today I am loving...

the "rare for late June" weather in the 80's that makes for great time with friends in the back yard.

my tree's and the shade they provide.

playing hide and seek...
and freeze dance on the deck.

hearing the children play and laugh while I sit on the deck and work on my basket.
What are you loving today?

on the hook

Poor Max is still pretty sick, so I was looking for something to do that was both easily interruptable and relatively small/portable to work on while sitting with my sick boy. This is what I found. The pattern seems pretty easy to follow and I just happened to have a few extra skeins of matching yarn laying around that did not work for another project (ordered them online to match something I was already using and they ended up being the wrong color). There have been many interruptions, so I have not gotten too far, but it is coming along nicely and, maybe, in a few days I will have a pretty crocheted basket! More pictures when I'm all done :)

a day late

I got delayed by illness (the kids, not me) yesterday and did not get anything done on my latest sewing project, but this morning I was determined to get it done... and I did! It is another Dress for Lulu, she loves it when mommy makes her a new dress and actually wears them, so I am happy to oblige :) This is the Portabellopixie Clair pattern. The directions were easy to follow and the dress was fairly simple, an easy afternoon project if you don't decide to embroider it like I did. So, on to the photos!

I turned my back on Tallulah for a minute while I was ironing and when I turned around, she was sitting at the table smiling at me wearing this, I guess she was so excited for her new dress she could not even wait for me to put it all together before she wore it :)
Lulu loves showing off her new dress, here is the finished embroidery, the pattern came from Nini Makes, I think from a giveaway she did awhile back.
gotta love the shoes/socks!

in stitches

I started a new sewing project that would have been finished and ready to show, except I decided to embroider part of it. So, here is a sneak peak at my project, hopefully more tomorrow...

making the tedious beautiful

This is my second Anna Maria Horner flower pin cushion, I sent my first one to my mom for Mother's Day last month and finally got around to making one for myself.
Pinning has got to be my least favorite part of sewing, especially since I usually mess up and have to un-pin and re-pin again! Anyway, a pretty pin cushion makes the job a little more fun...
and some pretty pins make it even better! I found these at Michael's in the scrap book section! What someone would be using them for in scrap booking, I am not sure, but they were a perfect addition to my new pin cushion!

a trip to walmart (alone)=some summer fun!

Today I snuck out to Walmart to pick up some poly-fil (I ran out mid project this morning) while Phil made lunch for the kids. It is always fun to wander the isles (of any store) and take everything in without little hands touching and little feet running to all the places they should not go! Along with my polyfil and white thread I also found this:
I am a sucker for a fun container, especially if it is metal or glass (only 6 bucks)!...

and this!

So, Micah could not seem to figure out how to get from his knees to his belly with out knocking the wind out of himself. We gave many pep talks and demo's from is brother and sister, but he refused to get it. You might find "refused" to be a funny word to use there, but if you know Micah, you understand... that boy is STUBBORN! (Can't imagine where he gets it from, lol!)

So he sulked...
Phil decided to help him out with some "flying" lessons.

And of course everyone else wanted a turn.
Flying was fun, but he'd already made up his mind... he couldn't do it, so he went back to sulking, he knows how to do that!

And this picture was just too cute to leave out!With the exception of Micah, everyone had a great time and after 50+ minutes of the slip and slide our front yard will never be the same! Ahh, summertime!

convention loot

So, I think I have finally recovered from the convention last weekend. We had a great time, but I came home exhausted and with total people and information overload! Today I finalized my plans for the fall and sent in my Notice of Intent for next year and Regan's test results (in VA, if you do not file for religious exemption, you have to have your child tested every year, we do the CAT test because it is the least expensive and I can administer it at home...Regan did great BTW:).

So, here is what I got...

Diane Craft was the main reason I wanted to attend this convention, and she did not disappoint. I struggled with some learning "glitches" (as Diane would call them) throughout school and I have seen Regan and Micah struggling with some of the same things and have been drawn to Diane Craft's methods and materials. They just seem to make sense to me and I am hoping that they will "make sense" to my kids as well! I can't wait to get started with them and will be sure to post about our progress as we go!

Doorpost has some really great material, I could have walked away with half the table, but decided to start with this... we seem to be having a lot of tattling and fighting in our house lately, hoping this can help us to handle these situations a bit more productively!

Part of our resources for our study of the Orchestra. I ordered two more Classical Kids CD's and some books on other composers. We will be using the Story Of The Orchestra as our guide for the year and will cover composers in the fall and instruments in the spring. (Thanks, Jen for the great ideas/advise!)

Our science curriculum. The book on the top right (Discovering the Human Body and Senses) is a Dinah Zike book that is a 23 lesson curriculum with worksheets and materials for making a lap book and The Body Book (front left) has everything to make a model of the human body in it- should be lots of fun! I've also go an Usborne book Why Shouldn't I Eat Junk Food I plan to use (with library resources) to do a bit on healthy eating/living to compliment our Human Body study. Also, I just discovered this magazine and am thinking about ordering it as well, just for fun.

Our art curriculum. As an art major I always feel like I should be able to come up with my own lessons and material, but it just isn't happening, so I broke down and bought Artistic Pursuits, complete with supplies, so now I have no excuses... we will have art!

More Math U See blocks.

Just for fun... some summer reading (we are almost through Thimble Summer on Chickadee's recommendation, so we needed something new) and patterns for the blocks I bought the kids last fall.

I also ordered more Konos Timeline figures (I love my Konos timeline!) and All About Spelling level 1. Oh, and I almost forget! I found Konos Vol 2 at the used book fair, and the Electing America's leaders book too!

So, now all I have left to do is to put my Sonlight order in- Core 1 History, Bible and Read-alouds and Readers 2 intermediate and 2 advanced. Hubby and I are still talking about whether or not this is the year to take the plunge with Rosetta Stone, I am leaning towards French.

Whew! No wonder I was tired!

HEAV

Tomorrow my friend Kim and I are driving to Richmond for the HEAV Convention. I am pretty excited about it. Tomorrow night we will be staying in a really plush hotel and ordering in room service (I love room service!) and we get to leave 8 of our 9 (collective) children home! Kim is still nursing, so the baby will be coming along, but I will be kid free.
I have had a growing pile of information (directions, maps, schedules, lists of vendors I want to check out and curriculum I need to purchase) next to my computer for weeks and this morning I finally sorted through it all. I've picked the workshops I want to attend, found where each of the vendors will be located in the exhibit hall and compiled a list of all the curricula I want to look at/purchase while there.
I posted a while back what I am thinking for this fall. I am still up in the air on a lot of it, part of me wants to just bag it all and go with a Konos in a box or bag unit, but I'm just not sure... There are some extenuating circumstances that will definitely impact my decision, more on that later. I am hoping that the convention will help me to firm up my choices and get me going in the right direction! I'm praying for wisdom and discernment this weekend!
Can't wait to tell you all about the convention when I get back! Now I just need to finish the laundry, pack, go to the Dr., get something for dinner and clean the house for bible study tonight!

look what we found!

Our neighbors had told about how, in the past, they had found little crabs in their yard in the summer time (we are just a few blocks from Hoffler Creek and the James River), but we had never seen any in the 3.5 years we have lived here... until last week. This is the first crab the kids found, which of course we had to take back to the creek to be with all it's other crab friends, but since then the kids have found one or two almost ever day crawling across the street or in the yard. I am not sure where they are going, but the kids are fascinated!

in curls

After Tallulah decided to cut her own hair (ahhh!) Regan thought she would "curl" Lulu's hair (or what is left of it). Here are some too cute pictures of Lulu with her "rollers" in her hair.

while I was missing...

my sister and 4 of her kids came to visit this week. I loved getting to hang out with my big sis and the kids had a great time playing. Here are some highlights from the weeks:

There were walks and bike rides...

A day at the beach...

and a hike that started fun and turned into disaster when we pulled upwards of 100 tics off of us by the end of the walk!
I am sad to see them go this morning, but so glad that they came all this way to visit!