Brilliant!

Now that we are getting into the swing of things, I am finding a few tricks that work for my homeschooling organization. I read this idea somewhere and it is brilliant, so I had to share. For awhile, I kept the books and things that we used daily during circle time in a little plastic tub. The tub would start with us in the living room for circle time, move to the table for school work, then maybe to the kitchen if I read out loud during lunch. But, the books just kinda get piled up in there and I got tired of digging through books. The solution? A dish drainer!!

It is segmented perfectly for books, so I can flip through them so easily. Plus, the silverware caddy is convenient for the smaller things we use daily during circle time.

Now, I gave you a good idea, so it's your turn :)  Will you be my sounding board for a sec??

First off, I cannot believe how busy I feel now that school is in full swing. I feel like I never sit down!! There is so much that needs done and school only adds to the home maintenance! I have only sewn one seam in an entire week, which kinda bums me out, but obviously those expectations need to change too. A few things I'm working on to improve things where housework is concerned:

1. Lowering my standard. A family that is home all day cannot have the same standard of "tidy" as a family who works and goes to school. We are here all the time, so I need to be ok with some degree of mess.
2. I have not required enough of the kids. I'm working on this. The little things they are capable of doing could really add up and help me out a lot. I'm wondering, though; do you have any tips for motivating your kids to help out with a good attitude?
3. There are a few things I feel like I have under control. One is the laundry, the other is the kitchen. I think if I can maintain these two areas, plus have the family room generally picked up by the end of the night, I'll be happy with that.  

What are YOUR tricks for keeping up????? Please, I really want to know!!

Ode to Colorado

Every time I leave the city and enter the nearby more mountainous parts of my lovely state, I am always so in awe of God's wonders. He didn't have to make everything so beautiful, ya know, but aren't we glad He did? It always reminds me that our creative desires and love for beauty is a result of being created in His very image.

We escaped home and spent the night with Casey's parents in Colorado City last weekend. While there we witnessed a sideways-blowing crazy rain storm, which resulted in this amazing rainbow!

Amazing!
I can never get enough of the views from their yard down there, even though it seems the camera never quite captures it like real life!

8 grandkids on this side of the fam. 5 boys, 3 girls. These are the girls :)

Love this one of Natalie!

It occurred to us recently that we have never taken the kids to Bishop's Castle, which is only minutes from my in-laws house.  This place is the result of one guy and his father before him, I think, over several decades. It's crazy and ridiculous and awe-inspiring and a death-trap all rolled into one :)

Natalie and Kelby were FEARLESS! It was freaking me out. This is NOT a safe place. Layla, on the other hand was absolutely terrified. In her defense, I was not thrilled about the initial super-steep staircase either ;)
Can you see it in her face?? hahaha!

While I'm on Colorado and its merits, love this oldie from good ol' Five Iron Frenzy:

It's true, ya know :)

first sewing lessons

Hmm, the new Blogger is different, huh?

I've had my eye on this book for quite awhile and when I got a good coupon in my inbox for Barnes & Noble, I snapped it up!

Natalie especially is so excited to try something; she was practically in my sewing chair after flipping through it once, ha!  I told her we'll be starting with some hand sewing :) Before we try something from the book, I thought I'd have the girls give embroidery a go. It was so much fun, they loved it.

I tried to show Natalie how to make smaller stitches, but she kept saying, "Yeah, ok, I think I have the hang of this now".  Too cute :)

Happily, I also have a new grown-up sewing student! I'm going to start teaching my friend Maggie how to sew and she is super excited, she said she wants to sew everything and be just like me and I said, "You want to be a 50's housewife like me!?"

God is the Ruler yet

I have been absolutely loving the old hymn, This is my Father's World. We sang it in church today because I requested it of our music minister and because he's married to me, he obliged ;)  The lyrics are wonderful, but my favorite is the final verse:

This is my Father's world, 

Oh, let me never forget

That though the wrong seems often so strong, 

God is the ruler yet.

This is my Father's world, 

The battle is not done.

Jesus who died will be satisfied 

And earth and Heaven be one.

A short while back, I fell in love with Jadon Lavik's version (the whole album is very good, actually):


And, what do ya know, this song is part of our homeschooling curriculum (which is called My Father's World) so it looks like I'll be dwelling on these words lots :)

Seasons come and seasons go

Welp, we have officially begun our school year as of Monday and although I'm sure I'll feel out of my element for the first few weeks (months?) of every new year that we homeschool, things are going well :) I am enjoying the My Father's World curriculum--very hands-on, which is great for us creative types!

Last week, as a last hurrah for summer sewing, I pulled out a piece of vintage cotton that I was recently given and gave Simplicity 2591 another whirl:

I reviewed the pattern right here, if you're interested in reading that. I wore it today and really like it :) The fabric makes me smile and it makes me feel a bit like a 50's housewife. Those fab pockets can't be beat!

But before that, I pulled out a little p.j. pattern and some flannel pieces and made each of the kids some Fall p.j. pants. I'm still deciding if I will buy sleep shirts or make them, but they were all thrilled about the pants, even though I put them downstairs in the cold weather tub for now :)

In order to tell the back from the front, I like to put little tags in them, like this...

Kinda makes me want to make some for myself!

This pile is about a third of the last batch of fabrics that my dear older friend at church gave me (this is Kelby's idea of helping me fold it)

Rosemarie, who gives me all this wonderful fabric, made Kelby this little man shirt for his birthday!!

SO sweet, he loves it :) It has his name embroidered on the tag, which he things is pretty cool.

My Sewing Nook

Remember me telling you how a spider had babies in my sewing room?? That actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise :) Because of that little incident, I spent about a week doing all my sewing on our dining room table.  I loved it. I got so much more sewing time in because I didn't have to wait until the kids were busy or down for bed to go hole up and sew! Because of this, I decided to move my sewing downstairs.

I am lucky enough to have both a living room and a family room, a dining room and an eat-in kitchen. I took one end of the living room, brought an unused desk over from my Mom's (which I had actually painted years ago, in a color that I still love, thankfully) and had Casey drag up a shelf from the basement that was left here when we moved in. Then, after that, I had him drag it outside and cut the legs shorter and then drag it back in. What a guy :)

Anyway, here's where I'm sewing now...

I opted for the window on the end that isn't the first thing you see from the front door and where the couch sort of separates things from the living room. I think it looks so pretty! Who says a living room workspace has to be an eyesore???

My little spot has some of my favorite special things in it: A washboard that was my grandmother's, vintage drawing books that were my Mom's when she was a kid, an old shoe pin cushion that was my other grandmother's, a tile my friend Jenn made me that I use as a pattern weight, a china bowl Casey brought home from Iraq, the Matroyshka doll my Dad got me in Russia and some inspiring little Mary Engelbreit prints (still miss her magazine!)

My fabric, patterns and many supplies are still stored up in the guest room and the spiders have been taken care of thanks to my trusty Terminix guy, in case you're wondering.  While I was moving furniture, I went ahead and painted that room. I did it with no taping, in a room full of furniture and three kids in the room with me and it took me about 2 hours. That's how you know you've painted an entire house from top to bottom. I now consider myself a pro :)

I snapped this picture of Kelby's room after we tidied it yesterday. Now that he has his new bed, he really seems to own his room. Before it was just a place to sleep, but now he arranges his toys, sweet-talks the girls into making his bed just how he likes it, etc...

The Big Boy

So, my little guy turned 3 last weekend! For some reason, I am having a rough time with him growing up! I almost cried when Casey took apart the crib for the very last time (although it's a major pain, so I'm sure Casey was inwardly filled with glee) to make room for his big boy bed.
He looks soooo cute in his new bed, though :)

That awesome dinosaur is one of the things I made him for his birthday! He really loves him, he wouldn't stop hugging him all day and he even pretended to share his breakfast with him, with slurpy noises and everything.

Someone gave me this old pattern a few years ago and every time Kelby would wander into my sewing room, he would dig it out and carry it around for the rest of the day. So, I finally made him one :)

I also made him these peg dolls! This is not my original idea, I found it on Pinterest and it came from this site.  Mr. Incredible was my own addition and he's my fave :) It occurred to me after I made them, I don't know who the yellow guy is. The best guess we've gotten so far is Ironman, but I dunno.

While I was at it, I made our little family, which you can see in my header up there. These were a big hit with all the kids!

Kelby put his own little guy in his shirt pocket and carried him around that way for a few hours, it was too cute.
I think I might try these Star Wars ones for Christmas!

We had a pretty low-key birthday, which was nice. We didn't have a big party, but we did take the kids to a little water park that we have here called Pirate's Cove, which was crazy, but super fun :) I didn't take any pictures there, I was too nervous about all that water and my camera!

I made some pirate cupcakes (printed the toppers for free from here).

Grandma and P-Paw were there, my lovely cousin Jordan and my Aunt and Uncle. It was fabulous :)

Aaaaaaaargh!!!

Happy Birthday, Big Boy!!!

Currently reading...

I would love to share a current reading list with you :)  Now that I'm doing less mandatory reading for school, I have more time to read for pleasure; not that I wasn't squeezing some of that in anyway!

I started Vanity Fair a few months ago, right after reading Great Expectations.  These are two whoppers of classic literature, but I am reallllly liking Vanity Fair. Today I passed up page 600, out of 850, so the end is in sight and I am excited to find out what happens! Then I'll watch the movie, I suppose, but I know it won't do it justice. We'll see.

After this doozy, I'm going to read The Help....because I need something shorter and everyone says it's wonderful...and because I like to read the book before I see the movie of anything!

Next up, I ordered My ABC Bible Verses for the kiddos because I'd read some good things about it. We love this book!! I read one story and verse to the kids every several days and then we review the verses we've learned.  Not only do they remember the verses (when I say, "does anyone remember the A verse, the B verse, etc..."), but the verses are very applicable to the life of a child and so I can say, "Was that a kind answer or a harsh one? What kind of answer turns away anger??"  Good lessons for mommies too ;) Highly recommend.

Thirdly, a friend let me borrow Things That Can Not Be Shaken and I am working my way through it slowly and thoughtfully.  It really confronts doubt in a Christian's life and so far, it is a very worthwhile read. The subtitle reads, "Holding fast to your faith in a relativistic world".

The same friend (thanks, Amanda :) told me about the On-the-Go devotional series. I started with the contentment one because for some reason, this one was much cheaper for my Nook than the others. I really like it with my morning coffee :)

Last but not least, and back to the classics--sometime around February or March, I heard there was a new Jane Eyre movie coming to theaters. I think I remember reading the book in high school, but I wanted to read it again and boy, did I love it! You can read my review of the book on Goodreads right here.  I never made it to the movie, but it finally came out for rent last weekend and I rented it. It was SO good and SO true to the story!!!! I always love it when that happens :)


Happy reading!