Future Tatting Pattern Designer

Emily was watching me drawing sketches to design new patterns for my new tatting book. She asked if she could do one.






This is her sketch for a tatted Mommy pattern.
I think I have a designer!

UPDATE to previous post!

On my way to church this evening, I thought of another location I may have saved my tatting book. When I got home, I checked and it was there and it has 11 more patterns than the one I had before!! So I don't have as much to do as I was thinking! What a BIG relief!

Huge Setback

Well, I decided to try and get my new tatting book finished up in the next couple of months. I had a few more patterns to test tat and then type up the patterns and I had a couple of patterns I wanted to tweak. However, when I went to open my file, it said it was "corrupted" and couldn't be fixed! I had it saved in 3 different locations in different stages of completion and the only one that I could open was the smallest/earliest version! So I have A LOT more work to do! I think I have most of the handwritten patterns, although I can't seem to locate the original spiral bound notebook that I started with, so there may be some in there, too. It's been so long since I worked on it, I'm really not sure. So big bummer on that front!

Snow Fun!

Andrew loves to shovel snow! Almost every time he sees me getting my boots on, he grabs the shovel and tugs on his coat, wanting to go with!

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Since the snow was a little more able to be packed yesterday, I made a snowman. William said it was him.

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We had gathered stones for a face before the snow came and the girls dug through the snow to find arms.

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This morning, Sarah said he needed a hat and scarf.

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Here are some pictures from before Christmas when we went sledding at Grandma & Grandpa's

Andy getting a ride over to the hill

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Climbing up to the top of the hill

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going down! I like how it caught Sarah mid jump onto the sled!

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This is actually William and me going down, but you can't see him.

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Here is the only "proof" Will went down the hill since he only went the one time.

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Me pulling Andrew

Dan pulling Andrew!

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The girls going down.

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The girls portaging back up!

Andy and me going down.

Kids and Cameras

The other day, Emily came with the camera and said she wanted to take our picture.

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Then she had William climb up on the couch, too.

After that, she left. I sat there a minute and then realized she'd brought the camera with her.

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I found them in the bathroom taking pictures of boots on the toilet.

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When I downloaded the pictures off the camera, I found that she had actually had the camera for about 15 minutes before bringing it and taking our picture on the couch! There were 70 pictures! Some were obviously taken by Emily and others by William and still others, I have no idea!

Here is a sampling of the pictures they took:

Sarah's New Nightgown

Sarah has complained that she didn't have a nightgown, so I looked at Goodwill and didn't find any. I went downstairs today to see what I had available in suitable fabric. I found a blue floral flannel that I had gotten at Goodwill before for $2.29 for ~3 yards. I sat down to make a pattern for a nightgown and realized I'd have to wait until I could have Sarah to measure! So after dinner, I made the pattern and sewed up a nightgown for her. It isn't very elaberate and didn't end up as big as I expected, but she was glad to have it and asked if she could wear it to church on Sunday!





front view

back view

Laundry Day Mystery

Friday when I was doing my laundry, I started to fold my light colored load and found this:




It looked like gold flecks and I thought some sort of paint pen, but we didn't have any as far as I was aware.

I found about 2 dozen items with gold splotches of varying sizes.

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Then I found the culprit!

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I have no idea where the copper crayon came from as I don't recall seeing one in recent history!

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It was hollowed out.

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I hand scrubbed the things with Dawn dishwashing soap

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The boys liked checking on the laundry being washed in Dawn.

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The after isn't so great, but better than before. I may try again, but it will have to wait!

Sarah's Bag

Sarah has been working on a loom knitting bag off and on for awhile. She said she wanted it to be as big as a backpack, but I told her that the loom she was using wasn't big enough around to be that big. So she decided it was big enough!




Other than small assistance with a few things, Sarah made this bag all by herself!

















Sarah with her bag.

(I tried to post this earlier, but the pictures I had taken had somehow disappeared from the camera)

Happy New Year!

We ended 2010 with a warm spell.






On Dec. 31, 2010 at 4:00 in the afternoon, it was 49.3°!



















This is how much snow we had at 9:30 in the morning on January 1, 2011!

Extended Family Christmas

The extended family Christmas was at our house this year.





Grandpa reading the CHRISTmas story.


















































Grandma with Peter and Andrew











































Emily got a shirt that said "EMILY" on it.













She LOVED it!













































































Sarah opening the crocheted purse from the Arizona part of the family



















Will with the car from the Arizona part of the family













Here are all the Michigan cousins with the gifts from the Arizona cousins.






Andrew is making motor sounds for his truck.

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I didn't take any pictures of the meal, but this is dessert.

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Grandpa and Grandma made cute little mice for our dessert.

My brother with his mouse by the tail.

Eating his mouse

William fell asleep leaning on Grandpa's shoulder. (With 20 other people in the house talking and playing!)