FullOfStitches.com blog.A good laugh leaves me in stitches!

I saw a cute doll this weekend and decided to buy her. I have been doing better about not buying spur of the moment.. Yet, she looked so sweet that I went ahead. The Moxie Dolls are a little shorter than Barbie, with bigger heads. Almost a Pullip or Blythe crossed with Skipper. This one was dressed as Alice in Wonderland. And she was passed around and admired by all the children before I could get a picture.

Today (Sunday), the church had baptisms on the beach. On the drive there & back, I was able to try a couple patterns. The first didn’t work on her, but the second.. I finished the bodice during a movie tonight & like it as is, though the pattern calls for sleeves. The pattern is Long Tunic for the free Spirit Amigurumi pattern.
http://sites.google.com/site/designbybethann/home/links/FSLongTunic.pdf?attredirects=0 (I’ll get the links normalized soon, I hope. I haven’t got the HTML memorized now..)

I hope to make her a skirt over the next few days.

It has been a really nice day. I didn’t sleep much last night & the children let me sleep in.

I woke to the phone ringing. My friend Mrs. C- was due to pick up some homeschool manipulatives on her way to a charter school orientation. I’m so glad she called. I hopped out of bed, tossed on yesterday’s dress & ran my fingers through my hair. She was here within five minutes & actually complemented me on how nice I look in the morning!

Inside, TJ had made chocolate pancakes – literally just added a Tablespoon of cocoa powder per cup of pancake mix – that turned out pretty good.

After breakfast, we started schoolwork. I taught the girls their math lesson, but didn’t ever make it to TJ’s. Then I gave them the SWR placement test (TJ, the 6th grader, scored in the tenth grade level). While TJ finished the test (the girls were dismissed as they stopped even trying to spell), the girls made us sandwiches for lunch.
Then I tried to get Little Guy down for a nap. When he ought to have been asleep, I carefully peeked in & found him at the foot of the bed with a screwdriver.. (last week, I injured my foot in that spot on a loosened screw & it still hurts)

After lunch, the children had a swim.. So, MissC & LG are playing on the pool step & LG loses his balance & falls in. MissC’s so concerned that she grabs his leg & pulls him back, but won’t let go.. even though he’s face down in the water.. I pulled him out & thanked her & asked if she’d try for an arm next time so he could get his head up & breathe. (this was literally 5-10 seconds tops between me seeing him totter before he fell in & me pulling him out)

And then, they took the watercolor paints out back & painted. Painted paper, trees, horses, each other.

Then came the scream. I had just gone in the house for something when the Little Guy hollered something fierce. I came running out to him recovering his footing in the (filled in) pond. He had gotten behind it, as I understood, and tripped or slid down into it on accident. He was happy with a big hug, then toddled off. I sat down and painted with the older children, then whisked LG off for nursing. As I sat down, I noticed something red on the back of his knee. Hoping it was paint, I gingerly turned the boy on his tummy and saw a long scratch.

Immediately, I hollered for TJ. I handed him my debit card & sent him to the store for gauze. I cleaned up LG’s leg at the sink, then decided on a bath for the stubborn dirty spot. The bath kept both MissC & LG entertained & I was able to clean the paint off them both. TJ called, near tears that he didn’t know my PIN # & I explained the credit function over the phone. He returned with big bandaids, medical tape & a toy, no gauze. Kids. The bandaids worked out great, though.

Once LG was patched, TJ was late to guitar class. He was due to leave for class when he headed to the store. I dropped him & his bike at class & I headed to the store with the other 4.

LG finally had that nap in the car. I transferred him to the stroller & he slept through the store & continued the nap on the way home. We were able to get diapers (I decided on disposables for the next week to ensure no leakage onto the wound), bandaids galore, & fresh ointment.

We made it back after TJ. The message machine reminded me to have him pack for his weekend away. Once he had most of that together, I took the children out fir Pho. It was so good! & The Incredibles was playing on the TV, so the children peacefully ate & watched the movie.

Now I’ve burned the jam I was making, had a glass of wine & blogged. It’s time for bed. I have to be up in 7ish hours to have TJ catch the bus at 9.

It feels like summer is finally sneaking up on us by the bay. It’s been such a cool summer here that it was beginning to feel like it might just fade into autumn.

School has begun for most of the districts here. Ours has been building up as well, slowly getting a little more done each day and soon we may be doing most subjects any given day. I mainly have two classes, TJ & the girls. TJ’s got 5 years on them, so his math & grammar are more advanced. Science & history are simple enough to do together & have his reports be more in depth.
Hitting 102 set us back, though. It’s too hot to think! School uniforms are currently swim wear & the classroom is the pool.

I believe the words as I entered the house were, “Hurry over here, Jenn. Start singing when I say.. Now!”

Today, as I studied the Well Woman Care module, Ben took the children for a grand adventure. I sat and read up on contraception and cancer. They drove around finding a gift and getting balloons.

With my foot injured, they’d dropped me by the coffee shop this morning, and they picked me up after getting the cake this afternoon.

Now, they’re getting the house decorated & I’m not allowed in. Shh.. I think I’m having a surprise party..

The little neighbor girl had brought a pillow over a while back and asked me to mend it. I was busy with something, maybe Little Guy was having one of his illnesses, and I promptly forgot. I came across the it today and sewed the seam back shut. When the little girl came over, someone returned her pillow. Since we were playing in the sprinklers, she took the pillow home and returned with five more.

I made quick work of them so I wouldn’t lose them in the house.. And they wouldn’t get muddy from the children!

On Monday, I sat down to crochet some stash and was joined by MissA & MissB wanting to learn to knit. I got them each started, and was able to crochet the first skein of yarn into the center star motif of the “Morning Glory” afghan from Circular Baby Afghans. MissA really likes the ‘snowflake’ I made.

Tuesday was lovely, until I injured my foot. TJ helped me make breakfast, we tidied the house, the children played outside, and after lunch we rode our bikes over to the ice cream shop & had ice cream.

When we returned, MissC hurt her finger. I had to nurse Little Guy, so I set her on my bed with her ice pack. Then, I’m not sure what exactly happened! I was by my dresser, turned around and tripped and my foot slammed into a screw sticking out of my bed frame! (How did it get loose? No clue!) It didn’t hurt for a moment, except for pulling it off the screw, and started bruising.. I hollered to TJ to bring me another ice pack & a screwdriver & just sat down.

I bent that screw, I was going to screw it in, but couldn’t. Somehow, though the pain became excruciating for a bit, I got on the bed and put my foot up & iced it for the next few hours (on for 30-40 min, off for 20-30, on, etc) until it was time to get Ben. During that time, I’d managed to crochet up the next skein of yarn and was out of the second color. So, when I picked up Ben, we stopped by the yarn shop for more yarn. Putting on my shoe was incredibly painful (yeah, birth-smirth, a bruised foot hurts!). I’m glad he talked me into 2 skeins – one was just over 1/2 a round too little to finish the pineapple (strawberry?) motif. The next color will be another shade lighter.

I hadn’t planned on finishing the little blanket this week, but with piano class Wednesday: I can sit at the park & crochet while the littles play..

I’ve hurt my foot & am stuck in bed icing it. I was working on crocheting a new little afghan when MissA’s blanket was brought to my attention. She had been playing one day with her siblings and someone had decided the blanket needed bigger holes to see through. Sadly, though i started fixing holes on it once before, the blanket has been in the mending pile since. Today, I got over my matchy-matchy self and fixed the rest of the holes with yellow yarn:

MissA is very happy to be able to use her favorite blanket again.

A simple experiment: light a candle, cover it with glass and time how long it lasts.

Now, uncover, place a plant next to the candle, relight the candle, cover with glass, and time the life of the flame.

Which one lasted longer?
Why?

The children had lots of fun with this. They decided to try doubling the number of candles, too.

I’m terrible about going to the library. At our local library, there are computers with baby games central to the children’s section. Surrounding that are “early readers” that seem to have more about magic and witchcraft than much else. It’s certainly hard to find history books that don’t have children using magic to be in history instead of stories about people (including children) of those times.

I’m leaning more & more to library trips on piano lesson days, but that means the older children, who really need to learn to use the library, would miss out. I’d use that 2 hours to walk to that library, check out the books & walk back.

The other option, which will be more difficult for me, would be to go to the different branches myself and pick one I find the books more accessible, then start taking the children. Maybe on bikes.

This is certainly a learning curve for me.