here is the sweet bag that helen made for granny for her birthday. this is the front.

this button was made by my grandfather who was a button molder. it has a horse head on it. sweet pea and her granny are huge horse fans so she wanted to make sure that granny had one of these buttons. there are only 6 left now.

here is the detail on the back. helen did all of the sewing and design.

i sewed the ribbons and button for her.

we were invited to watch the rochester redwings play a game. the great treat was we were going to be watching it from 8 stories up!

we had so much fun. what a beautiful night. we began the birthday celebration for my dear mother-in-law. we even had an amazing show of fireworks.

by the time we left we were all very tired but had not had dinner so we stopped at a diner and had breakfast at 10:30 a first for sweet pea. she loved it.

sweet pea has been wanting to learn to use the sewing machine. we decided to try and learn to sew with a project for granny's birthday gift.

granny has been doing all the sewing since she was born and my mother-in law is also the one who is teaching me to sew.

sweet pea chose a few fabric pieces of fabric from the fabric sample books that i received from a woman that works at an interior design library and posted on freecycle that she was getting rid of older fabric sample books that they no longer needed. i wasn't sure what i was going to use them for at the time but i knew that we would find something to do with them. i am hoping to use some to try to make my first quilt soon.

sweet pea chose some fabric to make a little bag for granny. i will post pictures when we finish. she cut off the bottom of the fabric samples with the paper on the back and used them to practice different stiches. then she realized that they would make very good bookmarks. can't wait until she makes me one.

we are getting ready for our kitchen construction to begin so i wanted to take some before pictures. its so funny i took this photo and uploaded it and thought this looks like such a pretty kitchen i think i am going to miss it. i have periods where i think this kitchen is ridiculously small but big families in europe and metropolitan cities can grow up in apartments much smaller than this house are we just being too greedy. then i tried to cook dinner and put away all the "stove pieces" and they would not stay on the overloaded shelf. i remembered why i am ready for a new kitchen with a stove and new fridge.

i needed to show some photos of what the kitchen looked like when we bought the house. we painted the whole house before we moved in just to make sure that we had any lead paint covered. we also pulled up the floors in the kitchen to remove the pet smell and had all the hardwood floors in the entire house refinished and some flooring replaced.

i need to do another post soon to show all the changes that have taken place.

sweet pea came up with a recipe for "raspberry essence" a few weeks ago and we decided to use it for our making strides for breast cancer "lemonade stand" this year at the park avenue festival. it was a really big hit. we used local homegrown raspberries and juiced and strained them with some filtered water and a touch of sugar. delicious, fresh and refreshing. so different too.

we also brought the bracelets to sell. we only sold a few of those but no worries we are having our making strides kickoff breakfast for the local walk on thursday morning when all the team leaders get together to be inspired to raised lots for research to FIND THE CURE. the event is mc'd by one of our very dynamic local newscasters and a personal friend of helen's (she is so proud of this), ginny ryan. we are so inspired every year.

my sunshine spoke at this event 2 years ago to over 500 people when she was 5. originally she did not want to speak, she was going to let me do the talking, not really my dream but anything for the cause. once we were up there, she was drunk with the power to hold the attention of so many and to bring them all to adoring response. it was a challenge to remove her from the microphone.

last year she did not speak but ginny let everyone know that she was selling her bracelets and asked her to stand on her chair so that everyone could see that for the past 3 years helen had raised over $2500. per year and they could do it too. i was so proud. helen was so thrilled just to be able to stand on the chair and to have everyone give her an unbelievable round of applause was almost more than she could stand!

i am hoping to get the bracelets out on etsy soon. i will include a link as soon as they are posted.

one of our old neighbors is 14 and she held a lemonade stand today to raise money for breast cancer (american cancer society).

we have been having lemonade stands for the past 3 years during our old neighborhood arts festival. helen has been raising money since i was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 when she was 3. she is a really hard sell. it is almost unfair. she has raised over $2,500 per year over the last 3 years and is already on target to meet the goal again this year.

we will be out tomorrow afternoon. our bracelets are beautiful. the kids and my neighbor jill have been working for the past few days on the the beads and bracelets. we have 69 bracelets to start. i have been having a hard time deciding on a price. they take a very long time to make the beads. we have been selling them for $10 which i think is way too cheap. i keep thinking about what marisa of creative thursday says that many artist price their pieces too low. we are going to try for $20 tomorrow. my sister-in-law was selling them at her office for that price and she was getting it so. we shall see.

somedays, more like the last 2 days i, we feel like we have been in the car hitting too many stores. we have been enjoying many beautiful days of not getting into the car. we are working on having more days out of the car.

errands are done for now...

we are really busy making beads for the fundraiser on sunday. the kids are really enjoying it and working so hard. i am really proud of them. our neighbor is helping too. so wonderful. i think that these are going to be our best bracelets yet.

sometimes in all the chaos of the day it all comes together with 30 minutes of quiet bliss. knowing that sweet pea is having another successful piano lesson and listening to an amazing advanced violin lesson while easing into the new soulemama book. Happiness!

hope that you are enjoying your day.

we came home last night and sunset was floating on top of the water.

we are all so sad. not sure why we all were so attached to this fish so quickly. maybe because sweet pea won it herself just a short 12 days ago. who knows, but we are going to get another one today.