the current favorite

I ordered this book on a whim a few weeks ago and it turns out that it is both mine and Regan's favorite kids sewing/craft book.  Regan is quickly working her way through every project in the book, but I wanted to share this one with you-  I think Regan's spool necklace turned out so cute, I love her color choices.

Now, if you have any crafty girls in your life you should definitely go order them a copy of We Love to Sew and check out Annabel's lovely blog, Little Pin Cushion Studio!

craft night

Craft night was a little different this time around.  In addition to the crafting and yummy food we also watched the videos from the (in)RL conference and talked a lot about community. We crafted into the wee hours (I think the last ladies left about ten after midnight) and everyone went home with their own beautiful and unique bunting. Here are a few pictures from our evening.  (Sorry they are a bit dark- the lighting isn't very good for nighttime picture taking in my house!)

Can't wait for the next craft night!  May will be a BYO craft project and I've got something else fun planned for June.

free june embroidery pattern

I finally finished June!  Actually, it's been done for almost 2 weeks, but I just haven't been able to uploading the pattern until today.  I hope to get working on July soon, but it is one of  3 months (July, August and December) I have not done sketches for so I will be starting from scratch.  There is a link to all of the calendar patterns in the left column.

June Embroidery Pattern by Amy Wirtz

As always, if you stitch up your own version of my pattern I would LOVE to see it! Please share pictures in my Flickr group!  Enjoy!  Feel free to ask any questions about any of the patterns and I will answer them in the comments.  Happy stitching :)

playing school

This post is a bit over due.  Last Thursday, instead of coming home to write about our trip to Jamestown, I came home to a sick husband who ended up needing an emergency appendectomy :(  It was a rough weekend (for him) but he is doing much better now.  I am thankful that he followed his instincts and went to the ER before things got really bad!

My niece's 5th grade class had a two day field trip to Jamestown and Williamsburg last week and we got to join the class for part of the trip.  In our nearly 8 years of living here we have visited Williamsburg many times but for some reason have never gone to Jamestown, so when my sister called and said they were coming down for a class field trip and family was aloud to tag along we jumped on the opportunity.

My niece and sister on the beach in front of the glass house.  That is the Jamestown ferry in the background.

Building a new longhouse (they called them something different, but I can't remember what!)

Making rope, Powhatan style.

Learning to tie knots before boarding the Susan Constant.

The Susan Constant.

Bellow deck- we need to build these in our house so the kids can have some privacy :)

A bed in a Jamestown fort house.

Ready to fight :)

The James River

Glass blower at the Glass House.  He was making an ink well, like the one at the bottom of the picture.

An attempt at a group shot before we headed home for the day- this was the best of the bunch.

We loved having my sister and niece come stay with us for a night and getting to experience what a "real school" field trip is like.  Jamestown was fun even though it was very crowded (lots of school field trips going on) and the kids want to go back again when there are less people there and they can really explore.

spring break part 2

Our second week (oh how I love the freedom of homeschooling) of spring break was jam packed with as much fun as we could fit in (we needed it after 3 plus weeks of the stomach bug!) We even got some summer-like weather. Wednesday it was hot enough to put on swim suits and play in the sprinkler. Some of our very best friends came over for the afternoon and as I sat on the porch watching I was almost tempted to put on my swimsuit and play too :)

I was surprised that Addie played in the hose with the big kids.  She can be kinda funny about that sorta thing, but not this time...

she's even asked to play in the hose again since then.

Have I talked about how much Regan LOVES gymnastics?  I think she spends more time walking on her hands than on her feet!

We Also had our CC year end celebration.  Each class presented some of the memory work from cycle one and the 21 Memory Masters (Our largest group of Memory Masters yet and Regan was one of them. Yay, Regan!) were presented with certificates and T-shirts.

This week it is back to the grind, but a much slower grind with CC done for the year.

Regan made this clay gymnast the other day for her gymnastics coach.  It was so cute I just had to share the pictures :)

april craft night

 CRAFT NIGHT!!!! Saturday April 20th,  7pm

I've order supplies and have room for 5 more people for this months craft night. We will be making wooden pennant banners, something like these ones Meg did at one of her Craft Weekends.
There will be a small charge that will cover all the supplies to embelish your own 10 piece wooden pennant banner using fabric, paper, or paint. 
If you are local and interested in coming email me for more details.  Since supplies are limited this time I will need RSVP's by the 18th.

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Saturday my mom and I took the kids to Clark's Elioak Farm in Ellicott City.  If you live in the area and have never been, you should definitely check it out.  It was a lot of fun!

One weekend a month Mobile Mining Experience comes out and you can buy buckets of enriched ore to sift on their water flumes and search for gems.

They have lots of options to choose from, we did one bucket of gem stones, and one bucket of polished stones.

Everybody loved this activity and now every time I turn around the kids are sorting through their rocks and admiring their finds.

They also got to crack geodes, and Mike was generous enough to let each of the big kids have a turn cracking one, even though we were only buying 3 (enough for each kid to keep half).

Apparently there was once a storybook park in Ellicott City called the Enchanted Forrest and the attractions now reside at Clark's Elioak Farm.  You can read all about it here.  These pictures are of just a few of the many fairy tales represented.

And since this is a farm, I figured I needed to include at least one picture of an animal :) This little sheep and its sibling were only one day old and still a bit wobbly but oh so very tiny and cute!

crafty goodness

We spent a lot of time just hanging around the house this week with two sick kids, but we did manage to make it to a local quilt shop and Joann's... here is my stash, just waiting to be turned into something delicious :)

I also got a few children's headbands made.

Emmy is not the most cooperative model, but she sure is cute :)