Sewing

I've got several sewing irons in the fire. I am working on a blanket for Alice's new arrival (LSU motif, natch), aprons for Mother's Day gifts, embroidered pillow cases for a wedding gift and a doo-dad for some matching work at school. The doo-dad is a black velvet pouch (similar to a jewelery roll) for storing decorative ceramic spoons that my lead teacher got on a recent trip to Ukraine. The spoons have delicate flowers in different colors painted on them. There are three of each, four different kinds in all. The idea is that the children look at the colors/patterns and match the spoons accordingly. They are very beautiful and are sure to be a big hit. I'll have to post pics, because I doubt this makes much sense to anyone but myself. :-)
W did some fingerpainting this afternoon. I had tried to get him to do it before, but he never had much interest in getting his hands messy. Today, however, he really got into it. Crayola makes some nice fingerpaint that is actually more like a gel. It is very, very washable. I rolled out some brown kraft paper on the living room floor and squirted the paint onto the paper for him. I showed him how to do it and he took to it like a duck to water. I have two masterpieces from his efforts. One will be used as wrapping paper for a birthday gift for a co-worker (Rita, the lead teacher in my classroom). The gift is a book called "Rita and Whatsit" and it's about a little girl (Rita) who is unhappy with her birthday presents... until she discovers that one of the gifts is a dog. The book was published in French several years ago and was just recently published in English. The name/subject matter was perfect, so there you go.
I got W a copy of "Ten Little Ladybugs" today. It's a wonderful book that works through numbers 1-10 with a lovely catchy rhyme. The pictures and words are simply delightful.
On a side note, it is supposed to rain every day this week. Of course the plants are happy, and everything is greening up nicely, but it sort of means we can't go outside and enjoy the green-ness! It also means that we have dozens of stir-crazy toddlers at work, unable to run out their energy on the playground. And, of course, it means that I have a stir-crazy toddler at home. Seriously, how many trips to the Chick-Fil-A indoor playground can one tolerate?