Today is day two of mid-winter break and both Dex and Cars are sick. Well, Dex has a fever and is lethargic (until the Advil kicks in and then he is fine for the next four hours and then miserable for two until it is time for another dose). Cars has croup. He gets it surprisingly often (his fingers are always in and around his mouth - ew germs!) but today it was different because he did not just have the cough during the night and in the morning but throughout the day. Anyway, we just hung out around the house today then and did not go to the movies with Spy and her kids as planned.

So, we decided to make stuffed pigs. If anyone is familiar with the story "The Wonderful Pigs of Jillian Jiggs" by Phoebe Gilman, those are the pigs we attempted. In the story, Jillian makes tons of pigs out of old stockings and extra buttons, yarn, fabric scraps, etc. For years we've been saying that we'll make them but since we had nothing else on the go, today seemed like a good day.

I pulled out some stocking and cut them up (instructions are in the back of the book) and sewed up one end then the boys started stuffing. It was slow going because I was the only one sewing and so there was a lot of waiting around for them. Waiting around = boredom so Jax had a great idea about what to do with some of the extra stuffing and Dex just had to capture it (Sir Mix-A-Lot Anyone?):


So, after watching me sew up the ends, sew on the noses, glue on eyes, and sew a little mouth, the kids all announced that they were bored so we decided to put away the pigs for now.


Don't look too closely at my very uneven stitches


Sad unfinished pigs looking a lot like sausages. Dex wants to make his pig a Pirate Pig. I think even just getting it to look like a regular pig is ambitious enough!