A friends Birthday party

Sunday we spent the day celebrating a friends bday with lots of

water fun: (sorry its sideways - Im too lazy to go back and fix it)


funny hats
good conversation
water balloon fights

hanging out
baby cuteness
pool time
ahhh - a good buddy
babies getting to know each other

a super great day!!!

Trying to Talk!

I can't tell you enough how lucky I am to have this sweet baby girl as a part of our family. I love waking up to her sweet smile . I am stiff from her sleeping and nursing on me all night and my back aches from wearing her most of the day - but I would not have it any other way! And I think she is trying to tell me that too.

random Ryan adventures this week

Ryan started off by smashing this hot wheel car with a rock. My first reaction was to tell him to stop but after he told me that "this is how the little monkeys open up the coconuts" - well it all made sense then - lol. After he smashed it open, he wanted to make his own car with the body, which led to he and his daddy reconstruction the whole thing!




mud and lots of mud!! need I say more.

Dino Park

Well yesterday we headed out for our first all day outing with Adeline to Dino Park ! Ryan was very excited about this trip and spent the week learning as much as he could about dinosaurs. He and his dad spent lots of time out back picking dino's learning about them and then pretending they were that dinosaur and how they would fight each other - or protect their young (Adeline). It was such a fun way to learn - one of the things that I love about homeschooling.

Then we met up with 3 other homeschool families at Dino Park. A park with indoor and outdoor activities that also includes a splash park for those hot days.

We started of indoors where the kids could choose to be prospectors,miners or paleontologists. Ryan and his friend choose to be Paleontologists at the bone zone.
The first part of the class they learned about fossils and what a paleontologists does. I love this pic of Ryan and Gwen - check their feet out : )

Then on into the dig site where the kids worked together to uncover the bones of a stegosaurus.!cool.
At the end of the class each kid received 6 fossils of their own to keep. Ryan loved that - and he wants to trade one fossils for one of his friend Kaya's minerals (he was a miner).
Then we headed out for lunch. Kaya was a help and held Adeline for me while I put my sling on.
After a quick trip on the playground and down the slide we headed off to Dino land.


THis was Adeline's view of everything as she sat in the sling and nursed while we walked around.

The Dinosaurs:



The boys loved this part - the girls stayed on the playground.
being baby dinosaurs.

It was a wonderful day to spend with friends. Adeline overall did great in the car by the way!!

sewing

So I dusted off the old sewing machine and set to work to make Adeline some summer dresses. It is not easy with a 3 month old who prefers mama's arms to anywhere else, but we managed. I threw her in the sling and did my best and occasionally she played on the floor next to me.


Ryan got in on the action to, making his daddy a bag to take with him on his interviews (My hubby flew to Michigan,Indiana and Wisconsin over the last 2 weeks - more to come on that later)





First up is a smocked sundress totally inspired my this very talented lady .
I love the fabric ! also inspired by her site. The designer of the fabric is Heather Ross and she has some amazing fabrics. The smocking is easy using elastic thread. However since I do not have Heather's book Weekend Sewing with the instructions in it, I had to figure it out myself. Once I did , it was a peice of cake. I even made myself a skirt with the smocking that can also be worn as a shirt. hurray! a new love of sewing and now I have the best reason in the world to make these dresses - I think she likes them too : )




The second dress is based on the idea of a Pillow Case dress. Since I did not have any pillow cases I decided to use this beautiful unicorn fabric by Heather Ross and finger knitted a tie to go around the neck. The fun part about this dress is that I had a sewing gathering at my house to work on these dresses. Sewing is fun with friends around. The kids played and the mama's worked. I have to admit that I was only able to cut mine out that day and ended up sewing it the next morning. It is so easy it took 5 minutes to cut out and about 15 min to sew! The best part is that next year she will be able to wear is as a shirt.