Church Activities

I posted an entry about our church, but the video wasn't uploading with my dial-up, so I had to wait until we went to Mom's house. But it posted it dated by when I started it! So to see the entry, see here!

Digging Area

I thought it might be good to take a picture of the girls using their "digging area" since I always point it out in my pictures of the garden!

Our New Friend

There was a chipmunk on the railing this morning and I called Sarah over to see it. She wanted to go out on the deck to see him. He ran away, but she wanted to see where he had gone. I expected him to be hanging on the back of the tree "yelling" at us, but he wasn't. It took a little while, but I found him, snug in a little nest up in the tree!



We named him Dale.

Recycled Sweater Soaker

Will only had one wool soaker, so if I wanted him to wear a onesie, he had to wear plastic pants over his diaper. I dug out the remains of the felted sweater I used for his longies and set to work making him another pair.



I traced the soaker that he had and then added to the width since the sweater won't stretch as much.

















I laid the pattern on the sweater. I left the extra ribbing at the top to use for a casing. I also used the side seam already in the sweater.

















Here it is cut out.

















I sewed the seams stretching the wool as I went.

















Fold over the top of the ribbing and sew for a casing for the elastic.













Thread the elastic.













Here it is so far.
















I tried it on William.
















I tightened the elastic and sewed a hem on the legs.












All finished!














Close up view.

My Expanding Garden

I got my garden planted on Memorial Day.



It doesn't look like much since all you can see is the red & yellow bell pepper plants (they didn't have green peppers at the store), the tomato plant and the pumpkin.












Different angle











Then Dan said he'd like to have sweet onions. So he added a couple more rows (of passes with the rototiller) to the back of the garden and I planted them. Then our across-the-street-neighbor came over and asked if we wanted any plants for our garden. We said, "Sure!" and Dan added 4 more rows to the side!

Here is what it looks like now! I added about 20 more tomato plants, 40 more bell peppers, and some yellow squash!


(the "fence" is to mark off the area the kids can dig in)

This side is completely new! It has multicolored bell peppers in the back, then tomatoes, and finally a couple more rows of green peppers.
















From the back, we have: yellow squash, corn, pumpkin, red & yellow bell peppers, tomatoes, green bell peppers










From the back we have: sweet onions, watermelon, carrots, lettuce (from volunteers), beets, garlic, more squash (the original occupant, cantelope, died), potatoes (from store bought ones that were growing)

My Budding Photographers

The girls wanted to take some pictures after I took some of William.

These are by Emily:




















And these are by Sarah:

Oatmeal

I was trying to feed William his cereal and he kept wanting to grab the spoon. Finally, I just let him have it. Then I tried to put more food on it for him and he didn't want to part with it. But after a few times of me taking it, putting more food on it, and giving it back to him, he willingly gave me the spoon when I reached for it.

Breakfast Food Playland

We let the kids play in the play area at the mall. It was full of squishy breakfast themed play items.

Quick Tatted Heart

The West Michigan Lace Group is having their motif exchange tonight. I remembered partway through my sock project, so I sat down on Friday to try and design something. This is what I came up with....
(I'm not very happy with the top of the heart. I may alter it a little and make the chains coming from the outside of the heart to the inside longer and join them to the chains with the joined rings in the center)



Anyway, the pattern:











R 12-12 RW
Ch 12 RW
R 12-12 RW
Ch 12 RW
R 12-12 RW
Ch 12 RW
R 12-12 RW
Ch 12-12 RW
R 12+(to previous ring) 12 RW
Ch 12 RW
R 12-12 RW
Ch 12 Rw
R 12-12 RW
Ch 6-6 RW
R 12-12 Rw
Ch 6+(to previous chain) 6 RW
R 12-12 RW
Ch 12 RW
R 12-12 RW
Ch 12 RW
R 12-12 RW
Ch 12+(to chain on opposite side of heart) 12 Rw
R 12+(to previous ring) 12 RW
Ch 12 RW
R 12-12 RW
Ch 12 RW
R 12-12 RW
Ch 12 RW
R 12-12 RW
Ch 9-9+(to top of last ring made)28+(to next ring, etc)24+26+18+20+(to bottom ring)
20+18+26+24+28+9+(to chain) 9
Join to base of first ring.
Tie & Cut

Tatted Cross

I made my traditional graduation gift for our church's only senior, a tatted cross bookmark.

William's First Cookie

Dan was eating chocolate covered cookies and held one out to William. Will grabbed it and shoved it in his mouth.

Orange Drink Anyone?

Emily wanted some orange drink, so I poured her a cup. Later I went into the room they were in, and I saw that Will had an orange wet spot on his shirt. I asked Emily if she had given William her juice. She said, Uh huh"!





His pants were completely wet, too!


















Here is the empty cup. Thankfully, it wasn't totally full!

When Your Church Meets in a Multipurpose Building

...there can be drawbacks and benefits. Like in the winter, the back section was very cold and the front was warm. Now that it is warm outside, the back section was hot and the front section was cool!

Last week, Sarah pointed out that at the end of the playing field was a "pool thing" laying on the floor. Well, it turned out that it was an inflatable obstacle course. After church, the kids had a ball playing on it, helped out by the teens.

Here's Sarah going through.

Climbing up!

Sliding down!
























Emily's turn!
























Sliding down with Steve. I wasn't sure if Emily would like the big hill, but she loved it!


















At the beginning, the teens just carried Emily up because she was too short to climb up the wall. I suggested they help her "climb".













"Big Emily" is helping Emily climb the wall.























Dan went through with Emily.
















































Getting a hand on the climbing wall.
























Dan sliding down.

























Emily sliding down to Dan.














I took a video of the girls going through to show how much fun they had! I didn't think about it, but I shot the video sideways! I especially love the part right after "Big Emily" puts Emily onto the floor.