Photo Sundries

New Project

I started saving some of the kids' "special" tshirts when they were each around 2. I've saved vacation shirts, tball shirts, soccer shirts, basketball shirts, and other "special" shirts. I saved them all these years in the hopes that someday I would find someone who could make a quilt out of them. Well, I found someone. Me. I found a tutorial on Pinterest the other night for making a tshirt rag quilt. I really can't sew - honestly, I can't even cut straight - but I'm going to attempt it.

Tonight I started on Danielle's quilt. This will be a work in progress for quite some time because I'll continue to add new shirts to it as she outgrows them. Tonight I got all the ones I've saved so far cut into blocks. I'll try to post pictures as I put this together. Hopefully I won't embarrass myself too much! Here is what I did tonight.

Valentine Suncatchers

It's been awhile since we've had a family craft night, so, much to the boys' dismay, I found a nice valentine craft online I thought we could try. Actually, Ron enjoyed himself. I knew Tyler wouldn't be crazy about it because the craft involved getting your fingers gooey, but I had hoped he would help some. He didn't enjoy it and that meant we wouldn't have enjoyed it had we forced him to participate. So, this is a 3/4 family craft. The 1/4 mostly sat in the chair and quietly played his 3DS.



We worked on this craft over a couple days. On day 1 we dipped cotton cord in glue and arranged it on wax paper which was taped over our heart templates (which I got here).

































On day 2 we filled the hearts with glue and then added paint. The original instructions said to add watercolor paint (the kind in the tube). I didn't have any, so we mixed acrylic paint into the glue.

After filling the hearts, we left them to dry for a day. Then we carefully peeled the hearts off the wax paper and hung them in the window. We made 5 but 2 of them were still drying when I took this picture. They didn't turn out exactly like I thought they would, but I like them. They look nice hanging in the window, and they were fun to work on together.

Now if only we had some sun...

Sweet Rewards

Today was grade card day. To celebrate the kids' hard work and good grades, we took them out for dinner tonight and let them choose the restaurant. Afterward we went to the mall where they presented their grade cards for free Cheryl's cookies.

One of Tyler's friends gave him a sausage flavored jelly bean to try a few weeks ago. Since then, he's been wanting to buy a box of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans for himself. We stopped by the mall's candy shop to pick up a couple boxes and let the kids pick out a handful of other goodies.

Here is one goodie that Tyler picked out. He loves sour candy AND toxic waste (?!) so he couldn't resist. I didn't notice the warning until we got home and he had already eaten 3 pieces!

Here are the types of jelly beans in Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans (from Harry Potter).

Danielle bravely tried almost all of them. She managed to swallow most of them, too! She just couldn't stomach the rotten egg jelly bean, though, and had to spit that one out. Tyler almost lost it on the booger flavored bean. Ron tried every one that Danielle tried and said most of them were quite true to their name. I politely declined. It was a nice evening. I hope grade card day continues to be this pleasant as the kids get older!

Our New Neighbor

Despite having 2 noisy children, a large dog, and a rather persistent neighborhood hawk, a gray squirrel has decided to take up residence in a tree in our backyard. Well, he was building his nest today. Whether or not he'll actually stay and use it remains to be seen, I guess.

I've never seen a squirrel build a nest (officially called a drey). It was kind of interesting, but it made me worry about my tree! He yanked huge chunks of bark off the trunk and branches! You can see a huge chunk of bark above his head in one of the last pictures. (The bark has a little ball of snow above it.) In the next picture, that's the piece he's carrying off! I read that squirrels sometimes build nests in the winter for shelter. They also mate and have a liter toward the end of winter and make a nest for that. Danielle is hoping for baby squirrels, but I think (hope) it's too early.

This is an early picture of his nest; it got bigger! The pictures didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, but you can see what he's doing. And yes, the sky was pretty much that colorless today.

This & That

I've been having focusing issues with my camera and had to send it in for repairs. While it's a pain to have to have it repaired, I'm so relieved my fuzzy photos weren't all my fault. (I'm sure some of it was my fault, though.) So, I'm back to my old, comfortable camera for awhile. Here are a couple male house finches and a carolina chickadee.

A couple weeks ago my aunt, who is a 2nd grade teacher, sent Tyler & Danielle some snowflake patterns leftover from a lesson she did with her class. The kids really enjoyed using them. I love how they turned out! Here are a few of them. We started a Valentine's craft tonight that I found on Pinterest. It's a multi-day project, so I'll post pictures when we're done.

We had panini sandwiches for dinner tonight. I think I need a heavier panini press. I used to use a brick, but I didn't have one handy tonight.

Up, Up, & Away!

A couple months ago I ran across a photographer's blog that I really enjoyed. All his pictures were perfectly amazing, but some of them were just, well, fun. In several of the pictures it looked like his kids were flying. A lot can be done with editing software, and I'm really not prepared to invest enough time (or money) in figuring all that out yet, so I moved on. The other day I ran across someone else's blog about creating "levitating" photographs that did not involve post-processing fixes. The blog was interesting, the video was amusing, and I filed the information away in my "maybe someday" file. I told the kids about it a couple days ago, and Danielle wanted to try it. Obviously I need to work on my camera skills, but this was one of our attempts. It does kind of look like she is preparing to fly off into the sky superman style.

Just for Fun

Observing MLK Day

We spent our day off school reverently honoring MLK, his teachings, and ideas.

Well, maybe not. But we did enjoy having the day off school.

Tyler wanted to go bowling, so we did. We had a nice time. I managed to get a picture of Danielle's strike. (Yes, the gutters were up. They were up in every lane today. I didn't argue.)










Here is Tyler, getting ready to toss the ball down the alley.

Here is what bothers me most about this picture. In case you can't see that, it says 5/6! His shoes are 5/6!!! And that's NOT little kid sizing!!!

Afterward, I wanted to go to Cold Stone, so we did. There were lots of other people honoring MLK by enjoying over-priced (but wonderful) ice cream with their families.



We finished off our celebration by redeeming some reward coupons at the toy store. It was a very nice afternoon. We had a lot of fun together.


To be sure we're fair to all holidays, we plan to spend President's Day next month just as reverently.

For the Birds

Our neighborhood cooper's hawk visited a few times today. Since the weather turned colder, my feeders have been pretty busy. I guess all the activity caught his attention. He was quite patient and even waited quietly in the neighbor's tree for a nice, long time, but he didn't have any luck today. Clara was outside when he landed on our playset. It took her a minute to notice him, then she raised the alarm. The dog's barking spooked a dark-eyed junco that had been hiding, and it took off, followed closely by the hawk. The junco darted back and forth a couple times and managed to escape those deadly talons.

I was able to snap a couple shots through the window before Clara started barking. He looks a little angry in the first shot.

Introducing the Amazing, Mystifying Danielle

In Case You're Wondering...

Our snow day preparations didn't pay off. In fact, we barely got any snow at all!! We were pretty disappointed. Danielle figures we should have flushed more ice cubes.

Snow Day Preparations

For the first time this winter, the forecasters are predicting a couple inches of snow overnight and cold, blustery conditions. So, this is the first time so far this school year when the possiblity of a snow day seems within reach. Unfortunately it looks as though the bulk of the snow has shifted a little south, so we may not get what was originally predicted. That didn't stop us from preparing, though.


We flushed ice cubes down the toilet.























And put our pjs on inside out.


















I wouldn't let them put spoons under their pillows, and I'm pretty sure we were supposed to put something in the freezer.

Hopefully our superstitious preparations will be good enough!

This & That

We are 11 days into the new year and I don't have any "memorable moments worth mentioning". In fact, things are rather dull. Dull isn't all bad but, since SOMEONE has complained, I'll do my best:



On New Year's Eve day my brother and I went out in search of a snowy owl that ventured far enough south to be within driving distance. Since these owls are arctic birds, it was an opportunity I thought I should take advantage of. Apparently they had a very good breeding season and have been seen in lots of unusual places this winter. Here is an article about them, and here is my less than stellar photo. I really wanted a picture worth framing, but I had to settle for recognizable.



We are almost 8" below normal for snowfall this winter. While that makes some people happy, I see 5 wasted snow days! It's probably asking too much to get out of school for the year 5 days early, isn't it?! This Friday we will be half way through the school year. It seems like we should be so much further than that. Spring break is still a L O N G 3 months away.



Ron's parents came to visit this past weekend. I'm not sure who enjoyed the visit more. In addition to us all getting to visit, Grandma & Grandpa kept the kids for the evening so Ron and I could have a belated anniversary date. The kids had so much fun, and the happiness from all that undivided attention seems to have spilled over into our week. Both kids have been unusually pleasant this week.



After reading comments from other folks about pinterest.com, I decided to check it out. It is interesting - there's a lot of information in one spot - but I'm not obsessed (yet). I think it's a little confusing, and I don't really want everyone else seeing what I'm interested in! The other website I've checked out recently is ancestry.com. Ron's dad has been working on his family tree and shared some of it with me this past weekend. I didn't expect to find it as interesting as it is. It's actually quite addicting.


Tyler has made his way through all of his Christmas books and is finishing up a book from his new favorite author Brandon Mull. He is reading The Candy Shop Wars. He started it last night, and I'm sure he'll finish it tonight. Danielle has fallen in love with the book The Wonder Horse, which is based on a true story. We are reading the Fablehaven series out loud right now. (This is Tyler's favorite series and he thought Danielle would enjoy it.) Once we finish that series, we're going to start on the Misty books from Aunt Leah. I am reading the 2 newest books by John Flanagan. I initially started reading his Ranger's Apprentice series to be sure it was ok for Tyler, but I got hooked. If Ron's reading anything right now, I'm sure it's related to wood turning.


And there you have it.

If you're still awake, you can see why I haven't posted for awhile.