poor teachers who had to clean him up! It started at 12:30 and my poor baby threw up every 30 minutes until 10pm. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Lots and lots of laundry.

A brief nap . . .

On a towel on the hardwood floors! Poor guy zonked out while I was taking down the blankets he had just thrown up on.
Poor, poor baby. But he is much improved today. Ate a bit and laughed a bit and slept a lot!

I'm back in love with my sewing machine!!

I can't believe I've been sewing. Winter in Missouri is a PERFECT time to sew. I mean it is too cold and snowy for anything else. Last week I made this skirt for Virginia in under an hour. Seriously! And it is really, really cute on her and most importantly she LOVES it!!!! I used the Lazy Days Skirt tutorial found at http://www.oliverands.com/downloads/Oliver+SLazyDaysSkirt.pdf.

And here is the picture of the valentine dress I made for Virginia using scrap fabric and an old t-shirt. The fabric skirt wouldn't have been my fabric pick but it was perfect for testing purposes. And it looks less country and much cuter now that my friends at www.theinitialbaby.com added the adorable scalloped heart applique! They are a great source for baby gifts!! By the way, Virginia was swinging a baseball bat around when this was taken but I love how she was laughing and it showed the applique well! :)

A Really Mixed Up Day

Today started a little early for me. At 5:30 this morning, our phone rang. I was sure it was a call from the school saying school was out because of the 3-4 inches of snow we had gotten during the night. But no. They thought they should call to remind me that on days that there is snow on the ground, the buses follow the snow route schedule. Seriously, don't you just assume that? Not to mention, the snow route does not change my kids bus stop at all! So of course, Ford is listening for that phone call and so he is up -- thinking school is out and not happy to hear that he is going after all. Since we are all up anyway, I made the kids waffles using our awesome new waffle maker (thanks Mom!). Just as we sit down to our waffles at 6:50am, we get another call. Apparently they couldn't round up enough drivers willing to drive in the snow, so school was cancelled -- not for snow, but for lack of school bus drivers. Oh my goodness!!

Well, this time snow, I was prepared for you! There will be pictures in a future post to prove how ready I was -- some major Valentines were created . . . a total of 51 (yes, if you add up all the kids in all of my kids classes, you make 51 Valentines!!!). But for now, I'll show you the rest of our day . . .

Jeb sledding -- after 5 minutes he looked at me and said "Mama, what are we doing out here?" . . . I couldn't agree more, so we came in for our hot chocolate!

Virginia and Ford stayed out for about 2 hours! Brrrrr!
This is Ford in action -- snow ball to Virginia's face.

Then we did a little painting . . . stay tuned on this one because it becomes part of Jeb's Valentines! :)

And we moved on to some play dough and clay . . . Virginia made a "scary lady" -- I think her hair looks a lot like mine did by the end of today!
And just when I thought I might go nuts from all the paint, clay and snow mess, the mail arrived. And in the mail was my life saver -- Mimsie sent a Valentine for the kids. The first season of The Brady Bunch on DVD. So . . . SNUGGLE time! Even Barney got in on the action. There was popcorn too! So thanks Mimsie, from all of us! I am sad to admit that we finished disc one -- the first six episodes!

A Typical Balogh Saturday . . .

Brent and I are finally realizing something -- having children means you absolutely lose your Saturday. Seriously. Just to prove it, here is a typical Balogh Saturday in pictures . . .

Jeb and Virginia have ice skating lessons at 8:30am. No sleeping in around here!

Jeb is feeling a little defeated . . .

But then his teacher helped him get this little stuffed puppy and he decided skating was lots of fun . . .

Virginia is a little more fearful of falling . . . slow and steady wins the race!

She really is improving . . .
And the real focus of our Saturday -- Coach Balogh and his Rams flag football team!
Ford in pursuit . . . and yes, that is snow on the ground. UGH!
And no Saturday is complete without #12 enjoying a little basketball action . . .
I'm tired just thinking about it. So until next Saturday . . .