Creamery Trip

One Sunday few weeks ago, we were invited to go with some friends to this creamery not too far away for a free festival they were having.  Well, the friends backed out at the last minute and we decided to go anyway.  The kids were super excited about it.  There were free ice cream samples, a bouncy castle, make your own butter to take home, some battlefield demonstrations (a famous Civil War battle was fought right there), a playground, and a hayride.  One of the highlights though was feeding the calves out of giant bottles.  

Genevieve's First Communion

Sneak peak at the dress.   She had to wear it for the May crowning last weekend.  I don't know why they won't move the First Communion up to before the May crowning so they don't have to wear the dress before the actual First Communion.

Today is Genevieve's First Communion.  I am scheduling this to post so I don't have any real pictures of the day yet.  Those will come soon though.  I made her quilt (part of why my blogging has been so sporadic) from her baby clothes just like I did for Hannah last year.  I chose a new design that I had never done before because it reminded me of Genna.  It is a pinwheel quilt with triangle blocks arranged like pinwheels.   Since I was using tiny clothes for most of this, so I opted to alternate between somewhat darker colored and mostly white triangles to form the pinwheels.  Whew!  It was a lot of work.  It is really hard to quilt with multiple types of fabric with all the differences in stretchiness.  The finished quilt covers the top of a twin bed, but doesn't hang over.  

Once I got it bound, I was afraid it was a bit busy, but Brian said, "That's okay.  Genna's busy."  He's my toughest critic, so I was happy for his stamp of approval.   I made kind of a color gradient when I did the layout.

The I heart NY was from a t-shirt of mine, but I included it because she was born in New York and she always talks about how much she loves NYC and wants to go back again some day.

To bind it I just folded over the backside fabric twice and hemmed it.  There's probably a fancy word for that, but I'm a novice and a little ghetto in my quilting.

The back is all one piece of fabric.  It is cream with little white flowers.

I embroidered her name, her baptism date and her 1st Communion date in different (random) triangles.

As usual, my top stitching leaves something to be desired especially since I do not have a walking foot or many of the cool quilting gadgets that would make it easier and prettier.  I hope she loves it!  I can't wait to see her face when we give it to her!

Judah: (not quite) 9 months

I am thrilled he takes a pacifier!  Mostly we only use it at nap time, but it's good to have!

Judah loves to bang toys together, play with things that are "new" to him, especially stuff that are not toys, and he loves to eat paper.  He squeals with delight when he is crawling, like it is the coolest thing he's ever done, and I guess it kind of is.  He really has the pincher-grasper thing mastered.  In fact, he can pick up things off the ground that I have trouble getting a hold of.  For example, in the past week, he has put in his mouth (tried to eat/gagged on) 2 different pieces of a wicker basket, a magnet that was supposed to be at the top of the fridge because it is too small for him, and the big kicker...a stink bug.  That one totally grossed me out!  I am sure he'll never live this down with so many little witnesses to tell him the story a billion times.  My sister ate a cricket when she was little, and that story is still told all over the world (and now all over the internet!).

He feeds himself Cheerios and Rice baby crackers.  Judah also likes to eat bananas and pears in the mesh feeder on his own.  As long as I don't have dairy in it, I have been giving him some table food from our dinner along with the babyfood that I have frozen.

Drew put a purse on him.  See it draped on him messenger style?

Loves those outlets and wires!  

Don't have a highchair?  Use a dishcloth and an old scarf to create your own.  I sewed a portable highchair, but it wasn't in the car when I needed it, so I pieced together a similar contraption out of what I could find at my Unlce's house.  

Here are his buddies, my godson and his godparents' son.

Super delicious baby

Decorating our Altar for the Easter Season

Although I decorated for Easter the night before, I neglected to get the pictures up until now.  I have a Smartphone finally and I am just learning how to get the pictures onto the computer.  

Drewy and Isaac have enjoyed having me turn on the egg lights during school now that the altar is in the same room that we do school.

I hung the "Alleluia" up on the crucifix.

Some of the eggs light up.  The roses were made from the palm leaves from Palm Sunday.  I saw that on Shower of Roses, I think.

Their Easter baskets

Science and Engineering Festival

One Friday Brian took off work to stay home with Drew while I took the other kids to the Science and Engineering Festival in D.C.  We went with another family and took the Metro.  Every time I take the Metro with the kids I regret it and swear I'll never do it again, but this time was actually great.  Drew is the hardest one to keep up with getting on and off the trains, and he wasn't there.  Plus, for some reason the trains were not packed coming home which is completely unlike anything I have ever experienced coming home around 4pm.  Anyway, point is that it wasn't so bad and was, in fact, much better than the driving would have been.

The festival was great, but we didn't get to most of the booths.  Each booth had an activity or something to play with for the kids.  Many had free stuff to give away.  We got some t-shirts, K'nex key chains, flattened NASA pennies, artwork that they created at several different booths, bacteria pins to wear, and edible bugs.  Yes, they actually had cinnamon and honey crickets and Cajun meal worms.  Genna and Isaac were brave enough to try them.

I dressed them bright so I could spot them easily.  Turns out a lot of people had that idea.  :)

8 Years Old

Genevieve turned eight last week.  Why, oh why, must these children keep on growing up?   Can't they just stay cute and adorable forever?  She is really growing up now.  I miss the days when she was so little, with her head of curls.  Go back in time and enjoy a video of my sweetheart when she was 2.5 years old.

So, Genevieve made a deal with me this year, in light of her First Communion being so close to her birthday,  she would forgo an official birthday party if I let her help make her own birthday cake and take her and Hannah to the American Girl restaurant.  Her Communion party is going to be a massive thing, and she happily agreed to this.  So there she is with her brownie cake.  She made it and decorated with with as little help as she could manage.  I dealt with the oven, drew the picture of Olaf (that she traced with icing on wax paper to transfer,) and I helped with the white stars since the icing was too hard for her to squeeze out with that tip.  She did a great job!

As usual, on her birthday she got to pick the restaurant to go to with the family.  She opened presents from our family and the ones that had been coming in the mail all week.  We got her Frozen, the movie, an earring holder and a pair of dangly earrings since, oh yes, it is the dangly earring birthday that she has been waiting for all year.  Eight is a big birthday around here because you get not one, but three privileges.  Out of a booster.  Can wear dangly earrings.  Can stay at home alone.  She is thoroughly enjoying each of these privileges since her birthday.  And we are off to the American Girl store tomorrow!

Side note about the movie Frozen.  We all (all 7 of us) watched the movie this weekend and there is the part when Ana is singing and she hops out a window onto some board attached to ropes.  Drew yells out, "That's dangerous, Mom! That's dangerous!"  Yes, Drew it is dangerous to jump or fall out a window.  I'm glad you learned that, even if it was the hard way.  :)

Another Point for Drew's Guardian Angel

Well, Drew's guardian angel saves him again.  Isaac and Drew were playing in the living room.  I was in the kitchen and the hysterical (and I mean hysterical) screaming began.  I hadn't heard any thumps or crashes, but it sounded pretty bad.  I envisioned Isaac standing over a bloody Drew because I could not hear Drew at all, and, well, Isaac inherited this dramatic over reaction from someone.  I hurry around the corner to find Isaac still hysterically screaming, "Aaaaah!  Aaaaah!  Aaaaah!  Aaaaah!  Aaaaah!" over and over again.  As I ask What happen? and What's wrong?, my eyes are searching for blood and for Drew, neither of which I could locate.  Isaac (still screaming, mind you) gestures toward the window.  Then I see the open window...with no screen.  As soon as it registers that Drew fell out the window, I see his head pop up and head toward the front door.  (This window goes out onto our front porch.)  Thank you God for that head popping up because I was able to keep myself from loosing it.  Turns out Drew went out head first, but caught himself with his hands and scratched and bruised up his arm pretty good in the process.  Good one, Guardian Angel!

I am so thankful that he fell out the window!  Because it was the first floor window.  Because it wasn't the window on the other side of the living room which has a whole story drop onto the concrete patio.  Praise God for that!  And I am hoping it made a big enough impression on these two crazy boys who thought it was a good idea to lean on a window with just a screen that neither of them will do it or allow anyone else to do it in their presence again.  Isaac being old enough to know better and having been told when all the windows were opened a few days before this not to lean on or let Drew lean on any screens, got a good talking to about being responsible and taking care of his little brothers and had to fold a load of laundry instead of watch the video they were about to watch.  Some may think that harsh, but I need my kids to learn responsibility.  That was a small punishment I gave because I felt that the fear he felt watching his brother fall out the window was a pretty good consequence for his irresponsibility.  This is not a first time occurrence.  Remember the tumble they took down the stairs?  Just last month Isaac watched his brother pour buckets and buckets of water out of the tub onto the floor.  We now have a hole in the ceiling beneath that tub from leaking.  They are both grounded from the tub indefinitely.  Showers only.  Point is:  Isaac needs to start thinking things through and the only way that's going to happen is with a little consequences for his actions.