Last minute crafting…

Eeek! I can’t resist a good online craft swap, but I may have taken on slightly too much this time. I am trying to crank out 2 backpacks, 3 traveling artist totes, a wristlet, and yarn before I leave on Wednesday.  Yikes!

1 of the backpacks from the Made by Rae pattern (which is a lovely, relatively easy pattern with great results) is from this funky japanese robot fabric and denim.  I think the sturdiness of these packs is perfect for Ethan.  The second backpack is going to be out of this funky viewfinder fabric… I LOVE it!

The boys and I are having so much fun with our summer projects.  We worked on a garden stone this morning.

Joey is now finishing up work on a script and setting up for filming a puppet show 🙂

Summer’s Here!

It’s been such a beautiful, enjoyable couple of weeks. We all needed a break from school. Aside from Ethan and I doing a toddler/independence/power struggle dance that often leaves me at a loss, we are making the most of every minute.

Sometimes I feel like I don’t have much time. I blinked and Chris is just months away from double digits. I want to make sure that every second counts.

We have made log boats, mini books, painted, journaled, cooked, played, gardened, visited friends and had friends visit. We have plans to camp, play more, cook more, hike and letterbox (a very cool geocaching sort of thing).

Speaking of camping, check out our new toy!  We are planning a trip to the Sierra’s next week.  The boys are crazy excited.  A week of camping, fishing, camp fires and bike riding!  I’m hoping the weather continues to warm up.  The snow up there a couple weeks ago had me nervous!

I have lots on my plate with crafting and business, but I am keeping up.  I finished a great b/w bag for a customer the other day.  It made me smile (I love little birds on fabrics!)

Halloween was awesome!

The boys had a great time. Ethan was very picky about his costume… he wanted to wear the woody outfit with no pants. Then we finally convinced him to be the pirate that we had in the dress up box. By the end of the night he was loving it all! Joey kept true to himself and was the only 6 year old boy we saw that wasn’t a character of some sort. He was a chef and LOVED it. And Chris kept true to the Star Wars tradition, this year being a clone trooper. It was really nice not to agonize over homemade costumes this year, but I definitely want to do it next year. I’m thinking the mad hatter from the most recent version of Alice in Wonderland for Ethan ;).

In the creative section of life, all of my holiday crafty ideas have me shopping for supplies. This set of wool felt arrived last week and I am excited about all of the possibilities.

It actually inspired these yarns…

I used a new dye method and I couldn’t be happier with the results.  Joey tried to get me to knit them up for him, but I declined… this mama doesn’t knit up fingering yarn.  I plan on dyeing up some quick knitting worsted in a similar color scheme and making him some mittens or a hat though.

I’m looking forward to the rest of this week.  I have a parent conference for Chris, he has a game tomorrow, Thursday is my mom’s club and bible study at our house.  Super busy, but in a good way.

E’s room, sorta finished

Well, $$ are running low, so while there are a few things left to do, we are calling it done for now.

I love our fishy decals.  They are so cute.

The school goes all the way around the room.

And we have our ikea shelf, it holds the diapering supplies and shoes.

I forgot to take a picture of the toy box and framed fabric… I’ll add it when I show off the big boys room.  We still need some sort of short shelving unit for a small assortment of books and toys, and a fish rug.  I am also thinking about hanging curtains where his closet doors were/should be.  We had old school sliding doors that each weighed about 200lbs, so they came down right away.

I’ll show the big boys room next 🙂

Houston, we have a stander… and other updates.

Yup. He stands alone.  Oye.  He isn’t even 9 months yet.  I need time to adjust to this.

Chris is already well into his second week of 2nd grade.  He’s reading, doing homework, and keeps begging me to let him do “mad science” afterschool.  I have no idea what that is.  He hates waking up though.  Mornings are rough, to say the least.  And his school doesn’t even start until 8:35, the latest start time in the district.  I just call Charlie, and tell him to do his work… and he gives Chris a big wet bulldog kiss.  Chris and Charlie are best buddies, so he never gets mad :).

Joey is counting down to his first day.  They are on different schedules, which isn’t the easiest, but I love Joey’s school, so I deal.  He is enjoying having 1 on 1 time with Ethan.  They play so well.  They laugh like the best of friends.

As summer busyness is winding down, Paul and I are taking on house chores, finally.  Joey and Chris share a room, they are going to have khaki walls and it will be decorated with vintage games and a vintage model airplane hanging from the ceiling.

Ethan rooms alone.  He has light blue walls (the middle swatch in the pic), and goldfish decor.  We are going to be doing these fish decals in orange, i’m also going to frame some of the fish fabric I used in his quilt for picture decorations.  I am thinking about having my friend make me some stuffed goldfish for a mobile.  The before-

And Paul has begun plans for an outdoor fort.  We are still undecided on whether we want it in the avocado tree, or stand alone.   I am also finishing the upstairs bathroom this week, and getting all of the crown moulding put in upstairs and down.  It’s quite a list.

WIWoW #4

Another installment of “What I’m working on Wednesday”.  This week it’s not too interesting.  I’m winding and labeling a large order, getting pictures ready for the store next week, and getting to know my new camera lens!  Paulie bought it for me for our anniversary.  55-200mm with VR, and it rocks.  I’m going to take the boys out for a little hike this afternoon and get some shots.

The boys were to busy to let me try it out when it arrived, so Charlie quietly obliged after I threw the ball a couple times for him.

Beautiful colors, and the VR really comes through when I was shooting indoors at higher ISO’s and slower shutter speeds.

Here is some yarn I wound for the large order.  It’s nice and fallish without being dark!  “Patch”

And here is some stuff for the store.  “Happiness”  It’s on a new yarn base for me, and I’m calling it aurora.  It’s merino, cashmere and nylon and it’s just amazing.  My absolute favorite for projects for me.

And I leave you with a brother smack down picture.  Ethan loves to wrestle.  It makes me so nervous.  Any time the big boys mess around, he crawls over as fast as he can to jump on top of them.

Camping bliss.

There were a few moments of bliss in the chaos.

Jumping in his bouncer

Climbing trees

Living the good life on a swing

and getting great pics in the overcast weather.

We are home and recuperating. We also canceled our trip up the coast. The baby isn’t ready for vaca’s yet, and I’m ok with that.

It is odd to have a babe who prefers his own bed.
Without me.

Summer’s here!

I’m excited. I love planning for the summer! Things to do, see, create, enjoy… We have lots of plans this summer. We are off camping this coming weekend, flying to northern CA next week, road tripping it in July.

If it seems packed in, it’s cause it is. You see, we only have 7 weeks of summer vacation here. They go back August 10th!!! Paul isn’t loving it, but I don’t mind. By August the boys and I are tired and hot, and they are ready for a regular routine again. I also really enjoy having extra breaks during the school year.

Our road trip has us the most excited. We are stopping in Big Sur to enjoy giant redwood groves, waterfalls, and family time in a cabin. In Monterey we are planning to enjoy the beautiful aquarium and sights. San Francisco holds the Jelly Belly factory, cable cars, Chinatown and the Fisherman’s Wharf. Yippeeee! I love San Fran.

And in home life, E’s getting into everything now. It’s been so long since I had to babyproof! I don’t know where to start.

Joey is amazing me lately. He’s so big! He has started playing the piano! I am going to reach into my 15 years of playing to start teaching him this summer. He is the most musically inclined of the 3.

Chris loves reading. I mean *loves*. He steals time at night when he is supposed to be sleeping, sits with a book next to him during breakfast, and insists that we listen to books on CD as we drive. I was exactly the same way when I was his age.

I’m spending my days gardening, working and squeezing in some sewing here or there.

Ah, the magic of Disneyland

You know that feeling. The one you get when something exciting happens to your kid, and you watch their face light up? It’s a tingly sort of feeling in your nose and it leaves you breathing a little shorter.

It happened when we were there and I saw his face look like this…

You see, my kid is a Star Wars freak. He will talk to anyone and everyone about it. Truth be told, his mom is too. So, when these guys walked right past him, he probably would have passed out if he wasn’t so shocked. I tell you, if he would have had his light saber drawn, he would have done the Republic proud.

Now Joey, my sweet Joey. While he loved the place, he is the one who prefers a slower paced day. He was content to ride the Jungle Cruise over and over and over again. It was the perfect ride for mommy and E too :).

I did convince him to take a bobsled ride.

I promise it wasn’t as bad as it looks.

It was a wonderful day, and a pretty good 28th birthday if you ask me. Ah. Time goes too fast.

He’s huge I tell you!

E is quite taken with the boob. So much so, that he gained 5 pounds in 5 weeks. Currently he just passed the 14 pound mark :). His nickname, given by my brother who loves naming my chubby babies, is Squishy. And that he is.

Squishy does have a cold though. Seems that we couldn’t escape Christmas vacation without one. It is messing up his night routine too… speaking of, I am very, very happy to finally announce that I have a baby who only wakes once a night!!! 3rd time’s a charm. It’s funny, Joey wakes up before E does.

And in the house hunting news… we are waiting for a response on another house! It’s perfect, and better yet, it’s a private seller, so we may get a response in this lifetime (since we still haven’t heard back about the sweet little short sale home we made an offer on 10 weeks ago). If you wouldn’t mind sending positive thoughts, we would gladly accept them :).

Ok, I’m being called, hopefully I’ll have good news soon!