Miss smarty pants

Ava after she colored the middle black part (that's what I called it)

"That's the pupil, you know"

I'm so proud

We started a home school co-op on Friday and the kids had a great time.

I was worried because Ryan and Sydney had 3 different classes and they had to go to different rooms. Ryan was especially worried, but they found the rooms and were so excited with their classes.I was especially proud of Ryan because he signed up for a cake decorating class and I talked to him before about how there might not be other boys in there (there were 2 other boys) and if some girls made fun of him to not get mad, just tell them that his dad likes to decorate cakes too.

Well, sure enough there were 2 girls who said he should leave and that the class was for girls only, and Ryan told them exactly what I had told him!! :)

Then he told them about some cakes that his dad had made for a couple of his birthdays and one of the girls said "cool" , the other girl wasn't convinced but that's ok.

The kids are so looking forward to Friday school, Ryan has a Lego class, cake decorating , and beginning Chess, I couldn't believe how well he can play after only 1 class.

Sydney has crochet, acting and drawing.

I don't have any pictures of the kids at Friday school, but here are some pics of them on a field trip with Travis from last week.

And Ryan's part 2 birthday picture, we had some cousins and friends (not that the cousins aren't friends) over to Grandpa and Grandma's shop to watch Jurassic Park.

Trip to Seattle Aquarium and Ryan's Bday part 1

Ryan turned 9 on Thursday (wow, almost double digits)! Travis took off work for Thursday and Friday, so we went to the Aquarium on Ryan's big day. For those of you who like the Seattle Aquarium, I'm sorry, we had never been, unless I had been as a kid and don't remember it, and we won't likely go back. The kids had fun , but Travis and I were very underwhelmed.

For the last few years we have taken the kids to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium and we really like it. But, it's about 2.5 hours away so we thought we would try this since it was about 1 hour away.

I do really like the jellyfish,



especially THIS one!

I guess from looking at my pictures, I thought the most picture worthy things there were my kids! :)

I told you I was thinking about making something for Ryan, well, it all started with a pair of pj pants that little baby Ryan used to wear,

I saved them hoping that I could use them for something special, some clothes just remind you of your kids when they were babies.

Sydney was so happy to be helping make Ryan's special gift!

Ryan loved his new monster stuffie and it has a lot of friends on Ryan's bed.

Sleeping Beauty

Ava hasn't taken naps since she was about 18 months, so when I find her passed out on the couch , I just have to take a picture.

She was really tired, notice the half eaten cheese string in her hand.

Garage/shop pictures

I guess these pictures don't really show a lot, but here is my room behind the garage. It has a dirt floor and is half rotten and needs to be raised about 2 feet, but it's all mine! :)

Isn't he cute!?

I think I got a little bit of the sewing bug lately. I found this tutorial

and decided to whip one up. :)

It's Ryan's birthday soon and he has a bunch of stuffed animals, so I think I might make him some kind of monster, but , of course, now that I would have a good reason to sew, I won't feel like it!

Wish me luck!

Cheep learning fun

Here are some more ideas for fun learning that is pretty cheep, for your preschooler(my older kids like this stuff too)

Here is a felt board that I made a few years ago, I bought some craft felt from the bolt and wrapped it around a piece of foam core, and hot glued it to the back. The dolls and clothes are also cut from felt, I went to Treasury of Memories in Bellingham where you can use their die cuts, they have so many.

This blue tray was on clearance at Michaels for $2, I like this tray because it has a higher edge for messy stuff like Moon Sand. The paper clips and muffin tin were from the Dollar Tree.

We've been studying dinosaurs at home lately and this was a matching game that Sydney actually did, it might have been a little hard for Ava. The dinosaurs were from a dollar store and the dino flash cards were from the $1 bin at Target.


This was our first floor puzzle, they have bigger pieces are are much thicker than regular puzzles, Ava was able to do this with some help. Oh ya, this was on clearance at Target also, it was between $2 -$3.

I'm on a roll

I don't know that 2 things is a roll, but I'm pretty proud of myself. I have a feeling that this will be it for a while, but who knows.

Sydney likes to fall down, I don't know that she is clumsy , I think that she just really likes to fall down.

So, she wears out almost all her pants in the knees, I had to hand stitch these on her knees so it was a little difficult, and not perfect but I like them.

They are a reverse applique, just like the heart shirt ( I think that is what its called)

Finally, one less thing!

When you have little kids there is never a shortage of stained or out grown or torn clothes, so I have been trying to save items that I think I'll , someday, do something with.

Well, I finally made that pile just a little smaller!

See the small stain on Sydney's white shirt?

This is the leg of Gretchen's tights that had a worn out toe, I had already cut off the legs and used them as little baby legs (or leg warmers whatever you call them). Gretchen had outgrown them so they were up for grabs too.

I cut the piece of tights to open it up and then pined it to the inside of Syd's shirt, I traced a heart on the front.


I stitched around the heart.

Cut away the center.

Trimmed the inside of the tights fabric.

and here you go, it still needs to be washed to make it look more finished, but I was pretty happy with myself , and Sydney loved it.

All 3 year old girls dress like this, don't they?

Our little hippo

This picture is for Jupe.

second day of school

I don't know if this would be considered a day of "school" since I don't know that we really learned anything, but it come after the first day, so that's what I'm calling it.

Travis took Friday off work so we could go to the Science Center, I had high hopes of learning a lot , I even printed worksheets and fact sheets from their web site.

Once we got there, I realized pretty quickly that the kids just wanted to run around and look at stuff, so I gave up my idea and we had a good time.

We will try the "planned learning" another time, maybe without the 2 little girls.

First day of school '09

We started our 2009 year on Thursday, I have lots of fun stuff planned this year, so I wanted to start with some. There's no getting away from math and language and spelling so you might as well have fun with the other subjects (not that we won't have fun with math and language too, notice I didn't say spelling)

We started off with some stories about Noah's Ark, I love reading different versions of stories, some are more for the older kids ,some younger, and there is different artwork.

After the stories Sydney and Ryan got their new sketch books out and drew pictures from the stories.

Ryan doing his language, doesn't he look happy?!


Sydney actually does look happy ! :)



After the Noah's Ark stories, while the kids were doing some math and language Ava got to play Noah's ark with her Little People.

Looking forward to a great year!