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Where We Are Now

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The past month felt like a whirlwind. We were settled in with Mom only to get Chris home because his Dad died. After the trip back home to go to the services and spend a day with family, he was headed back to work. It was a fast trip for him, but at least he got to come home!

After a short stop for the kids and I to see my Dad and brothers (and of course, the cute nephews!) we came back home. We did a quilt shop hop (stopping at 22 shops – out of 57, we didn’t even stop at half of them!) that was really fun. The kids did pretty good too considering we took them to all the stores with us! Actually it was a ton of fun because not only did Mom and I each get a packet that contained pieces for a quilt block, but the kids each got to pick a piece of four inch fabric. Their fabric is all random stuff, which they don’t mind, and we’ll probably end up making doll blankets or something with.

We went to all those stores and I bet we spent less then $400 total (together I mean). I only spent cash and had money left after four days of shopping! For the first three days we matches fabrics to the projects we were already working on, then the last one (three shops on that last day) we got fabric for our stashes. OH! And I found Navy girl (okay it’s really military girl I know) fabric that I was looking for forever! I need to get a picture of it.

This week is a busy one – Alice is taking a Pioneer Crafts Class at the local community college, it is three days long and already after one day she brought home strawberry jam, butter, a cornhusk doll, and learned to finger crochet. There is a kids craft show at the library at the end of July that I am going to sign her up for. It’s only kids selling things and anything you sell can’t be more then $4. Perfect for her and Jake!

My nephew is taking a camp from the Boys and Girls club so that leaves Jake and I do wander around and find stuff to do. Yesterday it was the library, lunch and a quick shopping trip – today we are doing the library for a longer amount of time, lunch and then who knows. I have found a few more things for the kids to do – and am also amazed at how expensive some camps are. No way am I paying $165 per kid to go to a day camp from 9-3 and still have to take them lunch!

Alice’s Baby Sling

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I taught Alice how to hand sew a couple of years ago. Every once in a while she will grab a couple of pieces of fabric, a needle and thread and sew it together. She still has big stitches sometimes, followed by little stitches. She is learning and figuring her way around things. She wanted to find something she could do on her own, or mostly on her own, on the sewing machine so last month I found a quick project for her to do. We worked on it together and were finished in an hour!

She picked the fabric from my stash and we cut and started sewing in a few minutes. I showed her how to hold the fabric to guide it through the machine, showed her how to line the fabric up (we didn’t pin anything – note to self, she’s only 7, pin it!) and set the speed setting close to the slowest one. She loves her new handmade babydoll sling!

I know I found the pattern on a crafty blog and it is lost forever in my bookmarks or stumble page or something. If you recognize this, please let me know so I can link it!

alicesling

Alice & baby in a new sling

A short time later and she was done! I didn’t have any rings like the pattern calls for, so she cleverly found an elastic hair band and wrapped the ends together. Her baby didn’t complain and stayed tucked in just fine.

Start of a Great Week

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Last week was awesome. We really had a great week! There was little fighting between the kids and every day went smoothly. I love when everything falls into place.

We had a couple of events for Chris’ job that I was glad to attend since it meant meeting other wives on the ship. The officer section on a ship is called the wardroom, one of the events held regularly is called a hail/farewell. That is when someone new is ‘hailed’ (welcomed aboard) and ‘farewell’ed’ (said bye to). There are usually gift, sometimes gag, sometimes not gag, and everyone takes turns saying a few words. We went to a h/f last week and then a BBQ for a new guy that was held at his house. He’s actually not new to the ship but has been promoted and maybe shouldn’t be called “a guy” but we’ll let that go.

Turns out there are just a few wives on the ship, in the wardroom I mean, and that is taking some getting used to. I’m used to a ton of women around! But we’ll be fine. 🙂 We are planning on getting together, I have a couple of the email addresses and do need to get the others – oh and figure out what to do!

One of the other wives, who just lives right around the corner from us, scrapbooks though! I need to get the craft room done (98% or so done – 2%’ish to go!) so we can hang out. I have a few projects I need to work on and just enjoy crafting with someone.

Today has been a good start to the week too – the kids packed a lot into their day and the energy kids have will probably always amaze me. We made pumpkins last night and more today, here is the pumpkin craft page.

We don’t have many Halloween decorations so are making a few to hang around the house. Guess my ‘trick or treat’ sign just isn’t going to cut it this year.

This week we don’t have nearly as many events to attend, and I’ve been able to unpack more so I finally feel like we are settling in here.

Kids Craft Project

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It’s no secret I love etsy! I am there at least once a week looking around – adding to my favorite sellers and favorite product lists. Sometimes I even add to my cart but I’m really good about not impulse shopping. The past week I’ve been doing tons of homeschool research and looking around at what I have and also looking for some kid craft projects to keep them occupied.

Unfortunately for me the mail person doesn’t deliver packages directly to our door. We have a little stand that has all the post office boxes that will hold letters and whatever tiny packages come in. So the other day we got a slip in the box saying we had packages to pick up! I am glad the post office is close’ish and it’s by the grocery store so it was two stops in one.

One of the packages was something for Jake!

It’s a Green Monster!

Jake is so excited to get started on this guy. I need to cooperate and dig my sewing box out. When I was gone taking my nephews back to my brother, Chris piled stuff in what is now the Etc. Room (formally known as the Craft Room). So I need to dig out and then put back together. That reminds me, I need a moving post don’t I.

Back to the monster – isn’t he cute! He looks pretty easy to do. Alice has her own kit on the way but it’s not one of these. I’m trying to not have them do identical things which can be hard at times!

Halloween Cut Outs

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The Halloween crafts, ideas, recipes and costumes are coming out of my ears. Seriously, I’ve never seen this many but then again I’ve never looked around like I have either.

[tag]My Paper Crane[/tag] shared [tag]cat and pumpkin images [/tag]- she made them initially for suckers but others turned them into a sort of banner. We had the neighbors over yesterday and made a few different things.

Here are Alice’s cut outs ~

She cut out two more sheets worth, having 18 total, and strung them together top to bottom. She did stick with the pumpkin/cat/pumpkin/cat pattern and attached them to each other with pink and blue brads. She’s very much into patterns and alternated the colors pink/blue/pink/blue. She was very happy with herself for sticking with it! I’d have a picture but it has disappeared to the abyss that is her room (I swear I didn’t think kids rooms could be that messy!).

But one of the neighbor girls made the same kind of top to bottom stringing, and her Mom attached the younger girls into a wreath. The kids all lasted cutting them out and then they were done. Course they had already cut out and put together a skeleton.

The skeleton is awesome – you can find it here at the [tag] Sewing Stars blog[/tag]. We made four or five of them and they quickly were traded back and forth, then attached to the banners that were made. I’m going to hang the banner up tomorrow and have the kids make a few more skeletons and hang them in the window! I’m proud of us for doing these crafts, we usually don’t decorate for Halloween other then a few stuffed pumpkins we’ve had since Alice was a few months old.

I printed all of the things at home and did have to adjust my printing – the margins and the size of the file. My printing option (or maybe it’s my printer?) lets you adjust the image by 10% at a time. It was very easy though.

[tags]halloween crafts[/tags]

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