Found these yesterday and every time I look at it, it makes me smile. I haven't done a needlepoint kit like this before, but I am so excited to do these. Love the colors and everything about them.
I came home this morning after dropping Ella off at school to find a couple of our neighborhood turkey vultures hanging out right in our backyard. They are enormous and in a weird way I find them beautiful.
Amazing!
We found these old doll house furniture pieces a while back at a garage sale and have just recently gotten around to making a couple of little pillows and cushions for them. Ella and Julian pretty much made them on their own. They sat on my lap, I pushed the pedal, and I showed them how to use the lines on the machine as a guide. These pillows are really tiny so they did not take long.
They stuffed them. 
We plan on making many more accessories for this makeshift dollhouse...
This weekend... 
She started planning her party months ago...I should have also. Actually, I probably would have, but she couldn't stick to one idea. Her first request was an Olivia (from the children's book with the pig) party at Zoomar's Petting Zoo. Perfect, I thought, that goes together, pigs and a zoo, and great easy colors red, white, and black. I even found cute red envelopes with tiny white polka dots on them at an estate sale which would have been perfect for the invites.
That idea was solid until she saw a card at a store with a turtle on it. Her new request was a turtle party at the petting zoo. That would still go together nicely, right? The new colors could just be different shades of green. No...she had pink and gray, her favorite colors, in mind as the colors.
OK, pink and gray turtle party at the petting zoo. This was becoming a tall order. A couple of weeks before the party she wanted to change it one more time and this time she was for sure. A pink and gray wolf party at the petting zoo. Oh, of course, her favorite animal is now a wolf. Wolves and a petting zoo party, hmmmm, I think wolves eat all of these types of animals. After a little discussion and convincing on my part, we settled on keeping it a little more simple with just a pink and gray petting zoo party. Whew!
Ella and Julian's favorite part of this particular petting zoo is the guinea pig and rabbit area.
Ella could stay there for hours and be perfectly content. 
Even baby Saylor was in love...or is that fear?
Of course she found the only hen in the pen.
She will do just fine on our someday farm. 
So since the guinea pigs are Ella's favorite I decided to do a little guinea pig craft/party favor. I was inspired by cakies and a little kid's craft she did at her daughter's b-day party. I kept mine pretty simple by just making little oval pillows and drawing little guinea pigs on them with fabric marker. The kids got to color the guinea pigs with fabric marker at the party.
This cake is supposed to be guinea pigs but as you can see, it is questionable. At least I make myself laugh...and the kid's laugh.
Ella and cousin Kate.
One of her favorite gifts was a little plush wolf...I love that her favorite animal is a wolf.
She is still talking about how much she loved her party so I would say it was a success. 
We had fun watching her have fun.
(another quick and easy party favor: put a cookie in a bag, make labels on cardstock, fold it over the bag and sew)
I needed a little distraction today to keep myself from being a complete wreck after sending Ella off to her first day of school. She was a little nervous and had a short period of not wanting to let go of my arm, but then she mustered up enough strength to walk away from me. She walked a couple of steps then turned and said "I love you, mom" with a little crack in her sweet voice and gave me a half smile and walked away. I made it back to the car before I let the floodgates open.
Julian and I got home and played a couple of rounds of Sequence at his request, but I needed a little more distraction to keep my mind off my Ella.
(these pictures are not from today, but actually from an estate sale we found while we were on our trip)
So 'we' (I) survived Kindergarten Orientation this morning and many questions were answered putting a few of my anxieties at ease. I only choked up once when the principle read The Kissing Hand. A sweet story about a raccoon who was reluctant to start school and how the mama raccoon kissed his hand and told him her kiss would always be with him. In the end the little raccoon had to give the mama raccoon a kissing hand because the mama was, of course, having a harder time letting the little raccoon go. That's the really short version of the story but you get the idea. So when we got home, I too had to give Ella a kiss on her hand and told her the same wise words as mama raccoon. A little later I asked Ella to wash her hands before eating and she said she didn't want to wash my kiss away. Just one of the many reasons why I love this girl so much.
First I made a simple hand embroidery.
My next little project was just to give her lunch box a little love. I made a simple drawstring bag to put her little ice pack in. I know they sell cute little animal shaped ice packs, but we have plenty of these plain old blue ice ones that work just fine and we are trying not to be such 'consumers'. It is hard sometimes.
Kind of ugly.
Kind of cute.
Friendly sheep.