Farewell Summer!

Summer has officially come to an end. We're sad to see it go, but we are looking forward to a great fall ahead. A few highlights from our last days of summer...

We met our friends at the museum last week for a fun play date:

We enjoyed celebrating Riley's birthday! On his last day of being 4 he got to pick 4 special things to do that day: play at a playground, play legos, go out to lunch - his pick was subs, and we have a tradition of letting the kids pick out a toy with some of their birthday money from Toys R Us. Of course he picked legos :). It was a really fun birthday eve! Here we are at lunch:

And here are some shots from his actual birthday:












(He had been asking for a jumbo stuffed snake for the past year. I found a tut online and promised him I'd make him one for his birthday, so here it is! He loves it! You can find the tutorial here - it was very easy to follow and make! I think I'm going to try and modify it to make a butterfly or something for Naomi's bday)

And finally, yesterday we had a brief, but fun visit from Papa and Nana on their way to their new home only 6 hrs away! We are looking forward to more frequent visits now that they will be living within driving distance.

(using Riley's new 3D chalk kit)

we went for ice cream at the beach and watched the sailboats come in

Farewell summer! We'll be looking forward to your return next year!

Dinosaur Hoodie Costume

I am not a seamstress by any means, but I have pulled out my sewing machine on occasion to make pillow covers or hem pants or do a simple project. I want to learn to sew better and more difficult things, but I know that takes time and practice. So I hit up the girls in my small group to see if anyone else was interested in joining me in tackling a project every month or so, which I have dubbed "Susie Homemaker" nights LOL. Our first group project is next weekend and we are doing ruffle scarfs! I am very excited. I pulled out my sewing machine yesterday to give it a dry run and work out the kinks before everyone tries it and, despite a few snafoos, I ended up with a pretty cute scarf. I'll share more about that project and the projects to come as we do them so stay tuned!

However, our trip to the museum this week spurred another project that was pretty easy to pull together and my little dinosaur-lover is quite happy! After seeing the costumes at the museum (as shown in my last post) that were made from an adult sized hoodie, I decided I could make something pretty similar at home. (And frankly, I'm astounded by how many costume possibilities there are with an oversized hoodie if you think about it!) So Riley and I took a trip to the store yesterday to pick up the supplies.

Materials Needed:

* Adult-sized hoodie jacket (I purchased a Large because that was the smallest size they had in green and I didn't want to make another trip, but a medium or a small would work well too)
* Felt squares - 1 white, 1 black, 1 orange, 1 green, 1 yellow
* Green thread
* Scissors
* Liquid stitch glue
* Pins
* Green fabric (I used a jersey knit fabric that worked really well, because I also used it for my scarf project and it was on the clearance rack - you could use whatever fabric you prefer)
* Stuffing


Steps:
1. Cut small triangles from the white felt and pin around the rim of the hood for teeth. Using a straight stitch, secure them to the hood.

2. Cut out two yellow eyes, and a white and black piece for the center. Glue them to the top of the hood using the Liquid Stitch. I ran a stitch down the center of the eye to reinforce all three pieces.

3. Cut two nostril pieces from the black felt and secure them to the hoodie with the Liquid Stitch.

4. From the green felt, cut several large triangles. Follow the seam from the hood and starting at the top of the hood pin the triangles upright down the center of the hood and continue down the back of the jacket. On the inside of the jacket, use a straight stitch to secure the felt.

5. From the orange felt cut 6 triangle pieces for the claws. (I made the center 2 larger than the others). Pin three triangles on the top of each cuff and stitch them in place.

6. For the tail, take the green fabric and fold it in half. Cut a large triangle shape, as big as you want the tail, making sure the fabric is "wrong-side up". Sew up the open edges, leaving a small opening for the stuffing. Turn the fabric right side out, and fill with stuffing. Sew up the opening.

7. Pin the tail in place and on the inside of the jacket, stitch along the center to secure it.

8. Zip up the jacket on your little dino-lover and viola! A scary (cute) little dinosaur!