Summer!! It's summer!! Sort of!!

Well, we have made it through our first official year homeschooling. There were field trips and ballet recitals and library visits and lots and lots of glue projects. It's been wonderful and I am so happy with the choice we made to do this. I'll give you details as the summer goes on, but for today, I want to share a knitting project I've been working on.

My Gramma has been knitting for 65 years. She doesn't do it much anymore as it really is hard on her hands, but knitting has always been there for her. Especially when life gets challenging. It is her constant. It has become that for me, too. Recently, she gave me all of the yarn she's been saving in her attic and eaves, collecting it for most of those 65 years. My house has been insulated with this beautiful yarn for a while now, and I finally decided that it is'nt doing anyone any good sitting in a plastic tub out of sight. So I am knitting it up. Most of it. Some of it I'll pass along...My Gramma likes a good sale, and well, sometimes there is a reason the yarn is on sale. I recently finished a project for my little one, that I'd love to show you.

It is Helena and with a few changes to the pattern, I managed to use all of the yarn except for about 13". I made the button band thinner and knit the sleeves last, dividing up all the yarn that was left. I was so happy with the way it fit and that the color was so great on my girl.

Well, the sweater sat in my work basket for a while, waiting for the "perfect" buttons. Yesterday I figued out the solution. I went into the top drawer of my Great-great grandmother's sewing machine (the one she used to sew flour sacks for their store,)and looked through her buttons. She gave the sewing machine (and those buttons) to her daugter -- my Great Grandma-- a wonderful woman who lived more than a hundred years and taught me cursive. She then gave it to her daughter -- my Gramma. Then from Gramma to my Mom, and Mom to me. All of us had touched those buttons. So, I pulled out 3 of them. I wonder what they were on before they made it to the button drawer.

Now they are on the sweater, made from my Gramma's yarn, on her needles, I knit for my little girl.

The best laid plans...

My pal and I sat down at her table and discussed and drew pictures and figured out what to spend our week sewing. So many ideas! So much fun planning with her!
And then the coughing started. So, now a week later, there is nothing to show you. Well, I could show you my sketches, but you don't really want to see those. If my pal had a blog, I would send you over to her, to see all of the fabulousness she has created. But sewing projects from me? Well. I've got plenty of nothing. So I think my kids clothes challenge week will happen in a little bit. When we all stop with the coughing and can focus on things a bit better. I know you don't mind.
Happy notes:
Little one had a very happy day pretending to be Rupert Bear and got to sleep at a normal hour.
I made a huge pot of soup so that I wont have to cook dinner tomorrow night.
My Gramma comes to visit on Tuesday.

What I did on my Summer vacation

The highlights: sewed, knit, picked berries, burned strawberry jam, swam, swam, swam, collected sea glass, shells, and sand, read a great book, read some not so great books, made more strawberry jam -- this time no burning, picked blueberries, made blueberry jam, got really excited about all the jam, sewed more, knit more, cleaned off my dining room table, got my very own computer, saw friends, caught fireflies, went to the farmers' market, played games, saw my Gramma, ate crabs in the backyard, celebrated some birthdays, rode bikes...


A very eventful uneventful summer.


And now it's back to school time. The phrase is a bit of a misnomer for us. We homeschool, so really...there is no "back to" school time. It's just a continuation of what we have doing. This is our first "official" year. But I think that I've come to realize, that for us, nothing really changed for the first day of school. We just did what we do. We had a big ta'do with pictures and everything for our first day of homeschool co-op, but the school part, the everyday learning, that just moved on at its own pace. No stop or start to our year. It's nice, and a bit unsettling (for me) at the same time, since this is not the norm I grew up with. But the great thing, and the thing that helped me to know that we are doing the right thing for us, is that it is the norm for little one. She loves the way she gets to learn new things. It is so much a part of her everyday. It would be like having a first day of tooth brushing picture after brushing her teeth for 5 years. Arbitrary. And yet, a good reason to pause, and mark this time that is going by oh so quickly.



So, in other news

Jade with Craft Hope has put out a fantastic book. Check it out. It's lovely and amazing, just like Jade. (ps, that's my Hope Note on page 50! ACK!)

Elsie Marley is having a kids clothing challenge week that I've signed up to try. An hour a day, you work on kids clothes, sewing, knitting, whatever. It sounds fun to me! Wanna play too?



How was your summer? What's happening this Fall?

And we're back!

Hello! The sun came out and we ran outside. RAN! After months of crazy snow and winter sicks and grey grey days, we blinked in the bright sun and spring was here! YeeHaw! Park days! Boat days! Picnic days!

The news...let's see, we put some snow peas in the ground (they worked out well last year,) the sage and parsley came back (BONUS!) and I have been drawing up little garden plans to get things just right...I think that it's going to be a mostly herb year for me. Maybe some hangy tomatoes too. My dog really loves to play with them, so I need to get them up off the ground. Last year, she ate (well, just played with until they went flat) every tomato we grew. Seriously. So, this year, maybe one plant for the dog-ball tree and three for us to eat.

I have been sewing up a storm. I made little one's spring dress, from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. The Flower Girl Dress. Gotta say, I love this book. The pattern was easy to follow, easy to alter, and a blast to sew. I made a short version as well for a little play shirt for little one -- cut up some cotton kids curtains to make it -- why are you humming songs from The Sound of Music? Maria Von Trapp had it dead on. If my little one wants to climb trees and totally demolish this little shirt, well, that's what summer is for, right? Second time around fabric is wonderful -- and very very soft, too. And did you know that cotton baby leggings make great summer jammie shorts for thin 4 year olds? I cut the bottom off of a gazillion pairs of baby jammies and gave the new short edge a little lettuce ruffle. Cute! From the cut off part of the pants, I cut a shape and appliqued it onto light cotton camis. TaDa! Matching jammie sets for the almost 5 year old!

More sewing stuff...Jade over at Craft Hope has set up another project. This one is sewing bean bags for the Liberia Orphan Education Project. Alphabet bags, shape bags, number bags -- I am making mine out of felt and stuffing them with aquarium gravel. They are so fast and easy to make. If you are crafty, or know someone who is crafty, please stop by Jade's site. You will be so happy you did! PS, you can pre-order her Craft Hope book now on Amazon!

In other news...In January, I got my very first Moosewood cookbook. Wow! It was so far out of my comfort zone. I couldn't pronounce half the food in there, let alone imagine how it would taste. So, in the spirit of trying something new every month, I have been cooking out of this cookbook since January. Not one miss. Every recipe so far -- even the ones that I was sure would taste like a foot -- has been great. Beyond great. My daughter, with very strong opinions about food, has been loving kale. Kale? Yep. This is really fun figuring out great new (to us) foods. Bonus (I am calling it the Moosewood Effect): had to buy new jeans. 2 sizes smaller! That was really fun.

Hope all is going well with you, too. How has your spring been? What's growing in your garden?

Ahhhh Fall

So, Fall. I love it. Every September I want to sew corduroy skirts and sharpen pencils. I love the crunchy leaves, and the hmmmm-should-I-wear-a-jacket-today-or-no kind of weather. I get really productive in the fall. We went apple picking and ended up with enough pie filling for 12 apple pies. I have to remember to put the jars in the freezer before the pie filling ends up in our morning oatmeal (not that that would be wrong at all.) Crafting up a storm (an announcement is pending on that front!) too: little sewn notebooks, Morsbags, holiday presents, Project 5 of Craft Hope, sewing fall skirts and jammies for the little one...and on and on and on.

Fall is kind of like the first hill of the roller coaster. You are click clicking up the track and thinking oh boy oh boy oh boy with your eyes squashed shut. It seems to be taking forever to get to the top of the hill so you open your eyes and look around. What a view. Wow! I can see the whole park from up here. Oh look, there is the funnel cake stAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! Whipped headlong downhill into the holidays (fun yes, but sometimes a blur and not alot of time to focus on the little moments).

I like the downhill a bunch. I love the climb to the top.

Phototropism

Ever since I embarked on this journey, I have been learning new things about drying clothes outside.

Some were pretty obvious ::
Towels line-dried feel like plywood, but smell like summer.

Some were not quite so obvious ::
Where I live, it gets pretty hot midday, but because of our big old oak trees, the backyard is completely shaded. If I don't hang towels out first thing in the morning, they aren't going to be dry before nighttime.

Some extra info I have stumbled into ::
Cotton kid clothes only get a little crunchy, so everyone thinks that I starch and iron them (!!).
It is still as much fun to run through the sheets now as it was when I was a kid.
My linen closet smells like the one at my Grandmother's lake house (that is a really good thing.)
I love looking at all of my knit dishclothes hanging out.
I prefer the kind of clothespins without the spring.
If you hang something too close to the bird house...er...you probably will have to rewash it.
2 cleats and a rope make a fantastic "retractable" clothesline for far less money than the spring loaded ones that won't hold their tension.

I really like doing this.

What I did on my summer vacation.

I know. It's not quite over yet. But the big trip we have been waiting for has come and gone. Last week, we went up to Langhorne PA with my brother and his fam and went here. It was so much fun! Little one kept tapping my shoulder and saying "Can you BELIEVE it? We are getting to see the REAL ELMO!" I thought she was going to lose her cute little mind when he walked by in a parade. My little one is a bit reserved and likes to feel out a situation before stepping in. I figured that she would maybe wave to some of the characters and then grab my leg for a while. Well, she saw Elmo, ran over to him and kissed his hand!

She is still talking about it!
The really cool thing about traveling with a 4 year old is that everything is an adventure. We went to the grocery store to get some "special room breakfast and dinner picnic" things. That was met with "WOW! We have never been to this grocery store before! Their apples are nowhere near their bananas!" Very cool. One of her favorite rides? The Shuttle-ride (that would be the van we took from the hotel to the park.) This was such a great vacation. I am so happy we went.

It did get me thinking, too. There are so many cool things to do where we live (even going to the post office can be a big deal for us -- more about that later.) So, we bought a sketch book and that has become little one's passport book. Everywhere we go -- like the library or the local museums -- we get a stamp and a brochure if they have one. When we get home, we write in the book what our favorite parts of the trip were. We have taken to calling this the "Let's see where we end up" game. We get in the car and "see" where we end up. Yep. I usually have a plan where that will be, but she doesn't know it, so if the place I thought of is closed or whatever, we just keep going until we find something cool to do. Wednesday it was a Jousting (!) tournament. I'd never seen one either. Loads of people, tailgating with big fancy hats and summer drinks. I could very much get into this sport. We saw a yellow ladybug that day too.

The post office trip happened before we left on vacation. Jade from Craft Hope --who I have decided is some sort of super hero, wielding a glue gun and knitting needles and spreading joy across the planet -- just finished up Project 3. While our usual suspects couldn't come over to play, everyone gets pretty far flung in the summer, friends sent over stuff to send along to Jade. You can even see the little squares I knit for hankies on the Craft Hope site. They are the red and white stack. I made them cotton because, well, they would be soft, hypoallergenic, and er, absorbent. I remember being floored by the sheer volume of spit up babies are able to achieve. Sorry. That was kinda gross. But really, it is just amazing! Where do those tiny little babies keep all that ick?? Ok. I'll stop. Again, sorry. The point here is that we got to help out some more friends we have never met, that live in places we will probably never go, all because of the amazing efforts of Jade (who's third baby is due any minute!) Seriously, people. A superhero.

Now that the summer is winding up, my thoughts are turning to school and what we will be playing with this year. I think some backyard explorations are in order this year. I got this amazing book from my in-laws for my birthday (along with so many other fabulous things I will share with you soon) and am so excited to do all of the activities in it. We have been taking these little string walks from the book, which are such fun. It's how we found our yellow ladybug. You take a little bit of string, and put it in the grass. Pretend you are tiny and walk along the string -- you can use your fingers as legs, that's always fun -- and see what you find on your teeny tiny hike. We keep doing this one, because since it is August and crazy hot, we don't really want to move around that much. So, we get a little lemonade and have fairy hikes. I think I might show the kids in our homeschool co-op this one. It really is a nice way to slow down and see things you normally miss. Also, Blue Yonder's Book of Days is on my wish list for this year. You really have to check this out. I think it's going to be wonderful for us.

So there you have it. I never really have an answer for the What have you guys been doing this summer? question. All evidence to the contrary, right? Really though. I guess that all the little tiny things my family does are the important things to us. But how many people want to hear the details of our grocery shopping adventure?
That's why I love you guys for reading this. Till next time.

I can't wait until August 7

She's a movie!

22 legs, 11 heads, and a ton of heart

So today, I put a big old box of fun in the mail. Little one even threw in a note to the Vintage Chica.

The back of this note says Thank You. It is because of you Eren, and your friends like Jade, that we can have this honor of helping others and seeing beyond our own very small world.

Let me start a week ago...

3 fantastic friends came over for a night of craftivism. Everyone brought fabric, supplies, and enthusiasm. One super mom even got her kids involved by trying out our project with them before we all got together. We spent the night -- 'till about 1:00am -- talking, cutting, and sewing a total of eleven dolls to send off to the Craft Hope project. I just stumbled across this project online, much the same way I stumbled across these friends.Well, I didn't find the friends online, but you know what I mean. They are the kind of friends you know really REALLY want to have, and you can't believe how lucky you are that your paths actually crossed at the perfect time. I know you have friends like that, too.
Anyway, these very different, very creative women gave up a night of sleep to help out kids they will never meet. I am forever grateful to them for doing this. I like to do what I can to help, and I love that I know people that want to do the same. My favorite question at the end of the night...
"What are we doing next?" My friends rock.

My kitchen looks like a slasher movie.

Today, I went with the fam and some friends to pick strawberries. This was my first time doing this (as a grown up, when the "you can only take home what you can carry" rule doesn't really help limit things much.) We had such a good time. Chatting, picking, watching the kids get completely covered in strawberry juice -- they were the stickiest, cutest vampires I have ever seen. Well...18.5 lbs of berries later, I am up to my eyeballs in macerated strawberry guts. Strawberry cream cheese, strawberry vinaigrette, strawberry puree, 2 kinds of strawberry jam, and I still have about 12 quarts left. I am freezing the rest. I think I'll make the world's biggest margarita. The thing is, I thought this all out. I said to myself this morning, self, since you are going to be in the kitchen anyway, you might as well pick up some battered and bruised tomatoes for sauce. 2 bankers boxes full. 16 quarts of tomatoes. I am thinking about painting the kitchen walls with the leftovers. That might be kind of fun. After I finish of that world's biggest margarita, right?
It really is fun, though. And I only get to (have to) do this for a few months to have summer and spring all year long in my freezer. Speaking of that, due to the Red Debacle of 2009, my husband is out at the hardware store pricing freezers. I guess the Get-a-ton-of-produce-they-are-so-cheap argument is a flawed one.
Hey, I did my first load of laundry on the line this week. It was great! I thought that I was out of luck this week, as we were supposed to have big rain everyday. Well, Wednesday afternoon the sun broke through. I grabbed the little one and my freshly washed cleaning rags and towels (they are so cute -- most of them I knit to get over the precious knits syndrome) and hung them (the knits not the kiddo) on my retractable line. I have to say, I was really proud of myself. We ran through the towels and smacked our hands in the middle of them just like I remember doing at my Gramma's house when I was a kid. It was fun, and because there was a little breeze, nothing turned out too crusty. All in all, a good start to the Clothesline Challenge. I'm sitting at 20% dried on the line. Cool. I should have taken a picture. Next time I will. Just have to charge my battery. And really, you don't want to see the kitchen right now. Trust me.

Clothes lines and rainy days

I just took the Clothesline Challenge that I found here. I am starting out at the novice level. Sounds like a good push for me. 10% of my laundry on the line is doable, I think. Towels, and Sheets to start. I've got a little tally sheet tacked up next to the washer so that I can be sure to keep myself honest. The rainy days part came after I committed to the challenge. It's supposed to rain for the next 6 days. Ack!
A side note...I now have pea plants taller than my 4 (!!) year-old little one. She gets so excited going out to check on our garden. Every time we go out there and the plants are a bit more lush and flowery, she is sure that a garden fairy has been there. I asked her one time what kind of fairy she would be. "An everything fairy, Mama." Nothing stops this kiddo. I love her spunk! Hmmm....it's 9:30 and I think I am going to knock off for the day. Time to knit some scrubbies and get some sleep. My brother and fam are heading back across the bridge tomorrow. The weekends (even the long ones) just go by too fast. Gramma heads out on Tuesday, but as promised to come back during the summer to play with us. I wish there was a way to slow down the time when they are all here and really enjoy each minute. It all really just whooshes by. My Gramma and I did get a great chance to hang out together in the kitchen on Saturday. We made dinner for the troops -- 7 grown ups and 4 kids. It's funny, but we are so in sync (but not in a boy band way) in the way we cook, it wouldn't have mattered if we were cooking for 2 or 20. We just stirred each other's pots and added stuff here and there and it all was great. We giggled our way through it all. Maybe it was the wine, but it was a very silly time! My Gramma is fun. No doubt about it.

Chives!

I can't believe I grew something! So, I have a famously brown thumb. People have long teased me that if we lived in pioneer times, my family would have wonderful toys and clothes and furniture, but nothing at all to eat. This is pretty accurate. Or, at least it was until about 20 minutes ago. Little one and I planted some seeds. Chives. I have never done this before. So we filled a bucket with dirt and put in probably way to many seeds (is one packet per 1/2 gallon bucket excessive?) and we dutifully misted them daily. The packet says that they should sprout in 7-9 days. Well...that came and went and our faith that we would have chives began to waver, but we kept at it, and 16 days later we have cute little shoots. 20 of them! We are so excited. We grew something here! Well, now I am all puffed up from this success and we are off to the local hardware store to buy some seed packets for outside. Because lets be honest, you can't feed a family on chives alone. Or can you? hmmmm.....

Blinking at the bright bright daylight

So, the last what month and a half (!?) I have had back to back to back colds. Yay first year of preschool. I feel like I have slept through Halloween, and Thanksgiving. I don't want to jinx anything, but I think I might be on the other side of the sickness now. By golly, I am not, I mean NOT, going to miss Christmas and Hannukah. This is the most fun time of the year for me. I am sewing and knitting and cutting up loads of bits of paper like a fiend. Sorry, no pictures. Most are gifts, so under wraps (haha!) until January.
I did manage to peek my head out every so often for a day or two over the past few months...Here are the highlights.

Went trick or treating...we hit about 6 houses. The first one, little one wanted me to ring the doorbell, hold her hand, and say "trick-or-treat" by house number 4 she was running up to the door "HURRY UP MOMMY!" and banging until they opened it (promting a very brief talk about patience.) She had a great time. Came home and ate 8 M&Ms, watched The Great Pumpkin and went to sleep. Next morning, she forgot all about the candy!

My little niece turned 3! Can't believe it. I mean she just got here! It was a Tinkerbelle party, and my fabulously talented sister (in law) made the most amazing cake. She was out-to-there pregnant too. Where did she find the time and energy? I think she has a secret plutonium supply that she just dips into evey now and then. In addition to the cake...there was glitter! Glitter tag. I don't know if it went exactly like they planned, but let me be the first to say, it rocked. The kids were just dumping bags of glitter on each others heads. They were running around so thery were all quite sweaty, and the glitter stuck. HA!

Went to Waterfowl Festival, where our town shuts down completely to celebrate ducks. I love this place. Little one and I went to a Dock Dogs competition where the dogs jump off a platform into a pool and try to jump the farthest. It was so funny, but the big hits of the day were riding a school bus for the first time and eating a gingerbread duck. You know, with a 3 year old you never know exactly what is going to set them off and make them crazy. So, little one spends about 10 minutes picking out her favorite gingerbread duck -- it has to have the perfect face and be the same color all around the edges. Yikes. She finally finds the winner and we buy it. We sit on the curb to eat it and before she can take it out of its little baggie, drops it on the ground. Its little neck snaps and its head falls off. AAAAK! I just watch her face. She stares at it for a minute, looking at its shattered body and then...bursts out laughing. Cool. I like her sence of humor!

I peeled and chopped 18 apples and cooked some apple pie filling. It rocked! We made 4 pies worth of filling, the remainder we put on anything that would hold still. Pancakes, biscuits, ice cream. So yummy and we still have 4 pies worth left! That will make christmas baking E-Say!

My little niece was born! Yay! We have been waiting for you, tiny peanut, and we are so happy you are here! We can't wait to see you this weekend!

Ah, one more thing. When you are sick, this is the best show. Ever.

Happy Halloween and #27 & 28 for my list

Make cheese.
Learn the accordion.

Too cute not to make

Gotta try making this. Maybe put one in this. There is so much great stuff out there to make!
Found another something great to make, and another! Ok, time to turn off the computer and bust out the glue.

Ok one more. That's it. I swear.

Goals and ideas: 121 things in 1210 days

Through my ridiculously congested blog surfing today, I came across this. I can't help but think this is a great idea for me too. A chance to focus on things that I want to do for me, my family, my friends and my community...So, to borrow an inspirational idea (and organizational structure) here it goes:

The first 26

Knitting
Knit lace with lace weight yarn
Knit myself a sweater
Send 20 baby hats to Children's hospital at Egleston in Atlanta
make these Inca Alpaca Mitts
submit original design to Knitty for consideration
Steek

General Craftyness
learn a new medium
participate in Project Spectrum
do a swap
sew a growth chart for little one
Get 3 artscout buttons

Green
Learn to compost
Use a clothesline on sunny days
Plant a food garden

Gifting
Give handmade gifts (made by me or someone else)

Ballet
Get back on pointe shoes
Take a class in New York

Lifestyle
Get up 15 minutes earlier, make a cup of coffee and start the day before anyone else is up.
Walk to Homeschool Co-0p at least 2/4 times a month
Make a calendar of everyone's birthdays
Take little one on walks atleast once a week
Make a nature table
Organize playroom and make it cute
Paint Kitchen
Decorate little one's room as a garden
Read Walden

Result!

I am so proud.



In another, somewhat unrelated thought, how do I get this over here?

Elephants, bears, and monkeys -- oh my!

This weekend I had my first solo table at a craft show. It was a little bit John Watters-esque. I got there and set up with my dad -- he made me laugh like a crazy person, and we thought for sure we would be asked to leave before the show officially began. Well, things kicked off at 10 with an accordion player (!!). It was pretty cold on Saturday, but with my fingerless gloves on, I managed to get in some knitting. Also, a steady stream of friends stopped by to chat with me, making the time fly by. A few highlight moments...

Smokey and the 911 Elephant stopped by to say hello...

A man with a tiny monkey strolled by -- it was his hat that caught my eye first...then the monkey.

Little one and my Sweetie pie came over and hung out for a while too, although for little one, the draw was the playground.

So, not the most...er...lucretive of shows, but all in all a nice way to spend Saturday.

Oh, and HANDS-DOWN the best popcorn I have ever had. Two bags full.

Also, started the mass production of tomato sauce. There is this really nice woman at the farmers market that gives me all of her battered or bruised tomatoes at the end of the day. I take them home an make sauce out of them. Usually she has 4 or 5. This time, she had an entire file box full of tomatoes! So...

9 bottles of sauce! Thanks Crystal! (ok, you can tell by the date on the jars that I did these last weekend. I just forgot about telling you until today. So, pretend that I did it this weekend and wonder -- where, oh where does she find the time to do all of this!)

Also, just started working on little one's Halloween costume. She wants to be JoJo -- nice easy costume. Started sewing up the pants last night. Here is the fabric .

I took 2 colors of flannel and made stripes then cut the pants from that. More pictures to follow as the costume progresses. I just realized that I have to have it finished by Saturday. That is when the town parade is, and trick-or-treating at the shops.

As usually happens this time of year, when the weather goes from 80 degrees to 59 degrees in the course of 2 days, we all have raging colds. So, we have been hanging out, not doing much today -- couple of painting projects and the like. Can't wait to have my nose stop running.

Going over to the fam's house for dinner tonight. I'm going to bring the lasagna and some rolls (never made this kind of roll before. I'll let you know how it turns out.) This is my Gramma's last night in town before she heads back out to Arizona. I miss her when she's so far away. Her visits always fly by. They are just too short. Even if they were longer, they would still be too short, you know?

I think it's time to shape the rolls. If they turn out pretty, I'll take a picture. If they turn out nasty, no one will know but us, ok?

Husband's shirts: beware!!

Love this! Thinking I might pilfer from the closet this week.

Where have all the photos gone?

I can't believe how remiss I have been about posting pictures. Prepare to be blasted with them...

We go through a lot (and I mean a lot) of bread in our house during the week. I got bold a while back and started baking some myself. To be totally honest, they were like bricks, but my wonderful family cheerfully choked them down. Well, I have graduated from bricks and am now making a decidedly unbricklike challah. Who knew that I could do that, right? I am very proud. So proud in fact, that I took a picture of it. So, two loaves a week now. It really is fun to make. I found the recipe in this great book from our book store. I want to cook everything in it. Well, 90% of everything.

News from the homeschool front. Today at co-op we made trees by tracing our hand and forearm on brown construction paper, cutting it out, gluing it to another sheet of paper and sponge painting leaves on top. Cool project! It kept a room of 2-3 year olds happy for 35 minutes. I have to say that I loved that little one didn't just tap tap tap with her sponge like she was taught. She tried that, then she realized that she is more of a smear it kind of girl. So smear she did.

I think it looks fantastic and very her.

Co-op is in a church down the road from our house. It is a great space with tons of room for all of the kids. The only (very minor) issue is the cold cold basement floor. So, today I finished a little cushion for little one to sit on. I used scraps from the banner I made for her 3rd birthday. I am really happy with how it turned out. So is little one. She has decided it is the homeschool pillow, the book pillow, the doll blanket, and her flag. Heehee. It's nice to be appreciated!