Jason is an imp - Vacation edition

Jason has gotten really good at sneaking into pictures.

First at Munising Falls in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

On the street in St. Ignace.

And at Sleeping Bear Dunes.

The boys got skills.

The Box

It started like this.

And then this happened. 

And then the box claimed it's third victim. Kids cannot resist the power of the cardboard box. 3/3 in this house, this week.

And box as table while watching Olympics.

God Bless Baby Quilts

Year of the Log Cabin Quilt #2

(Yes, I managed to finish quilt #2 before I finished quilt #1.)

God bless baby quilts for providing instant(ish) gratification. I've been working on Log Cabin Quilt #1 and I have all the parts ready (top, batting, back), but I just don't want to do the required basting so that I can can get the quilting done. 

Basting. It's not my favorite.

So, I made the next quilt on the list which just happened to be a baby quilt for our brand spanking new nephew, Cody. In less than 24 hours I managed to put this one together. I'm quite pleased with that fact. As I write, it's in the washing machine getting it's first spin. 

The finished size is a whopping 36" x 36". Just perfect for playing on the floor, covering up in a stroller, or clutching for security. I hope that Cody and his mom and dad will love it.

It's definitely time for me to get over the whole sorting by colors for opposite sides thing and start sorting more by value. Obviously, this quilt would have looked even better if I'd switched the browns and the greens. I need to learn to spend more time on planning and not be so anxious to just get to the quilting already. 

Also, all of the supplies for this quilt came from the supply closet, even the batting. The fabrics were all left over from the Stripes for Charlotte quilt. So, if those two little ones ever have a chance to hang out together, they'll have coordinating quilts to play on.

I'm not sure if I'll ever hand sew another binding. I'm just a really big fan of knowing that binding is going to stay secure, especially on a quilt made for a kid. I fully expect this quilt to be washed many, many times.

And I went ahead and just labeled it directly on the backing. We'll see how it holds up to the first washing and maybe I'll embroider it if it looks like it's going to fade too quickly. 

So there it is. The first finish for 2014 and first finish in the Year of the Log Cabin Quilts series. Hopefully it won't take too long to get to the second finish, quilt #1, of course.

New School Year, Day 1

Sarah's first day of 1st grade

Here we go. The life of the carpool mom during the school year. Such is life when your school has no busses and/or your kids go to private school.

The thing I like least about it all? Is the putzing time, for sure. When there's not enough time to go home in between, but there's not enough time to get anything done either. Or, you just really don't have anything you need to do outside of the house.

8:30 Drop off Sarah

11:30 Pick up one extra boy for carpool

12:00 Drop off boys for orientation

1:45 Pick up boys from Trinity
Pick up extra 10th graders for Putt-Putt
Drop off 10th graders at Putt-Putt
Drop off extra kid from car pool
Drop off Jason at home

3:00 Pick up Sarah
Putz a while until 4pm (maybe get some groceries for lunches?)

4:00 Pick up Evan from Putt-Putt

And so it begins .....

Artists I Adore - Sarah Crutchfield

This past week was my Sarah's 6th Birthday. I can't think of a better artist to spotlight this week than her.

She wrote in permanent ink on the floor. We left it for a while and did manage to eventually get all of it off. 

Sarah's first sewing lesson. I made the mistake of buying her a kid's machine another day thinking it would be better for safety. We quickly abandoned it to return to this machine. She does a great job watching out for her fingers and this machine actually works.

She has a very special sense of style.

AND  - she lost her first tooth today while she was at school. Wow, was she excited.

This girl is going to do great things and I can't wait to see. 

Quilt - Stripes for Charlotte

I decided to start the post with the cutest picture because everybody loves babies, right? 

Jon's brother Jeremy and his wife Cassandra has this beautiful baby girl, Charlotte, in July and we got to visit her this past weekend. She's a little peanut baby and I rocked her right to sleep. I've still got that mama rock down.

Now, back to the beginning. I was so excited because this gave me an opportunity to use these pretty fabrics that I have been eyeing for quite some time. 

I have a couple in there from BFF by Elizabeth's Studio and the majority are from Down Under by Shelley Comiskey for Henry Glass. It's a real occupational hazard that I see every new fabric that comes in to the building at my job. There are so many I want to use for making quilts.

I chose a simple pattern because I wanted to get this one done as quickly as I could and wanted to be able to quilt it myself as well. We had planned our trip so there wouldn't be time to send it out to be quilted by anyone else. I'm really looking forward to the day when I'll have a quilt that I will deem worthy of being quilted by a "real" quilter, rather than a novice such as myself.

Here's the finished product, such as it is. It's far from perfect but I think it's awfully sweet for a pretty baby girl. 

I put this label on the back so she'll know her favorite auntie made it for her when she gets bigger. I also told Jon that I'll make her a much more complicated one when she goes to college. Here's hoping my skills are vastly improved by then. 

This quilt was inspired by this one from Cluck Cluck Sew. 

Oh yeah, if you want to see where I collect quilty inspiration, here's my Pinterest Board for that. 

Telemarketers

Today

Happy Birthday!

This week is Miss Pretty Pretty's birthday.

She's very, very excited about it.

I just thought you might like to know.

Family night craftiness

We had paper crafting night on Friday. What? That's not what you do on Friday night? Hmpf. Maybe you should.

Sarah started out like this. All nice and neat, clean and fully dressed.

And ended up like this. I bought smelly markers. It was inevitable.

Who wants to guess at what age she will get her first tattoo?

Jason meticulously covered almost the entire front of his notebook. Then promptly ripped off the cover and threw it away.

Artists. Whaddaya gonna do?

Evan took a little more time because he likes to tell us all about what he's doing and how he's going to do it. And he chose to let the cover remain on his book to be crafted another day.

They all love using mom's special papers and tools. Sarah got a great big kick out of the wave cutter and the boys really, really, really, really love the adhesive tools. Those boys are expensive even on craft night.

Jon helped keep the tattooed lady busy and relatively clean. He also helped with clean up. Isn't he great? I dream up and help create the mess and he helps clean it up.

And here's my craftiness for the evening. It's the cover of my "one notebook to rule them all." I'm going to try out a new way to keep track of some things.

With crafty inspiration from Sara Mincy.

That was our last family night. What does your family do for fun on a Friday night?

You just got pwned!

Ok, so, my boys love to play online games. Their current most favorite is World of Warcraft.

Jon and I created a single account to share so that we could play with them and better understand what in the world they were talking about when we called them to dinner and they said "But Mom! I'm in a dungeon!"

Honestly, our account is currently inactive because since I started my business I don't have time to play. The nice thing is that our characters live on and when we want to re-activate our account (resume paying the monthly subscription fee) we can pick up right where we left off.

I've been listening and learning quite a bit this week about author Jane McGonigal. Her new book is called Reality is Broken and I currently have it on hold at Barnes and Noble to pick up tonight so you'll have to hang tight for a review.

She has some crazy ideas (and we all know how much I love those, right?) about how gaming is good for us and that through gaming we can actually work together to solve some really huge problems. Her TED talk is here. I watched it last night and it really made me think differently about the time my kids spend online.

All that having been said, what if we could create a real life game for every day living? An iPhone app created by a group McGonigal works with is called EpicWin.


"EpicWin is an iPhone app that puts the adventure back into your life. It’s a streamlined to-do list, to quickly note down all your everyday tasks, but with a role-playing spin. (from the developers website here)"


I downloaded this app today to start "playing" so I'll let you know how that goes. But more importantly, I want to start thinking about a way to create a game in real life. One where the boys will earn points for things like brushing their teeth, one where they'll earn experience points for doing their homework, and for completing chores. 


I guess there should be ways to lose experience points, too; such as arguing with a parent, hitting each other, or failing to complete an agreed upon task. Of course, some activities are neutral as well. 


Ok, I'm kind of geek so this is starting to sound like fun to me. Now I just have to figure out how to make it work. What do you think? What would your kids call their game? How should I dole out experience points or remove them?


Now to sell it to the boys. Wish me luck!

My Kids are Predictable

Jon: "You guys wanna help with this?"

No. No. No. No. No. No.

Jon starts building.

Shortly, one or both boys will come and join in the building.

My kids are predictable.

Sarah says Boo!

Sarah at six months.

Sarah today.

Happy October everyone!

What are your kids (or you!) going to be for Halloween?

:: This Moment ::

A Friday series of posts inspired by SouleMama.

Sarah's 3rd Birthday!

Today is Sarah's third birthday.  She is such a joy to have in our family.  She is fun and laughs all the time. When she is excited she makes the cutest show of it opening her mouth into a big wide 'o' and placing her hands over her mouth.  Jon asks when she went away and learned all of these cute little girly things that she does.  He doesn't know that we have little tutorials while he is at work during the day.  ;-)

Her most recent developmental advances include asking "why" twelve billion times a day.

Sarah: Mommy, why does the kids go to school?
Mommy: So they can learn.
S: Why?
M: So they can know things and be good mommies and daddies when they grow up.
S: Why?
M: So they can take good care of their kids.
S: Why?
M: Because God wants them to take good care of their kids.
S: Why?
M: Because He loves the kids and the mommies and the daddies.
S: Why?
M: Because He made all of us and he loves us.
S: Why?
M: I don't know Sarah.

She generally continues asking why until I say "I don't know." Not sure if this exercise if for her to learn things or for me to learn humility.  Either way, I think it's working.

Sarah is also using the big girl potty!  For the longest time she was just NOT interested. I could put her in big girl clothes and she would happily pee in them all day long. Obviously, we didn't do that very many days.

One day though she said, "Mommy, I want to wear panties to school.  Mrs. Barnes and Mrs. Snyder will LOVE them." And so she did. And of course they did, love them that is.  And her.  So since then we have been making it more and more of a habit and she is doing fantastically.  Hallelujah.

Sarah also loves to do things herself. Like climbing into and out of the van and her car seat, getting things down from cupboards, dressing herself.  Especially dressing herself.  Yes, she wears clothes backwards sometimes and yes, they usually do NOT match.  But we like to go with what we've got, and this little girl has style. So here is her birthday outfit for today and some cutie patootie pictures for you on Sarah's birthday.  Happy Birthday Sarah Bear!

2010!? What, already?

:: Did I mention that spring is coming? It's true.

:: Sarah loves school. She begged and begged to go to school over the Christmas break. And when I dropped her off on Tuesday she acted like she was going to cry. Whatever.

:: The boys love playing WOW. If you don't know what WOW means, you won't really care so I'm not gonna explain it. Jon and I decided to get our own account so we could understand just exactly what it was they were doing. It's not so bad after all.

:: I started volunteering in the church bookstore yesterday. I love books.

:: Evan will be 12 this summer. That's just weird.

:: Jason loves his new bedroom. We painted and did some redecorating. I started to make him a quilt but haven't worked on it in a while. He's being very patient with me.

:: My nephew Aidan is getting a robot cross stitch for his birthday. It's gonna be awesome. Party is in less than two weeks, can I get it done? Let's hope so.

:: My sister's birthday is also just over two weeks away. What do you think she wants?

:: Sarah also loves playing her "DS." It's really a Leapster, but she doesn't need to know that.

:: It looks like we will actually have some snow for the 7th Annual Sled Fest at Potato Creek next weekend.

:: Jon has been shoveling. And shoveling. And shoveling. Tonight I predict he will be watching football. And shoveling.

So what have you been up to?

can i get an amen?

ok, I love all of you people. and all of your perfect children. and all of the amazing things they are doing. but i just have to be real. i love my kids just as much as you do. i love when they draw cute pictures and when they say cute things. and would you like to know what else my kids do? they do things like these:

kick holes in walls

call each other names

hit each other

nudge each other as they walk by

yell at me and jon that we hate them

refuse to eat any food with nutritional value for days at a time

lose very expensive to replace handheld gaming systems (twice)

pester the two year old until she screams

sleep late on school days

wake up early on weekends & summer days when we have no schedule to keep

torment the adult babysitter to the point of tears

refuse to shower for days at a time

“forget” to use deodorant

lie about having brushed their teeth

keep us awake until 1:30 a.m. arguing about lack of computer time

lose money after they say they’ve put it away

many, many days i feel that i’m losing my mind. is anyone else having these days? sometimes it really doesn’t seem like it. it’s one thing to focus on the positive and reinforce the behavior you want to see in your children. it’s entirely another to put on a front and act like none of these things ever happen at your house.

honestly, i hope none of these things are happening at your house. i hope that your house is all yummy smelling and harmonious. i hope your house has clean floors and windows, that your family eats nutritionally balanced meals every day, before cleaning up the kitchen and going out to exercise together, of course. i hope that your kids always speak kindly and graciously to their grandparents and other adults.

i truly hope the stuff that does happen at your house isn’t more serious than any of the items listed above. and in the end, i know i’m not losing my mind. i do love my kids. parenting is hard. maybe that’s the point of my rant. parenting is hard. can i get an amen?

what would you do?

So today I was picking up my kids from a local half day camp. A mother was interacting with her rather young child, I'd guess younger than eight. She was getting worked up. He wasn't saying anything, just looking at her. Finally, I could hear her say, "do you want me to make a scene? right here? do you?" and the little boy began to cry. Not wimpering, not quietly. But loud, sad, face scrunching, turning red, tears running down his face crying. I looked at the closest camp staff and said, "he's not creating a scene, she is."

I chose to leave with my kids at that time. We had another appointment to keep and I really felt that it was not my place to approach this woman. I've never seen her before and I'm wise enough to know that approaching her could have just made the situation worse. I so hope that camp staff were able to diffuse the situation and that Mom did not pursue the interaction when they left the building. Not sure I'm going to be able to stop thinking about them. Wonder if I'll run into them tomorrow?