Sweater and Belt

I've been spending a lot of time on Pinterest, and I finally made two of the things I had pinned.  I like fabric flowers, and I really like these because they were super simple and I think I can probably do other things with them like hair clips and headbands, which my girls wear every day!

To make the flowers, you cut a 1 inch strip of felt and cut little strips in it without cutting the whole way through.  Then you just roll it up and glue every so often to hold it together.  How simple is that?!

The belt is just ribbon and you hot glue a felt piece around the belt to attach the flowers to.  Then you cut green leaves out of felt and glue them in to cover any exposed felt underneath.  Here is the original tutorial.

I also had pinned this sweater.  I really like these cardigans, but I never want to pay for them.  I bought some really nice knit and put it together!  I had to redo the sleeves to fit my arms into them.  That girl must have tiny arms because my arms aren't that big!  My knit didn't have a lot of stretch in it, but still, that was ridiculous.  Sorry the picture isn't better, a 5 year old was operating the camera:)

It was fun to make these things, and now I am excited to make some more things that I pinned!  I have lots of stuff I want to do for Christmas.  We'll probably skip right over Thanksgiving:)

Pumpkin Day + Muffin Recipe

Today we had Pumpkin Day.  It was school and pretty much all we did.  We learned some facts about pumpkin, read a fall book, and the girls helped me do all the pumpkin things, finishing it off by making pumpkin muffins.  Joel brought home two neck pumpkins yesterday, which really makes a lot of pumpkin puree!  I had this much to puree:

Praise the Lord for my food processor!  I got 15 one-cup bags of puree out of this.  I'm taking some to Randa.  Let me know if you need any!  It is incredibly hard to find pumpkin in the store, which is why I started this.  I also learned today that some people have a skin reaction to the enzymes in pumpkin flesh.  Including me.

It made the palm of my hand kind of swell up and crack and the skin all flake off.  I lost all sensitivity in my fingers for about 1/2 an hour.  It was weird.  My hand is pretty much back to normal now.  You can still see little spots of dry skin on the tips of my fingers.

We made pumpkin chip muffins to use one bag of our puree and to celebrate all of our hard work.  They are really good!  I used bittersweet chocolate chips instead of cinnamon, but I'm sure cinnamon chips would be great too!

1/2 c shortening
1 2/3 c flour
1 c sugar
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
2 eggs
1 c pumpkin puree
1 c cinnamon chips

Cream shortening and sugar.  Add eggs and combine well.  Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Add pumpkin and mix.  Add chips and distribute evenly.  Grease or line muffin tin.  Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

Pretty simple and delicious!  The girls enjoyed pumpkin day very much.  Pnut especially is a big fan of roasted pumpkin seeds.  I think she just likes the salt!  Pumpkin candles smell better than pumpkin roasting in the oven:)

Afternoon Art

We've been continuing to draw every afternoon after nap.  We found a drawing animals book for 50 cents at the Goodwill Bargain Room the other day so we started with the first page of that today.

It's fun to get to spend this time with the girls every day and see what they imagine and their personalities come out in the drawings.

They talk to me a lot while they are drawing, which I hope will help our relationship later and they will continue to talk to me.  They talk to me a lot anyways, but they really enjoy this time and are able to express their feelings and imaginations while they are drawing.

Sometimes we make Someone stay in his bed for a little while after we hear him wake up as he likes to ruin the fun.  He is anti-drawing time.  The problem with drawing time is if we are looking at papers and pencils, we are not looking at him.  He does like to be the center of our universe!

Sometimes I have a hard time thinking of things to post so if there isn't a post one day, that is why.  Our days are relatively similar so unless I am crafting something or have something I am really thinking about, I don't always have something to say:)

How has this happened?

First Field Trip!

We went on our first field trip today with our homeschool group, and it was really neat!  We went to a local orchard and started out with a hayride out to the apple orchard.  They also have pumpkin patches out there, and we each got to pick a pumpkin.  We put those back in the wagon, and then we got to pick a Fuji apple off the tree and eat it still warm from the sun.  Of course, we ate them after we polished off the natural coating that serves as an apple's sunscreen.  I learned stuff too!  That was one of the best apples I have ever eaten!  Then we continued our hayride around the whole orchard until we were back at the outlet store.  They showed how they shine, sort, and store the apples.  Then we watched a movie about Johnny Appleseed and drank cider and ate pretzels.  There was also a small hay bale maze, and the girls each got to bring home coloring pages.  On Thursday, we will be able to pick up packets for further learning.  It was really neat!  Of course, I forgot the camera.  LB was on my back in the carrier for 2 hours, and he did really well, but my back was tired by the time I took him off!  We did go into the "Apple Store" as the girls refer to it to buy some apples, pears, and cherry cider, which is our favorite.  We've been going there since Pnut was a baby so it was really neat to see how things work!  You can go to the orchard and pick your own apples, and it is $1/lb for the first 50 pounds, which is a fair price.  Plus you get the experience!  Maybe next year when LB is a little bigger we can try it!

Elephants

The girls and I have been drawing the past two days.  On Pinterest, I found these fun step by step drawings for three animals.  Yesterday we did the turtle, today the elephant, and tomorrow hopefully we'll get to do the bird.  I thought the girls' turned out so cute so I took pictures of them!

Aren't they just too sweet?  I also think that Pilly may learn somewhat similar to the way Pnut does, which is a relief to me!  She just watched me, and then she did it!

Really, another picture?

Identity

I've been thinking a lot about identity and where I get mine lately.  It was neat because I was already thinking about it, and then it came up at church and in Sunday School a few times.  I really struggle with (and this is going to sound silly) people not knowing that I know stuff, that I did well in school.  I think part of this is because I am "only" a stay-at-home mom.  I am not proving my intelligence in anything.  I also think this is because when I was in school, that was my identity.  I pushed myself to do very well, and both of my sisters and I were expected to do well.  When my uncle would come down, he would always tell us how well my cousin was doing in school.  Randa was compared to how well I did the year before.  So intelligence was important.  And then once I started staying home, it really meant nothing.  I still know (most of) the stuff I did then, but it doesn't come into play very often.  I think it bothers me most with men.  I want them to know I graduated __/__.  I got x A's and x B's and no C's. 

So where am I going with this? 

I don't want that for our children.  And it totally would be for Pnut if she were in school.  She is similar in personality to me, especially in her feelings of responsibility, which is partly what drove me.  I want their identity to be in Christ, to know that He gives them their worth.  And I'm not saying that this doesn't happen in public school, but I do think that it can be harder to foster that in the naturally competitive environment of school.  Humans are competitive.  We want to win.  I see this in Candy Land for goodness sake. 

I want them to learn "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."  (Micah 6:8)  Humility doesn't come easily, but being wrapped up in something like good grades makes it even harder, as is evidenced by me still thinking of this 8.5 years after I graduated high school.  But if they are able to find their identity in Christ and that affects their whole outlook from an early age, maybe it will be less of a challenge. 

So how do you struggle with getting your identity right?  There are other places I try to find it, of course, it just has been coming to my mind a lot lately about this. 

I don't feel that I wrapped this up well or even made particular sense!