Katie's Sewing Class

So here is one more fun thing Katie and her friend Meagan got to do this summer. I signed them up for an intro to sewing class at Joann Fabrics. I was very impressed with the instructor, b/c there were about 7 or 8 little girls, and K & M were the oldest ones there (both being 9 yrs old). They learned to make pillowcases, which are simple b/c the pieces are all rectangles and the sewing is all straight lines. Here are the pictures:



First they laid out patterns on the fabric they had purchased prior to class. The sewing supplies you see on Katie's table are from my basket at home; luckily I had almost everything she needed, so the cost of supplies was pretty much limited to the fabric and matching thread. Each girl did their own pinning and cutting. The instructor was really good about letting them do as much of the project themselves as possible.





After the fabric was cut to size and pinned together, they practiced sewing straight lines on the machines. The instructor did thread up all the machines and get them started, but the girls did the rest of the work on their own. She would only come over if they asked for help. For Katie, using a sewing machine is like Danny getting to use power tools!






Once they felt comfortable with the machines, they got started on the pillowcases. Here is a picture of Meagan concentrating very hard on staying neat and straight.



Once all the pieces were sewn up and the cases were done, the girls each got to iron them to get the worst of the wrinkles out, which made me nervous. They each used the iron on their own! But nobody got burned - phew!




And here are Katie and Meagan with their brand-new pillow cases! I was most impressed. Great job, girls!!

Wow, I never really appreciated...

When Gretchen first started up a web page, I thought it was pretty cool. When she added wallpaper and background sounds, I thought, way out of my league, ever! But then Blogger had these really easy templates, and now it's easy to post and everything, so here I am : ) But adding extra stuff can be a pain if you need to know html! Those cute little smileys? ugh! It took me an hour to figure out how to add one for Jenn! I wish I knew how to add stuff to my header and everything, too; I have no idea even where to start with that. Someday (maybe with a lot of G's help, lol!) I'll figure it out. Sigh, so for now you're stuck with stuff as it is. Still, the new colors are better than shocking pink, right? I mean, pink's good for say, teenagers (right, Jenn?), but not so much for us old biddies.

I'm at the library now, so I can't upload any pictures for this post. I've got D & K, as well as their friends Frank and Bradley (whom I am watching for a few hrs as a favor this afternoon). Naturally, they're on the 'puters, as well, no doubt watching Super Smash Bros videos on YouTube - Katie, of course, is on Webkins. I took them bowling earlier, but Danny forgot to wear socks, so he was relegated to cheerleader. Or not, since cheerleaders are supposed to be cheerful and Danny was pretty much sulking the whole time. Bradley won, yay!, Katie came in a close second, and Frank did as well as he expected, which was not well at all. But they (those 3) had fun!

Tonight we may be going out to dinner, b/c one of the restaurants here offers dinner for kids for $1.25 on Thurs nights and the boy's mom is taking them there tonight. The only thing is, Katie's school is having a back-to-school ice cream social tonight, and if we go out we'll probably miss it. Decisions, decisions! (Where have I heard that before? lol)

Danny had his last golf lesson yesterday, which we celebrated by going to putt-putt afterward! How appropriate is that? lol Actually, I had promised the kids all summer that we'd go, and since it was the last day I'd be watching Meagan, it was also my last chance to keep my promise. They had fun; Danny met 2 of his friends (Hunter and Christian) there, and after playing I bought them ice cream at the DQ next door, and then they all came over for an hour or so. I really like having the kids all at my house, so I know what is going on. Too bad it started raining, tho, b/c then they were all stuck inside playing on the wii. Katie had a Target gift card she'd won at the end of the school year, so while Danny was at golf, I took the girls over and she picked out the "I Can Be A TV Chef" Barbie playset, so that's what she and Meagan were doing. Katie's blonde Barbie was Sandra Lee, and Meagan's brunette was Rachel Ray - too cute!

Poor Danny went back to the orthodontist on Tues to get his bottom braces on, and now his teeth are too sore to bite down on anything. I don't remember my teeth hurting that badly, or at least I don't remember complaining that loudly! His top teeth have straightened out so much already, he looks much better. No more "buck teeth"!

That's it for now, until I can get to my pics at home.



Here is an update, just for you Gretchen! I thought it would make more sense to add it here than put it in a new post, so here's a picture of Chef Katie and her new Barbie set:

We found the pink chef's hat in the $1 bins at Target. I couldn't resist!

Decisions, Decisions

So, here I am, absolutely psyched that people are reading my blog, and actually leaving COMMENTS!! Let me say, to those of you who don't blog, or don't realize this, that writing is much easier when you know people are reading it. It's hard to get inspired to post when you think there are only 4 or 5 people who will be checking it out. So when you leave a comment, it tells me who is reading, and what you like to see here. And motivates me to post more!

So anyway, here I am trying to decide whether to spend another hour on a post, or to attack my pile of books so I can add to my finished book list. Bad me, I went to the library tonight! I was going to just pick up the next 3 Hamish MacBeths, and ended up with *9* books! I am such a book junkie, lol!

OK, I'm off to read now. I hope to post soon on our trip to the zoo, and Katie's sewing class. Check back often!

Since Jenn asked...

Thanks for using my new gadget! BTW, is this Jenn my niece or someone else? Just curious.

So anyway, about the Twilight series. It took me a while to get sucked into the first book, I think already knowing that Edward & co were vampires but waiting for Bella to figure it out seemed to take forever. (The book she's writing from E's p.o.v. sounds like it's gonna be much better!) But once she figures it out, the book picks up. Then too, I never really got a feel for B's attraction to E. Once Jacob gets involved in book 2, I was solidly on Team Jacob! I liked the way SM depicted B's drifting through the months after E leaves by the chapter pages with no chapters. Clever! I got frustrated by book 3, not knowing whether or not B will be changed by the end of the story. Come on and do it, already! But I read SM's website where she explained that she was probably more reluctant for B to lose her humanity than B was herself! lol So, by Breaking Dawn, I was ready for the story to move along, and you're right, it didn't. I thought there was just a bit too much time spent on Jacob and Leah mooning over people they could never have. Neat twist at the end for J, but poor L never does get resolution. I really liked the face-off at the end of the book, I thought the twists and turns were great. Especially Siobhan's help - even when she herself didn't believe she had any effect.

Tell me what else you thought?

A Busy Weekend

This weekend has been extremely busy for Katie (not so much for Danny, although he's been having fun, too). First of all, on Friday night we managed to finagle a ticket to see..... the Jonas Brothers concert!!!!! at the last minute (no pics, b/c *I* didn't get to go, lol!). One of Dan's friends was going with his family, planned a long time ago as a b'day present for a niece, but his younger brother wasn't all that excited about it, so we bought the ticket and they took Katie with them instead - she was sooooo excited! Bradley came over here instead, and spent almost the entire 6 hrs playing Super Smash Bros with Danny. They had a blast! Katie didn't get home until after midnight, but she was so wound up it took her over an hour to fall asleep. I am glad after all that I didn't go, b/c the weather turned out to be sweltering that day (the concert was held in that outdoor amphitheater I mentioned before), and I was just happy to stay home in the a/c. So, a great time was had by all!


Then on Saturday, another surprise for Katie, a class called "Adventures in Camelot". We had recently gone through and signed up for some local park programs (some free and some not) for this fall. One was called "My First Horse," and the other was this Camelot program. She decided on "My First Horse", but later on I was talking to my sister, and once I described the medieval class she offered to send up the money for that one too! We agreed to keep it a secret, and surprise Katie that morning. She knew there was something up, b/c I kept telling her she needed to be on her best behavior or I would cancel the surprise.

So anyway, thanks to a generous Aunt Michelle, here is what Katie did in Camelot!
(Just an aside: the arena was huge and dimly lit, so it was really hard to get some of the pictures to come out right. I did the best I could!)




The first thing they did was design and paint their shields, so that the paint had time to dry during the rest of the class. Each kid made totally unique designs, which was so cool.











Then they got to go down to the stables, where they learned how to groom and saddle the horses. They used 2, one was Fancy, a Belgian/Morgan mix, and the other was Jasmine, an Arabian.

Here is Katie helping get Jasmine ready:









When they came back up to the arena, they were able to choose from several costumes and have their pictures taken next to the horses. Katie wore her head piece from Medieval Times (where we went with Aunt Michelle and the whole family over Thanksgiving) which just happened to match the dress perfectly!







The boys had several choices, too; one chose to dress like Peter in Narnia (that helmet was HEAVY!), and the other chose a plated tunic with a cloak, and the metal gauntlets and helmet.




















I found out that the park had ordered the armor (including Fancy's demi face plate) from a local craftsman. They had seen his work at the Medieval Faire, and he offered to make it for them.

The kids didn't get to ride in the costumes, but they all got to ride both horses and try to spear the ring.


The side-saddle was pretty tricky; the girls felt like they should be sitting sideways instead of straight ahead, but once they got on correctly, the weird knobs fit just right. Katie thought it was way cool.












And here she is on Fancy, spearing the ring. Good job!






I could see Katie's face as she sat on the horses, she loves this as much as I do. It's too bad we don't have the money to own a horse. I know my mom always said that all girls love horses, and eventually grow out of it. Well, I never did, and I'm pretty sure Katie feels the same way as I do. DH and I are going to have to figure out a way to get her into some lessons. We have a friend at church who knows a lady with horses at the fairgrounds, and he said she'd be willing to teach K, so I put off looking into lessons all summer. Unfortunately, this lady has never gotten around to calling us. Wah!

So anyway, the weekend is not yet over; we still get to go to Grandma and Grandpa's for Uncle Ray's b'day! Yummy, cake!


BTW, Gretchen, I hope you're loving this post, b/c it took me 4 stinking hours to do!!!

A Word About My Book List

As you can see, I have been trying to steadily work through the Hamish MacBeth series - they are short little mysteries so I can generally get through a book in 1-2 days, depending on how much free time I have. I have to request each one from the library b/c, although the library system does have all of them, they aren't all at the same library, and it seems that very few are at the one library I like to go to.

In the meantime, I have finished Celeste Bradley's Heiress Brides trilogy, which was pretty good; I know she has another series having to do with spies, but I plan on borrowing them from Gretchen (I think she's got them all) next time we exchange books. The Twilight series is done for now, until the movie in Dec and then the 5th book, which is supposed to be book #1 only from Edward's point of view, but I don't know how long it's going to take S. Meyer to write that one. So I thought I'd go through my cache of books and read something I actually own myself, and I picked up book #2 of a trilogy I started a while back, Jane Feather's Brides series. I had a hard time getting through the 1st one, mostly because it takes place in a time period I'm not so familiar with - mid 1600's England. That wouldn't be so bad, except she includes so much political info that I feel the story gets too bogged down. So #2 is basically more of the same, and once again I'm having trouble slogging through. I don't think I'm going to bother finishing it, which is too bad b/c the back story of the 3 girls' unlikely friendship sounds so promising. But, I've got so many other books waiting for me, I don't feel too bad giving up on these. So, that said, I didn't even return to my cabinet but headed straight back to the library to pick up #1 in Nora Roberts' Sign of Seven trilogy, Blood Brothers. (Sorry to be grammatically incorrect, but there is no underline option in this stupid blogger window!) I'm about 1/3 through, and loving it. I have read her Key trilogy, and really enjoyed that, so I was looking forward to starting this one. I was kind of putting it off so I could be sure to read all 3 in a row - I hate having to wait for the next in a series. (Waiting 2 weeks for the last Twilight book was hard enough - and I can't even begin to describe the torment I went through waiting for HP#7 last winter!) So, anyway, that is my update for now. No new books added to my list lately, but only b/c I've been working on 3 at once - LOL!

About our WAGS dogs

I don't think I've said anything lately about our foster dogs. I know I talked last year about Murphy, the black lab. We got him in Sept and he was ready to be placed in Nov. What a dream dog!!! What was really cool about Murphy was that he was placed with a girl, Sarah, who lives in the next town over, so we got to visit often, and we had a few play dates even once the transition time was over. Plus, she and Danny will both be going to the same school this fall!!! Way cool. Here is a picture of Murphy, in case you forgot.


He was such a cute dog, and soooo easily trained. His main job is as a retrieval dog; his girl is in a wheelchair and he goes everywhere with her - even to school! The only thing was, he would let out these HUGE stinky toots. UGH! Well, once he was placed his new family could decide what they wanted to feed him, and it turned out it was the food that was the problem.

The next dog we got, Rudy (a yellow lab/golden mix) did not have the same problem, because he was on a different food. Rudy was a very unique dog. He was 10 mos when he moved in, and totally puppy-brained. He was so spastic, jumping and running around. He would chew his toys into tiny little pieces, and constantly stole papers out of the garbage pails. Even though we liked to call him a freaky dog, he did grow on us.





Here is a picture of C with Rudy - say what he will, it was obvious they bonded!













After Rudy turned 1 yo, he calmed down a lot. He is very good with kids, as you can see from this picture of him with my nephews. They were dressing him up to be a rock star - can you see the headset? He kept chewing on the mike, but who can blame him? It was practically in his mouth anyway!




After his time was up with us (dogs are only supposed to be fostered with a family for 6 months at a time so they don't get too bonded), he spent a short amount of time in a prison training program (we kept joking that he was sent up to the big house!). He has since been placed with a family where he fits in really well. Since he wasn't placed from our home, I never got to meet his family, and I don't know anything about them.


Here is the dog we have now, Archie, a purebred Golden Retriever.


He was 8 months when we got him in the beginning of the summer, so I guess he's almost 10 mos now. He's a cutie, but an even worse chewer than Rudy, in that he too destroys his toys but he also likes to steal things, especially shoes. He's ruined my flip-flops and a pair of D's slides, plus uncounted socks. He'll take any stuffed animal he finds unattended, but he hasn't chewed any - yet. He'll come to one of us and show us that he has it, and usually he'll give it up right away when told to. He's much more reluctant to give up the socks, though. And, anything he brings is always drenched in dog spit. Yuck! Archie will not have any specific skills; he will be what is called a skilled companion, which means he'll be trained to be well behaved in public, and able to go anywhere with his child (he has been assigned to a girl, I think, but I don't know anything about her yet).

When Archie first came he was still eating puppy food, but now he is switching over to BilJac, b/c the company has decided to sponsor WAGS4Kids, and is giving them all the food for free. And, what do you know, now Archie is letting out the worst gaseous clouds ever, easily rivaling Murphy in stink factor. I am glad that BilJac is sponsoring WAGS, and it's great they're donating food, but I don't think I'll ever buy any for my own dog, if I ever get one!

Archie still needs a lot of work. I try to take him out when I'm not going to be out for a long trip, and he does really well in McDs, but he has yet to go to the supermarket. I think with the kids being home during the summer, I'm not as able to focus on the training when we go out, and I get worn out too fast. Of course, training Murphy was so ridiculously easy, we were spoiled! Now that I have to actually work at it, it's hard! But hopefully I'm doing ok. I have taught him to lay down when people come to the door (rather than jump up on them or dance around them looking for attention), and he's learning to retrieve, too. He LOVES to play ball in the yard, and he is safe off his leash while he plays - something we couldn't do with Rudy.

Next month WAGS is having a big picnic for all the people involved in the org - foster families, dogs, disabled kids and their families, volunteers, everyone. I am really excited to go and see everyone, even the dogs/families I haven't met before; I have heard so much about them! Maybe I can put up more pics after the picnic.

Getting Ready for School

We still have 2 weeks to go before school starts, but since Danny is moving up to middle school this year, there are a number of adjustments to get used to. Tonight is his orientation meeting, where he gets to walk through his schedule, try out his locker, etc. There is a cookout before the actual program, but C doesn't really care about making it to that. Hopefully, I can get some pics and post them. Of course, I have shown clearly already that just b/c I *have* pictures doesn't mean you'll ever see them! lol

We went out a few weeks ago to get school supplies; I hope I got them all! I don't know how families with 4+ kids stay organized!

Poor Katie is so jealous that her big brother is getting so much attention. We've been trying to keep her busy too, but you know how the sibling rivalry goes. Today I took her and her friend Meagan to see SW Clone Wars. It was ok, they really enjoyed it. I can see how SW fans will like it, but there wasn't enough character development for me. The little baby Hutt was kinda dumb - brings to mind all those cuddly ewoks - but they did do a good job of plot twists and intrigue that I'm used to seeing in SW. I have also made sure she gets to the pool when she wants, and on Mon I let her invite her friend Lizzie over (I didn't have to watch Meagan that day). I think once school actually starts, things will even out. I am not looking forward to getting up every day at 6:30, trying to put together lunches they'll actually eat, and getting them out the door in time, but I'm sure they're looking forward to it even less. At least I get to go home and go back to bed! But then there are also the daily homework fights. Ugh! I wonder if D will have weekend assignments this year.

Gretchen says she started school already. Ha! I feel so spoiled for not starting until Sept. Of course, that's the way it was when I was growing up - school *always* started the Wed after Labor Day. You never had to look it up or call the office to find out when school started, you just knew. Ah, the good old days.

Well, it's almost time to get going to orientation. I hope Danny pays attention!

A New Element

I have added a new element to my blog, as you can see to the right. I don't think I could possibly review every book I read, but I can at least list them off to the side, so you can see what I like. I might be able to add some kind of rating system, but for now I just hope to list the books. As you will see soon, I read A LOT! Please feel free to comment on the list, or let me know if you have read any of the same books - I love to talk about what I read! Also, you could make suggestions on other authors or books you've read and think I'd like. I would really like to hear from you!

You might notice, I am a big fan of series novels, and I always try to read them in order. That isn't to say that I finish one series before I start another! The ones I've listed today I've been working on pretty much at the same time. You'd think it would be confusing, but since the series are so different it's not that hard to keep track of the different stories.