When we go grocery shopping, I sometimes let the kids ride the mechanical horse afterward if they’ve behaved in the store. This day, they all rode together instead of Seahawk and Munchkin having separate rides and each taking Small Fry (I don’t trust him to ride on his own yet).
Have a great weekend!
–Wendy
We did a science experiment in our homeschool last week – those are the boys’ favorite things to do! I looked through the book on simple experiments I’d picked up from the library and found one that didn’t require a trip to the store first. Here’s what we came up with.
Tear a paper towel into strips and put a dot of green food coloring (or marker ink) about two inches from the bottom.
I made sure to get a strip of towel that didn’t have any printing on it when we did this.
Next, place your strip in a glass of water, making sure the green dot is about an inch outside of the water (but inside the glass). Wait 10-15 minutes.
What’s supposed to happen: your green dot should disappear, leaving your water yellow and your paper towel blue as the dyes separate.
Ours didn’t work perfectly, but we did a get a bit of blue on the paper towel, so it wasn’t a total misfortune.
And the most important part was that the kids had fun learning!
Happy weekend!
–Wendy
For a long time – until last Christmas – we did all the fantasy characters with our kids. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny. We didn’t see anything wrong with perpetuating the myth. Along with that went all the commercialism associated with said characters – Christmas stockings, Easter eggs, a Tooth Fairy pillow, etc.
Hubby and I got to talking during the Christmas season last year and realized that if our kids came across the truth of these stories on their own, we would lose credibility with them. The question we asked ourselves was, “If we ‘lie’ to them about Santa Claus, how can we be sure they believe us about Jesus?” The answer was, quite simply, we couldn’t. We live in a time where Jesus isn’t here physically. We have to train our children to believe in him and love him unconditionally – and yes, experience him – without ever laying eyes on his physical body. The same is true for those holiday and special life event characters. We expect our kids to believe in the truth of those figures. But they’re not real. And if our children decide that we’ve lied to them (as opposed to simply “having fun”), we have no basis in matters of faith.
That was a frightening thought.
So we had a conversation with the boys. We told them that the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny don’t exist; we had been the ones giving money for teeth and Easter baskets. We told them the real story of Saint Nicholas. We even traded out our “traditional” Christmas stockings – designed to hold lots of small gifts – out for holiday themed socks (yes, regular socks from the apparel department of Fred Meyer). Our new stockings remind us of the simplicity of the true gift of Christmas – God’s son. And that we should be caring for others during the season, not just buying gifts for ourselves. Just like the real Saint Nicholas did.
It was a little bit of a tough pill for them to swallow, but they did so with no less grace than I would expect from my children. And now we have confidence that they’ll believe us when we tell them that they need to have real faith in important things.
Like Jesus.
–Wendy
I’ve never blogged about Munchkin’s heavy medical issues from when he was younger – they all took place long before I started this venture – so with what I have to share today, the timing is right now.
About two weeks before he turned 3, he and Seahawk (who was 5 at the time) were playing; I was in the other room sewing. I suddenly heard a thump, followed by screaming. Seahawk came rushing into my room telling me that Munchkin had fallen off the top bunk (we’ve since gotten rid of the bunk beds – even now that they’re older, I don’t trust the safety of stacked beds). As I was hurrying down the hall to the kids’ room, I asked Seahawk if Munchkin was bleeding. He replied, “I don’t think so.” To this day I don’t know if he was lying to avoid punishment (it came out later that he was at fault in the fall – they were playing pirates, Munchkin was at the top of the ladder, Seahawk said “reach for the sky!”, and Munchkin did) or if he’d come to get me before the bleeding started. in any event, by the time I got there ten seconds later, his nose was hugely swollen and his face very bloody. Without further hesitation, I loaded the kids into the car and drove to the ER. Hubs was at a book signing that day; thankfully I’d driven him, so I had the car.
At the hospital, they decided to do a CT scan to make sure he hadn’t done any brain damage in the fall. The scan was inconclusive. There was a shadow there that they couldn’t identify. No one was sure whether it was bleeding on the brain or something less sinister. To be safe, they took us by ambulance to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland for an MRI. I called my mom to come get Seahawk so I could focus on Munchkin. I also put in a call to my in-laws so they could pick hubby up and bring him to the hospital. As we were loading into the ambulance, the local hospital gifted Munchkin with a quilt.
Two MRIs, an angiogram, and four days later, Munchkin was diagnosed with an arteriovenous malformation, or AVM. basically, he had a clump of “extra” blood vessels in his brain. Eventually, they would have caused him to stroke.
There was a question with the insurance we had to resolve before we could schedule the corrective surgery. The only doctor in the state who was qualified to perform the surgery (he actually invented the procedure!) wasn’t covered under our plan. Dr. Barnwell and his staff took care of talking to the insurance company for us to explain the severity of the situation. The surgery, with the right doctor, was approved. The initial fall had taken place September 5, 2009. His surgery was October 21, 2009.
This is his “after” MRI. I wish I could’ve found the “before” one at the time of this post; the difference is astounding. In the before shot, those white coils on the left side of the image (which is actually the right side of his brain) were a black muddle of misdirected blood.
So…
How does this relate to “quilts for kids”? That quilt we received as we were getting in the ambulance really stuck me, even though it hasn’t really stuck with Munchkin. Because of someone’s generosity, he received a lovely gift. I want to pay it forward, so to speak. I was given a bunch of quilting materials by a friend of my mom’s a few weeks ago, so I’ve used them to put together these 5 quilts. There’s enough for one or two more. When I get them all done, I’ll take them to the hospital for them to pass out as they deem necessary.
I won’t ever see the kids who receive them, and I’m okay with that. I just want the quilts to be a blessing for them as the one we got was for Munchkin.
I walk to the store with the kids nearly every day. It’s not the most efficient use of time (or money) as opposed to buying big and freezing, but I don’t like not leaving the house at all on a day, especially as the weather gets nicer. I also don’t like walking without a destination in mind, so this is the system that works for us.
On the edge of the store property, there are two rocks that look just like those in The Lion King, and every time we walk by, the boys ask if they can climb on them. About every third time, I let them. Last night was one such time.
I hope your weekend is full of God’s wonder.
–Wendy
Finish 2nd grade math with Munchkin.
Make sure Seahawk is prepared for his 3rd grade standardized test.
Schedule said test.
Work hard to limit our waste output by shopping in bulk using cloth bags or jars in lieu of the plastic baggies the stores provide.
Finish weeding the flower beds (they’re pretty bad…) and plant flowers and/or vegetables there.
Repair or replace sewing machine (it won’t turn on anymore :() and continue work on my “Sunbonnet Sue Through the Year” quilt.
Take the kids out for a walk at least once per day.
Lose 5 pounds (gotta start somewhere…)
That should do :). Do you have any goals for the month? Share them here! Accountability is a big motivator, and at the end of the month, we can chat about how we did.
Every Tuesday, my kids go to a pottery class that the local community center hosts. It’s a great way for them to learn a skill and have some fun at the same time.
So far, they’ve made a bell, a plate, a cup, and a glazed picture apiece. Yesterday, they were making turtles.
The first step is to slam the clay against the table a few times to get rid of the air bubbles before you start working it.
Then she (the instructor) had the kids take a piece of their clay and roll it into a snake…
… and then coil the snake into a bowl shape.
At this point, hubby and I left the boys in the capable hands of the pottery teacher. But when we came back, we got to see their sculpted turtles.
Seahawk’s:
Munchkin’s (he apparently was having difficulty, so his turtle is in its shell; he’s nothing if not creative!):
The teacher will have them fired, glazed, and ready to bring home in a week or two.
Welcome to fall! With fall comes, of course, cooler weather. And with cooler weather comes … colds. We’re only a third of the way through fall, which means at least five more months of cooler weather before spring, and my older boys have each been sick twice already. This does not make a mama happy. So I headed over to my local JoAnn store to get some yarn using my half-price coupons to make stocking hats for them to keep their heads warm during the next 5-6 months – until springtime.
I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for when I went in, except that I didn’t want a “regular” yarn. I wanted something soft and moderately warm so that it would do its job when turned into a hat. What I found was Sensations brand “Angel Hair” yarn. It’s magnificent. If you knit or crochet, I highly recommend you go to your JoAnn store and buy a skein or two to try out. Even hubby agreed it was wonderful feeling :).
The hats are just a basic beanie. You can find the pattern here. You’ll notice that I didn’t do the stripes in the pattern. That’s because my yarn was already striped, and I loved the way each color looked on its own; I didn’t want to take away from the beauty of the main color by adding those stripes. If the yarn had been a single color, I probably would have given each boy’s hat stripes in the other color. But since it wasn’t, I didn’t, so it’s a moot point :).
My hubby’s cousin is expecting a baby girl about a month after our Small Fry is scheduled to arrive (4 1/2 weeks and counting!). Her baby shower is coming up in just under 2 weeks, so I made this blanket for her.
I didn’t make up the pattern; I got it from here. But when I was first starting to stitch it, it wasn’t exactly what I expected, so I took a couple of pictures along the way to explain to you guys what to expect so you’re not as surprised-slash-almost-confused as I was. In order to make the additional pictures make sense, I’m going to include the instructions here, but remember, I did not make up this design.
Supplies needed: Crochet hooks (sizes noted in instructions), yarn (1 skein of “Caron International 1 pound” or other brand to equal 16 ounces/454 grams, 812 yards/742 meters), yarn or tapestry needle (for weaving in the ends), time, and love.
With a size K-10.5 (6.5 mm) crochet hook, chain 94.
Row 1: Turn. Skip the first chain. Single crochet (SC) in each additional chain – 93 SC total.
Row 2: Turn. Skip the first SC. Double Crochet (DC) in the next one. DC in the skipped SC. Continue to end of row. Chain 1.
Row 3: Turn. SC in each DC all the way across. Chain 2.
Rows 4-68: Repeat rows 2 and 3.
Edging: SC all the way around the blanket, except for the last row of SCs you did as part of the blanket. When you get to that row, slip stitch to the first SC. Switch to a size J-10 (6.0 mm) crochet hook. In every other SC all the way around, {SC, chain 1, SC}. All three of those stitches happen in the same stitch. When you get back to the beginning point, slip stitch together. Fasten off and cut yarn. Weave in ends.
So that’s it :). I hope you enjoy making this project as much as I did!
After finishing the two afghans for the new baby, Seahawk (my 8yo) said he wanted one of his own; Munchkin (my 5yo) said he didn’t. Well, after seeing Seahawk’s blanket coming together, he changed his mind!
I wanted to do a different pattern than the one I’d been using for his, just for a change, so I had him look through a few fairly simple patterns I’d saved over the previous couple of weeks, and he picked this one. The ironic thing is that I didn’t realize until I started reading the pattern and stitching, but it turns out it was the exact same stitch pattern as the blue/blue afghan for Small Fry and the red/blue/green one for Seahawk! This one’s just put together a little bit differently (and done with a smaller hook). It’s a bit small for him, unfortunately, but he loves it all the same :). My plan is to just add additional borders at some point – if he’ll ever let me have it back long enough to do so!
The bear has lovingly been named “Little Quilt Bob.” (Munchkin is just learning the difference between the different kinds of blankets, and since prior to this, all I’ve made are quilts, every blanket I make is a “quilt” now.)
I found the pattern over on the website for Red Heart yarn. Click HERE if you’re interested in making one of your own!