Renaissance Faire!

Remember how I said yesterday that I would tell you what I have been up to? Well here it is! Ellie has been reading the Lord of the Rings books with her dad and is really into it, so she wanted to be Frodo the hobbit. Being the good mom that I am, I broke out my sewing machine and my previously meager skills and made this costume for her!

For reference, here's a pic of Elijah Wood playing Frodo in the movie. He has a coat on here over his vest and shirt but under his cloak. I skipped the coat because, really, isn't a cloak, a vest and a shirt enough?

In the past, the pretty much home decor stuff, which is all straight lines. I made a footie pajama snow leopard halloween costume for ellie before she was born (she was born the day before Halloween), but it was WAY too big because seam allowances and I don't get along. 

So, I am REALLY proud of myself for making this costume. The pants were from a pattern that was for cargo pants, but I skipped the extra pockets, so she just has the two front standard slanted pockets. 

The cloak was not from a pattern at all, just instructions online, and look at that hood! Isn't that cute?!

The shirt was from a pattern for a pirate shirt, but it had a 'V' neck with ties, so I modified the pattern to create a sort of bib on the front with an overlap for buttons. (in this photo there arent any buttons yet and it's being held closed with a safety pin)

The vest was from a pattern I found online for an 'up to 5T' boys vest. I made it larger and it worked beautifully! (have to look up that blog post and link it up here)

Look at how the cloak billows! I loved that!

These pictures were from the first outing of the costume at the Renaissance Faire. We have to work on her hair more. She wanted it wavy, so I added some gel and scrunched and let her sleep on it wet, hoping to leverage her natural curl, but it ended up just looking dirty. Of course, Frodo was on a trek, so he WAS kind of dirty, but still... We are trying curlers next time.

We had a GREAT TIME at the Renaissance Fair! Ellie and I learned how to Scottish peasant dance (it was scottish day). She learned to sword fight. (and bought a sword to add to her costume, so that now I have to make her a sword belt). We ate turkey legs, tasted wine, and shopped and shopped and shopped.

oh, and now I am working on MY costume. I am going to be Arwen, the elf princess from the Lord of the Rings. Here's the costume that I am working on

a card and some peach picking photos

Since I was in Niagara Falls last weekend, I didn't get a chance to scrap, but I thought I would share something that I made a couple of weeks ago, and never shared. This was for my American crafts DT application. Although, I ended up submitting a different one. The papers are American Crafts and the sticker is SRM stickers

And this morning Bubby took Ellie and Seth peach picking. Seth sent me a few photos.

The brief recap of our Niagara trip...

We had a great, busy, trip to Niagara Falls this weekend. I left work at 3pm on Thursday, drove home to get them, loaded the car and were off by about 4:30. We got to Rochester around 11pm and crashed. Ellie woke us up like clockwork - do kids actually have alarm clocks inside them somehow - at 6:30, and after a fast tim hortons breakfast we were off.

We stopped at walmart, target then walmart again to get a waterproof camera, and some pillows since we forgot ours. We ended up splurging on a reusable waterproof camera and said it was for Ellie for her birthday. (yep, that's how you know you are a die hard scrapbooker - you spend $70 on a waterproof camera for your 5 yr old, just so you can be sure to get close ups of the falls. Although to be fair, she loves taking photos and is thrilled to have her own camera. The 'kids' ones are just too baby for her, so a waterproof one seemed a good option - less moving parts to break)

We stopped at Duff's on the outskirts of Buffalo for some wings. Apparently there are two bars that fight over the claim of the first/best Buffalo wings, Duffs and I forget the name of the other right now. But it seemed that the other was maybe a little more authentic, but it was also all the way downtown and Duff's was right off the highway. Win!

Then we continued on to the Maid of the Mist. We parked in a falling down parking garage, got our discovery passes - which cover all the US side state park attractions, and went on the observation deck and the maid of the mist boat ride. Here are ellie and seth on the observation deck - notice the yellow camera? I have tons of photos of HER taking photos. but I didn't want to bore you with that.


My photo from the observation deck. (I havent really had a chance to go through all 600+ photos from my camera let alone the ones from Ellie's, so these photos are just what I grabbed really quickly this morning.)


on the deck of the maid of the mist



After the maid of the mist and some wandering around the park on the American side - where we saw a couple get married - just them, the priest and a photographer - so romantic! We went to the campground to check in, get set up, and have a quick swim.

Then on to Canada, where we had a great meal at the Paris Creperie restaurant. I have THE BEST kid! She had some french version of lemonade - which was like make your own, they brought fresh squeezed lemon juice in a glass with ice, some water, and some sugar. When she asked if they had lemonade he seemed sorry and sad when he told use about that option, like no kid would want THAT, but she LOVED it! Come on, make your own?! Then we had a baked Camembert cheese appetizer. Ellie tried it with an apple slice, liked it, then had more and decided she didnt like it. She still was willing to dip her bread into the sweet broth that came with it though. I thought for sure once she decided that she didnt like it, it was going to be all over. Seth had beef bourgingon and ellie and I split the mussels with french fries. She loves mussels. Then we had TWO dessert crepes.

Next we moved on to the free concert, falls illumination and fireworks show in Queen Victoria park. Ellie danced, and danced and danced.





On Saturday we slept in, then went to the cave of the winds trail where we got REALLY wet, and which ellie totally LOVED. Then we went to have lunch at the top of the falls resturant and another observation area.

We then rode the trolley to the aquarium and the gorge discovery center, which were both pretty unimpressive. We were all tired, so we went back to camp and took a nap, before the obligatory hotdog and marshamallow roasting.

In the middle of the night we were awakened by a CRAZY storm, with thunder, lightening and torrential rains. The rain was so bad that it managed to seep THROUGH the fabric of the tent and make a big puddle. We packed up in the rain and headed home.

Camping at Assateague

We just got back from camping and it was a blast! We have dubbed it 'Ellie-Wonderland' because between seeing horses, eating smores, and being on the beach all day, she was in heaven! The only crappy part was bugs in teh bathrooms in the middle of the night/early morning. We used a TON of sunscreen and bug spray and we still all got burned and bitten. I dont know if I would go back there without a camper, the mosquitos in the bathrooms were just too much.

here are some pictures

This is what happens when you dont put your trash in your car before you leave. (that's our neighbors site not ours)

Words on Wednesday

I have realized (again) that despite loving to write, I don't actually write a lot on my blog. I think this is because when I finally get to sit and put together a blog post, I am out of time. It's past my bed time or there are still a million things that need to be done, and I end up just posting the necessities.

So, I am going to make a concerted effort to start posting at least one wordy post per week. Hopefully I will increase that slowly, but if there is one thing I have learned about making changes, it is baby steps!

Speaking of making changes, I am finally back to running.

For those of you who don't know, I have always hated running, but last year I decided that I need to fit some exercise into my busy schedule and with running, I can get a full workout in about 30 minutes. I started with the couch to 5k plan, and moved on to training for a 10 mile race. Over the course of that training I realized that while I still don't love the idea of getting out of bed to run (or getting out of bed at all for that matter). And while I still don't understand the whole 'runners high' or hitting that meditative state while running, I DO love how it makes me feel for the rest of the day. It helps my mood and stress level.

Well after that 10 mile race (yes I finished, but just barely) I hurt my ankle and couldn't run for about a month. Then I started up again, only to need some stitches on my back and become unable to run again. It's been almost a week since I got the stitches, (and a week until they come out) but I felt that it was healed enough for me to run, and I started slowly today with one mile.

and.... I feel GREAT!

eating right - that's another story. I want to, but man, I really love food! I ate my lean cuisine for lunch today, then proceeded to eat a little bit of all my co-workers' foods - a slice of enza's cheese, two of marisa's meatballs, one of donna's tortellinis. Yeah, not so good. (no, I didn't pick off their plates, it was more like they had dumped out of larger containers onto plates, and I did the same) but yeah, 600 calories later... argh.

and because I feel that everything needs a visual aide (and I dont really have one for the running and eating part) Here are some photos from our busy busy weekend last weekend. Yeah I'm a geek, I admit it. So is my husband, he admits it too. We went to the comic book convention this past weekend. We let Ellie pick who she wanted to dress up as, and she chose Katara from the last airbender (the cartoon and comic, not the new and terrible live action movie) Here is the inspiration, since I know most of you have no idea who katara is.

I made her costume and it turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. The top was an old karate uniform which we dyed blue. We dyed some white fabric to match and I sewed the skirt out of that. Then I added the white trim, made the necklace and braided the hair of her wig. The ribbons on her hands were her idea - she wanted it to look like she could bend water.

Here she is in the garage right after we parked, bending water.

Here she is posing with darth vader because her Zayda loves Darth vader.

and here she is doing the Katara pose before the kids costume contest. You can see that the wig has seen better days by this point, it kept falling off.

Day 3 part 2 - and new look to my blog

For those of you who don't read this through a reader, you will notice that I changed the look of my blog yesterday. It just felt like it was time. I made a new header last night and Im really proud of myself because I created it from scratch - not using any digi kits (since I wasnt sure what the use policies were)

Anyway back to the Acadia trip.

After our long rock hopping adventure we went to lunch at the Jordan Pond House restaurant, for some of their famous popovers with strawberry jam. I have to say that I wasnt blown away by the place, becuase it was pretty touristy, but the popovers were good. And really, what did I expect? Look a picture of me that I don't hate! And then Seth and Jack being silly.









































After lunch we went to the top of Cadillac mountain. (and look! ANOTHER pic of me that I dont hate!)






































Then back to camp for some campfire cooking - hotdogs, corn, popcorn and smores.

Day 3 - Acadia

This is a picture heavy one, because there are just so many beautiful pics!
First we went to the July 4th celebration in Bar Harbor and had blueberry pancakes - yum!

Then we totally got out of there, because the place was a zoo with people and vehicles getting ready for the parade. Im sure it was a nice parade, but we wanted to see Acadia. So we headed for sand beach and the start of the Ocean Path trail. which was supposed to be easy and short, but we got distracted along the way and it ended up taking a lot longer than it should have and we all got sun burned. not ellie because I always slather her with sunscreen, but do I do that for myself? no! just my face, so my arms and neck were fried.

First is ellie showing off her moose tattoo that I got for her in town while they were on the boat. Then one of the many gorgeous views. Followed by Ellie and Seth looking at tide pools - because who doesnt love tide pools?






















































































Here we have some more rock hopping / clamoring pics, still on the ocean path trail - or rather, OFF the ocean path trail.


























































I think I will save the rest of day 3 for tomorrow - it was a very busy day.

Day Two - Acadia

Seth and Jack arrived at about 5am on Friday morning after having driven all night. Ellie woke up at about 5:30. (I think them moving around was what woke her) They crashed, she started talking/bothering me. I managed to get her to color and play for a while then we got up around 7am and left because I didnt want her to wake them.

We went into Bar Harbor because I NEEDED coffee. I drink coffee every morning and joke about needing it, but some days I can get by without it if need be. Not after that night though. And I had brought some old instant coffee, but I couldnt find the lighter to light the stove to heat the water. So, we went to find breakfast. We found a cute cafe and had coffee and popovers with yummy blueberry jam. Then we headed to Sand Beach, to wait for the 9am kids themed ranger discussion about the beach. HAHA - we had to WAIT for the NINE AM event. We had a blast though. We had the beach all to ourselves for about a half hour. We found sand dollars and shells and tide pools. The beach was GORGEOUS! just gorgeous!


















After about an hour the rangers showed up. We asked some questions about the stuff we had found, then they got into their presentation. They told us about the sand - all the shells and stuff that were broken up to make it. We also learned why the sand accumulates here but not on any other places on the island and that when it is stormy the sand beach turns into a rock beach because all the sand gets sucked out to sea. The kids dug to see what is under the sand (rocks) but couldn't seem to get deep enough even though the ranger said she was here a couple days ago and had no problem. then we moved on to looking at the rocks and seaweed and snails. At that point Ellie got bored because we had already done that, so she went back to digging and throwing sand. So, then I decided it was time to go see if the men were awake yet and bring them their muffins.


















They were awake and ate their muffins, then Jack tried to go back to bed. Ellie wasnt really having any of that though. So after hanging out for a little while, we went into town for lunch at the Mad Hatter pub where we had, among other things, some yummy portabella mushroom french fries.


















At 1:30 Ellie and I had tickets to go on Diver Ed's dive in theater boat ride. Diver Ed wears a dry suit and takes a camera and mic down under the sea and broadcasts real time up onto the boat where the kids (and adults) watch him talk about sea life. then he brings some of his finds up and has a touch tank kind of show. Well, originally I had planned to take Ellie and let the men sleep, but since they were awake anyway, I told Seth he should take her since I hate boats. So all three of them ended up going while I wandered around Bar Harbor and shopped. It was relaxing for me and they had a great time. Ellie was pretty excited that she got to help push Diver Ed over the side into the water, and then she got to touch a lobster and a crab and a starfish.