Saturday, July 30, 2011

Week 30 - All a Flutter

Our themed weeks are still going along strong around these parts. Grace's latest selection was butterflies. Here's some things we did and saw.......


.....Witnessed a "butterfly" resting on one of our sunflowers.


.....Made a bouquet of tissue paper flowers.


.....Watched a caterpillar munch away on our carrot leaves. With a bit of research we discovered that it will soon turn into a Black Swallowtail - how exciting.


.....Made wildflower cups to toss over the bridges in our neighborhood (a project from Volume 1 of Alphabet Glue)


.....Lastly, we planted a small butterfly garden.

Ah yes, things were certainly a flutter around here!

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Week 29 - She Lost a Tooth

Over a month ago Grace discovered that she had a loose tooth - her first one! She had been waiting quite awhile for this to happen, as many of her classmates already had their fair share of loose teeth and to top it off, many of them had lost a few.

In preparation for the day that the tooth actually came out, we made a tooth fairy pillow together. It was a snap to make. Grace selected the fabric from our scrap bins, drew a tooth template (which was later cut out of felt and embroidered with eyes and a smile), I stitched a few seams, Grace stuffed it "full to the brim" and viola the pillow was ready.


Now fast forward several weeks and visualize Grace walking around with a tooth dangling by a thread - oh yes, Dean and I predicted this would happen. It dangled for days despite eating, brushing , flossing and the like........ until Friday night. That's when, while flossing her teeth, it literally popped right out of her mouth and landed on the floor in front of her. A bit of drama ensued (due to the sight of blood) but then all was well.



Now she can join the ranks of her semi-toothless classmates!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Week 28 - Our Friday

I spent the bulk of my day at the sewing machine, attempting to piece my largest project yet - a queen sized quilt for our bed. I have a deadline you see..... and it's this coming Tuesday. That's when I've scheduled time on my quilt shop's long-arm machine, a necessity for a quilt of this size, as it would be nearly impossible for me to feed all of that fabric through my personal machine.

I usually have a "helper" (nope, it's not Grace) when it comes to quilting and this project was no exception. No sooner did I have the blocks arranged, when Sophie came along tossing her bee around, finally deciding that a nice stretch would feel quite comfortable atop the squares. Thankfully, I'm prepared for these sorts of things and had the blocks numbered, so no harm done.



And where was Grace during this sewing frenzy of mine? Well, she was happy as could be spending her day at camp with the horses.

After dropping her off, I stayed around awhile to watch her interact with one of the ranch's miniature ponies. After a bit of a rocky start (the horse decided to pull a sit-down, as seen in the picture below), she got the horse not only to cooperate but to jump over a gate too!



Quilts and horses equaled a fun filled Friday indeed!

Monday, July 11, 2011

Week 27 - Tomatoes

A week or so ago, the bulk of our homegrown Roma tomatoes were ready to be picked. Grace eagerly headed outside with a berry basket that she had squirreled away (oh how this child loves to keep things that I see as material destined for the recycling bin or garbage can) and picked away - an entire basket full!

After peeling and chopping the said tomatoes, I added a diced sweet onion, fresh basil (both from our garden), a couple cloves of garlic, salt and olive oil. Viola, we had sauce for spaghetti.




Thankfully, we've had one success out of this little garden of ours. We'll certainly take what we can get!

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Week 26 - Red, White and Blue


Just dropping in to wish you a happy Fourth of July!