This is Brother Bear

He's five, and very particular about what he eats.  Pretty much anything with non-smooth texture is out of the question, and don't even think about fruits or veggies.  Which is why I'm floored that I just got away with something.

I buy bananas, thinking we'll eat them.  We don't.  They get overripe, and because I'm a frugalista, I toss them in the freezer (I have learned that peeling them and then putting them in a freezer bag is the way to go, trying to peel frozen bananas is no fun).  So, what does one do with frozen bananas?  Smoothies.  Two bananas, some milk, and the blender creates a frozen treat.  You can add whatever you have for flavoring; I just did sugar and vanilla (too much of both, for my own future reference). 

Munchkinette had said she wanted some, Brother Bear said no, as I expected, but then he started giving me input about what he wanted in it.  I put a couple drops of food coloring in each of their cups for the color of their choice, and they both downed it.  Brother Bear voluntarily swallowed a serving of banana.  I'm still in shock.

Meet Munchkinette

This is Munchkinette.  She's three.  I think she looks older in this picture; turns out she's pretty good at posing for portraits.  She also likes to take pictures:  here's a self-portrait

She is simultaneously the greatest challenger to family peace, and one of the greatest sources of joy in our home.

One day last week she was begging to go to the 'fwimmin pool'.  The one she was talking about is an outdoor pool, three hours away.  I told her it was too cold, and she replied, "I will put on a toat!"  Brilliant.

Dress Up!

So, last week we got a birthday invite I was expecting, but not expecting so soon.  And I had two days.  Whenever she comes to our house to play, she wants to play dress up, so I decided to turn one of my ancient Homecoming dresses into a princess dress.

The pictures aren't great, but you get the idea. 

First thing to do was get rid of the giant bow on the back.  Then, poor Brother Bear had to try it on (since he's the same size as the birthday girl, he was my model).  I promised Papa Bear no pictures, so all you get is before and afters.

There were six seams down the dress, besides the back zipper seams, so I figured out how much I needed to take the dress in (about 10 inches), and divided it by six to get how much at each seam (1.5 inches).  So I figured that folding the dress at each seam, and stitching 3/4 in in from the seam would do the trick.  I kind of just started at the seam and then sewed in, and after the waist area curved the new seam back to the old one to finish it off.  This actually made the skirt more full.

Trying the dress on my model, I realized that while the bodice now would fit the birthday girl, the shoulders really needed some work or they'd always be slipping off.  Too lazy to unstitch everything and reduce them, I pinched the shoulder seams, and sewed new seams about two inches away.  The sleeves were too big around, and with the shoulders taken in, there was a weird kind of fold at the top, so I went with that and folded the sleeves over, just hand-sewing a few stitches to keep it in place.

Out of my stash of old costume jewelry came the flowers (used to be earrings) for the sleeves, and the butterfly pin,

and voila, a princess dress. 

Simple, but flouncy, and since I didn't cut anything, the seams can be taken out if she's still into princess dresses as she gets bigger.

And a very big thanks to my model, who was VERY reluctant to put on a dress.

Thoughts on Parking Lots

Seems the prevailing attitude is that the closer the spot is to the door, the better. As a domestic engineer with 1-3 little ones in tow, I find that the smarter way is to find a spot next to a cart corral.

I ALWAYS need a cart. Even if I'm only going in for a few things, I need the cart for the baby carrier, and it helps to corral the toddler. And when I've got a whole load of things, watch out. I also once read that the best way to load the car is to put the most precious cargo in first, so I always put the kids in the car, and then load the groceries into the trunk.

This means that I leave the kids in the car when I put away the cart. I have a slight paranoid tendency, born of too much tv, that makes me afraid to let the kids out of my sight for even the few moments it takes to return a cart to a corral. Don't want any serial kidnappers here in this quiet little farm town to hijack my car and sell my kids. So I park next to the cart corrals, because I don't have far to go to put the cart away. And if the weather's nice and I catch a break, there just might be one of those monster carts that look like cars for the kids right there when I pull in.

Education

For a while now, I've been thinking about my engineering education, and feeling a little bummed because I wasn't using it. That is, until I realized that although I don't deal with metals and materials like I was trained in, I am an engineer.

To me, engineering is simply designing the best way to accomplish a certain task, optimizing all resources in the process. Running a household and raising children is the task, money, time, energy, and intelligence are the basic resources. There are sub-tasks involved, such as creating fun, economical Halloween costumes, or covering those disgusting dining room chairs (seriously, cushioned dining chairs do not go well with kids).

And although I talk about optimizing resources, tasks, and processes, the most important outcome of my work is the joy and love shared in this family, as we work toward our eternal goals.

This site is going to be an outlet for my engineering results. So many times when I'm working on a project, I'm thinking to myself how much I want to 'show and tell'. So that's what this is. Hopefully it'll be interesting, with projects I complete, time and money saving ideas I come across, whatever. We'll see; I know it will evolve as I go along, because I evolve.