JustJessie

Stormtrooping Grayson style

Grayson, like all good American boys, has a healthy love for Star Wars.  It's cool cause his daddy liked it when he was a kid; it's cool cause they have guns and lightsabers (though thankfully they never bleed); it's cool cause there are robots and aliens involved.  So ever since playing with his cousins yesterday, all I have heard about is how Grayson really needs  a stormtrooper gun, but he doesn't have one.  One of the many things that I love about Grayson is that he doesn't always expect us to run out and buy him new toys all the time.  He is much more likely to ask us to make  him a new toy rather than buy him one.  On this one I started to just blow him off, ya' know?  Make a stormtrooper gun?  Get serious.  But, being Grayson, he couldn't let it drop, and I started trying to remember the last time I made something with him that took a little thought and effort on my part, and I couldn't remember.  So I started scrounging around in cabinets and closets, hoping inspiration would hit me, and guess what?  It did!  Here's what we came up with:

We covered a spaghetti box with white craft foam, then rolled up some cardboard for a handle, which we attached through slots on the bottom of the box.  We covered the handle in black tape, added some black tape to the sides to make it more authentic, and voila!  Stormtrooper gun a'la Grayson.

Sewing my pillow, by Grayson

I learned to sew at five years old, and this is where I'm learning.  I'm sewing an Eragon pillow.  Eragon is my pet dragon.  My pillow is almost just like what he looks like.  I thought that it looked just like him when my mommy needled the picture through on a blue piece of fabric.  I painted it first.  And this is me sewing it.  I learned to sew at my Grandma's house

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It is very soft, and this is what it looks like when it's finished.

*This blog is in Grayson's own words, typed unabridged by his mommy.  Your comments for him would be appreciated!*

Ladybugs for my Kayla-bug

My niece was born when I was fifteen years old, and from the moment I laid eyes on her, she became my "Kayla-bug."  When she wassmall, she was my substitute baby (cause I've always loved to mother things) and her mom was sweet enough to let me dote on her and have her over often.  We did all the things I do with my boys now.  We crafted, cooked, played, and imagined.  She's thirteen now, and she still loves to come over and make things with me and the boys.  So since I am having so much fun sewing, I thought she might like to try it too, and boy did she!  She was so excited when I told her what we were doing.  I took her to let her pick her fabric, and then we took my  machine over to my mom's and made her purse. She was a natural on the sewing machine, and her bag turned out so cute!

She enjoyed it so much, she asked for a sewing machine for Christmas! 

It's all about the Daddy.

Have I told you lately that I have the best hubby in the world?  Because I do.  He shows his love for our family in so many ways.  He works extra hard, so I can stay home with our boys.  He never cares if the house is a mess or the laundry isn't done (even on the rare occasion that it means wearing a not-so-clean shirt to work).  And he is all about our boys.  He is forever teaching them something, whether he means to or not.  This weekend he taught them both a few lessons on growing up to be men. 

He took Grayson to a kid's workshop at the home improvement store and built a memory box with him.  Grayson was soo proud.  Not only because he got to spend that one-on-one time with his Daddy, but also because he did "man-work."  He nailed all the nails in by himself, and Jeff helped him stain it afterwards.  The box turned out great, but more importantly Grayson and Daddy made some lasting memories.

After much agonizing over it, Grayson decided he would keep his rock collection in his new box. 

Then Grant got to help Daddy with the yard work.  He helped him steer the mower in the back yard, and stuck with it through the whole thing.  He was so proud to be with his Daddy all by themselves.  That's something Daddy is very good at.  He knows when to include both boys, and he knows when they need him to themselves.  Of course there is some sibling rivalry still, but it helps that each boy knows he is important to his Daddy, and he will make time for them as often as he can.  We are very blessed to have him in our lives.

Kasey the Gentleman

I have this little boy in my home who surprises me all the time.  He has this wonderful imagination, and so many ways of expressing himself.  I love to watch him playing pretend because he becomes whomever he's pretending.  I love to listen to his stories because they always have twists that I didn't see coming.  I love to hear his songs because the melodies are beautiful and the lyrics touch my heart.  I love to see his artwork because the beauty of it always surprises me.

This little boy asked me yesterday if he could paint while his brother took a nap.  He used his favorite animal, Kasey the Koala, as his "row-model" and dressed him as a "gentleman."  He put on his top-hat, and in the absence of a black tuxedo, put his basketball uniform on inside-out over a white t-shirt.  This, my friends, is the resulting artwork, entitled "Kasey the Gentleman."

(Sorry about the flash reflection, the other pix were too dark)

And here is the artist and his "row-model" posing with it.

And They're Off!

You know how much the kids and I love to make things together, right?  Well, did you know that sometimes we get Daddy in on the crafty action as well?  We get a lot of our craft ideas from this magazine, and this month they had a soapbox dragster that I thought would be perfect for Daddy and Grayson.  The finished product looks like this:

Our town is down to one craft supply store, so we had to alter the supply list a little bit, but they turned out great anyway.  Grayson had so much fun making these with his dad.  Almost as much fun as when he beat him...  in every race!  Daddy is Grayson's number one hero right now, and the only thing better than being "Just like Daddy" is being just a little bit better!  You should have seen how excited he was when his car went farther (or further, I can never remember).

Besides our little soapbox derby, our weekend was EXTREMELY uneventful.  It was too cool to swim, too humid to play outside, and too boring to blog about.  Maybe this week will be a bit more interesting... at least I hope so!

"Best Brother in the World" trophy

While Grayson was staring lovingly at his new trophy, talking about how he had TWO of them now, it suddenly dawned on him that Grant had none.  He wanted to make him one, and he asked if we could make him one out of tinfoil.  It took some pondering before I could figure out how to make it work, but this is what we came up with.

We started with an old toy of Daddy's and half a plastic heart, and we glued the man down with glue dots: Then we started wrapping him in foil.  Grayson was sooo happy with the results.  He couldn't wait until Grant woke up and he could give it to him.  He presented it to him and made a little speech, telling him he got the trophy for being the best baby bubba in the world.  (To which Grant replied, "MINE! MINE! MINE TOPIES BUBBA!")

He carried it around all day as if he knew how much work Grayson put into it.  It made me so proud that he  would be that thoughful of his little brother.  It was one of those moments that make parenting a pleasure.

monkey business

Today I realized I've really been slacking in the crafty department with my munchkins, and I needed to fix that.  So we got out the air-dry clay to make something.  I was expecting the usual stuff.  You know, pinch pots, a face, a shapeless blob with toothpick holes stuck in it.  So I was a bit surprised when Grayson said he wanted to make a monkey. 

My first thought was this could be fun.  Followed closely by oh no! what if he can't make it perfect?!  For, you see, Grayson is a perfectionist from way back.  He gets completely frustrated if he can't make a thing turn out how he thinks it should.  We have given so many speeches about just doing your very best and things will be wonderful, but he doesn't buy it.  Imagine my relief when the monkey's head actually looked like a monkey head.

I helped him with the other body parts, but the head was totally his creation.  I was pretty impressed with my little guy.  I could tell a difference in his behavior after we finished our little art project, too.  I guess sometimes kids need a creative outlet as much as we adults do.  Also one on one time with mommy never hurts.

Panoply of the arts

We had a great weekend, but oh so busy!  First of all, let me tell you, Grayson played his BEST soccer game EVER Saturday morning.  He has really had a hard time getting after the ball, because he is just not a very aggressive child.  He would much prefer to run around on the outside and kick if the ball accidentally came his way.  Well, he is definitely growing out of that.  He got right in there and really helped his team this week.  He would have even scored a goal, but right before it went in one of his teammates gave it one more kick.  I cannot even tell you how proud I am!

Well, then we got to do something really fun today.  We went to an outdoor festival in a city near ours that is pretty much geared around kids.  I think they call it a festival of the arts, and it's purpose is to get kids into art of all kinds.  We made about a zillion crafts, saw some really cool artwork, and spent the entire afternoon in the sun.  My kind of Sunday afternoon!  Between the two boys, there was more artwork than we could carry (thank goodness for baby strollers!).

Oh, and do you like this statue?

Cause it's not a statue it's a people!  Kinda creepy.

And I have an announcement to make.  Grant has entered the world of make-believe!  He was crawling around this morning barking (although it actually sounded like monkey sounds) and wanted us to pet him and call him puppy.  Yay!  I love watching kids play make-believe.  Especially when they are this young because they actually think they have fooled you into believing them.  Mostly I love the sparkle in their eyes when they are playing pretend.  Imaginations are so fun!

Whimsies

  Because I have all boys in my house, it's not often I get to pass something on to one of my kids.  All those cute little baby dresses my mom made me & saved for me to pass on?  Useless at this point.  The dolls I collected? Packed in storage.  My Little Pony and Carebears, Mapletown figures?  Trash (too well used to be collectible). Even my beloved Cabbage Patch Kids and my first dolly whose care I took very seriously as a child... you get the idea. 

So when Grayson began to take an interest in the books I passed on from my favorite children's author, you can just bet I was thrilled.  I loved this guy's work, and would read anything with his name on it from kindergarten through first grade.  Grayson's favorites right now are the Whimsies storybooks.

So now that we have these books in common, you know what I had to do, right?  Craft something from them!  So Grayson and I spent time this morning making Whimsies out of Sculpey.  I shaped the figures as well as I could (we made them as small as we imagined they would be in real life).  And Grayson mad the facial features.  Meet Bluebell, Sprout, and Blossom (L to R):

Please don't laugh, they're awfully sensitive little things.  As you can tell by their expression, they are very surprised to see you. 

Well! Wherever one finds a Whimsy, one will also find their villain, Switch Witch:

She's not really so villainous, you know.  Her crimes are limited to giving Whimsy kids magical charms that make them break a rule.  But somehow or other, my son, my poor-pitiful-way-too-imaginitive-son, got scared while playing with her this afternoon.  In broad daylight, with me in the house, he got so far into his imaginary world that he thought he saw her outside our front door, and he KNOWS he heard her laugh.  (I'll admit her laugh can be a little over the top).  So when I dropped the kids off at GaGa and Dado's house this afternoon he was adamant that he was leaving Switch Witch at home.  So the Whimsies would be "safed" and she couldn't find the way to them.  Bless his pea-pickin' little heart.  What a gift he has in that imagination, and sometimes what a curse.  I know, because he got it from me.  If I try hard I can still hear the witch that used to laugh outside my window, and see the blue icy carebear guy that used to come creeping into my room.  Yep, I've been there.  I know how it feels to be deathly afraid of something adults think is ridiculous.  It's as real to him as I am.  So, Switch Witch may have to modify her scary voice and laughter in storybook-land, and the sculpey one may be getting a one way ticket to the city dump. 

Tomorrow we will be making a village for them inside one of Jeff's enormous shoeboxes.  Maybe if we include a jail for the witch it will help Grayson feel safe.