Snuggle Bug

Zachary has always been a great snuggler.  He still is.  I don't know how long it will last, but I love it.  I'll take it for as long as he'll give me snuggles.  He always asks, "Mom, do you want to snuggle up on the couch with me?"  I will drop anything I am doing to go snuggle up and talk to him or watch a movie.

Today after school Zack drew a picture of us snuggling, and he wrote, "I LOVE SNUGGLING MY MOM."

It made my day.  I will keep it forever.

Camera drama

One thing you should know about Mark is that he takes care of things better than anyone else I know.  Nothing he owns has a scratch on it.  He is very, very careful about everything.

When Mark and I went to Belize 3 years ago, we didn't come home with many pictures from our own camera because the first day in Belize, Mark's lens broke.  Like really, really broke.  Not because he dropped it, but it simply just came apart on the inside.  It was sad, but we had lots of other family members with us who took great pictures and shared them with us.

We bought a new lens for Mark's 5D after the old one broke, and it has worked magnificently.  He has taken thousands of great pictures in the years since he had his new lens.  The lens is still working fine.

This trip to Belize, it was the camera's turn to die.  It was super sad just as Mark was getting ready to take some pictures of us jumping off of rocks into the Caves Branch river with his motor drive, something choked in his camera and it would not work.  That night at the hotel he took the lens off and discovered that the mirror inside of the camera had become detached somehow.  Again, this wasn't because the camera had been mistreated.  It just decided that day to come unglued.  Luckily, 3 of our kids had cameras, and so we got some great pictures of Belize.  Just not Mark pictures.  And there is a difference, let me tell you.

When we got home, I looked online and discovered that about 1 1/2 years ago Canon had issued a service alert for the original 5D because the adhesive they had used for the mirror was bad and the mirrors were coming off....Really?  Anyway, they emailed me a shipping label and repaired it for free.  Hopefully it will be here tomorrow.

Before we went to Belize we bought the Canon waterproof powershot camera.  The images we took were fantastic both in the water and out of the water.  It is a fabulous waterproof camera, and I am so glad I bit the bullet and bought the Canon so that we could have such fun pictures of our water adventures and playing in the pool.

The last day we were in Belize, the display on the waterproof camera started to go out.  It still took great pictures, the screen just had a bunch of lines through it.  When we got home, I checked with Amazon, and because I had purchased the camera within 30 days, they said to return it to them for a full refund as it must have been a defective product.  Imagine that---I ordered a defective product.  What else is new?

So I sent it back and they gave me a refund.  And I don't plan on buying a new one right away, because it will just sit on a shelf.  I'll buy a new one if we ever need it again.

Abram's dream come true

One of our friends likes to collect old things and make them look new.  He is an artist, and everything he restores, fixes or arranges is perfect.

This friend showed up at our house the other night in an M-37.  Not at all what we expected, but I must say that is an awesome vehicle.  Abram immediately ran down to his bedroom and put on his original WWII army uniform, complete with belt first-aid kit and canteen.


Mark got to take it for a drive.

 And then Abram pretended he was taking it for a drive.

 I even got to take it for a spin, but that was after the camera was back in the house.

How to make a Disney Bolt costume (and Rhino, too)

I have had a  lot of traffic on my blog recently from people searching Google for a Disney Bolt costume.  A lot of traffic.  This blog post is for those of you out there searching to buy a Bolt costume, or who have asked me if you can buy mine.  Hopefully if you don't sew, you have a neighbor or mom who does, because this really is an easy costume.

I made Zachary this costume 2 years ago (along with Noah's Rhino costume).  Our family loves the movie Bolt.  I think every kid loves that movie.  There is no Bolt costume you can buy, so I used a pattern and made my own.

I used Butterick 3238, which is still in print.  I made the bunny costume, but I changed the shape of the ears, and used the tail from the cheetah.  I made the costume out of non-pill polar fleece: white and just a bit of pink inside the ears.  I drew a lightening bolt and cut it out of a scrap of black polar fleece, and then used a satin stitch to applique it to Bolt's side.

On the hood, I bought some 1-1/2 inch red grosgrain ribbon and stitched it around the neck edge of the finished hood.  I tucked the raw edges under, and edge-stitched along the 2 short and 2 long sides of the ribbon.  I had a scrap of silver fake leather left over from a previous costume project, and I cut out a circle and used a black sharpie marker to illustrate Bolt's name on the tag.  I then stitched that just below the ribbon at the center front.

So there it is.

Now for Rhino.

The easiest thing to do would be to use the same Simplicity pattern and use one of the other critters for the basic pattern.  I did this for the hat, but I changed the shape of the ears a bit and moved them toward the center.  However, I wanted Rhino to have really short legs, so I used this Simplicity 3639 (which I just happened to have from a previous costume) pattern for the body instead.  I modified the arms, of course to not come to a point and to have an elastic casing at the wrist.  I left off the tail and then made a little pink ball of a tail and stitched it on the back instead.  

I used light brown fleece for the front, darker brown for the back, arms and back of the ears, and pink for the mittens, ear fronts and spats.

Hope that helps!  If you are lucky you can get the patterns cheap and fleece half-price.

More fun in Xanadu

Mark took the above picture of me on the pier at our hotel.  The sun was setting and the light was very cool.  I look a little crazy because I had just climbed out of the sea.  My hair was still dripping wet with salty, 90-degree Caribbean water and it was 100 degrees outside. When you're in paradise with your family, who cares what you look like?

I knew that both make-up and a hair straightener would be pointless in Belize, so I left it all behind.  I didn't even look in the mirrror except to brush my teeth.  I had pretty much two hairstyles while we were in Belize.  They are both what I call my Gidget hair.  Either my hair totally flipped out at the ends

or I wore it in 2 tiny ponytails, like this:

Swimming was a huge part of our trip.  We loved the pool, and we loved the sea.

This cute picture is one of my favorites.  This little boy was out on the beach one morning in his jammies playing baseball with his brother.  He even put on his Cubs hat to make it official.

 We discovered a restaurant called Pinnochio.  It is owned by Hans, a white-headed German man.  He was so kind to our family, and we loved getting to know him and to hear his stories and learn about his life.  He makes the best pizza I have ever had.

 One random story that kind of goes along with our dinner at Pinnochio's is about Zachary.  There is an old saying that bad things come in threes.  Zachary's foot had three close calls while we were in Belize. First, at our hotel in San Ignacio, our electric teapot I had used to heat the water for the morning's breakfast was accidentally knocked over and spilled super  hot water on Zack's foot.  He screamed like I have never heard him scream.  We rushed him to the bathtub where we dumped a bucket of ice on his foot, and he calmed down. Luckily the water had not been full boiling temperature, but it was very painful.  And then two days later at Caracol, Zachary put his foot right in a nest of fire ants.  That's right.  Fire ants while wearing Keen sandals.  And we heard the same horrible scream of pain we had heard when his foot was burned.  Then two days later, while we were dining at Pinnochio's, Zachary managed to step on a burning citronella coil.  Once again, the scream.  We put ice on his foot, and he was OK.  And then his feet stayed out of trouble for the rest of our trip.

We really loved staying at Xanadu in San Pedro.  Here's a picture of the building we stayed in.  We had the lower level of the building on the left.

These people were using a boat to move a fridge and mattress set. 

This picture was taken at a restaurant.  I love Zacky's crazy faces.

After 18 fun days and nights in Belize, it was time to come home.  So we packed our suitcases full of souvenirs, and with our heads and hearts full of memories we boarded a plane and returned to our real life.

You don't see that every day

 One evening in San Pedro there was a family walking on the beach in front of our room.  They asked the kids if they wanted to see the necklaces they had for sale.  Almost everyone there asks if you want to buy some necklaces, and then they pull about 400 out of their pockets or a backpack.  These people were very nice, and had two cute kids with them, and so we told them we would look at their necklaces.

While we were going through their vast collection of necklaces on the rocks by our hotel, their two kids were over playing at the sea shore.  When next I looked over, I saw two little kids using a machete to try to crack open a coconut.  I was stunned as the parents acted like this was a perfectly normal for a 3- and 4-year old to be doing.  Aubrey went over and took some pictures because it was so funny.

 We bought a few necklaces from them, and they went on their way.  I'm hoping everyone still has all of their limbs.

It reminded me of a time that Noah was about 3 years old and he came into our kitchen with our machete from the garage.  He held it up in the air and asked with a big smile on his face, "Can I use this?"

I tried to NOT freak out as I calmly told him "Not today," and swiped it out of his hands as fast as I could.