Happy Spring!

Happy Spring to you!  I see little early spring flowers poking up and the weather is going to start getting warmer.

Here in my house, we have been hit by the flu, or something like it.  Last week my daughter was sick and home from school for a couple days and this week my son has been sick all week.  On Tuesday night it hit me and I ‘called out sick’ yesterday.  You know, from my job as a stay at home mom.  Thank God for dads who miss work to take care of the sickies and grandparents that like to help out.

We did venture out this past weekend, which it turns out, was a little break in family sicknesses.  We had another successful museum trip, this time to The Harvard Museum of Natural History (here).  What a great museum!  A friend recommended it and said the size was very doable with kids.  She was right.  The kids loved it and so did we.  We will be going back for sure (and free on street parking, YES!).  Afterwards, we headed to Faneuil Hall (here) for lunch and The Boston Public Market (here) for dessert and some shopping.  Have you been to the Boston Public Market?  It’s pretty great.  Lots of vendors with locally made items for sale; grass-fed local meats and seafood, fresh donuts and really delicious ice cream. After our belly’s were full and our pockets empty, we headed home.

(inside view from the dining area at the market)

In between everyone needing Mama,  I was able to sew two pairs of shorts for my son.  The thing about shorts is that they are such a quick sew, and of course, essential for summer.  I used the Kids Shorts pattern from Dana Made It (or Made Everyday).  This pattern is my go-to for summer shorts for the kids.  There are so many great variations for these shorts and Dana has a bunch of tutorials on her website for many different ideas.  And they are a quick sew!  I made the racer length for both of the shorts.  The green racer shorts are from a brand new thrifted linen shirt with railroad striped chambray as bias tape.  I made my own bias tape as it’s incredibly easy and I really wanted stripes for the contrast.  The green bird shorts were already cut out in a size 5t (I must have cut them out and stuck them in my stash pile) so I used racer length again but just made them regular style with two cargo style pockets.  My son loves them and I think they are pretty darn cute too!

We have been doing a lot of reading this past week and rediscovered The Mouse Mansion (here) by Karina Schaapman.  We bought it for our oldest a couple of years ago and now our youngest loves it too.  It is the sweetest story about two little mice that are best friends and live in this great mouse mansion and go discovering.  The author built the actual mansion with cardboard boxes and paper-mache.  See here for more info about this wonderful book.  We’ve been talking about making our own mouse mansion.

Happy Easter weekend to you!