Mitchell's New Birthday

My baby. He has grown so much and still sometimes seems so little but sometimes does things that are so big. This morning i was visiting by phone with my sister and the kids came downstairs to tell me something exciting, you could tell by how they were talking over one another. Mitchell says loudly(because that is his only volume) "I prayed to God.". My interest was piqued so i started asking some questions. Me, "what did you pray?"...Mitch says, "please let me be old and bring me to heavens. I prayed God to be my, what it that called Avery(this is where she provides him the word)? My Savior. That's all of it!" How sweet. My mommy's heart is very full. Now Mitchell is not always good at giving full stories so i asked Avery what they were doing and this is what she told me. They were playing Polly's in her room and she said she had a question for him, "did he want to last forever and ever?" Mitchell said "YES" so she led him in prayer. She told him what to say and he repeated the words after her. I explained to him about God living in your heart and always being with you and that He helps you be good and do the right things. He seemed to understand this. Avery told him that all the angels were dancing around heaven and singing and that now they had put Mitchell in their list to go to heaven. I know he is little but i believe he is still able to mean it. So friends and family, rejoice today with us for Mitchell, we are so proud of him. Matthew 19:14, "Jesus said, 'Let the little children come unto me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.' " I love you Mitchie!!!

Musician in the Making

I could not resist. Mitch is very moved(literally we all are) by some new music we have in the house. Rodrigo y Gabriela!!!. Tonight he got out the guitar he got for his birthday and went to town. All day really he has been pretending this. I was secretly watching him this morning while he talked to his audience at breakfast...."hi. this is rodrigo. I am gabriela" and then he proceeds to do a little mock guitar playing...arm out stretched and strumming his belly. These pictures are blurry. It is hard to get a guitar player to be still for his photo shoot.

sewing central

There has been a lot of sewing going on here. This first picture is a great representation of what my sewing table looks like all the time. Computer open to a pattern, a heap of fabric waiting to be made into something and a half drank cup of warmish tea. I wish i had a more tidy place to sew but for now the only place is right in the middle of my living and dining room. Now that it is all out all the time i definitely get more done than when i was using the dining table and had to put it all away for every meal and company. Long ago Avery asked for a baby doll sling. I used one for Mitch when he was small and she wanted one the same. That tells you how long she has been asking for one. I was inspired this week, found a simple pattern and they literally took barely half an hour each. Don't they make lovely models? Mitch is very into the dolls and make believe right now and he has a baby with him just as often as Avery does. That is his Rudy. I hope they make good use out of their new baby slings. I particularly love the goldfish fabric that Mitchie's is made from.

craft this

Avery and Mitch got right in the thick of things with this project. I had them paint wooden game pieces for the tic tac toe board i made them. I had a pattern and finally got a chance to make it(not the greatest photos, oh well). They seem to be enjoying it and are starting to understand the concept of the game. They were very intent to paint those and they did a really great job.

A Little backyard Fun!!!

The weather here has been a little off. One day it is warm and rainy and the very next it is freezing and snowy. During this a ice rink appeared in our backyard. The rain puddle froze and the snow melted and the whole thing grew! The sun had come out a little bit this day so we decided to make the most of it. We are getting a little cabin fever and are tired of being inside all the time. Chris and Avery put on their skates, Mitch got out his hockey stick and we started playing. The ice is big enough that there is room for Chris to actually skate and for Avery to skate/shuffle. Mitch and i had a great time hitting the puck back and forth and Chris got in on it too. This was definitely a unexpected winter gift that we are all loving.

homemade

Try as i might to blog more than once a week i seem to be falling into a habit of a weekly cram session. This week began with a whim to make homemade butter. I think that day it was snowing and we were looking for something interesting and fun to do. I broke out the jar and poured in the heavy cream, with just a pinch of salt and got to shaking. The kids helped. Not as much as i thought that they would like to but even while we did school Avery and I kept passing the jar. In about 20 minutes the butter came together and there it was. Very tasty too. My sister says you can add fresh herbs and shake those in as well or honey. Yumm huh? We drained the liquid that separates from the butter solids and then i pressed it all into my butter crock. And we have been enjoying it since. It has been especially nice on out Irish soda bread.

a watch pot never boils

this weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count. We have so far counted birds for two days. But don't you know that when you are looking for birds they never come. We usually have tons of birds but not when we are looking for them. Avery has been a little disappointed by the low numbers but we are hoping to go out with a bang on the last day of the count, Monday. Check it out and count some birds.
I attached these pictures because they were outside pictures. We are dreaming about that these last few cold, icky days. The first is Avery jumping rope. Then the kids watching the last of the leaves falling from the trees. We took a break from school on a nice morning, got a blanket and laid under the trees and sky and counted. We count a lot of things around here. The last one was a sweet, sweet picture that Chris took of the kids this summer while we were on "big" family vacation in Maine.
Dream of spring and birds and think of us if you do the bird count tomorrow.
**my mother asked what did we see...well, the last day it was only a goldfinch, but in the previous days we saw crows, pigeons, sparrows, cardinals, seagulls, blue jays...mainly the everyday birds we get in the backyard. Avery was a little disappointed especially when the last day we sat there and there was literally no birds for 15 minutes but the goldfinch.**

modeling

it is very easy to make things for girls. Most fabrics are for girls, most patterns are for girls and hence most of my quilts turn out to be for girls. But i wanted to make something for Mitch. He asked for pirate pants. How do you turn down a request like that? So i found a pattern online and just copied what they did. Traced a pattern from a old pair of his pants and then jumped right in and got to sewing. I think these took me all of an hour and only cost like $4. How cool is that? Not the greatest pictures but the other ones i took were blurry because my model does not like to hold still. The flash makes them look silvery but they are more like a loden green color, and the fabric is kind of like velvet but has some patterning like cords.

...and more crafting

So, the truth is that i get ideas in my head and don't give myself a lot of time to do them. Then when i am knee deep in the project i realize how much work it is going to be but by then there is no turning back. These are felt pencil toppers i made for Mitchell's school party. I started them Tuesday evening and had to finish 14 by Thursday morning. No need to explain why i was busy for two nights. The candy conversation hearts were my inspiration. I cut two pieces of felt, traced and cut with a cookie cutter. I embroidered, roughly, messages on them and blanket stitched the pieces together. Cut a little slit in the back and inserted the pencil. Voila!!!!

Here are the valentines Mitch and i worked on for his class. A whole school of Valentine fish. Just a bunch of hearts that i cut out with the same cookie cutter and he helped me glue them together. We glued on googly eyes and drew on a little smile. We wrote little messages on the back like..."you're a catch" or "you're ocean's of fun". Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

crafting, crafting....

Here are some of the crafts we have been working on for Valentines day. This first one is making crayon stained glass. They look very intent don't they?. We have not made the final hearts yet like Aunt Colleen and the girls because we have been busy with Mitchie's school Valentine's Party. I plan on it though. Good intentions count, right?

Here is Avery working away on her project. She took fabric scraps from my scrap bucket and glued them on paper. She traced and cut out hearts and then attached it to ribbon to make it a mobile that hangs over our dining room table. I think she really enjoyed the part where she got to stand on the table to hang it with me. That girl is quite a crafter.

Hooray!!!

Congratulations Big Boy!!! You have come so far in such a short amount of time. As you who have been reading my blog know, I had recently posted the first time Mitch wrote his letter, "m". Well this was just the other day and the first time he wrote his whole name. Can you believe that? Hooray little guy.

Visitor from Beyond!

My sister kate came for a visit this past weekend. It was so nice to have her. She is great with the kids and totally laid back about everything. Mostly she is just easy to talk to and easy to have around. We are all glad that you came, Kate! While she was here I made her one of the bags i have been working on a lot. I think she liked it. I customized hers with a "I-pocket" just for her i-pod(that is the last picture).How fun is that? She also agreed to model all the other bags i had made in varying sizes. Thanks Kate.

Cute Kids

what is blogging without pictures of my kids? Julia, check out what Avery is wearing. Thank you.

Random

There was just this one ray of sunshine on a gloomy, dark and icy day. It came in my living room window and rested on just this one thing, a really cool little globe Colleen sent me. I watched it until it was gone...just moments. I made me dream about traveling and seeing places i have never seen before.