The Quiet Game

My kids have a new game they love...The Quiet Game. Joffre has qualified for "Husband of the Year" for teaching them it.

So today we picked Joffre up from work and he boisterously greeted the children.
They immediately told him he had lost.
"Lost what?", he asked and was answered with, "The Quiet Game!."
He said, "But I didn't know we were playing."
They replied, "We wanted to surprise you."
Uh...how messed up is that.

Fall Love

My begonias look beautiful all the sudden. We have been having beautiful sunny weather with cool breezes. And look, my raspberries are fruiting again. These were planted this spring and they are all ready fruiting. I definitely want to plant more this spring.

These Boots Were Made for Walkin'

My Mom sent Ward these cowboy boot slippers. He liked wearing them but he has such a fat foot it is hard to keep them on him.
We are going to Renata's friend's party shortly. I used one of the kid's old coloring pictures of mermaids as the wrapping and then added this pocket from some clothes I cut up to use for sewing as a gift tag. There is going to be sack races, egg and spoon, and other games. The kids are really looking forward to it.

The Silver Chair Website

I just want to give a shout out about our www.silverchairbookstore.com website. We had a few technical problems but they have been ironed out.

You can go on there and order books just like amazon and we even offer the free shipping on orders over $25.00 just like amazon. You pay through paypal. When you search for a book the search results are alphabetical ( just an FYI).

The front page is a blog. Click on "shop" and you can put in any book title or author in the search engine and order.

We are working towards putting up some of our used inventory as well on there.
I am planning on putting up a bunch of my recommendations up soon too. I am making lists upon lists. I know you are excited.

Dandelion Fire

I just finished reading N. D. Wilson's Dandelion Fire. I loved it. He has these great insights in it I love. I just loved it and don't feel like being a good blog writer and telling you all the specific examples of why I loved it.
I do want my boys to read it because it brings up things like needing to stand up for things even if you might be defeated/ beat up. I like the magical world he is creating. So much good fun. It helps to see good theology in a story too ( in the midst of a battle they stop and have a feast and laugh a lot.) Ok, maybe I am not such a bad blog writer. I gave you somethin'.

4 Things You Shoud Give A One Year Old for (Your) Amusement

1. A Toy Telephone- a baby "talking" is about the cutest thing in the world especially if they gesture along with their talking.

2. Sunglasses

3. A Hat (adult sized)

4. A Big Ball or Balloon- watching them throw it forward and backwards is cute but watching them fall on top of it and end up rolling with their big diapered bottom high in the air and heads down is super adorable.

Norman Rockwell

I have been hit with my bimonthly longing to paint some more. I was reading about Norman Rockwell when the urge hit me. He was a great guy. His work ethic was fantastic and he lived a plain old nice life. The entire town he lived in posed for his paintings and another illustator in the same town. This other illustrator and Rockwell and their wives would go over each other's paintings together when problems arose. I love to see community and story. Rockwell says he was a story teller. I love painter story tellers. He even went to Paris to study modernism and gave it a try only to realize he was not being himself but trying to make it into a museum. I know some of his work is overly sentimental but so about the happy in life. He had such a following at the Saturday Evening Post that he had to be guarded for awhile.

So I took out some charcoal and a sketchbook , placed the charcoal to the pad , and then was accosted by a crying baby. Yep. Not a good time. Baby wanted me to put his hat on him a few more times before bed. How can you refuse that? After that other bedtime rituals took a long time and the long and short of it is I just need to wait....patiently.

I painted 2 of these chairs blue and sewed up these pillows for The Bird and Baby. I got this fabric at an estate sale and the color matched this paint we have at the Bird and Baby perfectly.

I also made this gift tag for a friend's baby shower. It was so nice to have her ask for children's books because I know children's books. I picked out my faves and whipped up this little tag for it.

Happy First Birthday Ward!

Ward turned 1 year old today. I have some cute pictures I will load when I get the chance.

Ward is walking all over the place now and his grandma sent him cowboy boot slippers that he looks super cute wearing. The other kids played more with his toys but he had fun with them too.

His new favorite thing to do is hit me with one of Joffre's hats till I put it on him. He struts around in it smiling then takes it off. Repeat cycle 100 x till Mom has defend herself from the mad hat hitting baby.

He can eat a cupcake in 3 bites by the way. I bet your baby can't do that.

Bow Ties to Be

I am endeavoring to learn to make bow ties for my boys. So I had this great coupon for fabric at Fabric.com and bought some "boy" fabric (I love to use quotes and parentheses in my blog posts). So I got cowboy fabric for Ward and knights for the other two boys. I also got this fun sketchy fabric and a scrap bag with some fun fabric too. I love scrap bags. They make me really happy. i am planning on trying a quilt soon but I am still to scared to cut the fabric. I have a pile ready. Just too chicken. So first I'll try the bow ties.

Happy Birthday Georgie!

Georgie turned 3 today so we had a little pizza and cupcake party to celebrate with a few families with boys his age. It was good fun. He got a batmobile and won't put it down. (He told me he wants to grown up to be batman because he can't grow up to be superman because he has superpowers.) He is having fun with the other presents too. He took a nap with all of his presents on his bed. My husband has run away with the camera but when I retrieve it I will post the pictures.

Garage Sale Finds

There weren't many garage sales today so I also hit the thrift store. I found these blue ball jars to sell. Some cute shoes that fit my skinny feet. And two hard to find books for homeschooling, a Louise Vernon book and an Ed Emberley drawing book. The Ed Emberley drawing books are fantastic for kids learning to draw. He uses simple shapes and step by step slowly builds on them to help kids draw different things.

Cousin Bonni's Visit

So my cousin Bonni came to visit us for a couple days. Her company has a warehouse here which is awesome because it gives her an excuse to come visit.

The kids definitely wanted to keep her. She played checkers, did puzzles, taught them how to be "wheelbarrels", bounced them on her knees for long stretches of time. They were in heaven. I wanted to keep her as a nanny and conversationalist but I think the lack of pay didn't appeal to her.

We visited downtown to show off our waterfall and gardens but mostly just stayed home and vegged. It was nice and relaxing. Georgie woke up this morning and asked for Cousin Bonni, when will Cousin Bonni be back, can we go visit Cousin Bonni.

George's Party Prep

So George's birthday is on Monday and Ward's is on Friday. I am having 3 families ( big families) with kids Georgie's age come over on Monday for just a playdate, pizza and cake. he wants a blue and green cake.

I made another banner and bean bags for party favors. 2 favorite things to make right now ( I know what odd things to be into making.) I want to try making a quilt next.

(Yes, I know George's shirt is inside out and backwards.) He likes to really smile for the camera nowadays. Cute little goofball.

Sewing

I sewed Renata this skirt. It was supposed to be longer and fuller but that didn't happen. She was barely able to walk when it was longer. I want to make her a full twirly skirt next. Hopefully I'll get the fullness right.

I also am endeavoring to learn to sew bow ties for Joffre. I feel bad because I have no desire to learn to sew clothes for Joffre because then it would be serious work instead of fun even though he is the one who needs custom clothes. (I can't even get myself to iron his ginormous pants let alone sew some. ) So I am going to try to make bow ties for the boys and him.

Thrift Store Finds

So I almost peed in my pants when I found this Hermes scarf in the scarf bin at the thrift store. I barely look in the scarf bin but this caught my eye. It felt like the real deal and looked like it . So I bought it for $1.00 and started researching fakes and trying to see if it is authentic. Well, from all I read and saw it is the real deal and worth $200- 300.00. I will be content with what I get on ebay which will probably be $100-150. Very exciting. I saw these made during an art field trip in W. Palm Beach. They are hand printed and it is amazing to see how clean a print those printers can make as well as staying imaculate themselves ( I never was very good at staying clean during art projects.)
Found these boots to try to sell but they are one size bigger than Renata's size now so if they don't sell she will get them. They are fun.
And of course I got some books. I got one of my favorite kids books by Brian Jaques called Redwall Feast. He wrote the Redwall books about animals living in an abbey and fighting battles. I also got a nice ABC book with Walter Crane illustrations from the MET. And a super fun book about tracking animals footprints with this gnomeish looking guy. It's called Crinkleroot's Book of Animal Tracking. watch out otters here we come. The were all a quarter each. i love to get nice ones for baby showers and kid's birthday parties.

The kids and I are getting in the most outdoors time we can before it gets cold. They had fun in the sprinkler. Ward showed off his baby pot belly. The kids pretended to be super heroes who suck up water and use it to fight off bad guys and mama got in a little bit of reading while warding ( heh heh get the pun) off a soaking baby who wanted a hug every 5 minutes. And my baby peach tree got a drink.

Playing store

I have been saving empty food boxes and cartons for math lessons and play for the kids. So today we set up store and I played the cashier. The kids loved it and did not tire of going through the checkout line. They especially liked the beep noise I made of scanning an item for it's price. Ward decided to take over the job of cashier from me and started banging on the keys of our register with glee.

I found a few nice things garage saling today but nothing very exciting. I got myself a couple cardigans, Renata some cute boots, a caulk gun, a great stash of bias tape and zippers for sewing, and some books (of course). Only one to sell though. It was a nice day. Ready for Sunday.

SuperJoffre

I find my kid's playing pretend and giving each other scripts to say in the middle of it. It's kinda weird. A lot of "you say" and "then I say" stuff.
Yesterday I heard one of these scripts and I thought it was so funny I'd share.

Joffre Jr. in a booming voice: All the good soldiers must die!

Renata: Oh no! You will have to save us all!

Joffre Jr to Renata: Say," again."

Renata: ...again.

Joffre Jr. : don, don, dada, don, da, don, da, don, da (his theme song music).

Bow Tied Babe

I can't get over these pictures of Ward in a bow tie so I am going to share.

75 Degrees

It has been Beautiful outside! We have had cool, sunny and breezy days the past 3 days. Today was the best. So wonderful.

I have been line drying my laundry and actually enjoying it just because it takes me outside. Plus I think it looks so pretty to see clothes hung on the line.

I am going to try to not use the dryer this month except for underwear and socks and Joffre's work clothes. His clothes are being dryed so I don't have to iron his pants. No rolling your eyes until you have ironed a 6'9" man's pants. It is a pain! It doesn't help that I don't like to iron either.

Weather really affects my mood. I am dreading winter but loving fall.. ( I still don't know how you do it, Alaina. For those of you not in the loop, Alaina lives in Minnesota. Where it is so very cold for so very long! ) Good weather makes me so productive. I want to sew, paint, plant, and cook like crazy today. Hopefully I will actually get the time to do some of that and blog about it tomorrow.

Sticks

So Ward's new favorite toys are two mice toys that were originally for our cat. They have a tiny rattle to them. So ward walks around the house shaking them. Outside he is a big stick fan and I mean actually big. He finds the biggest stick in the yard and walks around waving it till it overbalances him and he falls. He usually goes about 10 steps, falls, gets up, falls, gets up , 10 steps etc..

Georgie puts two sticks perpendicular and pretends to be shooting an arrow. Joffre Jr. uses the stick like a gun and Renata usually makes it into a fairy wand. Ahh..the joys of sticks.