Photo Fun

Here's what I've been up to with my new camera. I've seen dramatic growth in my photography skills over the summer. I've read tons of books, tons of articles, and have practiced daily or near-daily. I no longer shoot in dummy-mode and rarely use a flash. I absolutely love taking pictures and I'm getting lots of calls these days for people willing to pay for family photos. I even booked my first wedding too! (I'm sooooo nervous! Please pray for me! Weddings aren't something I want to do for very many people but this gal has promised not to be a bride-zilla!)

I've also been asked to do our church's directory booklet, which I'll start next Sunday.

My nephew, Jedediah, is such a darling! 

Justus and his look-alike friend Eli from church.

As for all the photos of all-boy families and the cowboy hats, what can I say?  I live in Wyoming!

Single women ought to head this way!

My Father's World--The Letter T (Turtle)

Turtle Snacks made from apples, carrots, and raisins

A turtle for lunch!  Ham and cheese pockets with avocado legs, tomato spots, and a cucumber head.

Painting paper plates to make turtles

Since we were studying the letter "T" we had to have a Turtle Tea Party!  The kids loved it, and it was a chance to pull out this darling blue tea set I got at a yard sale this summer.  I thought the blue helped give it a more "masculine" flavor for the boys.  They loved the turtle sugar cookies I whipped up and Grandpa dropped by just in time for tea with us.

I used an easter egg cookie cutter for the body and made a little ball for the head,

jelly beans sliced in half for the spots, and a triangle tail.

We had a turtle race with the paper plates by rolling the dice to see how many inches they could move forward. 

We had a turtle toy in the bathtub so I decided to have them do a blowing race in a washtub.  It was hard for them to blow the turtle to their opponent's side, so I pulled out straws and let them push it with their straw but their hands had to be behind their back.  They really enjoyed this game!

My kids spend at least 2 hours of every single day playing with Duplos.  I'm not exaggerating this in the slightest!  They LOVE them.  Even my husband plays with them and makes things out of them.  So, I knew they would love making a "T" train, especially since Daddy read the kids his favorite childhood story:  The Little Engine That Could.  It's a great book on perseverance, since our theme for the week was: I don't quit!  I persevere!   Speaking of persevering, my hubby read them that very long story twice in one day--that's perseverance! 

My aunt dropped by with some stuff she was getting rid of, including these wonderful alphabet blocks!

The kids spent a lot of time this week making tracks and trails and shapes with them.

I had them do a hopscotch game on them and a "Find the Letter" game to review letters with the boys. 

Jeremiah is a very different learner from his sis.  She had the alphabet down at 3, and he will be 5 in a few weeks and struggles to remember more than 5 or 6 of the letters.  But games like these help a lot!  Justus knows about 6 letters too.  I think that doing one letter a week, with lots of science stuff and fun activities is the best way for these little guys to learn their letters.

We also colored turtle pictures and glued them to our binder pages, read some books about turtles, and practiced writing T's.  We have a book about a world-famous tortoise and his best friend, a little hippo that was rescued in the Tsunami.  After reading the book, we went online and found the animals' website and watched videos of them.  They thought that was the coolest part of the school day!

Here's a joke for our MN friends:

One night at dinner the kids and Daddy were trying to say all the "T" words they could think of. 

Josiah said, "How about Ticks and Tator Tots?"  The kids were baffled and asked Daddy, "What is a tick?  What is a tator tot?" 

I said, "You can tell our kids aren't from MN!"

Overall, this was a REEEEALLLLY hard week!   I came down with a bad cold that left my head throbbing most of the week, and Katri was getting up a lot at night with teething.  I went through countless ibuprofen, and was wiping noses, eating raw, crushed garlic, doling out Emergen-C packets and vitamins, and hacking and coughing and drowning in the laundry and dishes I couldn't muster up enough energy to clean.  There were a couple of days we couldn't do any school whatsoever and I let them watch a few of their kids' movies.  We made up some school on the weekend and in the evenings if we didn't get to it during the day, one of the perks of homeschooling.  So, it was definitely a flexible week and I didn't get as much done as I wanted, but that's life!  Next time I go through "Turtle Week" I will probably take them to a pet store to observe turtles and have them act out the "Tortoise and the Hare" instead of just reading it.  The kids did get to go to Reptile Gardens in SD on their way home from MN with Daddy this summer so that was fresh in their memories and they recounted getting to see all kinds of turtles.

My hubby kindly helped me catch up on my household chores this weekend and my cold is on the mend so this next week should be much better!

I'd love to hear any ideas you have for the different letters we're studying!  Feel free to leave me tips or stories of things you've done with this curriculum, or with alphabet projects, etc. in the comments!

30 Minute Skirt

Let's face it, most moms don't have a lot of free time or energy to sew.  That is why quick and simple projects are ideal for this season of life!  I was excited to whip a skirt out for Ali in exactly 30 minutes using one of my t-shirts that didn't fit well.

After holding the shirt up next to Ali to see how long it would need to be, I cut the shirt just under the arms.

The bottom part of the shirt will become the skirt and is already sewed and hemmed.

I cut a yoke from the top half of the shirt and sewed the sides up (with right sides together).

Turn right side out and fold in half.  This is your yoke.

The bottom half of the shirt becomes the skirt.  To make it fit the yoke I hand-basted around the top edge and pulled the thread to make it gather a little bit.  Then I pinned the yoke to the skirt with right sides together, sewed around it two times, and then zig-zagged around the edge twice to make it look more finished.

From some scraps from the top portion of the shirt I cut two thin strips to make a tie.  I quickly sewed them together to make one longer strip.

I cut two small slits in the yoke (no need to finish them or to hem the long strip).  I threaded the strip through the holes to make a waist tie.

Tie a simple knot in the end of each tie hanging out.  Ali then tried on the skirt and I tied the waist tie in a bow to make it snug.  I apologize for the poor pic quality in this tutorial.  I was timing this tutorial and thus doing it quickly and my daughter was not in a good mood and didn't want pics of the final results!

I decided to do a matching hair bow.  This took an additional 20 minutes.  I cut two blue felt circles and about 20 tiny circles from t-shirt scraps.  I hand-sewed each circle (scrunched up) onto the felt circle in a few layers to create a pretty cloth flower.

The back pre-hot glue

I hot glued a clip onto the back of the felt and then topped it with the second blue circle for a clean finish.

I love it! 

The skirt is comfortable, durable, and really cute, especially with leggings and a white or green t-shirt.  It's hard to find simple, but stylish and modest clothing for little girls Ali's age so I was happy to see that I could fill this need in just 30 minutes!  Now she wants me to make her a t-shirt circle skirt in yellow!

Eating My Frogs--2 Down, 8 to Go!

Eating my frogs...one at a time...

Sat down with my un-matched sock pile while visiting with a friend who dropped by for tea and cookies.  In the course of the visit I folded 87 pairs of socks!  I've concluded that I hate white socks and much prefer the socks with colorful designs or characters on them since they are so much easier to match.  We go through approximately 47 pairs of socks in a week in this household.  I love summertime when that number is more like 7 (Josiah wears socks in his work boots but the rest of us wear croc-style shoes or sandals!)

Our Math-U-See lesson for the day was on counting by 2's so I made Ali count all the matched socks by 2's twice.  Beware of the homeschooling mom, who will use everything in life for a school lesson!

My Father's World--The Letter N (Nest)

Last week's lesson was on the letter "N" and the theme was "God takes good care of me."

We learned a lot about habitats and nests and how birds care for their babies.  They all had to draw four animals and then the animal's home on the inside of the page.

When I was a teen I always made little treasure hunts for the kids I babysat for.  So, I decided to fill a basket with some colored plastic eggs and put clues with "N" words in them.  They LOVED it!  Ali got reading practice by reading the clues aloud to the boys.

The last clue led them to the Bible notebook where they found their treasure!  I used marshmallows, chow mein noodles, and jelly beans to make these.

My sugar-lovin' kids thought this was the highlight of the week!

Grammy had given us some little booklets with dots for the boys to make counting books, so in addition to doing Math-U-See, we made their booklets and practiced adding and counting.

Some of our really good friends (who used to live a block away) bought a new house and moved across town.  We had extra nests so I thought it would be a great opportunity to bless our friends (a character lesson in thinking of others) and take them some treats.  Ali colored a little bird print-out and we wrote "Welcome to Your New Nest!" on it.

We made our binder pages by gluing some paper grass stuff (used in gift baskets) onto the page.

The kids collected supplies to build their own nest.  They found it was a lot harder than it looks!

A friend of my mom's, Miss Ann, lives half a block away and has a pond and some land.  It's like a little oasis with all kinds of animals.  A month ago she told me she had some baby ducks and I should bring the kids by to see them.  We went by once a few weeks ago, but she was gone.  So, I thought it would be a perfect week to go for a visit, as we're studying nests and birds.  She was home and gave us a fabulous tour!

This is Duck-Duck.  A raccoon tried to eat him and so he has a lame foot and can't get around very fast, but he is very lovable.  Because Miss Ann has geese too, when she goes to feed them she yells, "Duck-Duck Goose!"

Beautiful birds!

We also got to see Bo and Peep, her two sheep, and her horses Daisy, Smokey Jo, and Angel.  She also had a swing set the kids enjoyed, and gave us a big sack of apples to take home.  But perhaps the most wonderful thing of all (to the boys, that is) is that there were tons of snakes all over her property and the boys could reach down and grab two at a time.  She gave them a milk jug to take 4 of them home.  They have tried all summer to catch them, but they were too fast.  Now that it's fall, they are slowing down and the boys could get them!  I don't like snakes, but I know Jeremiah is enthralled with them so I let him have them.....as long as they stay outside!!!

One day for snack we died hardboiled eggs blue to look like robin's eggs.

The kids thought this assignment was sooooo much fun!  They were told to build a little home since we've been learning about nests/habitats.  They built a room for everyone, even Katri.  She loved crawling in and out of it with them.

My mom, who is a teacher and has an endless supply of resources to share with me, saved this nest that a robin built on their horse trailer this spring and loaned it to us to look at.  I got lots of pics this summer of the baby birds in it and the busy mama.

We walked and picked our friend Arianna up from school a couple of days last week (it's only a block away from our house) and she played with Ali and they practiced stuff for the talent show we did at church.  Wed. night was AWANA Crazy Hair Night, so they wanted to be crazy twins.

Thursday I took my first Teacher's Workday off of school since we had completed everything I wanted to get done for the week and had LOTS to finish up for the Talent Show/Craft Fair my friend Amanda and I put on at my church.  So, the kids got to watch some movies, something we usually don't have time for during the school week, while I sewed and finished rag baby dolls and pillows.  I will include pics of that event in another post!

Eating My Frogs--1 down, 9 to go!

A big stack of mending (6 things) done!  This is the 4th time I've mended the bean snake that Grammy made Jeremiah a year ago and the 10th or 15th time I've sewn the head back onto Ali's special duckie blankie.  Some of the stuff in my pile had been sitting there for a year or more!  Yikes!  This project took me 11/2 hours to complete.

(See the little hand reaching for my sewing stuff?  She's into everything these days!)

2 Weeks of "Eating My Frogs."

I've been inspired by the many blogs online who are doing 31 Day Projects this month.  There are lots of great ones!  I've decided that even though nearly half of the month is gone, I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and tackle some unfinished projects.  This will give you, my friends and readers, opportunity to see what tasks I avoid like the plague.  "Eating your frog" seems to be the current way to say:  Stop procrastinating and tackle the worst jobs first!


So, here is my list of 10 things I've been putting off, whether intentionally, or because I have so much going already that it's hard to prioritize them, that I want to get done before the crazy holiday season starts:


1.  Mending (I have 5-10 things that have been sittting in a pile for......far too long...)


2.  Paperwork--every year I have to fill out some paperwork that involves copying all of our SS cards and driver's licenses and answering tons of questions and photocopying our taxes, etc.  I hate it and always put it off, but not this year!


3.  Painting--My kitchen still has a corner that I didn't finish because I ran out of paint.  I now have the paint, but haven't made the time.  I want to at least finish up the kitchen and hallway before winter.


4.  Mail charitable contributions--Though it sounds horrible that I would procrastinate doing this, it all goes back to hating paying bills and paperwork.   It's not intentional, and some things like our child sponsorship are automatic electronic transfer thankfully!  The money is there and ready to be given, but before you know it, months have passed and I've forgotten to write and send the check.  So people like my brother, who is a missionary with CEF, get 4 fat checks a year instead of a monthly small check.


5. Organize Photo Files---This task all by itself is incredibly daunting because of the volume of photos I shoot.  So, I'm breaking it into 2 parts.  #1:  Delete unwanted photos.


6.  Photo Files #2--Sort pics into folders.  I'm 18 months behind in doing this.  That may not sound like much, but that translates into about 200 folders behind and about 5,000 photos that need to be organized.


7.  Go through the sock bin and match and fold socks.


8.  Get my hair cut.  I usually just have my hubby trim it, but even finding a time to do that seems hard since I have to actually get a shower first to wet my hair and do it during the time he is home and we aren't rushing off to church.  I know some women are gasping at the thought of putting off something as important as their hair, but with 4 young kids and homeschooling, that's where I find myself!


9.  Biking on the exercise bike for 20 minutes or more each day.  With winter approaching, our frequent family bike rides and walks to the park, hikes, etc. are going to disappear.  I'm not an exercise-person that gets a big rush out of exercising.  For me, it always feels like work, and in a busy life, it's the first thing that gets cut out.  But, it is a great way to continue healing from PPD and get back in shape after baby, so I need to do it.  So, I'd like to stop putting it off!


10.  Taking my fish oil vitamin daily. It smells weird and is huge, and with tons of vitamins to take each day, it's almost always "put off."  But, I have noticed a huge difference when I am faithfully taking my evening primrose and fish oil vitamins.  So, I want to get back on track with taking this one....gag....


I have found blogging to be an excellent way to stay accountable over the years, so this is why I'm sharing my 10 Frogs with you all.  I will post a brief synopsis each time a frog is "eaten."  I'm going to put each of these things on my Cozi schedule and try to get to one each day or every other day.  I would love it if some of you decided to join me!  If you do, let me know what you plan to tackle in the comments section.