Tag Archive | granny square

My First County Fair…

A little slow on the post but with Renee’s support (and ride to drop the items off) Emanuel and I entered our very first County Fair (well American one, I remember entering a fair way back in 4H as a child…). The Anoka County Fair. Very exciting. I entered 7 pieces and Emanuel one. There was no fee for entry (just if you wanted to come and see your entries while the fair was going on… we didn’t) and small cash prizes for placing. 

We didn’t expect much and were over the moon when Renee reported back that it looked like we had received some ribbons! In fact, what we thought was a participation ribbon for Emanuel’s was in reality THIRD PLACE !!! He did a unique creation… a Lego version of the Minecraft zombie villager. So very proud!!!

Yours truly entered (as I mentioned) 7 items, out of the 7 SIX placed either first or second in their categories! The only piece that didn’t place was my baby hat with beard and I threw that one in more because it was in my store and on hand than anything else! IMAG0407

Now for the pieces that DID place! I have to give design credit for TWO of my first place ribbons – Rapunzel and the zebra were both designed by Kristen’s Kords. I love her designs and have had the great privilege to test many of her pieces. You HAVE TO check out her Etsy store… she also sells the amigurumi she makes herself there HERE.IMAG0401

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My other two first place items are both up for sale CURRENTLY in my Etsy store! I was rather surprised that my baby sweater DID get such a high ranking, it is a relatively simple pattern. Ken says it was the adorable buttons… and the comments on the back of the card DID state that they WERE adorable! (Of course HE chose the buttons) The other is my lamb bag that I made a few months back as part of my stash buster attempt (successful I might add). I have multiple bags up for sale with differing flower colours. It was fun to make and I actually really love the final look! You can find the items for sale HERE and HEREIMAG0410

IMAG0409And now for my two second place pieces! First off my Blue, White and Red Granny Square. This was a bit of a surprise to me, a very simple single granny with colour changes. Though there was a suggestion to switch to a smaller hook size midway to keep the square shape more square that I need to research further (I actually like the pulled look. It looks almost 3D when stretched out). The other was a surprise to me as well – my dragon scarf… I have one up for sale in my store as well HERE and have made multiple versions of this. This particular scarf was Ken’s Christmas present last year! With how many scarves entered coming in second was certainly a bit of a surprise! Anyway those are my placers… next year I plan to enter more things!! Just… gotta think of them first…IMAG0414

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Happy Birthday Ken!

October 22-23

I swear this is some sort of born in trigger for kids that Mondays HAVE TO be rough. For some bizarre reason every time I had something for her to do her leg hurt or she was tired or she didn’t want to. The joys of trying to get a 4 year old to stick to a routine. I think the lack of a nap after a VERY busy zoo trip on the Sunday just did her in on Monday. And then she refused to nap on Monday as well. 

What we did accomplish  though, in hindsight, was not half bad. We started with the usual work books, spelling, etc etc and then moved onto my list of to dos…

  1. pen pal letters… Gammie (Jimmie’s Grandma) wrote back once again, she truly is like clockwork. Each of the kids had a letter to respond to and they all coloured pictures for her. 
  2. journal pages about their Sunday zoo trip.
  3. doing their paperbag scrarecrow zoo trip craft

Emanuel and his supervisor

Emanuel and I were over the moon that his monthly project series FINALLY started! We are doing the Little Passports2 year program. One country per month. The first package was just a starter – suitcase, special passport, story, questions to answer and of course a way to figure out our first country to learn about – BRAZIL! I think Emanuel is VERY excited. We still need to find a place to put the map we got in our package, maybe over his bed?

Suitcase in hand

Gavin and Zander channeled their inner artist with the Art for Kids site and their continuing AMAZING Halloween themed step by step instructions on how to draw. The big question in our home is what will be the next to be uploaded.

Gavin’s monsters

Zander’s

Gavin opted to go outside and clean leaves in a rather interesting and picturesque way. The trees out back have RED leaves and they are gorgeous! So of course we had to take a few pictures!

The pile

The jump

Poor Ken spent 5 hours at the DMV only to find out that his information that he got from the SAME OFFICE was wrong and there was one more step to changing his license over to American. He really did NOT come home a happy bunny! At least he came home with a plan and an APPOINTMENT in hand for Tuesday. Government + Kenny = NOT HAPPY pretty well consistently.

Miss Echo has done some work on her own as well… lots of colouring…

Echo at work

And watching of Pocoyo. I guess now I have to hunt down MORE merchandise. Sadly the US is NOT the place to do that so if anyone has any ideas… HELP! I am amazed we are now 5 for 5 for loving that show!!!

Pocoyo!

We have learned a new dice game as well. You can find the print out and instructions HERE. We love a good dice game. I think I will have to dig out some of the ones off this site that we played in the past, I don’t think Emanuel has learned any of them yet! 

Playing a new game

Tuesday was a SPECIAL day… Ken’s 35th birthday! Yours truly already gave him his gift – my very first granny square lap blanket. The kids all made him bits and bobs and a special card! 

Ken and his card

Add to the birthday “fun” his taking of the drivers written test to transfer his license to an American one from Canadian. Sadly that has not been simple as of course there are steps that they did not realize had to be done until he WENT IN! Happily, on his birthday he PASSED we just need to wait on a verification!

We are working our way through spelling tests, reading practice (almost to the end of our first pizza month), pen pal responses and dinosaur knowledge. I am determined to get back onto our math and maybe learn some more about our new home. Science is dinosaur flavoured right now… and I have come to the realization that we are sneaking in our learning everywhere more and more.

We had a very exciting completion by Gavin as well – he finished his cross stitched joke card which he gave to Ken for his birthday! His next project is way more ambitious, we are collecting colours and such for it now.

… they wear Squeakers

Add in a yummy birthday dinner of Ken’s favourites and we managed a pretty spiffy day! 

Big girl!

Our Sweet Peas

September 19-20

Our first real friend sleep over was a success! It took the kids a while to fall asleep, of course, but in the end they all did. Trinity got to drag her princess couch into the boys’ room so that she was not left alone. I love how Quinn just fits in with all the kids…

Sleeping buddies

Steven came over late Tuesday night and slept over. It was fun sitting up and watching game shows with the guys… Family Feud and such. So when the kids woke up (and I was the first adult standing) and ate breakfast I let them know that Steven was here. The guys slept in, as did Zander of all people so it was just the 5 kids and myself up and playing. 

Breakfast with Quinn

So of course… trains! 

Trains!

And then there is time to play outside in the now cool morning air. I am amazed at how quickly it gets cool here, though by the afternoon it was gorgeous out!

Getting into trouble behind the cover of the tree?

And in the front in plain sight

After Steven and Quinn headed home (tired boy in tow) I checked the mail. There was a package in the post box for Echo from her Grandma. A special dolly handmade that is just like the one my mom had made for her by her mom. Something called a Golly-wog, but without the race connotation. It was a handmade dolly out of used items – a woman’s stocking and stuffed with socks. Also included was a letter explaining the dolly, a picture of my mom as a toddler with hers and a dress for her to grow into. Trinity is now talking about how grandma needs to make HER on. 

Hello dolly

A book I reviewed way back when called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society mentions the doll on page 24 a comment on an urban dictionary noted. If you feel the urge look up the dolly but keep in mind the version my mom had and now Echo is not with the same connotation. In fact there is no bright red mouth on either… they are a simple handmade dolly. In fact, my mom still has hers and treasures it as a part of her mom and dad – Grandma used Grandpa and her socks to create it!! I think we need to come up with a new name. Something that is indicative of the love and self that is put into these two dolls… maybe a lovey doll or something? Ideas?

With dolly

Anyway we headed out to Jo-Ann’s again to look at yarn… I am determined to learn the Granny square and so we went to find something that I could start that with and then create a blanket or something out of later. Variegated of course so that I can get more skeins later to add to if I want it to be bigger than one ball can make. Oh and FINALLY the snaps to finish my original learning project – the headband. So here’s hoping once I get those snaps put in it will look as good as it does in my mind.

We have some great colouring pages to share… first off it is time to move into Fall… so of course back to Activity Village for their terrific fall themed images. The detail and the sweet scenes are a hit with our kids. You can find a choice of them HERE. Zander specifically asked me to print off something that would take him time to colour (now that is a totally NEW thing with him and a great show that his concentration and ability to sit still is growing!). I remembered the beautiful Mandala images I have seen and figured I would find an intermediate series he could pick from. You can find those HERE. We have started a folder of the coloured items… the day before it was dot to dots that you can find HERE. I want to keep things under control. If you let the kids colour and do these illustrations and not collect them in a single place you easily get overrun. And if I have learned anything from our lengthy adventure it is that it is not necessary to spread yourself thin. Instead, why not collect them all in a single book to page through whenever we want and if need be remove pieces to gift out. I really need to find a stack of binders somewhere!! They work much better for items you need to add and remove on a regular basis. 

His Mandala

Thursday was SUPPOSED to be the day that Nana and Baba returned from their 3 weeks in the Dominican. However, due to mechanical issues (a 2 hour wait on oil??) they ended up delayed to the point where they were not making to back to Minnesota until the next day. That gave us the whole day to clean up, finish projects and generally get ready… oh and ice the cake – for a belated birthday Baba cake. 

Farmer Boy

Emanuel and his penguin

We finally were able to coordinate getting Trinity’s hair washed and freshly brushed, some spare time and my wedding dress out in the front room to do up some photos. This was an idea I had seen on the internet… you dress your daughter up in your dress as a child and then save the picture for HER wedding. She was so excited to wear it and it was so fun to pull it back out and remember the day. I plan on doing a solo entry of the dress pictures later. But here is the teaser I posted on Facebook.

Our darling girl

It was so much fun, finishing reading the Farmer Boy book (FINALLY), continuing with Trinity’s letters… just generally getting things done. Though we realize that Zander really needs more time to learn his spelling words. I am  trying to get him unstuck from them having to be in a specific order.

Working hard on our learning