Spring Break 2011

Ever since I stopped working in 2002 to stay home with the kids, we've traveling or had company for Spring Break. Since Bob is working seven days a week, it was always just the three of us. This year, we decided to stay home. It was SO nice.

We began the week with the Pinewood Derby. Then, on Sunday, we went over toMax and Amanda's to celebrate Max's 33rd birthday.

It sure is nice to have a golf course for your back yard! The kids enjoyed a came

of Frisbie with Steve.

{Monday} A bit of craft time

{Tuesday}

Playtime with friends

{Wednesday}

Pet Shop and Squinkies

Basketball

It's so relaxing to sit in the rocker and work on a craft while the kids play.

{Thursday} Exploring in the sunshine

{Friday}

The kids and I spent Fri-Sun at Mom and Dad's. Friday evening, we spent with one of our favorite families!

I LOVE their friendship!

Duck...Duck...Goose!

Little Jasper has got to be on the happiest babies I've ever seen!

Puppet show

The audience

Turbulent skies

New growth

Anything with an engine for these two!

{Saturday}

I stole a bit of time to work in Mom's craft room while it rained and blew outside.

{Sunday}

Another beautiful day! Ryan spent a bit of time out on the three-wheeler between meetings.

We also enjoyed a wonderful potluck with old and new friends.

And, today, life is back to normal. Bob is {still} at work, the kids are in school, and I'm cleaning and organizing {and planning my new business!}.

Sweet Little Dress

{Pattern: from Anna Marie Horner's newest book}

Size: 12-18 months

This was a fast dress to make. Anna says in her book that she uses this dress to showcase a piece of fabric with the front center panel. After completing the bodice and the skirt bottom, the next step was to gather the sides and bring the top of the skirt down to the same width as the bottom of the bodice. I'm 99% sure I followed the directions, but my skirt bottom was already about 2" narrower than the bodice bottom. I added two more side panels, and then it seemed to work better. My first fabric flower...a matching hair barrette.

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Shared on Skip To My Lou
Gluesticks

Sprinkle Tee

{Idea from MADE}

This was a very easy, fast, and fun project.

The tutorial called for machine sewing the letter on first and then doing the hand embroidery. I figured that all that hand sewing would keep it quite secure, and the edges will curl up a bit when it's washed, so I skipped that step. I did use long basteing stitches with regular thread to hold it in place until I got the outside stitch done.

~~~

Shared on: Skip To My Lou

Gluesticks

"Let's Pretend"

"Let's Pretend."

That's what I've been hearing from Emma ever since we started on this little project.

Emma LOVES to play with her Pet Shop toys (and Polly Pockets, My Little Pony, etc) and usually ends up on the living room floor. We decided that it would be fun to have a little playmat to play on...one that can be changed whenever she wants. So, we got a bit of green felt (on sale this week at JoAnn's for $2.49 a yard and it's 90" wide!), found the supply of other colors that were hiding in the craft room, and got to work. This is just about all her work/ideas, with a little cutting help from me. Nothing is attached, so it can be rearranged any way she wants.

We were going to cut out flowers, but then we remembered we have a box of the foam stickers. We left the sticker cover on and just put there where we wanted them.

The butterflies are very attracted to the pile of rocks!

One of the ponds, with a dock and boat. The mountain, complete with Fairy house, Fairy, flowers, a pathway, and a little patch on top for a picnic.

The two small ponds.

The perfect place for a picnic!

Here she is telling me the pathway the Pet Shops will need to take to get

to the lake.

I think that these are about the cutest toys out there these days.

I love that they don't "do" anything, either. It all comes from the imagination.

Emma discovered that we hadn't included a desert habitat, so she added one.

I think she likes it!

The Cars

I found a few more pics of the guys' cars on my camera.

2011 Pine Wood Derby

Last year's Pine Wood Derby was a bit of a disappointment. Bob and Ryan started their cars

near the end of February and had to have them done by mid-March. With this being smack dab in the middle of tax season, their cars were, to say the least, not the fastest in the pack! I think that both of them were out after two races. This year, however, they bought their cars in January and worked on them for several months.

Weighing in the cars. Ryan's was exactly 5 oz, and Bob's was 4.9 oz. The limit was 5 oz. Ryan's car is the second one on the bottom row (red), and Bob's is the first one on the top row (blue).

This picture cracks me up. If you look close enough, you can see Emma sticking her tongue out just like the dragon on the cover of the book.

Getting ready to race! The guy in charge has written a computer program that works with the track and actually tells the mph that each car is traveling.

Yay!

Emma entertained herself at the coloring table.

Nana came to lend some support.

The boys from Ryan's Den.

Ryan won several of the heats, but ended up not placing. He did, however, get the trophy for the fastest car in his Den. Quite the improvement over last year.

Bob got third place in the Open Division!

Ryan already has his plans ready for next year's cars.

Yep, that's plural. He plans on making several and then choosing the best one to enter.