As our family’s birthday season is quickly approaching (Starting with Marcus’ birthday coming up this Wednesday… what?) I stopped for a moment to realize that was already 3 months in to 2018. How did that happen??
While we are on the topic of how did that happen…
When did this little chubby baby become a smart young man? Gosh, he’s turning EIGHT! How has it been 8 years already? All this thinking leads me down a slippery slope, because this cute baby girl…
Is now a beautiful and talented dancer who will be ELEVEN by month’s end.
Don’t even get me started on my almost TEENAGER…
That little baby of mine is now studying PreAlgebra, and is speed-cubing and photobombing like a pro. ❤️
And not to leave out my littlest dude…
Who is turning out to be as crazy and funny and smart as the rest of the crew…
Not to mention his photobombing skills that rival that of his oldest brother…
So, that’s what’s going on around these parts lately. We have been rocking 2018 with homeschooling advanced subjects, which has been as fun for me as it is for the kids.
What’s going on in your neck of the woods?
Every time Autumn comes rolling in, I feel a need to evaluate our curricula. Seeing what is working for us, and what we’d rather do without, is a vital part of keeping our homeschooling not only educational, but fun. This year, we took a modified summer approach to our schooling, choosing one day a week to cover the “essentials”, we really were able to fully emerge in the topic of the day {my favorite being a tie between History Fridays and Nature Wednesdays}. Another thing that I discovered is that, although we chose to focus on just one topic each day, reading time every day was solidly carved into our lives and we would naturally gravitate towards ‘quiet time’ and story telling to one another, especially when the kids recieved a new book. These two realizations are what brings me to this post.
When I sat down to see what we loved day to day, and what the kids naturally gravitated to, the answer was clear… BOOKS. More more often than not? Usborne books. From our history lessons to our free reading time. When learning about how our body works to exploring the world atlas, the resources we reached for time and again was our Usborne books!
This massively awesome pile or reference books is just the ones we’ve used in the last week. We just love them around these parts! What are your favorite books?
It was brought to my attention that the freebie add-on for the sprightly soaker had been lost in interspace on the web because of expiring domains, so what better a time to update it and post it up here for all to download here.
It’s that time of year again! The taking of photos and the making into cards.
Inevitably, some of those photos don’t end up making the cut. 
It’s always so hard to choose though, as {well I think} these kids just can’t take a bad photo!
Here’s to this year’s outtakes. I’m hoping by sharing them here, they get to spread a bit of happiness all the same. ❤️
Have you been following the awesomeness that is the handmade holidays series over on sew mama sew? Everyday, for the entire month of November, a lovely lady guest posts with a specially curated list of their favorite tutorials and gift ideas from around the crafty web. In case you haven’t already guessed, TODAY is the day my curation goes live! 
The theme I chose is Baby’s First Christmas, in honor of Colin’s first christmas. I figured I would be scouring my favorite blogs anyway for ideas of things to make my little guy, I might as well share…
I’m so excited about continuing to be a part of the wonderful sew mama sew community. If you remember, way back in 2011, I shared my Aquarius Swimmer pattern.
Then again in 2014, I created my Tooth Fairy Doll Pattern just for them too.
Speaking of my patterns, have you checked out Etsy yet? I heard there’s some fancy print sewing pattern designer that decided to start selling her digital patterns on there. {hint: It’s totally me}
Starting with my Crescent Moon Yoga Pants pattern, my entire Little Comet Tails Pattern line will be available on Etsy for instant download in the next coming weeks. They have all been refreshed, rewritten, and updated to make them easy to follow and pretty to look at. Speaking of pretty to look at, check out my store…
I’m so excited to be releasing my PDF’s on Etsy. After all my current patterns are digitally available, I will start releasing some new patterns that I’ve been working on. Stay tuned!
Thomas was hanging around with Colin and me while I took some product photos.
We got to talking about photography, and photo editing. Thomas asked why one would edit a photo, so we discussed how mood and feeling could be expressed through color and lighting. Then Thomas commissioned me to take some photos of him, to edit… 
Off he went, returning with his lightsaber. I snapped a couple shots, then we uploaded them to my computer for some edits; Thomas style.
Here’s what he came up with; complete with glowing saber and fire ball. What a fun little lesson we both had. ❤️ I just love watching this guy grow.
The kids decided October 1st that they all wanted to be characters from Adventure Time, so off sewing I went!
Molly as Princess Bubblegum.
Thomas as BMO. (BMO… HAPPY!)
Marcus as Finn the Human.
This year, I decided to add knitting to my repertoire, because… well… bananas!
Happy Halloween!
By our house, there is this park.
The kids and I don’t go often enough, but every time we do we say, “We need to come here more often!”
There’s two huge playground areas, a sculpture garden, a swim beach, and even a train that circles around.
Today? We rode that train.
We bought our 75¢ tickets, and got them punched as we boarded. 😉 This time, we got in the red caboose in the back.
Yup, Thomas…
Molly…
Marcus…
…and Colin.
Well, me and Colin {photo courtesy of Thomas}. I had to sit on the floor it was so tiny… And so fun!
If you can’t make it out over the squeaky-squeaks, there’s even a tunnel!
—-
Marcus: We’re going in there!!
Molly: Oh my gosh, I can’t wait to go in the tunnel! Are you guys excited to go in the tunnel?
Me: There’s a tunnel?
Molly: Yup!
—
😉 We all had a great time, and I promised this time, we would go again very soon.
So, umm… Hi? I’ve always said that I want to blog more, and then life happens and I don’t. I was thinking about all the excuses I have for not doing it, and about how to convince myself to change my ways and just sit down and write, but let’s be honest, I’m just not that structured. So here’s me, starting up blogging again, maybe just maybe it will stick this time.
Now, where should I begin…
When last I left you, our main bathroom looked roughly like this: 
If you were paying close enough attention (see my reflection in the mirror in the last post) I, at approximately the same time, looked something like this: 
Don’t ask what my toes looked like at that point, because frankly? I couldn’t see them for months. 
I kid… Lol… But back to me and the bathroom… Soon after that, May 19th to be exact, we both looked like this: {The hubby is in this too, beaming like the awesome daddy he is}
Colin Finn joined our {not so} little family in the wee hours of the night in the bathtub that I had specked out for just the occasion. The rest of the kids? In love. 
Here’s a couple more photos to fill in the gaps and catch you up to today:
The days have been going by so quickly, I can’t believe this little guy is 3 months old already. 
Oh yeah, in case you are wondering what the whole bathroom looks like, here’s a shot of that too, now that you are looking at pictures: 
Alright, alright. That’s enough catching up.
Let’s pretend that I’ve been updating regularly for the past 5 or so months, and this was just another post about what we did today.
Molly decided this past week that she wanted to go camping. So bright and early this morning they put up the tent in the backyard. 
Then off we went to the store to get some supplies. While we were there these two had to ride the 1¢ ponies.
First, we had a proper picnic. 
Next, we roasted marshmallows by the fire. 
In case you were wondering, Thom, Colin and I all took part in the festivities as well. 
Once the sun set, they played around with the lantern in the yard a bit. 
Then, the kids all piled into the tent… 
Thom read them a story, and off to sleepy land they went. 
All’s quiet on the {little backyard} western front. Nite-nite.
