what the kids said after school

Yesterday on the way to our swim club, I got an earful about Japan. M's been studying continents in school. This week they started Asia and his friend's parents came in to teach them about Japan. He told me about geography, population (Tokyo has as many people as the Czech Republic, did you know?), greetings, food, how to hold chopsticks. So that was yesterday. Very informative, and remarkably accurate. Today he started spouting off some Norwegian in the car, with a pretty great accent. "You are an airplane." "You are a pass gasser," or "You are a tooter."

Then at home, V gave me this line: "My tummy hurts because I ate too much healthy food." She's currently mad at me because I'm writing this -- she says it's not funny. It's apparently the only thing in life that's not funny, because she gets the giggles like crazy. A couple of friends were sitting with us at church on Sunday, helping out, and one was whispering to V, giving her a scarf to play with, etc. Every single thing we said made her giggle, which gave all of us a fit after a while. Some poor missionary was trying to slog through a talk in Czech at the time. We were rude (or wude if you speak V.)

more sewing

Here's E's new dress, and a glimpse of her chubby knees. (Matching leggings are the next project.) Drafted off of an existing garment, with small changes. It looks more like spring than fall, so good thing it's a bit big. I'm really excited about how my machine did with knit fabric -- not as good as a serger, but it has as many knit stitches as regular ones. I had fun checking out all the decorative ones. Do you see how tall E is getting? She kept changing the temp when I was cooking rice today. Danger!
The front looks more asian than I thought. The original I copied from doesn't, so maybe it's the crazy pattern. The best thing about the dress is that it requires no fasteners. I swear that snaps, buttons, and zippers can take more time than the whole rest of the garment.
The skirt on V I made from an idea online -- it just has strips of tulle slightly gathered and sewn on the outside. It satisfies her need for fancy, but I let her wear it outside. (Dress up clothes stay inside at our house. As do toys, with few exceptions. M's buddies brings piles of toys to school to play with during recess. I'm the mean mommy.)
She wanted to be a zebra, or at least that's what she told Daddy after the fact. Perhaps she was just being a squirt.