Crafts, Fun and Brooke’s Birthday

I’ve been trying to get myself back into doing some hand-crafts…my focus being sewing lately. I really love the handmade feel of things crafted lovingly by hand. It warms the heart.

So, I dug out my box of fabric to start sewing some yo-yo’s. Maybe someday I’ll make them into a quilt. So far, I have dark blue and red yo-yo’s as well as some made from homespun ‘primitive’ fabric.

The kids wanted me to make something for them, too. Of course I couldn’t refuse. *smile*

I made Jaycen a Spongebob toy…

…and I made Brooke a Giraffe.

You can’t tell but the Giraffe *does* have four legs. I pieced it together to make it 3-dimensional with a tummy and sculpted head. He’s a bit crooked, so he’ll forever be looking to the right. *wink*

I made them both by hand with no patterns. Just eye-balled it as I went. It was a lot of fun. Jaycen especially loves his Spongebob. It is now right up there with his puppy. He won’t leave his room without it.

  
We got a slew of books from the Library again. When we got home I opened one of them—a large Disney treasury book with lots of huge pictures—and had the kids try to draw one of the pictures themselves. They really had fun with it. This is a small practice for some of the stuff we’ll be doing in homeschooling.

 
We’ve had autumn teasing us with cooler days and nights with lots of clouds (down to the 60’s and 50’s) but we’ve also had some lovely, sunny days. One of those days I took the kids outside and they played with their upstairs neighbor under a sprinkler for an hour. Jaycen was in his Star Wars pajamas. They both got soaked to the bone. It was SO cute to watch them having so much fun.

 
Brooke’s Birthday was yesterday (August 25th) but we got the celebrations started early on Friday night. We rented a fun movie and snuck home this adorable ice cream bunny cake from Baskin & Robbins. It was so tiny and so yummy. We ate it all in one sitting!

She also got to pick out a present within a certain dollar amount. She and I saw this horse first when she walked down the toy aisle. She was immediately sold. It even has hairclips she can wear, too!

 
On Saturday we took them to see the GI Joe movie. We covered their eyes a couple times in some scenes that were a little grisly. But they were both so excited. Yes, they are very familiar with the 80’s cartoon. They’ve even seem the infomercials from the 60’s about the large GI Joe dolls with the to-scale vehicles and gear. They can also sing the GI Joe themesong. It’s cute.

We got them some small (hopefully durable) GI Joe toys from the store to go along with that enthusiasm. Jaycen loves them.

 
Grandma Ann and Grandpa Bill came over last night after we gave Brooke another present…a tiny Breyer horse stable. She loves it. It’s so cute. It has lots of tiny doors and a tiny fence with hinges. And of course mini horses.

Grandma and Grandpa gave her a phonics playset with books and games. I look forward to playing with it with the kids. We hadn’t officially picked up a phonics program for Brooke’s homeschooling this year, so I was excited.

 
Both the kids still have their 2 dollars that Grandma gave them when she came over for Brooke’s birthday. Jaycen likes to play with them at random while making explosion sounds. We’re not sure what we’ll get them with their 2 dollars. Maybe a handful of gumballs at Blockbuster. They sure love those. :)

(hugs) Love you all! See you next time.