kirstencan

Mobile Swap - so very late

This post is rather embarassing.  After signing up for the mobile swap, finding out my partner, and mulling over many possible design ideas... I stalled.

Ideas wouldn't pan out.  Somehow I couldn't settle on a final idea.  Then I decided to make a mobile similar to the one I made for our playroom, made from vintage children's books hung from baker's twine.  Still not working.  I'm not kidding - it sat and sat, because something just wasn't right.  I would pick it up and change one thing and put it back down - for a couple more weeks. 

One day, a couple of weeks ago when spending the day at my mom's house, I decided it had to be finished TODAY.   And so, I finally did get it sent out to my very patient swap partner. 

Here's a look:

It is extremely hard to take photos of a mobile - they're always moving slightly!

I added blue ribbons to it, because it needed something.  Kristin had said she wanted a blue/green mobile.

Thanks, Kristin, for waiting so patiently for this - I hope it looks awesome in your preschool!

An interesting thing about this swap is that you don't give to and receive from the same person.  I got this mobile from Fede in Australia.  I absolutely love it.

Check out all the great mobiles in the flickr group.

Weekend Trip

We spent a long weekend with Aaron's side of the family - it is always so fun to get the little cousins together!

Also, there's nothing like a road trip for reminding you that you have no decent pajama pants.  So I made these wide-legged cropped pants from a sheet right before we left.  Very soft and summery.

Because it was Pioneer Day, I wanted to make pioneer bonnets for the girl cousins.  My mom was nice enough to help me with them. 

The girls liked them and wore them off and on all weekend - my daughter wears hers everywhere.

Oh, and I came home with this beauty of a quilt:

My MIL gave me a stack of fabrics for my birthday, and a note that said I could use them or give them back to her to make me a quilt.  I ended up taking her up on that offer (who could refuse?) because I knew it would be years before I actually finished something with it.

I love it so much!  I slept with it the whole time we were there.

Speaking of sleeping, my kids have never been ones to sleep well while traveling, but as they get older, it's (finally) getting easier.  This time I discovered that my MP3 player was an awesome tool for getting Monkey to sleep.  He had to stay very still or the ear buds would fall out, and he listened to Winnie the Pooh or Andrew Bird and drifted easily off to sleep.  He insisted on sharing the buds with me, so it was a nice quiet, snuggly moment for us at the end of the day.

 

Pretty soon we were on our way back home - and taking pictures out the window again.

This summer has gone by crazy fast, hasn't it?

School supplies smell good.

"You know what, Mom?  I think the best part of school is buying new school stuff."

But of course! 

I actually thought that it was pretty funny that my daughter said that.  Since we homeschool, I didn't know if she was picking up on that 'new school supply' smell/excitement/anxiety in the air.

No anxiety here, though.  Everyone knows who their teacher is and where they sit already.

But we still stock up on all the essentials while they're cheap. 

I bought six pairs of kiddo scissors - because we can never find any when we need them.

Anyway, I'm sure that finding perfectly doll-sized notebooks had nothing to do with her opinion. ;)

Polaroid Love

I mentioned last year that I'd passed up several Polaroid cameras because of lack of film.  Well, last weekend at a yard sale I found a Polaroid camera*... WITH FILM... for $3.  

Ten shots.  Ten tries at something super fun.

With film that expired nearly 5 years ago.

I loved it.

I scanned a couple to show you.

The gnomes are my favorite shot (hence the new blog header) - the clothespins are my second.

And now I'm asking for more film for Christmas.

And yeah, I was the geeky mom who brought THREE cameras to the last day of swimming lessons.  Whatever.  One was for video.

 

*It's a 1200FF

Quick, to the Craft Closet!

I've not been able to get much sewing done lately - just not in the right mood, I guess.  But it felt good making those baby shoes.  Quite good, actually.

Time to get sewing again.  I only have... what, 3 quilts in progress?

One evening last week two of the kids were at a neighbors, and one was hanging with Aaron downstairs.  I could sew!  Quick, to the Craft Closet!

I whipped out these two blocks for my wonky/scrappy log cabin quilt.  Because I usually make two at a time.

(I think that one on the left might be my fave block yet).

Check the kids.  Still good?  Cool. 
Two more blocks, then!

And after they went to bed I made two more - because I realized that I only needed two more!

 

Ahh, the feeling of accomplishment!

So now I need to get some chocolate brown Kona cotton to put them all together with - I may do a no-binding flip and topstitch technique on this one.  Because sometimes the thought of binding just kills any quilting desire I've got.

And just cause I want to anyway.

On your mark...

This year we will be homeschooling all three kiddos.  I have been slowly trying to make my lists and sort out what needs to be done and what needs to be changed before we get started.  Because holy cow, if I'm not more organized this year, this will not work.  Or, it might work, but I will lose my sanity or something.

While ultimately I would like to move towards a more open-ended project-based way of learning, the boys are at that point where they are working on basic math and reading, and I think they do much better with structure right now.  Especially Thomas. So, we're going to try a version of workboxes for them.

So we put together some TROFAST cubbies the other night.  Putting together IKEA furniture is such a good project to let the kids help with.  The boys loved it.  They stuck in the pegs, used their pretend tools and the allen wrenches.  They really screwed in some of the screws by themselves.

Here's the end result:  click on the photo to see labels of what my plans are for all of these little boxes.  Most of the green ones will be the boys workboxes.

I couldn't resist this new Black Apple print - because it's so us.  I'll probably have to move it - or else take down the quilt and hang this and some other prints over the cubbies.

And the top will help us organize our papers a little better.  I'd also love to make a terrarium to set there.

Crossing my fingers, but I'm thinking this is going to work.

Raspberries

The strawberries are done for the year - but bring on the raspberries!  Berries and peaches are our favorite things to grow, and they do well in our garden, thank goodness.

Monkey has been our garden-kiddo since he was a baby.  And he still is.  He's usually the one out picking with dad - except he just eats his berries.  He suggested to us that we use our tummies as bowls.

We had a big bowl of red and black raspberries in the fridge this weekend.  And I decided to try for turnovers.  I have fond memories of raspberry turnovers from when I was younger.

I bought the puff pastry (which I've never used before).

I made berry pie filling.

I watched Alton Brown's Good Eats episode about puff pastry.

I followed directions.

They turned out delicious.

Holy cow, just perfect!

They were good for breakfast, too.

Random for summer

**Chelle is doing another summer reading program.  I love it.

Check it out here.

**The last few days we've been listening to a lot of Raffi.  We love Raffi.  Holy cow, we listened to TONS of his music when Princess was small.  His Christmas album is one of my holiday faves.  Somehow Monkey hasn't been exposed to him as much, and it's been so fun to see him light up at 'Teddy Bear Hug', 'Aikendrum', and 'Down by the Bay'.  I need to remember that though he's such a sophisticated little dude, he's only four and we need to make sure we do all the 'four stuff' with him.

**I would sure appreciate it if all the Pokemon dvd's the kids keep checking out from the library would magically return themselves.  Like today.

**SYTYCD was bumming me out (disappointing!) - until last week rocked.  Last night's was okay. 

**I saw a Summer Bingo idea here, which apparently originates here.  I made up my own version for my 8yo - if she uses it I'll do it up a little nicer.  I would have loved this idea as a kid.

**A few weeks ago I passed not only my 600th post, but my 3 year 'blogiversary'.  An average of 200 posts a year?  Not too shabby.
Anyway, thanks for being here, and one of these days I'll host a slightly-late giveaway.

**Blogging has been fun, but the past six months or so has been quite the pain.  Somehow, the last time Typepad upgraded itself left me unable to comment on any typepad blogs.  Which is seriously dumb, since I pay for this service.  I hate not being able to comment (not even on my own blog!).  I have made some good friends online and I feel like they think I'm being standoffish or that I don't like them anymore or something.  I try to comment on flickr, but it's just not the same.  I have a help ticket open with Typepad (again!!!) but they can't seem to find the problem.  Lovely.

** I was watching Gilmore Girls (again - season 5 - which is when I start losing all patience for that show - I will never watch season 6 or 7) and noticed a store window in Stars Hollow that says "Kirsten's".  Ha!

**Speaking of my name, you pronounce it 'KEER-sten', not 'Kur-sten'.  Just in case you were wondering!

**What are you guys up to this summer?

Princess - doll photographer

After her dance portraits last month, my daughter thought it would be fun to take dance photos of her dolls.  I set her up with my point-and-shoot on a tripod and she got to work posing her dolls.

It was pretty cute.  I want to give her more chances to take my camera out and discover photography.  Especially outside this summer.

Later, I taught her how to do simple photo editing in Digikam (rotate, crop, auto color-correction). 

Here are (a few) of her photos.

It was a fun afternoon - and a great summer activity for her!

Since then, we've checked out some 'Photography for Kids' books from the library, and she's wanted to take my camera out nearly every day!  Love it.

When I was her age, I LOVED taking pictures (with my Kodak Instamatic that I bought for $4 at a yard sale).

Oh, wait, I still do!

Our Independence Day

Wearing red, white, and blue to the movie theater (we saw 'Up' - all in all we liked it - but Thomas cried hysterically during the dog fighting parts).

Running through sprinklers in bathing suits and playing in the backyard with squirt guns.

Watching America Rock:

A classic American barbecue dinner - grilled and eaten outside - followed by root beer floats and ice cream cones.

And of course this:

The kids had more fun with the glo-necklaces (aka lightsabers) than the actual fireworks.  Next year we're just going to get a bunch of those.

All in all, a perfect fourth of July.

I hope you had a great weekend, too!