Summer Sewing!

Oh, man, I don't think I've ever been so relieved that summertime is coming! Yesterday we had some truly amazing weather. I actually got a bit of a tan :) Since I've been in such a Summer mood, I've been doing some Summer sewing.

Here's a dress I made Natalie out of some fabrics my friend Jenn gave me. I don't love this pattern--it kinda has that dorky homemade look. But, as my friend Angela reminded me, that look is kinda in right now :) Plus, Natalie really likes it AND it's longer that anything you can find in the stores right now!

As for me, I've sewn lots of things for myself lately, but it's very hard to take pictures of myself wearing them. I did manage this one, though:

I have a white linen skirt exactly like this that I got at Old Navy after Natalie was born--six years ago. I wore that skirt through my next two pregnancies and beyond. I even took 6 inches out of it when I lost 50 pounds a year and a half ago. When I saw this gorgeous linen on clearance at JoAnn for $4 a yard, I had to make myself another one. I copied the white skirt ruffle for ruffle, pleat for pleat. I love it :)

I'll try to have Casey take some pics of me wearing the other things I've made!

Another kind of sewing....

This pot was left here when we moved it. I spray-painted it yellow. Much better :)

Kelby's turn to count! "One.....Free......Two!"

Catching Up

More scrapbook pages, I know, I know. But, it's what I've been up to so I'm sharing, like it or not :) Well, it's not ALL I've been up to, just what I've been up to while watching TV in the evenings. That is, if I don't have a mountain of laundry to fold like I do tonight, ha!

Other than that...

• The kids and I have planted some seedlings! We just couldn't wait :)
• We'll be wrapping up Ocean Week (we extended it a week) on Friday. I think we'll move on to a Recycling theme for next week! Should be fun.
• I just learned today that my grandmother's first name was Rosina, ha! I had NO idea! Don't know how I missed that one. 
• My kids have fallen head over heels for the Magic School Bus. That Ms. Frizzle is soooooo funny. Too bad they are not more plentiful at the library! 
• Will Ferrell on the Office is not that funny. But, I'm no really a fan of his anyway. 
• I might not watch American Idol tonight *gasp*. My favorite (Paul) got the boot a few weeks ago so now I just don't really care that much. It's easier to spend a few minutes looking up each performance on YouTube the next day. Saves me about an hour and a half. 

Annnnnnnd, that's all she wrote :)

Giddy-up

This is soooooo cute. When I saw this tutorial, I absolutely knew I had to make one for Kelby. He used to ride my broom around the house, ha! But, now he has this guy instead:

He likes it. He cuddles with it while he watches cartoons :)

He's made out of old jeans, some yarn, scraps and a broom handle or dowel. The whole thing cost me $3 and was totally worth it :) Now the girls want some too--the unicorn one of course, but I think one pet horse is enough for now.

Easter Duds

Okay, I'll admit, this one is mostly for the Grandparents :) My mom took my girls and I to the mall several weeks ago and decked out my kids for Easter. I think the one thing the girls were most excited about today was to finally get to wear their new Easter clothes! Kelby didn't care all that much, true to his all-boy nature, but he sure did look adorable!

I made my dress! More on that later this week :)
Annnnnd, check this out--drum roll please........
Casey wore a tie :)

What I learned from the flu...

I had a flu bug yesterday. It was ugly. Casey was out of town (he comes home today, yay!) so him staying home was not an option and I could barely get off the couch. We are all well today, praise the Lord! But, I did learn some things from the flu. Here they are:

1. It is much easier for me to be patient and gentle with the kids when I have zero expectations for myself and my day. 
2. When I am patient and gentle, the kids seem so much more eager to do what I ask with happy hearts!
3. My kids are able to do much more for themselves than I thought they could!

I am so thankful for the cooperation of my children yesterday. They could not have been more helpful. They required very little from me, understanding that I was sick and they did not argue at all, with me or each other. What treasures I have in them! And, I am thankful that simple things like old magazines keep my girls entertained for hours :)

Before that nasty bug came to visit, I was busy making some things. I can't wait to share them with you next week! Until then, have a wonderful Good Friday and a Happy Resurrection Day!!!

Under the Sea

We have had a bit of Spring fever lately which makes the temptation to slack off in the home schooling department pretty big. So I decided to reach for the home stretch and plan some theme weeks to make things more fun for all of us! Under the Sea is our first theme. I spent yesterday gathering materials and came up with some pretty fun things, so I thought I'd share :)

First of all, our theme song--(we found a remix Disney CD at the library and the girls just want to listen to this one song over and over again. It is fun, though :)

I will not be showing the girls this video; Layla would surely comment on the immodesty of the blonde girl, ha!

I also dug out all the books I could find on our shelves that had anything to do with the sea. This has been a favorite of ours for a long time:

We also read this one today:

Yes, we know that mermaids are fictional. So, when we watched the following video about sea horses, Natalie said, "I didn't know sea horses were real!" Haha! I guess she had them in the "just pretend" category, along with the mermaids!

We also watched this really cool dolphin one and talked about how cool God's creatures are!

Then the kids made paintings of dolphins and sea horses (and of course, both girls included a mermaid) in their nature journals.

I have so many more great things planned for Under the Sea week! The Magic School Bus is involved--I even downloaded the free interactive app for the Magic School Bus ocean book for Casey's iPad, so that should be fun. I think tomorrow we'll make some popcorn and watch Disney Earth: Oceans (Netflix, watch instantly!) Here's a preview, it looks awesome:

I'd like to take them to the Downtown Aquarium on Friday, but it would be an expense, so we'll see. I was able to get several books from the library to use for the rest of this week too. So, even though we are still doing the basic subjects-math, reading, writing, etc... the theme is definitely making it more fun! What I love about homeschooling is that I get to integrate every subject with the Bible and really point out what an amazing creation God has given us to marvel at! Today I read them the creation story from this book, which was given to me and which I highly recommend!

Some more themes I'm thinking of:

• Little House on the Prairie
• Plants/Gardening
• Recycling
• Rainforest
• Different Countries

Care to add to my idea list??

scrapping away

Since my little trip, I've been pulling my scrapbook stuff out in the evenings on the family room floor and making a few pages here and there. I'm still sewing too. I'll prove it to you at the end of this post, but first, here's some pages I've made these last couple of weeks.

I'm finally making some good progress on Kelby's book, obviously!!

But, the girls get their share too:

No the clearest picture. But, I recently made some dresses for the girls out of fabrics that a blessed lady at church gave me--from the 60's! Yes, very cool.

On child rearing...

I was reminded during this morning's wonderful sermon at church how each and every one of us is born to iniquity. (The sermon was not about child training, but it got me thinking...) We inherited a sin nature from Adam. We have no control over our sinful nature, but for God's amazing grace. We were born to sin and so are our children. So, why are we as parents so surprised when our children sin? Why do we act shocked and hurt when they disobey or act wrongly? Of course they sin! It's what we do! Do we expect to deal with an issue, then never have to deal with that child's sin again?

If parents expect perfect, sinless behavior from children, they will become disappointed, angry and frustrated when they have to discipline them for failure. However, if we anticipate that our children will mess up, we can turn each case into an opportunity to train, to correct, to teach (rather than to punish). The goal is not perfect children--that will never happen; the goal is to teach our children about God's grace and how to govern and correct their own behavior next time they are tempted to sin.

Next time your child sins, take a moment to thank God for the opportunity to direct that child toward Him. A graceless parent cannot very well portray to a child a gracious God. And aren't we all so grateful for His grace and unending patience toward us?

My little scrapbooker

Natalie made this page today for Kelby (I've been giving her leftover pictures after I make pages) and I had absolutely nothing to do with this, just FYI. I think she's super :)

I am really enjoying having a six-year-old. She thinks much more rationally than my 2-year-old and asks far fewer questions than my 4-year-old :) Natalie is turning out to be such a wonderful person. She is SO good with younger kids--she directs play without bossing and really caters to their "little-ness". She is best buddies with both her little brother and her little sister. She is helpful (most of the time) and has come SO far in regards to keeping a happy heart. Her creativity has always stood out and I do everything I can to foster that in all my children.

Seeing her grow and change makes me so happy and excited to be moving on from the baby and toddler phase into the even-more-fun elementary phase and I hope that I find each passing age more fun than the last--even the teenage years!

a day in the life

It's gray outside today and we've had a pretty mellowed-out day. It's been nice. Natalie's not feeling well and she's been in her pj's all day.

So has Kelby, although he has no such excuse.

We did some school.

I did some chores.
The kids watched Tangled (awesome movie, I dare you to argue :)

I put Kelby down for a nap and made an iced latte using these instructions. Somehow I've never managed to master the iced version until today. Yay me :)

Then the girls and I did some stamping/scrapbooking.

Layla was distracted by my calculator.

Natalie is super artsy-fartsy--she'll craft all day long.

I foster her hobby by buying her paper packs from the Target dollar spot :)

Then Kelby woke up and that was the end of that.

We tried to take pictures of ourselves...

And then Kelby took some with his calculator, I mean, camera. Say cheeeese.

Here's to mellow days--cheers! :)

where I've been

Every now and then, moms need a break, right?? My friend Jenn and I were at that point and decided to plan a girls weekend of scrapbooking! Since she's in Reno and I'm in Denver, we met in the middle--Salt Lake City. Let me tell you, it was SO MUCH FUN! It was so refreshing to be somewhere for a few days where no one asked us for anything (other than what I wanted at Starbucks, of course :) When asked what we did, I answer, "we scrapbooked, we ate and we watched chick flicks. That's pretty much it."

I got lots of pages done. I actually feel like I made progress on that stack of pictures. Here's what I got accomplished (you can click on each picture to make it readable if you want):

This is Jenn. I bet when she made this crazy face, she didn't think I would blog it, ha!

And check out our awesome mess!

It's not so bad, right? At least our beds are made  :)  We didn't let the maids in at all, we just kept the little sign on the door.

It was wonderful. Next year we're thinking Flagstaff might be nice...