Shall We Dance? or Skate?

If you are a totally crazy, this is what you can do about 3 hours before your son is supposed to go to a birthday party! LOL I could not find exactly what I wanted in my bag patterns (I have a kazillion but none seemed right for a 9 yo), so I "unvented" this one as Elizabeth Zimmermann would say about her knitting adventures. I learned a lot making this and want to make some for the girls for their birthday. The applique was kind of last minute and wasn't completely right - looks a little like my first junior high projects! But the little girl likes it. It included a 9x12 sketch book, some drawing pencils, markers and colored pencils. This is a girl from our church is another home schooler and likes to do art projects. I used pink machine embroidery thread for the top stitching and I was surprised at how nice it looks, hopefully it will hold up. The best part is that this bag was made from remnants I had picked up a long time ago, so it was free to make. I just barely had enough time to take a picture before D went to the birthday party where it was meant to be a gift!

Here is D. Can you see how excited he is? His invitation was addressed to "Prince D" and it stated that he was to wear his royal dancing clothes. He loves to dress up for church, so he wore one of his church shirts and a tie and looked so handsome.

Here he is dancing with the birthday girl (yellow dress) and another friend from church. (Sorry about the smeared face, I don't have permission to share other children's pics so I had to be careful in what I chose. The best pics show lots of faces.) The birthday girl turned 9 and D was the only boy who came besides birthday girl's brother, also 6, who has "cool" Car movie toys! This is not the first time that he has been the only boy at a girl's birthday party. I think we are going to have an interesting time when he is a teenager!

Here is D dancing with one of the older girls he knows from church. On the ceiling you can see the "disco ball" that birthday girl's Mom made. D comes home excited "And Mommy! They even had a 'dixel' ball!" :o)

In this picture you can see on his face how much fun he is having. I don't think he gave a rip that he was the only boy there. That is one advantage to home schooling - he doesn't get exposed to all kinds of society's ideas of what a boy should be, he is just himself. He is all boy, but he is not afraid to show his gentle and tender side. As a Mom I hope I can nurture that some day so that he will be a good husband to my future daughter-in-love.

He loves all the little kids too and had fun playing with this little boy who is the younger brother of two of the girls who came.

And this one I love because you can see the joy in his face! This post was for you Grandma so you can see your "Darlin"! Hope you enjoyed.

It sure was fun to sew. I haven't done that in a long time and want to do some more.

While D was at the party, the girls and I watched the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. I have been skating deprived this year since we gave up our satellite. The majority of competitions are on ESPN, so I missed them. And this came through with crackling so bad that I almost didn't watch. I was so glad I did because at the end of their performance in pairs, John Baldwin got down on one knee on the ice and asked his skating partner Rena Inoue to marry him in front of everyone and she said Yes! (lucky him!) You can see about it here if you're a skating fan or just a fan of a great romance. The couple, who have been skating a long time, (both skated individually before coming to pairs) have really been hard workers and continue to skate in their 30s. Thirty is young, but that's a lot of stress on your body. She also is a survivor of lung cancer, which claimed the life of her father.

The ladies skate was interesting and disappointing. Some of the "older" skaters - the 18 year olds - didn't skate so well and 2 of the medalists are not even old enough to go to the Worlds in March! I was sorry to see Alissa Czisny do so poorly. She seemed so promising and I hope she can regain her confidence and continue. Kimmie Meissner also did not place well, but still has a hope of going to world's because the commission decides based on a lot of factors. Some of these new little bumble bees on the ice are amazing to watch even though the whole package isn't there yet, but it will make some exciting skating to watch in the future. I've watched Rachael Flatt the last couple years and have been impressed with her. She placed second. Tonight is the men's competition which is my favorite. Oh, the ice dancing was really good and Tanith and Ben came with their game faces on, giving one of the best performances I have seen from them. I like their program this year, which is to Chopin music.