Archery

We (Daddy and I) have liked to shoot Archery for a while.  Daddy has had his own bow since he was 16.  We bought one for me about 9 years ago.  My dad gave us 2 old bows he had a few years ago and we love to shoot.

 The challenge we have had is finding a place to go shoot, there aren't a lot of ranges around.   We found one here and the whole family can go shoot outdoors, or in bad weather they even have an indoor range.  It is even pretty cheap for a membership to the club. 

Once again we can go on a fairly regular basis.  The kids even get involved. Buddy wants his own bow, arrows, quiver, finger guard and arm guard for Christmas.  Here he is using my bow.

 Daddy, Buddy and even Scout.

The girls shoot too, but for some reason I don't have a picture of that. Munchkin can't pull the bow on her own, so she requires a lot of help, but she is learning.

Cardboard box

I have had a cardboard box in my dining room for 3 weeks.  It is a house, drum, hiding spot, coloring page, and anything else your mind can imagine.   I love watching creativity and play.

Ice Skating

It feels like the kids haven't had any school this month.  They had 2 days off for teacher work days, the next week they had 3 days off due to a hurricane, the next week they had 2 days off for Parent teacher conferences and now they have one full week of school before Thanksgiving. It is a little crazy. 

I am working hard to keep them entertained.  Last week was ice skating.  The rink here opened already and I packed them up and took them on a Friday morning.  Friday mornings are typically dubbed "homeschool" days.  They open at 10 AM and when we went it was empty, Other than a few people who showed up and skated for about 30 minutes.  We had the rink to ourselves, plus the skate guard was bored and spent a lot of time helping my kids since I was rink-side with Scout. It was in the 50's so a great temperature to play outside. 

Off to the rink - it takes a long time for one parent to lace of 3 sets of skates and try to keep a toddler from running away.

 Snow pants keep you dry and are a little padding when you fall.

 They even had walkers for the little ones to practice.

 Then they fall.

 And stop moving.

 This one on the sidelines never stopped moving.

 Except to sit down and have a snack.

 Notice the skate guard helping Munchkin.  He was great.

Raking leaves

There is something about fall that makes my kids love to play in the piles of leaves.  Since Hurricane Sandy, we have lots of leaves.  There is only one tree on out lot, but the nighbors have lots more.  So we picked up 8 big bags one day and then 16 bags 2 days later. 

 

Too bad there are still more leaves that haven't fallen yet. 

Halloween 2012

Since I have posted here about 3 of the costumes, there is only one left.  Buddy decided to be a storm trooper.  He already had the helmet and My wonderful sister sent me the costume to go with it.  He had some problems seeing out of his helmet, so he took it off when he wasn't at a door. 

 The whole crew already to go get some candy!

 The crew of pumpkins we carved.

 The parent left home had the joy of sitting in the front yard with the fire handing out candy and roasting marshmallows.  It was a good night.

Princess Jelly Bean

Princess was looking at costumes with me on Pinterest.  Out of all the costumes, she picked a bag of Jelly beans.  By far one of the easiest costumes.  The biggest challenge was finding 5" balloons and then blowing them all up.  We spent a good portion of Halloween morning realizing the balloons we had were too small and then running to the store to get more balloons.

We reinforced the top and bottom of a large garbage bag with clear packing tape, cut some leg holes and then cut slits around the top to thread a ribbon.  Tied the ribbon over her shoulders and filled it with balloons.  She loved it but she had some challenges walking and was a little bit cold by the end of the night.  We did end up using clear tape to cinch up the sides so it wasn't so long.  Everyone loved her costume.

Cute little Red Dinosaur

I threw together a super quick costume for Scout on Halloween.  I think it took all of 20 minutes on Halloween afternoon.  I took the tail I made munchin here and then added some spikes to a a red hooded sweatshirt, inspired by this project here.  He was the cutest little dinosaur, though the kids liked to call him a dragon.  (Ignore the mess on the floor behind him, its just some shoes, a jacket, a bag of library books, a belt.....)

Even without the tail, you can't help but love a dinosaur with his blanket sucking his thumb.

His walk was awesome too, that little tail just wagged with every step.

Plus it was a great costume to wear while going trick or treating on Daddy's shoulders.

Quilt #9 Pineapple Table Runner

I think this is the favorite quilt I have made so far.  Even if it is not a typical quilt, but a table runner.  It has 6 paper pieced pineapples and a big expanse of red in the middle.  I actually quilted a pattern in that big expanse.

 It fits great on my new dining room table too.  Though I am not looking forward to the inevitable  food spills.

 My favorite part of this is the quilting.  I finally hand quilted something that has an actual pattern to it.  My stitches are not even, but I did something other than straight lines.  It challenged me.  Ignore the pulling around the binding, I have no idea how that happened, but I am not ripping it out to fix it. There is no such thing as a perfect quilt.

 I like it on the counter best, the light colored counter is a good contrast.

 This is the detail of the pineapples  and each one of those has 28 pieces, so it was a little bit of a challenge to put together.   The result is good though.

Hurricane Sandy 2012

Hurricane Sandy rolled through here without too much damage. We saw some high tides and lots of rain.  The challenge was the days off school.  The kids had 2 days off for teacher work days, then the weekend, then 2 days off for the hurricane and an extra day because the school did not have power.  It was a long 7 days, and I was very happy to send the kids back to school. 

We did get creative and created the kids new favorite game, now called "Family Balloon volleyball"   It is a high energy game and the kids will only play if both Mommy and Daddy play too.  Scout is an obstacle to work around without knocking over.

We also made some balloon rockets on strings, these did not work as well as I would have liked but the kids had fun. 

 Looking at the pictures it is pretty apparent that we didn't brush any hair for most of the day.

Port Discovery and GREAT kids

My kids are totally wonderful.  OK, not every day, but most days.

The kids had off school at the end of the quarter for professional development days.  I decided to have a fun day and took them to the children's museum in Baltimore.  It was great.  It was a Thursday and most kids were in school, so there was 1 school group and maybe 5 other families in the museum all day long. 

This is the story time.  There are 7 kids total, my 4 represent more than half of the group.  The drummer was cool.

 

Soccer time, notice that they are playing together without any other kids.

 

Playing chef and waitress in the diner.  Last time we went the 4 boothes were full and the kitchen was packed.  This time, my kids and one other kid.

 

Depending on whom you ask, Scout's first word was either dog or ball.  He Loved this stuffed dog that was bigger than him.

Scout loved playing with water, he was totally soaked, but he loved it.

 

 Usually I am unable to take Scout in the area reserved for kids under 3 because the big kids aren't allowed in, and I need to watch them.  This time there was no one else there, so all the kids got to play with him.  This was one of my favorite parts.  It was a image projected on the floor and when you stepped on the mat on the floor it changed.  The water rippled with sound effects of water. Then the image changed to fall leaves that moved when you moved your feet, with the sound of wind. It was cool and all the kids got to play with it.

Plus, the kids totally surprised me by not only getting along but also helping each other and watching out for each other WITHOUT being told.  I was shocked.

The museum has a 3+ story climbing fort/treehouse/slide whatever thing in the middle of it.  It is completely enclosed by cargo nets, ropes and all sorts of stuff. completely safe, but if you are 4 years old, being able to look down is a little scary.  The 2 big kids totally helped her, one going ahead and the other behind.  They encouraged her, cheered her on, held her hand and on one point even pushed/pulled her up a rock wall.  It was amazing to watch from the balcony of the 2nd floor as they helped her.  I never asked them to do it, but all day long as we moved from exhibit to exhibit they worked together. 

This is the only pictures that kind of came out.  This is munchkin with a very scared look on her face as she climbs off the structure onto the 3rd floor balcony, notice a brother in front showing her its safe and a sister behind encouraging.

 

She even gave me a very brave smile.

 

After the first few times she got more confident and played freely, but her siblings STILL stuck by her to make sure.  It made my day/week/year.  There is hope that they like each other.

Date night

Sometimes we get a date night away, and then sometimes we get to dress up and go to formal affairs for work.  Sometimes they are even fun. 

It was a good excuse to get my hair done, do my nails and wear makeup.  I don't do that very often.

Fall Festival 2012

 I got to take the 2 little ones to a Fall farm with MOPS. We had a campfire and fed our kids S'mores at 10AM and realized every other mom is doing the same.   It was a small little farmers market but I let Munchkin take some pictures with the camera and she loves that.  I get some cool pictures too.

 

Of course this little one did NOT like the feel of hay and wanted to be off of it as soon as possible. 

Sewing Room / Play room

The kids sometimes want to be near me.  So despite how much I wish to escape into my sewing room, they know how to follow me. 

 They also know how to make a mess and get into all the beads/fabric and other Stuff, and crawl under the table.

Just in case you were wondering, yes I have a huge sewing area now with 2 tables (one was our dining room table before ths week.  My sewing room is normally this messy.  All part of the creative process, or at least that is my excuse.