Sundays here are often busy, especially the past couple months but today we managed to keep it a little more low key starting the morning with going to church. Of course this meant Trinity was all dressed up in a *gasp* pink dress (yes yes pink in MY house… but no one gave me a dress in this size in my beloved blue…). I think Ken is finally coming to grips with the fact that baby girl dresses often look MUCH better on the wee ones than on the hanger. Though he SWEARS Trinity makes the dress look good and that is the ONLY reason why it does. All of this of course led to pictures. Which OF COURSE I will share the best of the best here!
Pretty in Pink
Brothers 3 (Zander left)
So Does NOT Look Like a Baby Anymore!
This being the first time we have gone to our church in more weeks than I am willing to admit I made sure I was doubly prepared with activities for both Trinity AND the 3 boys. In fact I have two toy bags that are always packed just for situations like church or trips. Not to mention pieces of bread and a sippy cup of water for Miss T. The boys chose their usual – colour wonder paper for the win and we made it over the halfway point into the sermon before calling it a day and removing the kids from the santuary. Trinity was running laps in the back row and the boys were getting antsy. Our church sends the kids to Sunday School before the sermon so these summer services when it is not in session are hard. Thankfully sign up for Sunday School is mid September. I figure we will put the twins back in but hold Emanuel back one more year. To put him in now he would be in the class with his brothers and more of a distraction than a fellow student. That, and he still has a blast in the preschool toy area in the basement and plays with the other kids his age who are brought down there with their parents.
Thank Goodness for Colour Wonder Paper! (Gavin back)
Post church had us home for lunch and then quiet/naptime where even I had a nice nap. Ken got voluntold to watch Trinity since she took the shortest nap of all in exchange for some quality head and shoulder rubbies after I woke up. Amazingly a day that started out rainy and overcast quickly became sunny and very warm so we pulled out the pool and let them at it. The twins chose to take off their shorts and go just underwear and shirts and Emanuel just got soaked.
Fun in the Sun (Zander green)
With the completion of Fydo’s gift I have finally bitten the bullet and started with the Kreinik blending filament on the stocking and have truly come to love Thread Heaven. For those NOT in the know it is a marvelous creation – a wax type thing in a tiny box (that is lasting forever I might add!) that you run your threads over keeping them from fraying and even tangling less. As in the past evening and today – NO fraying and NO snapped filament! (knock on wood maybe?) Which, while not making me HAPPY to use the rather finicky stuff has made me more… agreeable to it. This pattern calls for the 002 (gold) and 032 (pearl), both of which I have used in many a project. Thankfully Ken should have my newest small designed by us pattern ready for me this evening giving me a bit of a break for the stocking, as I want to take a project with me out on our picnic tomorrow. I just would rather it was a very simple one instead of the more colour intensive stocking.
Speaking of designing, this past Saturday was my Cousin Jordan’s wedding! We couldn’t make the affair due to our budget crunch – the drive was simply too far, BUT I have seen pictures. Their colour scheme was chocolate brown and teal – and a nice lovely bright teal so I am really looking forward to finalizing how I plan on making their wedding sampler. I have sourced out some free patterns – a more Gothic style border, the requested skull I plan on more subtly including and 4 or so scripts for Ken to chose from. All I am missing is some sort of saying to put in the middle. I want something more… quirky than traditional flowery religious saying and am stumped. So if anyone has any suggestions I would LOVE to hear them!
I have also been requested to do a dragon for a friend for Christmas. I am rather excited about this one as way back in 2002 I had purchased a pattern set of dragons for a friend that I have only had the chance to do up one of. There is the nicest set of 4 seasonal dragon heads that I figure I could do up one of. It calls for a bit of the blending filament (002 gold and 045 confetti gold) but I am rather sure I have enough of at least ONE of those and can get the other later. I plan on doing this one up on 14ct. aida. The pattern is part of the Cross My Heart, Inc. company so not AS colour intensive as the stocking though there are some lovely greens in this one!
We finally were able to take the time and finish up our book from visiting Muttart. 28 pictures later and it is all glued together and awaiting some sort of metal loops or something for the top. I am going to have to source out rings now as yarn just doesn’t cut it and I am also planning on making a baby flip photo book for Trinity that calls for one. (I was watching Martha Stewart in Minnesota for some odd reason just long enough for her to do this craft using baseball card sleeves and a shower curtain ring… I plan on using a metal one myself) Not sure where to start finding those but I figure if I ask around and keep an eye open SOMEWHERE has to have them cheap!
Some of the Finished Pages
My other completion was a kit for my nephew. As we can’t make it down to see him any time in the near near future and my mom and her hubby are heading down on their bike next Saturday I made up a little foam kit from some stuff we had here at home already. As you can see just stickers and foam shapes but I figure the boys had a BLAST putting it all together maybe he will too. It had to be relatively flat as it has to fit in the storage on the bike and the envelope still needs to have the kids decorate it but it is all ready to go. This is way more basic than I am hoping to make the Christmas ones but a good start. A wonderful suggestion from one of my online homeschooling egroups was that for the more difficult ones have pictures of the steps and have GAVIN take the pictures. I am totally going to do that! Hopefully people keep sending me ideas as I want to make up as much stuff as possible, even have kits aside for the kids on a rainy day here at home maybe? Simplify things up a bit!
I Switched the Blue Car for Yellow Since Yellow Seems to be His Fav
So we kept rather close to home for the most part and enjoyed ourselves. it is 9pm and all 4 kids are already sound asleep! Bonus! I still have planning to do for tomorrow’s picnic that Sean is going to join us for (his doctor has extended his time off work two more weeks!) as well as our weekly trip to H&W. Tuesday will be busy with Shaw coming as well as Ken heading out on an errand out of town. (Wish him luck!) With Thursday having a homeschool park date and Saturday a free craft at Michaels (check it out see if your local one does too!) our week is looking nice and full! I figure tonight I kit up the dragon and poke Ken about doing the pattern for the other stitch up for me and then I can feel like I am truly moving along!
And of course… one more flower to share! This one is in the driveway sneaking around with the raspberry bushes that grew up under the fence. And unlike Trinity’s Sunday dress – a lovely shade of my very favourite colour – blue! Enjoy!
No Clue What These Are... Just Pretty!