Over the last couple of weeks the Cupcakes seem to have decided, without any input from me I would hasten to add, that naps are for wimps. They still nap quite reliably at daycare. One of the benefits of peer pressure, I presume. But when they’re at home they would much rather, say…

play with their stuffed animals

scrape their binkies against the wall

sing and dance on their beds

yell

jump up and down on each other’s heads

Fun as this may be for them, two napless toddlers means two writhing, screaming terrors by 5 pm. This does not a happy mommy (or daddy) make. They left me no choice…I had to do it. My apologies to the environment.

Nighty-night, girls!

Back during the dark days of winter 2006 I picked up a Ryan’s Room Mega Maze for the girls at Costco. I wrapped it up and put it under the tree for Christmas. On Christmas they joyfully tore off the wrapping paper, climbed on the box for a while and then I put it out in the garage to await the return of the sun to the Pacific Northwest. Fast forward three months…

If you live in marine west coast climate you can’t be too awfully picky about what constitutes an actual ’sunny day’. Around here, today counted; it was 65° (17°C), not raining, and every so often an unfamiliar glowing thing would peek out from behind a cloud. That means it was finally time to play in the yard. Hooray!!

But, what was there for the Cupcakes to do? The toddler play structure we’d gotten for them last summer now looked woefully inadequate. The little red slide offered no thrills to my suddenly Very Big Girls. They dutifully climbed on it, and to make up for the lack of sliding excitement, jumped down to the ground from the highest spot on the toy. Ho hum…Then I remembered the Christmas gift.

Wow! This is heavy!

Papa, put this together for us.

Papa takes direction well.

Uh-oh! What’s this?

Wait, Papa! You forgot something!

We’re in a hurry to play with our new toy.

We’re helping Papa put the tent together. Who needs an instruction sheet?

Papa’s been watching Project Runway again. We can tell.

This is fun!

Maybe a little too much fun.

Isn’t it lovely?

The rain starts again tomorrow, but the next time we have a sunny day we’ll be ready!

Today I’m introducing a new feature on my blog: Cupcake Art.

The girls do art every day at daycare. They love it. And I think it’s pretty terrific, too. Except that now I am faced with the dilemma of what to do with all of these masterpieces. I can’t keep them all. I certainly don’t have enough room in the house, and after a while I’m pretty sure all that paper would become a fire hazard. But I can’t just throw them out drop them in the recycling bin either.

Then I had a Brilliant Idea…why not scan (at least some of) the Cupcakes’ Deathless Works of Art and post the images on my blog? Foisting my toddlers’ art on an unsuspecting Internet seemed like a good way out of my looming Mommy Guilt. The girls’ art would be preserved forever, or at least until my backups failed or became unreadable due to technology creep, and my house would be less likely to become a fire trap.

So, without further ado, I present to you:

Cupcake Art

I managed to accomplish three things with my weekend off:

1. Buy a new red shirt to wear to the FCC Chinese New Year banquet. (Pictures here, if you’re interested.)
2. Finish knitting a sock.
3. Get really, really sick.

Clever, non?

Last weekend, however, ushered in an explosion of creativity, and hyperbole. On Sunday I finished the toddler dress I was making in the Learn to Sew class I was taking with the lovely and talented Denise. Et, voilà!

Note the groovy googly-eyed cat button. It may have been the result of a Project Runway overdose. I can’t say for certain.

Today I went out and bought fabric to make a second toddler dress, an apron (really, it will be cute. honest.), and a pair of pj pants for DH. Oh, and a magnetic pin thingie to pick up all of the pins I keep dropping on the floor. Pins are not so very good for Corgis, vacuum cleaners or two-year-olds.

And to top off the excitement…today my first Rockin’ Sock Club sock kit from Blue Moon Fiber Arts arrived in the mail. Yipee!!!!

Poor DH. He may not be seeing too much of me for a little while. But he will be getting a nice pair of coffee bean print pj’s as a lovely consolation prize…