Crafts

The last month has offered some exciting opportunities for crafts, and Emily's birthday has its own post, because those were not individual projects, as she is a willing helper. I also cut hearts out of coke boxes for over a month, in preparation of Valentine's Day, but it was a bittersweet day to be sure.  I've included the picture here too, because the other post is a work of emotion and reflection, which I may not feel up to revisiting each time I want to recall a very sweet Valentine's Day memory.

Around the time of a snow event, my mom asked if the big girls would be willing to make a homemade baked good for the church's bake sale at the chili dinner. With the snowy roads, I declined, but as the roads cleared had a change of heart, and made the baclava, for which, I already had the ingredients on hand.  I delivered it to the church, along with some cookies that Sarah made (since I was stopping by her house en route.)  My mom sent me a follow up report, telling me that it was gone quickly, and the bake sale was a success.

The three rounds of snow days gave me the time opportunity to get started on, and ultimately finish end of year teacher gifts for the little ones' teachers.  I don't think I have the persistence to make the 14ish bags that I would need for the big girls' teachers, so I'll have to come up with a different gift for them.

I considered making two bags for the twins' teacher, but ultimately decided that she probably did not need two bags (if she even needs one) and put their handwriting on either side of a single bag.

The t-shirt that I cut up to use for William's teacher was a very slippery material, and my machine did not care for it. It took many failed attempts, and finally an iron on fleece to stabilize it enough to make it useable.  (Also, I hope he never sets it near something hot, because the iron brought out a faint smell of cigarette smoke, which was not present at room temperature.)  And, it wasn't until ironing out the embroidery hoop on the twins' teacher's fabric that I realized it would melt and shrink under a hot iron (I guess the iron had been 'heating' on previous presses.)  So, I ended up trimming it a bit before sewing, and it looks okay in its finished form.

Despite all the setbacks and periods of ripping out failed stitches, I managed to finish!  Surprisingly, this is not even the earliest I've ever finished end of year bags, but it feels good to have this project finished!

Emily and her bag were home long enough that I was able to repair the handle cover on her strap.  Sadly, with the repair, the hook could no longer fit through, and so I had to cut apart the strap itself and then reattach the hardware (twice, because the strap ran through the cover twice on the pass over.) = 6

When the girls' Easter dresses arrived (I shopped around Christmas time) I made William a matching bowtie.  I love the colors of their dresses!!!

I'm glad I waited until the dresses arrived, because the pictures made me think that the dresses were much darker in color than they turned out to be.

I'm thankful for the gift of time.  The hours of dropping off and picking up the children never sounds like much, but it might just be enough to get in one extra craft.  = )

later days

January 10th

Today the high was estimated for 49F, but we aren't supposed to reach it until late tonight!?  It was cold at 47F according to my car, but without the wind, it didn't feel like a biting cold.  As the day progressed it became foggier and foggier.  We are anticipating our first winter storm of the new year tomorrow.

After sending my dear ones off to school, I checked the mail, and sorted it in my car.  My next stop was to pick up some potting soil, because I woke up several times last night worried about my wilting outdoor, but currently indoor plant: Ward.  His new leaves are browning and a few of his shoots were wilting. So, I bought some rich soil, and moved him to a bigger pot.  I hope he makes it through the winter, because he was thriving outside all summer!

Once I had the soil, I headed to Meijer for Billy's ice cream cake, but we decided to meet for coffee, so I stopped by the bank and then went to a thrift store to bide my time. = )  I spent almost two hours shopping, but only ended up buying a handful of books.  One of them was a Geronimo Stilton, a series I hadn't found a supplement for since May!

I went by Burger King to redeem the last of our 'prizes' a freebie chicken fries!  Then on to Panera to order some real lunch. = ) I had a gift card from my mom, so I splurged and bought an iced cookie to go with my sandwich.

Billy and I spent a nice lunch at Biggby (since we'd both already eaten) before he had to go back.

When I got home I started in on my plants (because I knew that once I went inside, it would be hard to go back out in the cold. Also, I tried out the new mower key that came yesterday.

While I was moving Ward (far left) into his new home, I also mixed in some fresh soil for my other plants.

While I was working on my 'gardening' (lol) Sarah called to see if I wanted to take in my mower.  I was excited to do so, now that I had the key!  It took us a bit for just the two of us to maneuver my lawn tractor into the bed of her truck, but we made it work.*  After checking it in, it took him a lot less time to take it out, than it did for us to get it in.  Hopefully it's something simple and cheap to fix.  At least if it takes them a while to look at it, I have the time.

After we left the repair shop, we went to Carl's to pick up an Ice Cream Cake for Billy's birthday tomorrow!

I had just enough time to sort through my catch-all (Texas) bag that had the mail, trash, receipts, thrift store purchases, etc. before running to collect my dear ones.

Fridays are a shortened piano practice time, and since Grace and Emily had both worked on their time this morning, piano practice did not drag on as long as it normally does.

Billy went out to celebrate one of his co-worker's retirement news, so for dinner we had a choice of a hot roast beef & swiss or PB&J.  Most of my children chose the peanut butter. Even going out after work, Billy was still home by 7:30, but the kids thought that was "so late. It's dark!" lol

I also had to fill out the annual forms for the kids' supplemental medical insurance.  I never regret having it ready to roll for when we file our taxes, but man is it a pain to fill out. Luckily, I had the foresight to keep last year's so it was just a matter of copying all the information that never changes. x3.

later days

*After clearing it out of the shed, naturally I had to sweep, and much to my dismay found the missing key in the leaves that were underneath the mower.  The safety pin was closed, which probably means that when I had 'attached it to my shirt' after my final mow, I had missed my shirt and it had fallen under the blade. = /

The first few weeks of the school year

Drop off on day one looked something like this:

It was early, and I like walking the first few days (so that I can scout out traffic patterns/potential issues) my children are not fans. = /  Also, grace wanted to play on the school playground (which she is staring at) and I told her we could not. = (

We did cross to the park playground across the way, and they got to play.

While I did an errand avia took them to A&W for hot chocolate and pie.

We waited on the backside of the school for the big kids to get out.  For some reason, any thing large enough for them to perch on now indicates a picture. = )

Pretending to be "in jail" at the thrift shop.

Emily's amazing first grade teacher encouraged the kids to read over the summer by offering up an ice cream treat at the end of summer!  She is the best teacher!  We absolutely love Ms. Jones and will miss her all year.  Luckily for us, I have 2 more rounds (William/Grace & Juliet) slated for her. = )

Grace was "fixing her car:"

Grace loves to help wash the dishes.  Juliet will sometimes join her too.  I wouldn't recommend trusting their work without a cursory check, but they sure are cute doing it!

The problem with having readers in the house is that I'm reminded of the fact that I did not have a spare filter in the basement and had to wait for the new filter to arrive while enduring a constant chorus of "we need to replace the water filter in X days!"  Note: it has since arrived and all is well with our water dispenser again.

The river is so pretty, but the twins didn't want to get to close to the railing because that is where the spiders weave their webs.

Made it to school in time for a picture!

I saw this posted outside of Emily's class when I popped in one day:

One day, we didn't check the weather, so we didn't know that we needed to take Billy and ended up walking in the rain.  It wasn't raining terribly hard en route, but on the way back the twins and I were soaked.   We had three different people stop and offer to help us (either with rides or umbrellas.)

While it wasn't too bad, the kids were more than willing to get up early to take Billy so that we could have the car.  Alice left a note for Billy, thinking that we would drop them off first, then him, but that's not the best order.

My car (as of 9-9-18) is still in the shop.  I have officially been without my car for an entire month and it's been awful. = (  Last week we finally took our mechanic up on his courtesy car, so at least Billy has a way to and from work without someone going without a car. = )

The original problem was only part of the issue, he's replaced a timing belt and is now working on the wiring since the car is still misfiring in idle, but no alarm codes are triggering.

For labor day the kids had a 4 day holiday.  Everyone was feeling puny on Friday.  I was glad to have the day off and we enjoyed a leisurely pancake breakfast.

Alice enjoyed relaxing on her birthday present before bed.