Needle & thREAD

Well there hasn't been too much sewing around here the last couple of weeks.  At least nothing really exciting.  It's been more of the functional type of sewing. 

Cameron's mom got Kate the cutest little shirt, but it was just too short to wear and way too cute to pass on yet.  She already has trouble keeping her pants up since she has the tiniest behind ever.  I thought it would be good to keep her belly button covered!  I found some fabric at the wonderful Etsy.com that matched and made it into a little dress or tunic.  Right now it works either way.

Callie had some jeans that were too short (as always) so I cut those up and made her a skirt with some fabric I already had.  Doing it this way is much, much easier than making a full denim skirt by ripping the seams out of the jean legs.

Both girls were very happy and both projects were extremely quick and easy.

I finally got the copy of To Kill a Mockingbird from the library.  I am really enjoying it.  I really don't want to do anything but read this book.  The story is told from the little girls perspective and she is a hoot!  I'm just now getting into the more serious part of the book, so I'm sure the humor may be over, but I have laughed out loud several times.  I love some of her observations about public education.

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"I want to do it again and forever!"

Those were Kate's words on the way home from the Sleeping Beauty recital.  She loved it!  I was just a tad bit concerned about how she would do since she's been known to be just a wee bit clingy and a wee bit attached to her blankets.  I was pretty sure she would do fine performing, I just wasn't so sure about the sitting through the rest of it by herself in a dark auditorium.  She did fine though.  Although the first words out of her mouth after running up to Cameron were, "I wish I had blankie."

Callie danced beautifully, and she sat there in the dark auditorium like a good girl too! ;)  Each year the dances get a little more difficult and each dancer is a little more highlighted.  They worked really hard this year getting their steps and timing just right. 

It was a joy to watch them on stage and have some of our family join us. 

Callie is always so excited in the weeks leading up to the performance and then all of the sudden, it seems, it's over and ballet is over until the fall.  Then she is always kind of bummed and a little sad.  This year,  she is planning on going to the summer workshop, so she wasn't bummed for too long.

I took a lot more pictures but quite a few of them did not turn out very well.  The inside of the auditorium is so dark and with all the movement going on and the combination of my camera and my limited knowledge of how to change the settings produced quite a few not so great pictures.

Great job girls!!  It was a pleasure to see you so excited and do such a good job.

{This Moment}

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Praying For Our Husbands

I don't usually go into advice giving on this blog.  There are too many other blogs out there that do that sort of thing, written by much more experienced and wise women than I.  However, I am going to share this one bright idea that I think was an answer to prayer for me.

Surely, I am not the only wife out there who fails to remember to pray for her husband.  I don't mean the quick little "Please keep him safe" prayers, not that those aren't heart felt and important, but I mean really praying for them.

                                                             Coveting at a Christmas tree farm 2010


Several months ago, I was really ticked off at Cameron. :)  Now this really doesn't happen that often.  He is a gem of a husband!!  For some reason, which I now cannot even remember, I was really mad.  I was just "going off" to the Lord.  "What in the world is that man thinking?  I cannot believe...blah, blah, blah....."  Suddenly, the question popped into my head (Holy Spirit?) "Well have you ever thought to pray for the man?!"

Ouch!  I had to admit, that no, I really hadn't thought to pray for him in any significant way, with any consistency.  I'll admit that I'm terrible at remembering to consistently pray for anyone.  I will when things are going badly, or maybe some prayers of thanks giving for someone when things are going really well, but as far as daily remembering to pray for someone other than prayers of well being, I really stink.

                                                                           State fair 2011

Then I remembered these cell phones we have that have alarms that you can set!  I've never used that feature before but Cameron does whenever he has to get up earlier than normal.  So I grabbed my phone and set two alarms.  One in the morning and one in the afternoon.  Sometimes, if things are really crazy, I'll just say a quick little prayer.  If I can, I'll go to my room and really pray.  If the girls are right there with me, sometimes we all pray.  It's really sweet to hear them pray for their Daddy to have a good day or whatever.

Last week, God answered one of those prayers and I made sure to thank him!  Cameron has been really frustrated with work lately and I had been praying for him to be encouraged.  He did something for his boss and his boss was very appreciative and even let his boss know too.  Cameron got a nice thank you from both of them and even a little token of their appreciation.  I made sure that the girls knew about this so they would know that God was listening and their prayers were important.

                                                                               More coveting :)
So, there is my advice for the day.  Use those fancy cell phones and encourage your husbands!

Yarn Bombing in Zionsville

For the moment, my camera and computer are talking to each other.  We'll see if we can get some posts up this week.

I went to Zionsville to check out the yarn bombing yesterday and took some pictures.  It looked really good, I thought.  I hope they keep it up for a while.  I had two beautiful models with me also.

the top right piece with the purple stripes is mine

two peas in a pod

It would be a lot of fun, I think, to put these together.  They even wrapped the trash can across the street in their parking lot!

This is really a great yarn shop.  The owner is the sweetest lady and she is so helpful and never makes a new knitter feel like an idiot.  If you live anywhere in the Indy area, I highly recommend going to the Village Yarn Shop!

completely spontaneous hug

Out in the Garden

The whole family has been working hard to get the garden ready.  I wish I had taken a before picture.  The weeds in the country are sooo much bigger and thicker than in the suburbs.  I think they mutate or something due to the chemicals the big farmers put on the fields.  This fall I'm planning on taking some kind of measures to cover up our beds and see if that will help next spring.

Anyway, the beds were a royal mess.  We dug, we pulled, we chopped and we got them looking all nice and pretty.  We got some lovely fertilizer from our horse owning friends and Callie has been earning some extra money with a shovel. :)  My rule is, if I don't want to do it, I'll pay Callie and she can say no if she wants to.  She usually says yes.  It works for us!

The girls got their own little plot and of course it needed some signs.  Someone was a little territorial about "her garden" so the sign says "Callie and Kate's Garden" with arrows pointing to the appropriate owners side.  Callie made some plant markers and Kate painted some rocks.

So far we have planted beets, radishes, carrots, cucumbers, sunflowers and zinnias, dill, cilantro, basil, corn and three tomato plants.  We have a few more things we would like to plant and I'd like to get some little tomato plants.  We love the little yellow pear tomatoes.

I had some nice little pictures to go with this post but our technology is not cooperating!  I'll try to add them later.

Countdown!

I know some ballerinas who are getting very excited.  Only 17 more days until Callie and Kate will be performing in the Sleeping Beauty ballet.

 Every other year their ballet teacher puts together an excellent recital that the girls love.  If anyone is interested it is May 26 at the Pike Performing Art Center.

Kate's Moments

I let Kate use my camera a couple of days ago.  This is only a small selection of all the pictures I found on the camera.

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Needle and thREAD

Finally!  I covered the pillows that came with our couch.  My mom bought me an unfinished quilt top, that I picked out just for this purpose, for my birthday.  We have four regular sized square throw pillows and one smaller rectangle pillow.  There was enough of the quilted fabric to cover two of the square pillows and the rectangle one too.  I'm really pleased with how they have turned out.  They look much brighter and more cheery.

I'm still waiting on my book from the library so I'll tell you about another book that Callie and I are getting ready to read. 

When we are ready to learn about a new country I go to the Indianapolis library web site and type in the country name and then request a bazillion books and a video or two that look good.  We started out a couple of years ago using the Serendipity ideas and then just moved on from there.  So for Germany, an Eric Carle book was on the list.  Eric Carle was born in the US, but moved to Germany as a child and grew up there.

Callie and I actually heard him speak and met him several years ago.  He even signed two books for us along with a few other hundred people who were in line.

Flora and Tiger: 19 Very Short Stories From My Life is a book of short stories about his life in Germany and here in the US.  Hopefully we will enjoy it.

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Yarn Along

Have you ever heard of Yarn Bombing or Graffiti Knitting?  I actually read an article about it last year when a friend gave me a magazine article he saw at an airport.  Apparently, the woman in the article goes around and knits around telephone poles, fire hydrants, etc.  She even somehow managed to cover a Volkswagen Beetle!  The pictures were pretty cool.  A few months later, the girls and I noticed a tree in Crawfordsville, that someone had done.  Of course we had to stop and take some pictures.

Well a couple of days ago I got an e-mail from my sort of local yarn shop saying that they were going to decorate the light poles and park benches in front of their store for the annual Brick Street Market.  I always pictured people standing by a light pole and kitting around it, but it is actually swatches that are wrapped around and sewn together.

Now this is a guaranteed stress free project!  No fitting issues, no increases or decreases, just a rectangle of knitting.  It's also pretty much free since I can just use leftover yarn from previous projects.

As far as reading goes, I'm waiting on To Kill A Mockingbird to come from the library.  I have seen the movie with Gregory Peck, but it was a long time ago and I really don't remember much about it.  I got the book on CD from the library for us to listen to on our way to MS.  When Cameron reminded me about the story line we quickly decided that this was not the most appropriate thing to listen to with six and twelve year old girls in the car.

Callie and I have been reading Little Men together though and I love it!  Callie likes it too, but for different reasons.  I love the gentleness of the way they teach the children.  I'm thinking I should have read Little Women and Little Men instead of some of the parenting books that I read when Callie was little!!