Our Family Project

Andrew was having a rough day.  He was really sad.  I hate it when he is sad ... we never know how he is going to react.   On this day, he was throwing things around.  Never good. So to break him out of his "groove" I got out the camera and asked him to take a picture of me.  Then, I decided we needed a picture of the two of us.  Kate graciously came in and snapped a few. I don't think I'll ever get sick of seeing those dimples.  I love it when this boy smiles.

 Last Saturday, we went to our school district's elementary school art show.  I don't think we would have gone if none of our children had anything in it.  As it was, our school had about 20-25 pieces of art in the show ... if that many ... and TWO of our children had art displayed! It took us forever to find Andrew's artwork.  We asked him over and over again what it was that he had displayed and he couldn't remember for a while.  And, when he did remember, he said it was thumbprint art.  I was expecting a piece of art completed by using his thumbprints.  Instead, we finally found his artwork displayed with his friend's from his class.  Definitely not the thumbprint art I was expecting ... it was so much better!  We found Eliza's artwork almost right away.  For some reason her artwork was displayed without her name, and in a section that wasn't remotely close to the rest of the school.  Strange.  Kate and I asked her a c...

My girls had their first singing group performance on Saturday.  It was amazing to watch them greet the elderly before the performance.  Some of the girls did a fantastic job feeling comfortable meeting strangers that like to hug; and other girls (like mine) were a little bit more timid.  It was a great experience for them. I almost always have a hard time getting good pictures of Kate, so I focused on getting a lot of pictures of her in the hopes that one or two would work out.  The result made Eliza feel a little bad.  There were so many pictures of Kate and very few of Eliza.  I was counting on the pictures of Eliza to be good (like they almost always are), but very few of them worked out.  I wasn't in the best place to get pictures of Eliza.  Oh well.  Seems there's always one of whom I don't get enough pictures. Here's their group getting ready for their next song. I had to take a picture of this little girl on the right.  I...

My Eliza and Kate are in a girls' singing group called the "Shine Your Light Singers."  They started participating in this group in January, and have their first performance tomorrow.  The first week of February, I asked their teacher what ideas she had for costumes and offered to make skirts for the girls.  Little did I know how much work there would be in making skirts for 12 girls.  I didn't realize the class was that large. When I volunteered my sewing services, I suggested this tiered skirt pattern remembering that I made Eliza's gypsy skirt for Halloween like this (only longer).  I remembered making her skirt in one afternoon ... a total of about three hours.  Each of these skirts took me 6+ hours because I added some topstitching to each of the tiers, and I did a narrow hem instead of just serging it and turning it under. In all, I am really pleased with the outcome of each skirt.  It was hard work to get all 13 skirts (their teacher wanted...

  *Sorry for the blurry pictures.  And, as always, click on the smaller photos to see them larger.* I've been waiting and waiting to get pictures of our house when it isn't a complete mess.  Because, let's face it ... this house is twice the size that we had in Minnesota.  That means, it takes twice as long to clean; we still haven't gotten used to our chore schedule; and even if we leave things out, we can still get to whichever room we want.  So, yes, I haven't been keeping our house spotless, and I haven't wanted to show everyone what our mess looks like.  I figure that no one wants to see piles of laundry and dirty dishes, and socks strewn all over the floors. But, I decided I would just go with it and take pictures of what it looks like everyday.  Just keepin' it real, I guess.  (Side note: I guess I should probably do that anyway .... break down any preconceived notions any of you might have about my abilities to keep my house clean and ...