Does Anyone Have...

any boyish fabric scraps that I could have? Joe has this great quilt that I bought at a yard sale when he was just a baby. Unfortunately, about a month or two ago he threw up on it in the middle of the night. I've washed it but he refuses to have it on his bed. So...I have always wanted to make him a quilt and I thought I could just make a quilt and use his old one as the batting. I have no intention to do anything fancy--just sew lots of different squares together, maybe 6 inch blocks. I really would love to do this without spending any money at all or at least a minimal amount. So, I thought I'd see if any of my blogging buddies (the ones who live local) had any boyish fabric scraps to spare. I have tons of fabric scraps but it's mostly girly stuff. I'd be happy to swap--you could raid my stash, I could raid yours sort of thing. If you can donate let me know! Of course once I get an idea I want to start ASAP so if you have something I'd like to try to get it this week. Thanks!

Random Thoughts on a Sunday night

I've had a great weekend. Very productive! Just how I like it. Friday evening I grabbed a book off my bedside table--The Year of Fog. I had picked it up at Goodwill last week. I was in the middle of another book but decided I needed a more gripping read for the weekend. So, I plopped my big butt on the couch at about 7 pm with this book and managed to read the whole thing before moving my big butt to the bed at about 11:30. Before you think I am some amazing speed reader--I skimmed a lot of it. The story was really good but there were tons of details about memory and descriptions that didn't move the story forward so I skipped and skimmed a lot. The story was a bit disturbing and I needed to know the end before I went to bed. It was about a kidnapping, every mother's nightmare. It was a good story despite all the extra stuff.
I also finally figured out the major mistake in my checkbook. It hasn't been balanced in years but I usually am close to the bank's balance. Well, last week I discovered that the bank and I were way off. Thankfully it was in my favor but I couldn't find my mistake and it was making me nuts. So--I spent some hours poring over my account online and my checkbook and found about five separate transactions that I had double entered. That's what I get for not writing things down right away!
I also took care of some Christmas projects that I'm really excited about. I can rest easy tonight knowing that there are a few less things that I have to do this week.
I mentioned today that I might make meatloaf for dinner this week and Joe got so excited. He said, "I love meatloaf! I love it more than cake and cupcakes, and candy. I love it more than anything buscept (except) my family and God and Jesus." Later, he wanted to talk about it some more and he said that he loved meatloaf more than anything on earth except for his dad and I. He then said, "I can say that because God isn't on earth, He's in heaven." I can't wait to make him some meatloaf! I hope it meets his expectations.
In Precepts he's been learning about the names of God. I couldn't believe how much he has retained. He was saying how he liked the name El Shaddai but El Elyon he wasn't sure about. He even knew that El Elyon means Most High God and El Shaddai was Almighty God. I love that he has learned and remembered these things. We've had to stop going to Precepts and I'm bummed that the kids will not get to go to their classes. They have excellent classes for kids. It was just too much for me and I had to make the decision to stop going.
I am so excited that we have no major plans for this whole week! I am so happy to have some down time at home. These last weeks have been way too busy.
I think that's it!

Letterboxing again!

We went on our first family letterboxing adventure today. We just looked for one but we found it so we were very excited. I was showing Ollie our stamp and all the other family's stamps we got yesterday. He said, "I see a common thread here--homeschooling women." I had to remind him that our book only has stamps from the event yesterday with homeschooling women. Men do this too I assured him (at least I assume they do). He's skeptical but is willing to go along with us. He loves being out in nature so he's happy for whatever reason takes us out. He's more of a geocacher and I would imagine that there are parks where you can find geocaches and letterboxes so we can combine the two. I am loving letterboxing because I have never been good at figuring out the GPS. Below you can see the girls running around a big tree. That was part of the clue--they had to run around the tree twice so the "bat gnomes" didn't grab their fingers as they reached for the box. Cute.

Hannah found it! Joe is here as we find it with his first stick but he was soon off chasing imaginary bad guys.

Grace and I were the champion stamp colorers.

Here's our stamp in the box's book and the box's stamp in my book. We were especially excited to see the stamps of two friends who had been there before. Pretty cool!

Joe put the shirt of his Jedi costume on yesterday, slept in it and then wore it all day today. I'm sure it made his stick play that much more exciting. He was so cute to watch, lost in his imaginary world.

Ollie found an orange tree and ate quite a few. I had one too and Hannah had two I think. They were a little underripe but really good nonetheless.

Sister talk.

The Stick--now in the Toy Hall of Fame

I was listening to the radio yesterday as I drove in the early morning to pick up my orthotics (more on those later) and they were talking about the toys that just got inducted in the Toy Hall of Fame. Did you know there was a Toy Hall of Fame? I didn't. Anyway, this week the stick, the baby doll, and I can't remember the third one. Anyway, as many of you may remember, Joe is a huge fan of sticks. We have enough in our house to build a small hut. At preschool last year they had a Native American day and gave all the kids special names. Joe's was "Collector of the Earth" because he was always finding sticks on the playground. He wasn't allowed to play with them on the playground but Miss Mary always let him put it in his lunchbox or backpack. While the girls and older boys got really into swapping stamps, the little boys played with sticks. One of the older boys got in on the action as well after he was done stamping. From oldest to youngest these boys were having a ball pretending their stick was a lightsaber, a sword, a blaster, who knows what else. Even the littlest guys got in on the action but when they were tired of fighting with sticks, they started digging with sticks. Why do we bother to buy real toys? BTW--the cardboard box is also in the Toy Hall of Fame.

Letterboxing

We went to our letterboxing event yesterday and it was wonderful! We got so many cool stamps in our books. I'll have to get a picture of them later. The girls really got into it and had a lot of fun. I think we are going today to find some others in our area. Some of the kids yesterday already knew where the box was and it was disappointing to the girls to not get to really follow the clues and look for the box. So, they'll get to do that today. The event yesterday was more than just looking for letterboxes though. Cris had done some special event stamps that were hidden around the picnic tables and everyone had to get those stamps as well as trade with everyone else. It was fun to see everyone's stamps and hear the trail names. Our trail name is Hillside Hollow. Sound familiar?

The Office--Chewhi, don't read!

The Office was the best last night!  After a few weeks of not so good, last night was just hilarious.  I LOLed and almost ROFTLed.  Some highlights--

• The fake phone conversation between Dwight and Jim (Mr. Bob Butlicker)--hilarious!
• Dwight and his excited kicking--pretending to kick Phyliss in the head.
• Jim and Pam--loved the connection.
• Pam screaming--that's what she said, that's what she said!
• the whole plot--ridiculous and so The Office
• the planning the wedding scene
• Andy having a fit about his cup.
• Michael talking about getting stood up and making too much guacamole.

If you missed this, you should go to NBC and watch the episode. 

Letterboxing and Little Books

We are going letterboxing tomorrow for the first time. It occurred to me today that the girls (and maybe Joe) might want their own book to collect stamps. If you are unfamiliar with letterboxing it is basically a "treasure hunt." You follow clues that you find at a letterboxing site online and then go find the box. In it will be a stamp--usually hand carved and you stamp your book and then use your stamp and stamp the box's book. You also have a trail name that you record. You can read my friend Cris's blog to learn more. So, tomorrow we are going to a letterboxing event where we will swap stamps with other letterboxers and then find a few letterboxes. Anyway, back to the books--we are in a spending freeze around here and so I couldn't just go out and buy a book for each of the kids. I had one book that I am using as our family book and I decided to make books for the girls. Below is a tutorial for making a book out of paper that is really sturdy and uses no staples or anything else to hold it together.

Step 1--Take 5 sheets of paper (for a 40 page book) and fold them in half. Open the fold and using a ruler measure 5.2 cm (approximately) from each side on the fold. Then cut in between your marks to make a slit right down the middle.

Now, this next step, I did in three groups of five. Take five sheets of paper and fold them in half and then open up. On the crease--measure 5.5 cm. from each end and make a little mark. Then cut out a notch maybe a quarter-in. wide and 5.5 cm long. You just want your notch to be a little bit longer than the ends of your slit. Repeat with two more sets of five sheets.

Step 3--put all your sheets that are notched in one pile and bend them (but not fold) long ways and put them into the slit. This will be a really tight fit and may require some twisting and shoving. Push it in halfway and then when you get to the middle start opening the 15 sheets and work the notches into the edge that's there (this is really hard to put into words!--I hope you get it.).

Below is your final product--a little book. Fold firmly to make it stay closed.

Last step--decorate! I combined an art project from Exploring Countries and Cultures with this. They had to do a "Fraktur Certificate" style drawing. Joe hasn't decorated his yet because he was doing his school while the girls were decorating. I doubt he'll even care to collect stamps anyway but if he does, I'm ready!