Our dear friend, “Aunt Katherine”, has the sweetest baby girl, Avery. And little Avery was the inspiration for much crafting around here these last few weeks. On my Mom’s surgery day, I got the kids started making some felt blocks. Tyler was especially excited to be making a toy for someone!

Over the weeks we found windows for them to add a square. While Grandma was here, she added to the exitement by suggesting we make some designs on the felt! Quinn wanted a sun and a butterfly which I cut out and Grandma embroidered. Tyler wanted a moon and cut out his own moon and then wanted an apple and a worm which I sewed in for him.

They kids stuffed the blocks and I sewed up the remaining sides. I think they camme out great! I am really proud of their stitching…not easy for little hands. Tyler did a great job with the blanket stitch and Quinn rocked her wrap stitch! The kids were very proud and were especially excited to present their creations to Baby Avery!

I hope this is the beginning of our crafting for others journey – it was a lot of fun and I would love to find more projects we can do together!

But the crafting didn’t stop there! Tyler brought home a pumpkin he made at school a while back and decided he wanted to gift that to Avery as well. And then a week ago the kids were drawing and painting up a storm for Avery. Quinn was into the watercolors and Tyler was drawing many pictures for her.

A Bee, Beehive, a Frog and the blue is the “water ocean” for the frog.	Ladybug and designs
She cut around the edges – I think it looks cool!	Watercolor and glitter glue
Tyler’s pumpkin made at school	We think she like out creations!

Friday started off lazy, got busy when we visited Pop’s place and then Grandma’s house, but I liked how it ended. In fact, after this I spent a lovely evening wearing my new gloves out with good friends. A good day indeed!

Sitting out front knitting while the kids play. I adore this image of the ditched bikes and the kids off in the distance checking out something in the grass. There is something so typically childhood about it to me.

Ah, knitting goodness, especially knitting just for me. There is nothing like a quick knitted gift for myself while the weather is still chilly! Happy afternoon, indeed!

Today was quiet, nice, productive, but not hectic. Really, credit goes to the kids who weren’t nuts today. I was pretty tired and with my Mom having her surgery today, well, I was thankful for that. And we did a craft project that actually went well!

We are making felt blocks for a friend’s baby. I taught Tyler the blanket stitch today and he totally got it. I was really proud of him. Also very proud of Quinn who nailed her little wrap stitch with a real needle. I really like sewing with the kids and need to do more.

Here is the layout for the day: stitch reminder, yarn, toilet paper for everyone’s runny nose (need to wash the hankerchiefs) and the phone in case there is news from my brother.

The kids and I did play some hide and seek this morning to burn energy. Can’t believe how long it took them to find me in their closet.

Visited my Mom tonight. I think she is doing rather well. She is way doped up which is good….hi, we just replaced your knee. I think back to how much pain Chris was in with his broken wrists. Bone pain seems to be brutal.

Bryan was still at the hospital when I was there doing all the hard work as usual. He helped my Mom through her nausea, got her comfortable and communicated with the hospital staff and called family. I showed her pics of Red River and then sent emails while she dozed.

Of course, one thing I have to post was my Mom going through her list from her hospital bed as I described to some friends:

Fun -sitting here as my Mom is telling me when to order flowers for my Grandmother’s birthday in a month and what colors everything should be…then she passes out. Then a few minutes later she comes too talking to me about getting the air in her tires filled to 35 pounds when I get the oil changed in her car. Totally cracking me up….

With that I should go to bed. Have not been getting good sleep. Quinn broke out with some terrible winter exzema…thank you olive oil is all I have to say about that.

Tomorrow another packed day, so I am signing off…

We have our 12 Days of Christmas Ring here which takes up right into Epiphany. One of Quinn’s gift was to be a knitted hat for her doll to match the doll sweater I made her at Christmas. Great idea….except I have to find some time to actually knit it. So down to the last minute, I got it done in about 1.5 hours..at 2am. Lost sleep..boo, but finished project – yay! It all balances out…eventually..or with caffeine. :-p

I think it came out pretty good!! Her doll looks cute. Now as to why dolly is running around in her nightgown in this cold weather is beyond me. You will have to ask my daughter that question. She will probably say that Mommy needs to sew dolly more clothes! :-p

We had a really great morning the day after Tyler’s party. Just a bunch of cool things going on that I had to capture.

First we broke the rings of Tyler’s Saturn cake as instructed. We broke them into small pieces of candy that we can slowly enjoy! Also, Tyler had seen this project in his constellation book from our trip. So we found a shoebox and made the constellation projector. I don’t know that Tyler was that impressed, but I thought it came out really well….

This morning Tyler was raring to go on thank you notes. He drew one after the other. Sadly, Momma is the bottleneck in this process – I need to get them addressed and mailed out. Quinn was thinking about what she wanted to create that morning – I think the inspiration hit her a little later.

Tyler had to show me the rocket he made with his pencils

So the coolest thing happened this morning where the kids actually did their own thing for once. Tyler went over to play with his new parking garage. Quinn returned to the table and did her first self-directed art project! I thought it was so cool – she got the glue out and was on a mission. She had a vision! I love what she created!!

Today is Michaelmas, the first of our fall festivals! Yesterday the kids and I made dragon bread which we enjoyed eating today. They had a good time decorating the dragon! We also switched the nature table over to autumn. And I must say it looks so awesome next to that newly painted wall!! Much better than the torn wallpaper, don’t you think?

Just Do It!!
Yesterday, I started off the week with a bang keeping the kids quite busy – circle, fall treasure walk around the neighborhood (both kids had their buckets), drilling lesson for Tyler, dragon bread making. I am finding that the kids are happier when I have things planned for us to do.

I needed an art project for today. I had been wanting to make an acorn family. I had all the supplies and we collected the acorn caps yesterday. At first, I worried the caps were too small and that I needed different bases. *sigh* One day I will learn. The kids don’t care and rather than be such a perfectionist about it – it is more important that we actually DO the craft.

This has also happened on the people front. My children need more people to play with. For 6 months now, I wanted to make these floor puppets for them, but I haven’t had the time or energy. The reality is that they just need something simple and they will use their creativity to fill in the rest. And of course by involving them they are way more invested into the creation. Today was such an example of that.

So we sat down and made these acorn people and ya know they came out great! What I didn’t expect was that Tyler would decide his were the Three Kings and Mary and Joseph and that we needed to use these instead of the lovely wooden ones that we have… Um, okay. If that is what he wants.

He also was bumming that we didn’t do more for Michaelmas – ya know, it isn’t like Christmas. Am I the only parent that spends half their child’s life trying to convince them that we shouldn’t live a whole year just for the Christmas holidays? I mean seriously – Noel is a year-round song in this house. Thank goodness, I know LOTS of autumn and Halloween songs, so for a while we can get a reprieve. Of course, this is our fault – we do a lot of fun stuff around the holidays. But I try to be positive – we have dragon bread after all!?!!

Art Their Way
I was proud of myself today because in many ways I let the kids drive and do it their way. I was getting colored pencils out to make faces for the acorn people. Tyler wanted to use a regular pencil and so I let him do his thing. I didn’t’ interfere – even when he was drawing the face on what was the side of the doll, I kept my mouth shut – it didn’t matter. He was happy with it, so let the artist be!

Quinn strayed from the project a bit, requesting a white sheet of paper. She then proceeded to paint glue on it and requested sparkles. We were out of glitter so I got resourceful and brought her sesame seeds and bulgur to sprinkle. She then filled an acorn cap with glue and filled it..and then wanted to hang it. It was fun to let go and just see where their creative urges went….

..and Chaos Still Ensues
And what I must accept with a 3 and 5 year old is that there WILL be chaos no matter what. Tyler got into play with his acorn people and I was thrilled and trying to keep Quinn from distracting him. She dumped some water out of bucket outside and was calling him and I am trying to distract her…”Quinn, do you want to stir the soup?”

And for whatever reason around 5pm we have crazy hour. Perhaps I need to just make dinner earlier so we can go for a walk or play outside? I have a feeling when the temp drops into the 70s that they will be drawn outside and that part won’t be so hard. Sometimes those joint giggles drive me crazy. And why do they always decide they need to make things with toilet paper and water?? I never thought of that stuff as moldable, but they love to mess with it. And when will Quinn not throw? So of course steel cut oats and bulgur on the floor.. *sigh*

Nevertheless, I am enjoying returning to more structure here and there. The kids had been asking me about more woodworking and circle, so they were clearly missing these things. And when it comes to art I am learning to just go for it and not wait for the “perfect moment”.

And with that…we slide into Wednesday and this Mama should be sliding into bed….

I recently blogged about A Perfect Afternoon. And soon after, I started a new knitting project and we went outside. And I was reminded how easy it all is sometimes. You just go outside and let the day unfold. Even with the crazy heat, there are moments and days where it isn’t that bad….