Yarn Along: Making and making the catch up

Pattern is HERE: Girls cap sleeve

helping to wind it into a ball

They show up really pretty in the windows

The kids were learning about Greece for our Geography Club and made a crown on aluminum foil and colored it with sharpies. It looks really pretty when the light hits it.
The culture of Ancient Greece is often well represented in museums by exhibitions of pottery so the kids made their own creations from air dry clay. 

Jesus on the cross

a map rolled up?  a scroll?

peeling cucumbers for making cucumber/lemon/violet water

working in the yard

playing or/um/er...spreading mulch ?  :)

the Gnomey hat still showing up in  my picture dump. It shows up everywhere on this blog HERE and HERE and many others.

upside down story telling

I attended a lovely birth. This sweet girl was minutes old and peeking around her Mama while nursing for the first time(!), to look at me with the most beautiful, wise look on her face. I heart her.

fire making

We had some friends over for 2 "bird" play-dates. We made snacks for the birds to eat and read bird books, looked at a bird identification poster, made bird crafts. Bird Bingo with the family and just all around birdie goodness.

We made these sweet little birds for Spring.  Card stock and tissue paper.

The inspiration for these came from one of my favorite blogs. Here is the link with the instructions.

I took wire and made the little circle type hanging thing and let the kids stuff it with wool roving from our sheep, fuzzies, torn, crinkled paper, other bits of wool yarn. They hung them onto the trees for the birds to use to make their nests.

Bird Nature table. I knitted an owl for Willow and a green snake for Ocean. You can also see some of the little knitted eggs and a red Toad Stool in there, too. I've linked the patterns.

My Mama made Willow these sweet little wool blue bird hair clips for our Bird Days

bird hair clip and Willow making her bird nesting ball

the Gnomey hat lives on.  OH, here is another gnomey hat post.

I knitted this basket and then wet felted it

we were on a pizza making kick using veggies from our garden. this one had zucchini and garlic and onion and little sweet cherry tomatoes.

we added to our farm, then took away, this guy. He was huge and great for guarding the sheep...until he wasn't. He was not happy here and let us know and he is very happy once again on the farm he came from with his 17 other family members.

knitted had from my friend Kerri

needle felting. HERE is another post about him needle felting.

I love his little fingers. So nimble and quick.

he made a really nice wool needle felted picture to hang on his bedroom wall

the Gnomey hat went along to the strawberry patch field trip

her sweet face. that is all.

My Grandaddy Max gave my oldest son this little hat years ago. Willow has claimed it for her very own. Her hat and her camo mud boots are favorites.

My husband and children bring in little creatures to examine and then set free. This is a slug of some sort.

Drawing a Minecraft scene on large paper that my step daddy gave to us.

making patterns

Willow and her baby Belladonna

This was fun. I heard the word "bored" come out of the mouth of one of my babes and I drew this little guy on a trampoline on my hand first and then theirs.

bend your hand and he jumps!

up down, up down

giggles

smears

they have a silly Mama

Zarian learned how to make a "God's Eye" with 2 sticks from outside

twist, wrap, turn, twist, wrap, turn, repeat

direction are all over the internet. also called The Ojo de Dios (Eye of God in Spanish) and  is usually woven with yarn and wood, often with several colors.

He was making this as a gift for Poppy with plans to make more to sell.

If you have a small one that paints by swirling every.single.color into a pile that turns to a poopy brown color then this is wonderful for you, for me.  Put the paint onto foil and for some reason it does not allow it to blend into that brown color and leaves the colors separate and whole.

she can smear away and the colors do not blend

on the kitchen table. homeschool books instead of food. I need to work on this. smile.

My 6 year old wanted a picnic on the porch and this is what he grabbed:  Blueberries, Ketchup, pickles and parsley.

This turtle shell is one that my husband found and brought home. Just the shell.  The picture doesn't really show how big it is, but it is HUGE.   He turned it into a project for the him and the kids by cleaning it (well!) and using linseed oil to coat it. They are hanging onto it and showing it off. Oy!

My daddy taking a picture of me, taking a picture of him.

I made another knitted, then felted, basket to hold our pencils and various things that end up slung all over the table.

and then a few more

Because this is a photo dump and a journey journal of sorts, I am including these precious pictures of Willow with MY baby doll. My dear sweet Laura baby. She was my most favorite thing in the world and when I hold her now and smell her, the  memories just flood right back in. She is wearing my little newborn gown that I wore as a baby. I cherish her and these pictures so much and the fact that my Mama saved her and the dress for me.  Sigh.

she is nursing her. swoon.

she loves her so much. nearly as much as I do.

Making butter from goat's milk

butter, baby

still awesome

playing with the moon

catching butterflies

making pickles. My 2nd son loves pickles and chose cucumbers as one of his 4 veggies to grow on his own. The other 3 he chose were garlic, carrots, and tomatoes.

harvesting, drying, and storing our herbs

drawing day!

My 2nd son decided that he wanted to make a map on old looking paper.  And make raisins. We did both and the kids were pretty excited about it.

black grapes-drying in the window

day 3

we brewed strong tea to paint onto the paper

then baked it in the oven on a low temperature to dry it out

map making :)

garlic drying

For our Apologia Science (Exploring creation with Astronomy), one of our projects was to take a magnifying glass and burn leaves. The kids decided to melt chocolate, too.  And marshmallows. And anything else they could find.

biggest brother got in on the action

Squash and zucchini harvest day

passionflower

my beautiful hibiscus. i love her.

drying oregano and thyme

the wet felted bowls were lonely so I added some toad stools to them by needle felting. it cheered them up.  ;)

eye spy!

drying/dehydrating the zucchini and squash into chips

my little free spirit

weather gnomes and a birthday prince in green with a pet frog. many stories are made up and told about these guys.

imagining snorkeling with a straw and sun glasses?

My Mama made my baby girl these sweet little wool eggs to play with in her kitchen

and boy oh boy does she play with them. we have eggs and tea daily :)

this guy has been really into making up stories and drawing them, making up little school practice worksheets for me to do and just general big time drawing.

and building. he builds for hours and hours and it makes me very happy.

card game playing

We did a little science experiment involving coffee filters, rubbing alcohol and markers. It turned out really cool and the end result was very pretty.


Oh, books. If you like crime fiction novels then check out Karin Slaughter. She has 2 really awesome series that I love. One is the Grant County series and the other is the Will Trent series. I'm reading this book (Fallen) now and enjoying it. I enjoy ALL of her books.