One Big Family

Gracie and Carson in a basket

 The first time Kimberly held Sophia

What a face!

What Grace does for fun...

 on Christmas vacation.

Soccer season is in full swing

 Mark in goal and Gracie on defense....they make a great team!

 

Easy Patriotic Rag Wreath

 Gracie did a wonderful job making a very cute patriotic rag wreath of our front door.

She chose 4 different prints of cotton cloth.  She had 1/4 yard of blue stars, 1/4 yard of white stars, 1/4 yard red stars, and 1/4 yard of red stripes.

 Cut the material into 7 inches by 1 inch strips.  Save one long piece of one of the fabrics to wrap the hanger top.

Bend a wire hanger into a circle.

 Simply tie knots with the fabric strips onto the wire hanger.

 Continue the pattern you choose until the hanger is full.

After this, we wrapped the top "hanger" portion on the hanger with fabric.  After we wrapped it we used glue dots to secure it.

And there you go, a beautiful addition to our patriotic decorations.

Happy 12th Birthday, Gracie!!

Autumn T-Shirts

We made cute autumn t-shirts this past Saturday.

Last year, I bought these large foam stamps from Oriental Trading Co. for a very economical price.

I can't find this particular set, but I did find other sets suitable for t-shirts, especially these leaves.

 I found these bright orange shirts at Michael's Crafts.

Put some cardboard inside the shirts.  I use cereal boxes for this.

 Instead of dipping the large stamps into the fabric paint, Kim paints it thickly onto the stamp.

 Stamp away

 Kimmy's shirt.

 Grace put a lot of detail into her stamps.

 Posing with the finished product!

Melted Crayon on Canvas

 We have been wanting to do this art project for quite a while now.  It is the melted Crayola crayons on canvas project.

 The first step is to hot glue your crayons to the top of a canvas...make sure the Crayola logo is on top (I like the look of it). Grace did random colors.

 We used the blow dryer on high heat.  I put newspaper down on the floor to catch the drips.

 And the magic began to happen...aim the blow dryer with a downward slant.

 Laura made a rainbow of colors.

 I loved the look of the liquid crayon as it mixed on the newspaper.

 The final results.

Great job, Grace.

The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat

 This team, up here in this photo, came from last place in the league to playing for the league championship in the past three days.

 It was an amazing story of the underdog pulling together to battle forward.

 But alas, the championship was not to be had.

 It was a heartbreaking lose in the bottom of the sixth.

But be on guard, Oneida Little League Softball....we are going to gunning for first place next year!

Sunday afternoon lessons

 Gracie was overjoyed to have her first sewing lesson this afternoon.

We bought flannel on the way home from church to make pillow cases.

She quickly became an expert on very straight seams.

 Complete!  I love her choice of fabric.

 The test....does the pillowcase work?  Yes, it does!

 She continued her sewing and made both Kim and Luke pillowcases of their own.

 Cozy

 Kim discovered it works. (

 After Grace finished sewing, I used the left over fabric to make oatmeal "logs" for these chilly days and nights.