Beautiful Day

Yesterday was great. The kids had the day off from school and the weather was gorgeous! We had planned on going with a group of friends to Stokoe Farms but since we had gone to Long Acre Farm the day before with family, we were pretty burned out on corn mazes and such.... and we were still recovering from Hudson's 9th birthday party extravaganza... so we hung around at home instead. Hudson spent nearly all day putting together his new Lego sets. He got a lot of new Lego's for his birthday.

Ethan spent a good deal of the afternoon creating his "masterpiece" in chalk on the cement slab that we call our side porch.

He said he was finished, so I took a picture... then he changed his mind and went back to work. I love this version of it though. It looks like a Picasso face, doesn't it?

Cate and I feed the chickens a huge feast! Soy beans and corn from the farmer's fields, tomatoes, a huge zucchini, a rotten pepper, apple slices, carrot greens.... just about anything we could find that they might ingest.
Alex asked me to make her a leaf crown. There is probably a better way to do this, but I just braid the stems together and add a new stem every third "twist" or so... kind of like french braiding.

She and Cate dressed up like "fall fairies" (I made Cate's crown from flowers) and played in the leaves. Alexandra seems so mature sometimes for her nearly 11 years, so it is so nice when she acts childish and lets go and does something like this!

Then to top it all off, when I went out to the compost heap I saw this on a tree. Alex's doing.... warmed my heart!

Elephant Bag

I was going to write a post about my Halloween costume progress...but I just finished this bag last night and thought it would be more fun to talk about. It is a Pleated Beauty from Bend the Rules sewing. Only the second one I've made. Number one was for my first (and only) swap.

Back in May I made a tote for Teacher's Appreciation week. It was a raffle prize. Well, a male teacher from our school won it and joked all day about his "man-purse", but then went home and gave it to his wife, and she loved it. The other day I saw his wife and she asked me make a bag for a friend of hers as a Christmas gift. "Ok," I said. "What does she like?" Her answer, "Purple, polka dots and elephants." Hmmmmmmm......interesting...but, ok.

I was lucky to find some cute elephant fabric online. And as soon as it arrived I dove into making a tote. I never use a pattern when I make a tote, and I have even gotten lazy about measuring, but usually they come out ok. But, I must have been in a funk because this one came out horribly!! All weird and wonky... and not in a good way! So I tried again, but this time got out my trusty Bend The Rules Sewing book and actually followed the directions. By this time I had very little elephant fabric left, so I had to use it sparingly. I added the embroidered elephant on the front to tie in the fabric that is on the inside pocket. I also added a tiny patch of elephant fabric on one strap. I hope they see it as arty and not as a mistake.

The little one I watch arrived to day wearing similar colors so I had to get a picture of her slubbering on, I mean with the bag.

Halloween Costume Season

I should be planning and sewing the kids Halloween costumes.... but instead I am entering a contest with last year's costumes!! So, if you feel so inclined, could you stop over at Family Fun and vote for the Headless Guy??? You'll be my best friend! Vote for us!http://family.go.com/2008-halloween-costume-contest/costumes/headless-groom-1008/

That's my daughter under there. (Alex won Best Costume in a local contest last year. Here she is holding her winning bag of candy and certificate.)


Here are the boys from last year as well... Ethan was a mummy.... and Hudson was a kid being abducted by an alien. (This one was a real crowd-pleaser, but I didn't enter it into the contest because it was featured in the magazine already. That's where we got the idea.)

If you want you can go to my youtube page to see videos from last year of the kids in their costumes.

Car organizer

The other day I finally made something for myself. I have been wanting a car organizer for awhile...checking them out online at at places like Target. Nothing seemed right though. Then I happened upon this... and I was inspired. Not inspired enough to actually order the pattern, because honestly, it looks way too complicated for me and my limited sewing skills. But I kept going back to the images of it and thought, what the heck? I can give my own version a try.

My organizer started life as a box of 48 waffles from Wegmans. It was the perfect size I was looking for. It's not perfect, as you can see by the wonky fit of the divider, but so far I am pretty pleased with it. Although I wish I had added more pockets. (I am not a planner, so the pocket was the last thing I put on... not a smart move. It was very difficult to get the thing through the machine in the direction I wanted to sew.)

Then I made a garbage bag too. I had intended to use plastic grocery bags as a liner, but they are way too big (again not planning or measuring before making this was not working in my favor! go figure)...but I think bread bags will work well. We go through enough bread to keep us steadily supplied with bags.

Pear Crisp

We have a pear tree in our yard. It's weird though, I don't think it gets enough sun... all the pears grow at the top. I climbed up it the other day and still couldn't reach any pears. So I gave it a good shake and pears fell down like rain. The kids gathered them up for me and now we have a 5 gallon bucket full of pears (and oh so many more that can be shook down!)

So tonight, after the kid went to bed, I made some pear crisp.

I reminded me of this time a few years ago when my youngest, Ethan, was still at home with me...he was probably in pre-school, but we still had a lot of time together every day. We picked pears one day and made pear crisp and he kept calling it "crust", which sounded so umappetizing!... and it makes me sad because I miss him. I mean, he's still here, but he's getting older and moving further away from being my "baby" and I miss him at that age. Tonight when I put him to bed we talked about tomorrow's school day and he said, "I love first grade, but I miss you Mom. I miss you when I'm at school." It broke my heart.

I've had a rough couple of days here. My husband has been away for a week, and I've been dealing with some "stuff"... just stupid stuff that makes me question my parenting, and then to hear Ethan say that on top of everything else was almost too much to take.

So I came downstairs and made some pear "crust". It smelled delicious as it baked... and I cried a little bit.

How big a loser am I?

Ok... don't answer that. I already know.... and I have proof. Remember back in April (APRIL!) when I made a little tote for my husband's best friend's son Fritz? And I mentioned that I needed to make another for Fritz's twin brother Beck??... well, I just finished Beck's.

Sorry for the super crappy picture...but I wanted to be sure I got a picture of it before I send them off.

More Freezer Paper Stencils

We used the freezer paper stencil technique to create peace sign shirts for our children's choir to wear as they sang "Imagine". The project moved along pretty well... I cut the stencils, another mom ironed them on and we let the kids go nuts with the paints. IMO the negative images turned out better (where the peace sign is white)...but they all looked pretty darn cool. After service a man came over and asked my sister and I how we made the shirts, so I gave him a quick tutorial and a big sheet of freezer paper (it was still in my van from the night before when we all got together to paint them). Sometimes it's nice to feel like the craft boy-scout...always prepared.

Cate gave it a try too. I cut out a large butterfly for her and set her up with some paints. I did have to help a little... mostly to make sure she painted right up to the edge of the paper to make a nice clean line. I'm a little anal like that.

She was quite pleased with the results.

And remember this picture from the other day?? See the pile of zucchini?

This is what happened to it today.....