{pretty, happy, funny, real}

~Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life~

Every Thursday at Like Mother, Like Daughter

{pretty} 

I do love the trees on this side of town.  As we continue the house-hunt, with no exact neighborhood in mind, it's interesting to take in the advantages of all the different areas.  This side of town has the trees and large yards, while the newer side of town is bustling with families and light, bright homes.  Out in the neighboring towns/suburbs, there are hills and parks, and then there are also homes near the bay and the beach.  There is definitely quite a variety of areas, and although none feel quite right for us and are so much more expensive than what we're used to in Houston, I'm sure something will come up one day that suits our fancy (Can you tell I've been reading/watching British drama recently?).

Also, one of the pretty places in our life right now is the Atrium.  Steven Joseph participates in this beautiful Catechesis of the Good Shepherd every Friday morning, where they learn about Jesus who loves and cares for us.  He enjoys singing the songs, and telling us about his class later in the day.  Last week they worked on pouring.  Everything is done quietly, methodically, and carefully.  I was able to go in for just a couple minutes last week before I was needed outside again.  I hope I can join him more and more as the months go by.  I would love to be trained in this program at some point.

{happy}

My happy biking boy!  He's doing great now, but is still learning to get started himself.  The bike is a tad tall for him, but I'm sure he'll grow into it soon enough!

Also happy here are the boys when allowed to play with the pastels outside.  I admit they made a huge mess and I still haven't gotten the crayons packed away in this case again.  Right now they're spread throughout the laundry room.  Sigh.  But they had fun for a few minutes!  Also notice Thomas' favorite toy behind him...the metal kitchen tongs!  He begs for them and cries if they're in the dishwasher.

{funny}
 These two little ones are funny as can be.  Thomas is always picking on little M, and this day they were both conspiring about how to get back at me for continuing to leave them in the swings while retreating to the shade for a few seconds!

I still need to post the rest of the t-ball photos and a video, but here are a couple funny ones...
Well, this one may be more sad than funny.  He just wanted to go into the dugout with his big brother so badly!
 
 I think he was manning 3rd base here.  Poor child was chasing the runners over and over again, even though he didn't have the ball.  Looked like he was playing tag!  One of the runners was much older and just gave him the strangest look, like "what in the world are you doing?"  He was having fun, though!

{real}

 I thought these were some real shots of the seriousness of making paper mache masks for El Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead)

 Oh, that paper mache was messy!  Just look at those faces!

 Here are the girls painting their mask.  Both of their actual masks weren't in condition enough to paint them on Monday, so this was a mask that the instructor had made which they painted it together.

And of course little brother wanted to paint something, too!  He was so proud to write his brother's name at the bottom.

So those were some moments of our week.  Hope to see some of yours, too!  I'm going to try to be back with 7 Quick Takes tomorrow.  We'll see!

Back to School 2012!

This year I decided we would ease into the school year.  It has been a good choice for us and has allowed the kids to explore their new subjects, get excited about them, but not be forced with a full schedule right away.  So we've done 2 weeks of part-time school, working on 4-5 subjects each day.  Most of their subjects only take 10-15 minutes, so during the week they usually have about 10-12 subjects and some aren't done every day.

I think their favorite subject this year will be Science.  We're using the Apologia Anatomy and Physiology text with the notebooking journals and the lab kit. 

Each chapter is done over about 2 weeks.  There are a few small experiments, but at the end of the lesson is a bigger experiment/project.  This project was creating a cell out of jello and candy!  They were very excited about this and forced me to read the whole chapter in one sitting so we could make our cell!

We ended up waiting overnight for the Jello to set, so they couldn't wait to get started the next morning!  I think snacking on the candy was their favorite part.

Here's a photo of another clay "cake" creation by Mary Clare.  It's a bouncy house with a big J on top and a little boy.  She wanted me to send it to our friends whose son is getting ready for a bouncy house birthday party!  I think this would be considered "art class," right?

 

They had seen some blog photos of friends with these little fairies they'd learned to make at a girls' club meeting, so I bought some supplies while on a mom's evening out to Wal-Mart (Daddy took the kids to get bikes and I watched a show at home and then went shopping!).  They had so much fun creating these little fairies!

Thomas' favorite "educational" activity of late is using the kitchen tongs to play with the cookie cutters!

And he's now totally obessed with the tongs and wants to play with them all day long.  He will drag us to the kitchen, saying "want THAT."  I need to make a list of his little phrases right now, because the baby talk is so cute!

Last weekend we hosted a big "Back to School Fajita Night" for some of our homeschooling friends from church.  We ended up having 5 families over, each having 4-6 children.  It was a full house!  The dads had fun watching the little ones outside, while grilling and drinking beer.

The moms were in the kitchen most of the evening, getting a lesson in homemade tortilla-making!  My kids really wanted to help!

This little guy might have enjoyed it most of all!  He really likes helping in the kitchen.

We set up the fajita buffet in the playroom.  I definitely enjoy hosting things like this and I'm glad Steven is starting to enjoy it, too :-)

This weekend I've continued to plan for the new school year, working on checklists and making my final book selections.  After a nice and relaxing holiday weekend, hopefully we'll have a good week and I won't need to post another whine/vent like last week!

(By the way, for my photographer peeps, these photos all look too yellow.  I think my white balance must be off again.)

Pinning it Down Tuesday

 Pinning it Down Tuesdays, this week at Everyday Snapshots!

Last week I finally made a rainbow bunting/flag banner which I'd been planning to do for a long while!  I've had several on my Pinterest Boards, like this one, and I've also enjoyed the Giggleberry Creations blog; she sells them here on Etsy.

I have had all those kid clothes ready to donate/resale, and grabbed a few items from those baskets to use for the banner!

I made a triangle template and started cutting!  Each flag is two triangles of fabric sewed together.  I sewed both sides, actually some fabric I just folded and sewed one side (see below).  I waited to sew the top closed until it was sewed onto the ribbon.

You can see my quick job here, there's a stray thread sticking out!  Like most of my sewing projects, I just kind of figure things out as I go and don't ever make things even or perfect!  This was an adorable Gap t-shirt that SJ used to wear but got a hole in it.  He pointed up to this on the wall the other night saying, "I liked that shirt!!!"

I sewed each of the flags to some pink ribbon we already had, leaving about 3 inches between each flag.  These are 3 clothing items of MC's...a clearance Walmart shirt, a hand-me-down orange shirt with sparkles, and some adorable Gymboree floral biker shorts (found resale) that needed to be retired.  Grand total on this sewing project= $0!

Red, green, and wide stripes were all SJ's t-shirts; the pinstripe were some old sheets, the pink you can't see was from PJ shorts of Ellie's, and the floral is my current bedskirt alteration fabric Laura Ashley pattern.  Gotta know your fabric history, of course :)

And here's our colorful living room!  I'm considering painting some of the frames different colors.  What do you think?

Pinning it Down Tuesday

Pinning it Down Tuesdays at Amongst Lovely Things!

A few weeks ago, I posted this Christmas wreath I had pinned on my Pinterest boards.  I've kept it up on the door and was trying to think of a way to make it more Valentine-y.  Mary Clare actually colored a heart with an arrow through and taped it to the wreath, which was cute.  

But this weekend I remembered this plaque that my mom bought me many years ago, and I figured out how to hang it on top of the wreath.  Then I realized that I could bend the wreath into a heart shape, since it's just made of a wire coat hanger!  I think it's pretty cute, don't you?

Pinning it Down Tuesday, 2 Christmas Crafts!

 Tonight I'm slipping in at the last minute to the Pinning it Down Tuesday blog hop at 

Amongst Lovely Things.

Since these are a bit old, I'll go ahead and post two Christmas project ideas I had on my Pinterest boards.  (And I must also warn any new readers that my dSLR camera is broken so my blog photos right now are horrible, so sorry!)

The first is a wreath for the front door I found here!  I used a few old sheer curtains and cut them into strips about 3-4 inches wide.  I took a wire coat hanger and bent it into a circle.

Then I took the strips of sheer fabric and pushed them onto the hanger.  The first time I just went back and forth, but it was too symmetrical.  So I took all the strips off and twisted them back and forth as I was poking them onto the hanger.  Hard to explain!

Here's the finished project.  Cost = $0!  I did put some red ribbons on it (that I already had), but took those off when I took down the Christmas decorations last weekend.

My next project was one I'd been planning to do for years.  When we found out on Christmas Eve that we'd have to stay home for Christmas, I quickly got busy cutting and sewing!  These were the links I used for inspiration, but I ended up figuring out the whole quilting part on my own.  Now I'd really love to sew a quilt!  I cut them out of lightweight denim I already had from an old jumper.

I used an old fleece blanket inside for stuffing, and some fabric for the inner lining that came from an old prayer blanket from when Mary Clare was little.

I did make a quick run to the fabric store to buy some coordinating fabric for the tops.  Aren't they cute?  Next project will be adding some fabric to embroider their names at the top!

Here's how they looked all filled up on Christmas morning, with little cardstock circles with their initials taped on for now!

Thanks for hosting, Sarah!  I hope this will inspire me to try some more creative things this year!

Pool Noodle Rosaries for Little Flowers class

Last week was our last Little Flowers meeting of the year. We talked about St. Bridget of Sweden and the virtue of Truthfulness. Since it was the month of May, we decided to devote our craft to the Blessed Mother. We made rosaries out of pool noodles; the idea came from the Catholic Icing Blog.


We did a little mini-May Crowning, singing Immaculate Mary and bringing pink roses to the statue.



The girls brought the roses home to give to their mothers for Mother's Day. We had a wonderful last meeting!



It was a great year!