Back to the boys

I've been chastised for my lack of Benji & Peter pictures lately so here you go...

Dear me, Benji is quite the little personality these days. By no means was Peter throwing tantrums at this age but Benji will flop himself on the floor and kick his little legs if I'm not doing something for him fast enough!! Meal times are also an experience as you can see. 

Here he's mad...at something...

 And then all happy...

 And back to being mad again. All within just a few minutes.

That kid!

Even with all those mood swings, I just have to take one look at him sleeping with his little bum stuck up in the air and I'm a goner.

There is NOTHING sweeter than a sleeping baby.

Peter is such a good big brother. He always helps me get toys, snacks, and diapers for Benji. I love watching them together.

I love these little men.

Hooded Towel Tutorial

Lately I have been making a lot of these hooded towel things for birthday, baby shower and just regular 'ole gifts. No lie, they are the simplest things on earth to make but kids love them! Since I sorta use a mash-up of a couple different tutorials, I decided to combine them here -- mainly because it always takes me 20 minutes when I first get started trying to find the multiple tutorials I use and then switching back and forth throughout. Well, no longer! Here's my version of the hooded towel tutorial. Hopefully someone else will get some use out of it too but if nothing else I know it's gonna make my life easier in the future.

Hooded Towel Tutorial

Supplies: 

1 hand towel 

1 large bath towel 

Matching Thread 

Scissors 

Directions: 

First take your two towels. This one is for my niece who likes sky blue at the moment but go crazy with your color choices.

Cut the hand towel approximately 24" long. If it is a little shorter or longer, that's just fine. 

Then fold the hand towel down the short side (like a hamburger, not a hot dog) 

width-wise with right-sides together. 

Stitch down the right and left sides. Do not stitch the open end where you see the raw edges of the towel.

Turn hand towel right-side out.

Take the corner of the hand towel that I am pointing to in the picture above and tuck it into the opposite corner. 

Once you have tucked the one corner into the other, your hand towel will look something like this.

Then open up your hand towel and you have formed the hood!

Put your hand towel aside and grab your big towel. 

Trust me when I say this next part will not make much sense (at least it didn't to me) until you've got a towel in your hands and you're pinning and sewing away. But just go with it, I promise it works!

Find the center (width wise) of the large towel and mark it. Next measure 4" from the center to one side and mark it with a pin. Do the same on the other side. So you should have something like this.

Using the four inch marks as a guide, grab one pin and pull it towards the middle pin. Straighten the top so that you now have three mini layers and pin in place. Do the same for the other side. Now you have a pleat!

Using a straight stitch, sew your pleat in place.

Next grab your hood (the hand towel), center it, and pin it to the center of the bath towel. Make sure the nice folded part of the pleat faces the outside of the towel.

Now we sew these two bad boys together. Since there are many thick layers here, I suggest going over everything with a straight stitch first to make sure you catch all the layers, then go over it several times with a zigzag to catch all the stray threads and to finish it off pretty-like.

Once finished, your edge should look about like this. Probably yours will be better though since I am not at all an expert sewer.

And voila! You are done. Pop it on your resident 4 year old to test and then wrap it up and ship it off! 

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, right? 

Georgia

Last week my beautiful and whip-smart Gramma Frances passed away. We'd been expecting this for a few months as she'd been in poor health but we were all happy to see her go peacefully, in her sleep. Luckily, we were able to take the whole family out to Georgia for a few days for the funeral and to see the family.

The boys did fairly good on the plane. Benji wasn't such a fan but we tried our best to keep him entertained.

We spent quite a bit of time hanging out the yard at Bertie's house, just playing with cousins. I cannot tell you how many weekends and days in the summer I spent playing at this house. So many memories -- it was incredibly wonderful to see my kids becoming fascinated by the same things I played with over and over again.

Benji with Aunt Tracie and Paige. 

My Uncle Karl.

 Peter and Paige playing with sticks and picking flowers.

 Benji had a good time just following Peter & Paige around wherever they went.

The four generation photo:

Tracie & Paige, Aunt Bertie, My Mom, Me, Benji & Peter.

The day after the funeral we made the trek to the gorgeous Amicalola Falls which is only a few miles from my Gramma and Aunt Bertie's house. That place is just gorgeous I tell ya.

This is the view from the top of the falls. Just gorgeous. 

I sooooo miss this much green in our current brown desert home.

 Peter and Travis decided to hike the Falls down and I drove down with Bertie, Benji & my Mom. It was such a perfect day!

The view of the Falls from the bottom -- can you spot them just in the top center?

Travis' leaf mask

Back at the bottom we met some Park Rangers who had a few snakes (we kindly told them we didn't want to see them, thank you) and this lovely Horned Owl named Zeus. 

Peter and Benji both were super intrigued by this guy.

We had a wonderful time and feel so blessed to have been able to go out - even if it was a short trip. I so miss that beautiful area. I kept telling Travis we need to move back to all that green, although he kindly reminded me it was only May and in a few months the humidity would surely kill us both. 

Mamma's takin' us to the Zoo tomorrow

Last week we went to the LA Zoo with the kids from Peter's preschool (for the letter Z of course). 

Trav took the day off to come with us and we had a great time even if we walked our socks off.

That is, if we'd been wearing socks. 

Which we weren't. 

Cause it's May in California. 

Nevermind.

I think my favorite exhibit was the flamingos. They were just so beautiful!

 Peter's however, was the jaguar -- in honor of Go, Diego, Go! I suppose.

To be fair, this guy constantly stalked across his cage while we watched. Most impressive.

 We took the boys to the Birds of Prey show -- which was pretty dang neat.

And then to see the gorillas. 

Which was pretty...uh...educational we'll say.

I should have expected something like that seeing as we were around a bunch of animals in early spring.

Mason, Peter, Dublin and Bryce

Peter spent a large amount of time being our navigator. 

He constantly wanted the map to figure out where we should go next. 

He's pretty funny. 

Dublin, Peter, Mason & Tessa outside the new reptile house.

And then, my boys, on a giant snake. 

We wanted to get a picture of Benji riding the snake but it was metal and pretty hot and so he refused a solo photo. Which would have been pretty funny all things considering.

And once again, I think I wound up without a single picture of myself at the zoo. Or of any of the other moms we went with for that matter. Oh well. 

We had a wonderful time and hope to return soon!

One & Thirty

 

Happy Birthday to Benji who turned one this week and to Travis who turned 30!

We're happy that both have made it this far in one piece...

Mostly.