We have been in the throws of a very gross stomach virus over here.  I had it all week, last night Barry came down with it, and today I had Jonah and Ian puking along with other gross stomach virus-y things.  Hence the blog neglect, which is sad because we’ve got an Easter dress to talk about and a birthday, not to mention the homeschool convention I attended this weekend!  Geesh!

But, today I will leave you with this:

Poor Brenna was desperately bored without her constant companion (Jonah) by her side.  She worked hard on this to cheer him up.  I think he’ll be excited about it tomorrow.  In his delirium today he didn’t have much to say.

(Mush-mush is a little toy mouse.)

Click here for details of the birds.

Brenna got a little sewing machine from Santa. Once a week or so she’s been setting it up and working on the little lessons in Winky Cherry’s My First Machine Sewing Book. The genius of this book is that it has kids starting by sewing on paper, just tracing lines. Brenna loved the curvy lessons so much she did them several times. I was pretty surprised at how quickly she really caught on to steering. I had taught her to sew a little bit on my sewing machine just doing double layer flannel baby blankets which just entailed long straight lines, but watching her seam allowance was tricky for her to do. Punching holes on a drawn line with her needle has been much more fun for her. Since she’s mastered pivots and curves I thought we’d break out Amy’s Bend the Rules Sewing. I have several baby gifts to get made, so I thought I’d enlist some help. I made some bibs a while ago and just can’t get over how cool it is to trace the pattern onto a rectangle of fabric, sew on the line, and trim after sewing. I copied the patter on a few pieces of paper first, and once Brenna had perfected the curves she wet at it on fabric. Having a layer of flannel was perfect because it has enough grab that she didn’t have to think about her layers shifting because having them pinned bugged her. I helped a tiny bit with trimming them and turning the right side out. I also lined everything up right for her to hammer the snaps on, but for the most part she did them by herself. She can thread her machine and wind bobbins and everything.

She’s got two done. We’ll keep this polka dot one forever and ever. Hopefully someday her babies will wear it while eating Cheerios.

I just think she is so awesome– just the coolest kid ever!

There’s been some awesome photo projects finding beauty in everyday life out in blog land. Today I’m summing up our school week with these photos and joining in with the mamas at six one way.

Here’s some more lovely finds of art in the ordinary.

Soule Mama is posting a photo a day for 30 days. (This is my very, very favorite. I just can’t get over all the emotions it floods me with.)

the noticing project

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Wishing you all a wonderful weekend. Try looking at the gray skies with new eyes. There is beauty all around…

Today was a big day for Brenna.

Here’s a new quilt and pillows for her doll house. She learned to sew on the sewing machine. Not only that, she had to measure and do math with fractions to figure out how big to cut her fabric allowing for seam allowances. She seemed like a natural. I think there will much more straight-line sewing in the days to come. She has patchwork plans for this little dollhouse, and wants to make a blankie for the new baby. We’ll see how interested she stays in this sewing thing. Using the machine was certainly a thrill. A girl after my own heart

After playing in the snow this afternoon she came up with something missing…

FINALLY.

Her top right front tooth has been hanging by a thread for days. That would have driven me crazy as a kid. I would have pulled it out a month ago. She just wanted to wait until it happened all on its own– “That’s the more natural way to do it, Mom.”

Well, she swallowed it, naturally.

Over the next few days I’ll post the little drawings that I’ve neglected to post for soooo long. I’m no where near the three per week that I was shooting for, but I do have some.

And now I’m at a loss for words.

Well, I’m getting excited for our baby to come. I always wonder how people have lots of kids. I think I’d like 6 or 8, but being pregnant that many times? YIKES! I certainly don’t feel like this is the last little person that needs to come to our family, but my hips and sciatic nerve sure would like to be done with all these streching, shifting invasions of alien beings. And my ankles would like to come back home too.

Oh, and it’s going to be a boy. I don’t think I’ve said that here yet. Brenna is destined to be just like me. I am the oldest of 5 with 4 younger brothers. In a lot of ways relating to women still feels like speaking a foreign language. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a sister? Oh I want Brenna to have one someday…

Meet Buttercup.

On Brenna’s birthday we spent the day making this little bear. She’s made from a fluffy throw I found at Marshal’s. It is almost too soft to describe. Brenna thought this bear needed to be seen by the internet, so she took her little Buttercup on a photo shoot.

Now Brenna is not the only one in this house that loves to sit in the living room and read ALL DAY LONG

I’m tired. I’ve been quite a slacker in posting here–and in lots of other areas. I’ve been really bad about doing school every day, because I’m just not quite sure what to do. We’ve been doing first grade Saxon Math, which has worked pretty well so far because it is so gradual in adding concepts. Brenna is perfectly capable of every bit of it–and a little more. But, now we’ve reached a point where she has a worksheet of facts and the regular worksheet everyday, and it is just out of her 5 year old attention span to be able to enjoy. So, I’ve completely backed off on the math and structure and let her just read. But she has plenty of attention span for books. She’s been reading about 2 novels a week. This week she read Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz and Queen Zixxie of Ix, both by L. Frank Baum. Last week she read Ozma of Oz and one of the American Girl books. I guess I just feel guilty because it doesn’t take any effort on my part to plop her on a chair with a book and let her disappear into Oz for the rest of the the day. She’s got to be learning something, right? I shouldn’t be feeling bad that my 5 year old is reading at an 7th or 8th grade level, but just isn’t interested in 1st grade math.

So, I guess I’m just writing this to try to convince myself I’m doing okay, even though I’m not doing much. I have been spending a lot of time with church responsibilities. There have been lots of sugeries and babies born. There is one sister who has a 3 year old boy, a 2 year old boy, 16 month old twin girls, she’s pregnant due in April, and in the process of a divorce. I have no room to complain about being tired.

But I sure want too

We did way too much Trick-or-Treating. We had a “Trunk-or-Treat” in the church parking lot one night. Then they opened up Barry’s office building for parading costumed children. And, of course, we had to go through the neighborhood on the real Halloween night.

Brenna and Jonah did sketches and decided they wanted to be a cat and a mouse.

They made their noses and whiskers.

Trick or Treat!

Dish towel aprons–I just couldn’t resist. My kids needed some art aprons, I needed something to keep dinner off my pants (even though my shirt is usually covered in baby snot), and Martha dish towels were on super clearance at K-mart, so the price was right. Aprons for all! (Well, 3 aprons and a bib.)

Amy has a monthly party at her blog dedicated to aprons

and this month’s assignment was so easy I had to join.

It has been a busy week. Well, it has seemed busy, I guess, but come to think of it, there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary to do. I just felt busy. I think because I was sick. I had a fever on Wednesday, felt yucky all day yesterday and had to go grocery shopping anyway, didn’t sleep a wink until about 4:00 this morning, and I’m trying to wean Logan–once a day would be good. That’s why I didn’t sleep last night. My teeth hurt, my nose was stuffy (so I had to breath with my mouth open which made the metal/ rubberband contraptions in my mouth that much more uncomfortable), my throat hurt, my ears ached, I had horrible menstrual cramps, AND I hadn’t nursed a baby since nap time early that afternoon and consequently couldn’t lay on either side or move my arms. Blissful? 800 mg of ibuprofen helped once I reached the point of desperation.

Funny things:

We had a “Girl’s Night Out” craft night at church last night–just bring something to do and sit and gab. I got home a little after ten and as I was heaping my load onto the counter I looked in Ellie’s food bowl right there under the counter. It was FULL of rabbit food. Was there a reason for this? I went and nudge Barry to ask about it and he just grunted. I was grinning so hard that I just broke out laughing. Silly, silly.

Barry did the obstacle course with his group yesterday for PT–you know, climbing walls, jumping logs, balance beams and ropes. Well, he was very proud of his monkey bar performance. I guess he was the only one to make it all the way across–and he even did a “skin the cat” to get off at the end. Now, you know who’s been practicing at the playground!

We started school almost 3 weeks ago now. I subscribe to the “kids should not be taught like little adults” philosophy, but am trying to find a happy medium between total unschooling and playing sergeant mom. We start the morning with a song and a prayer, say the pledge of alegiance (mostly because Jonah thinks it is way cool), then check the calendar and the weather. I try to work in some phonics for Jonah and started 1st grade Saxon math with Brenna. Both of them love the math–we stack and count legos and color pictures and count on a 1-100 counting chart. Then Brenna reads and reads. She’s also been listening to books on CD. I had to take The Land of Oz back before it was due because we all had it memorized. She was listening 24/7. I’ve been trying to read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (book 5 in the Chronicles of Narnia) with her, but she gets impatient with my limited amount of reading time and reads ahead. Oh well. I’m certainly not going to complain about my 5 year old reading novels, but it is kind of sad that she doesn’t need me anymore. I’m not the only one with magic reading powers.

We’re also dabbling with history, hence the family tree. This has taken 3 weeks for her to make. I’m glad it’s done so we can be archeologists and dig in the sand box!

Here’s a close up: