Sew Crafty Friday

Hi there. The weeks seem to be going by way too quickly. I don't want this blog to become a Sew Crafty Friday blog. ;0) I'm hoping to fit blogging a little better into my schedule. We've been spending a lot of time outside enjoying the cooler temps(80,79). Here is our craftiness of the week. I say we because Kayla did some things. She is getting the hang of the serger. She made Britney a Christmas skirt. I didn't get a picture of the final skirt, but it's similar to the one she made her below. She did both in one day. The serger really does make things go a lot faster.



This is the other skirt she made her. Britney was standing sort of crooked here, it's not the skirt. Britney was very happy with them. Britney then made Kayla a thank you cake later on that day. I get so happy to see their little hearts bound to each other.

I'm not sure if this counts as crafty, but this is my scroll frame for my cross stitching project. Well, this is the after. You see, it originally came with these shorter pieces of wood on the left and right sides. Which it was nice, but it gave a smaller work space.

I found some longer pieces of wood in the garage and drilled some holes on the top and bottom of them. Now I have a larger work space. It's large enough that my beloved and I can work on Micah's fish at the same time. ;0)

The last thing I did was that I worked on some costumes for our church's Christmas program. I didn't work on these alone, a friend from church and I got together to do them. I have learned that I really stink at winging something. I work much better off of a pattern. ;0)


We did some vests.

We also did some robes, and some head pieces. They were for peasants.
So tell me, what have you done lately? You could share anything that you have sewed, knitted, crocheted, scrapbooked, etc. We like to see it all!! Just leave your blog linked up in the Mr. Linky below. Just leave a quick one sentence blurb on your blog leading people back here. The only reason I ask you to link back here is so that others may possibly be able to join. The more the merrier. If you don't have a blog, or are making it as a gift for someone, just email me your pictures, and I will post them here. Happy Crafting!!

I'm hoping to get around to last weeks' posts, and this weeks. You ladies are so much fun. I know some of you always thank me, but I really should be thanking you for participating. If it wasn't for you ladies, SCF would be a flop. ;0)

Whose Lesson Is It?

Yesterday Micah found a little bug that he couldn't identify. He put it in his bug container while he searched some of his books. He was on my bed. He took the bug out to look at it some more. He got caught up looking at the book, and lost the bug. As he searched the bed, he found it dead. I was in the room with him, so I knew what was going on when he brought it to me. When I say this thing was dead, it was curled, and the body was twisted. The upper half of the body was facing the back while the lower body was facing the front. It also looked sort of flat. Micah's eyes welled up with tears. At that point I put him on my lap and offered to pray with him. Earlier in the week the Lord brought an ant back to life for him that had drowned. However, this bug was D.E.A.D, twisted, and flat. I asked him to pray, but he asked me if I could. He was really choked up. I said a little prayer, but to tell you the truth, I had no hope. When I finished praying I got up to finish putting away the laundry. As I came out of my closet I saw him on my bed, prostrated, face down, with his knees bunched up. I heard little mumbles. When he looked up at me, I said, "were you praying?" He said, "yes." After he finished praying he took the bug and untwisted his body and put it upright on a piece of cardboard. Thirty seconds later Kayla said, his legs are moving. I didn't really believe it. I went over, and nothing. Then 10 seconds later, I saw two legs move. Then the legs on the opposite side of the body popped out and started moving. Within a couple of minutes it was walking again.
To have the faith of a child. Children believe so strongly. I will tell you the other side to this story. Once it came back to life, I told him to please put it outside. A few minutes later he came in looking so sad. I asked him what was wrong. He told me that he put it next to the plant outside, but then he didn't see it. He knelt on the floor to look for it. When he got up from the floor, he looked, and the bug was squashed on his hand. ;0( He must have squished it as he knelt on the floor. He then asked me why would the Lord answer his prayer to bring the bug back to life, and then allow it to die again? I then later relayed the story to my beloved, and my beloved thought the lesson was more for me than for him. The fact that I prayed, but really had no hope. I prayed without faith. I literally just went through the motions of praying. I know this picture is really blurry, but with all the excitement of it walking again, I didn't take a better picture.
I wonder how many other times I pray and I'm just going through the motions. How many times do I pray so that I can just check it off of my list of things to do. How many times do I pray without really believing that the Lord will answer. Oh, maybe the lesson really was for me after all.

Crafty Monday?

Sorry. My beloved offered to go into the garage to declutter, and I just couldn't turn that offer down. ;0) We worked in there for a few hours, and I was pooped once we were done. So I know my pictures are late, but here they are. Nothing fancy.

My neighbor asked me if I could please make her some bows for her wreath. I have never made a bow in my life, aside from the bow on my sneakers. The internet is a wonderful thing. ;0) The wind was blowing when I took this picture. The tails hang straight.

This was the other one. You can seriously tell I have never made a bow before with this one. lol She was happy though, so I guess that's all that counts.

I also made some napkins for the shop .


Nothing spectacular this week. Thank you to those who participated last week, even though things were slow.

Sew Crafty Friday

Sorry, today is my beloved's birthday. I am sort of behind on things, as I was making him a special breakfast. I haven't taken pictures yet of my craftiness. ;0) I'm not sure if anyone will participate today, being that it's the day after Thanksgiving. I will be back in a bit with my pictures, and to fix up this post. Link up, my friends!!

So tell me, what have you done lately? You could share anything that you have sewed, knitted, crocheted, scrapbooked, etc. We like to see it all!! Just leave your blog linked up in the Mr. Linky below. Just leave a quick one sentence blurb on your blog leading people back here. The only reason I ask you to link back here is so that others may possibly be able to join. The more the merrier. If you don't have a blog, or are making it as a gift for someone, just email me your pictures, and I will post them here. Happy Crafting!!

Happy Thanksgiving/Lapbook

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful to our Wonderful Father for.

We were invited by one of the families in my Sabbath School class for Thanksgiving. I think they felt bad when they heard we didn't have any family here. ;0) For the last 6 years here, we only had my beloved's brother and his wife over last year. We were very happy about that visit. Aside from that, our Thanksgivings have always just been us six. Since we aren't leaving until about 1:30, we started working on our Thanksgiving lapbook. This lapbook will be a little different in that it is a family lapbook. We will all be working on one lapbook.

Kayla is working on a list of the passengers that were aboard the Mayflower.


Elijah is working on a picture of how they became friends.

Britney is working on some pilgrim and Indian paper dolls.

I'll be sure to share once it is completed. It won't be as thorough as the fish one, as I just printed up the things yesterday. :~0

Thanks To The Lapbook

Do you remember this picture from the lapbook post. I shared how the male Betta fish makes a nest out of bubbles. Micah was really in awe of this fish.

Look, our own bubble nest. We have since seen him make a really elaborate nest, but the batteries in my camera were dead. This is the best picture I caught. You can click to enlarge.

This is where it all started...... Micah's birthday. I cropped the picture and spared you a close up of my beloved's feet, they were up on the ottoman table. We had him close his eyes, and then one by one each of the children brought him something.

Each was a little hint. Here Kayla is giving him the little rocks that go on the bottom of the bowl.

The final gift was the bowl. lol

We quickly got to setting everything up. Please excuse my hair. ;0

He was so good with letting Elijah do a lot of the setting up as well.
On our way to the pet shop. ;0)

They had so many beautiful ones. We tried showing him all the flashy ones. They had some electric blue ones, some fire engine red ones...he liked a pink/beige one. I think it's called a Cambodian betta.

He was so excited.
He acclimated him to the water for a bit.

Then he was free to swim. He was in such a little cup at the pet shop.

Even though he's not very flashy, he has grown on us. ;0)

But most importantly, Micah loves him.

Micah put the book that started it all next to the bowl, so he would have some company.


Kayla put a mirror up next to him, but he didn't seem too interested. They normally flare out in all their fin glory when they see another male. However, the other day during breakfast(yes, he is on our dining table) my beloved put a pecan up next to the bowl, and he flared up. He was not happy at all with that pecan.

So we welcomed Mr. Betta Fishy(Micah named him, creative, right?) into our home.

I just hope that all our lapbooks don't lead to a new pet in the home.

Sew Crafty Friday

I didn't get much done this week, as all my free time went on spending time with the children either outside or on Micah's lapbook. I don't regret it one bit. ;0) I wanted to share one of the aprons we made for a customer from the shop. I'm only sharing one, as the other one is identical to this one. They are mother/daughter aprons. So just picture a miniature version of this one. ;0)

I made the pocket into a heart, instead of the regular little square. I found that the pocket just blended into the apron, so we decided to put some rick rack behind it so that it could stand out just a little.
Once I added the rick rack there, I wanted to tie the rick rack in somewhere else, so I put it on the sides and on the top as well. The customer also wanted ruffles, so we did ruffles all along the bottom. They were pretty simple to make, and I'm hoping to get some done for us as well.

So tell me, what have you done lately? You could share anything that you have sewed, knitted, crocheted, scrapbooked, etc. We like to see it all!! Just leave your blog linked up in the Mr. Linky below. Just leave a quick one sentence blurb on your blog leading people back here. The only reason I ask you to link back here is so that others may possibly be able to join. The more the merrier. If you don't have a blog, or are making it as a gift for someone, just email me your pictures, and I will post them here. Happy Crafting!!

I Forgot

I realized I left out one section that I had wanted to share. We learned about the archer fish. The archer fish can either jump up out of the water to catch an insect, or it can squirt some water to knock it off a branch. I did not realize how amazingly particular Micah is. Here he glued some blue dots to show the water hitting the insect, and then he asked me to please make him another copy of the insect. When I asked him why, he said so he can glue one upside down in the water to show that the fish got it, and it fell into the water. I will say that my beloved encouraged them to act like an archer fish. They both filled their mouths with water and squirted away at things.

Micah's Fish Lapbook

Micah's fish lapbook. This was so much fun. We finished it yesterday, and we already started on a new one today. He is really enjoying it.

Here it is open.

With the black flap open.

With the white flap open.

Here is a pocket with three fish which he put in size order.

Here is a flap book.

with pictures of his two sets of fry.

This is a picture of Micah's favorite fish. I didn't realize the little flaps interlock, and they will stay closed.

He drew a catfish.

We made a pentagon to remind him that God made fish on the 5th day of creation.

So the pictures are on side with the words on the other. He filled in the number five with some little paper dots. ;0)

Here we made another flap book.

on different ways you can fish; with a fishing rod or a net.

One of the books we read we learned about how male betta fish make nests out of bubbles.

He looked at the picture in the book, and he recreated it.

He made a fish out of perler beads....

He said it's a rainbow trout. ;0)

We learned about Summer Flounders. We studied how they go from a regular looking fish, and then their eye comes up to the top, and their heads goes sideways. We did an accordion book on it. When I was discussing it with him, I started to say metamorphosis, and then I didn't think he knew the word, so I said, the flounders go through a change. He quickly told me it was a metamorphosis. I guess he picked up a lot more than I thought.

Here is was still only on a slight angle. You can click to enlarge. We did a few of these, but I only showed you two so you could see.


Here you can see the flounder is already pretty much flat.

Here is a book log that we made. I only wrote the books and author in pencil. I need to do it darker.
Here are his two Bible verses that have to do with fish.

Here we learned about how and why fish school.


Here are his vocabulary words. I forgot to take a picture of the actual words. Sorry. They were words like fin, gills, etc.

He liked this one. He had to pick if the fish was facing left or right.


He got all of them right. I didn't have him circle them, as I figured he could just do it orally any time he wants.

Here is a little story he made up about a fish. The book itself is in the shape of a fish.
Here it is closed. He learned about collages.

Quick Hello

Hi there. Micah's lapbook is finally finished. I tweaked our schedule AGAIN, and it has allowed me to really enjoy the children a lot more throughout the day. We've been going on nature walks, to the park, playing outside, etc.
I have my aunts (my dad's three sisters) and my uncle on their way for a visit. As soon as our company leaves I will take some pictures of the lapbook to share.
I also wanted to say hello to a few new readers. I really appreciate your comments. I hope to get to them later on today.

Family Time-Egg Tossing

Yesterday my beloved spoke to someone from our church to who shared with him how in his country they would play something called egg tossing. Guess what we played for family time today? Yes!! You start off by standing in front of each other and you each toss the egg once. When you both successfully catch the egg once, you both take a step back.

I didn't label all the pictures. I just like looking at all the funny faces we made. lol ;0) The boys did theirs together, the girls did theirs together, and then my beloved and I. Of course they all took turns tossing with my beloved afterwards.








You would think this is where the game would have ended. If you click to enlarge, you can see my beloved's arms are spread wide open as the eggs falls to the ground. Believe it or not, it didn't crack. You can click to enlarge.

The furthest my beloved and I got was 53 feet. This is where it ended. lol ;0) Yes, the egg broke in my hands. :~0 Ewwww.....

My beloved and the boys decided to live dangerously and lie down on the floor while the girls were doing their egg tossing. Brave I tell you. lol ;0)

I couldn't let those cracked eggs go to waste. No problem....

I made it for the dogs. ;0)
They don't eat people food, but every once in a while we give them eggs for their coat. ;0)

Do you have any fun family time games that you play? Feel free to share. I will try to share more throughout the week.

This week was a very busy week, as you were able to tell by my lack of posting. Therefore, the only thing crafty thing I got done were some pitiful little pajama shorts for Micah's b-day. He loves them, as he doesn't see the little oopsies throughout. I only had about 15 to 20 minutes total. I didn't even get a chance to change the pink thread in the sewing machine that I was using for the matching mother/daughter aprons. Thankfully the rainbow thread that was in the serger matched okay at the bottom. I didn't even get a chance to hem them up. ;0(
When he received them thankfully all he saw was fish, and he was ecstatic. lol Hopefully next week will be better. ;0)
It's so nice to see new people joining. Keep spreading the word.

So tell me, what have you done lately? You could share anything that you have sewed, knitted, crocheted, scrapbooked, cross stitched, etc. We like to see it all!! Just leave your blog linked up in the Mr. Linky below. Just leave a quick one sentence blurb on your blog leading people back here. The only reason I ask you to link back here is so that others may possibly be able to join. The more the merrier. If you don't have a blog, or are making a gift for someone and don't want to post it on your blog, just email me your pictures and I will post them here. Happy Crafting!!

Books, books, and more books

We went to the library last week to get our bi-monthly fix of animal books. Every time we go to the libary we don't come home with anything less than 50 books. I thought there was some sort of limit, but there isn't one, so the children take full advantage. ;0) Here are the younger three about 5 minutes after we got home.

A few minutes...then there were two.

Then there was one.

Here Elijah got tired of waiting for his brother to finish reading. He decided to build a house for the insects he read about in one of the books.

This was one hour after we got home from the library.

This was an hour and a half later. I think he would have stayed there longer if I hadn't called him to eat. We did get a lot of good fish books.

I know it has been a stinky blogging week, but it has been a great lapbooking week. ;0) Every spare moment Micah has seen, he has asked me to lapbook with him. It has been a great learning experience, and I think it will definitely become an integral part of our homeschool. We put the lapbook together today, but there are still lots of things he wants to add. As soon as it is completely finished, I will share. I always do, don't I. lol ;0)

Talking about sharing, my beloved had an interview today for a job that he wasn't really interested in, but a friend would really like him to work there. My beloved didn't really want to go for the interview, but we now know why he went. He just called me and told me that he had an hour to interview with the man. For 55 minutes they spoke about Jesus. Then during the last 5 minutes, the man said, "I'm sorry, do you have any questions about the job?" lol

Great Quote

You don't take a breath, it is provided to you.
-Author unknown

Mix of Things

As part of our family worship there is a specific character quality that we try to cultivate in our home. The character quality we are learning about this week is orderliness. We studied a few things about order, as far as how the Lord created earth. We spoke about the days of creation, and how everything was done in order; the sun before the greenery, if not the greenery would die. We discussed how God made the water before the fish, etc. After only one day, it has stuck with them really well. Today as Micah was picking up some toys he had left out, he said, "mom, orderliness works good for you, but it doesn't do anything for us." I guess he just looked at it like a whole bunch more work for him. Hmmm....I feel an orderliness lapbooking coming on.....or maybe a creation one.... ;0)
By the way, I know some of you thanked me for sharing different folds. I realized I didn't share the websites where I got them from. Sorry. My two most favorite websites that share the templates for you to print up are this one and this one . Micah walked into our bedroom very early the other morning and said he was ready to do some lapbooking. My beloved said, "I guess it's a hit." He asked if we could please have the fish lapbook ready for his birthday, which is this Thursday.
Are any of you taking advantage of Daylight Savings Time. You might remember how I mentioned that DST is my favorite day of the year . It's not my favorite day of the year because the boys go to sleep earlier, but more so because it helps me fall back on track with scheduling our days. The boys now are sound asleep by 6:30 instead of 7:30. It does mean that they are up an hour earlier in the morning as well, but that's okay. There is something kind of homey having the entire family up and running nice and early in the morning. It's nice to be able to eat breakfast together as a family because we are up so early, and to be able to have family worship without rushing. It just seems like there is so much more time in the morning when we are up early.

Sew Crafty Friday

I was originally going to share some mother/daughter aprons that we are working on. We got an order for them from the shop, but I just realized she read my blog (waving hi) so I don't want her to see them until she gets them in mail. ;0) So what I am sharing today might not be so very crafty, but it will have to do. ;0) I started out with a huge stack of paper.

I then folded up a bunch of templates for our future lapbooks. I did them last night while the children were asleep. I did this for two reasons. I want one set already made so that when Kayla is going to make her lapbook she can see what templates we have on hand for her to make and then decide if she has space in her lapbook. My goal is to make up a bunch of templates ahead of time for the boys. When it's time to put their lapbooks together they can just pick from a ziplock size bag, and we don't have to waste time with them just watching me make a copy of the template, cutting it, and then folding it for them.

Here are the templates that I made up last night.

Here we can write snippets of information on each little card.

Here this little T-book is open.
This is how it closes up.
Here is a little pocket.....

which you put this form inside.

The rest are self explanatory. Some of the pictures are of it closed, and then opened. All of them are to be able to put interesting information about what it is that we are studying. We then paste these little pockets and shapes onto a file folder.

I'm sorry if this wasnt too crafty. ;0)

So tell me, what have you done lately? You could share anything that you have sewed, knitted, crocheted, scrapbooked, cross stitched, etc. We like to see it all!! Just leave your blog linked up in the Mr. Linky below. Just leave a quick one sentence blurb on your blog leading people back here. The only reason I ask you to link back here is so that others may possibly be able to join. The more the merrier. If you don't have a blog, or are making a gift for someone and don't want to post it on your blog, just email me your pictures and I will post them here. Happy Crafting!!

Fish, fish, and more fish

Remember how I shared that Micah had been praying for his fish to have "babies" and she had 30 something not too long ago. The mother fished died the day after she gave birth. ;0( We thought we had only two males left in the aquarium. We were WRONG!! The children came running to tell me that they saw a small black fry. Nope, can't be, uh-uh. Our fry are orange. Maybe it's poop. They were very enthusiastic about it, so I went to go check it out. Poop? HA!! Ten black fry were found.
Sorry for the dirty looking aquarium, it's very tricky making sure I don't change the balance of the water. I did a partial water change not too long ago thinking it would be a good thing, to make sure there wasn't too much ammonia or nitrate in the water, and we had 3 or 4 fry die. So if you look at our set up below, we put up a divider(the black line in center, more towards the right) The larger orange fry are loose on the right side, the black fry are in the nursery on the left side of the picture, and the two adult fish are loose on the left side. You can see the male orange fish, and the mom who just gave birth is black and white in the middle. We didn't even know they could mate being that they are different mollies.

So do you know what that lead to? It lead to our decision to make our first lapbook on fish. YAY!! We will only work on it a little bit each day.

I will share more as we continue to work on it. I will make a label for it on the side. My beloved shared my enthusiasm on the lapbook when I mentioned it to him. The wheels starting turning in his mind, a lapbook on Queen Esther for the girls, and so on and so forth. ;0)

Do you think it's wrong of me to start praying for the fish to stop having fry? It's just that we want to keep them all. They are so cute. I feel bad giving them away. At this rate though, I might have to freecycle some. We do have a 55 gallon aquarium in the garage.....hmmm...maybe it's time to take out the measuring tape to see if it fits in the boys' room.