Making a Model Plane

The Scout Master bought a snap together model kit and he and the kids put it together this evening. Kyle loves war so this war plane was right up his alley. Emma loved the mechanics of it and popping the pieces out of the little plastic grid. Bee tried to help but, well......mostly got in trouble....so she helped me take pictures and played along side them as they worked. They were able to get it all put together without fighting or yelling, which was really great! Then they took it downstairs to display it on the Scout Master's computer desk. But first they posed for me to take their picture with the finished project.

The Scout Master explaining the parts and their position.

All done!

My kids sure are cute. But Emma looks especially pretty in this yellow shirt tonight. She is sure to grow up to be a "looker." Notice that she is the only one in the family not in her pajamas.

Guess What!!

I got quoted on this blog. I am the 3rd quote down (SewsCute).

I getting pretty famous!

Yes, have a good laugh over that.

Really love Melissa's blog. I get inspiration from her for my home in almost every post she rights. Wish I was as on top of it as she is. Maybe this will be my year, but I doubt it!

President Lincoln's Birthday Party

Today the Center for History had a special members only birthday party for President Lincoln. We had lunch, cake, and the kids got gift bags (inside of which were dominoes, wooden tops, feathers, cup and ball game, and other toys from the time period). They also got hats to wear, which they thought was just great. After lunch we did a scavenger hunt inside the "Lincoln, The Man You Didn't Know" exhibit. We also entered to win a few door prizes and we each had a guess at how many "Lincolns" (pennies) were in a mason jar. We will win a gift certificate to a local restaurant if we get the closest. We had such a good time. It was free for members and they put on a really great time for all. We even got a large lithograph portiat of President Lincoln, which I am going to have framed for Kyle's room since he loves the Civil War and President Lincoln so much. I have an idea for decorating his room that involves a Civil War theme. We'll see how that pans out later. Here are some pictures of our party adventure.

Bee modeling her hat.

Kyle with his hat.

The Scout Master and I with our party faces on.



Kyle and Mommy

Later that evening we met up with family to have a pre-Valentine's Day dinner out. Grams and Gramps, Grandma and Pappy, and Aunt Audrey and Uncle Jason joined the 5 of us to make our party. We laughed and ate and ate and laughed. A fun time was had by all. I don't know why I didn't get more pictures then I did. Must have been to involved with the gigantic onion rings or chasing the kids from the "game" room back to the table. Here are the few I was able to get.

Gramps and Grams! Love them so much!

I told you they were gigantic!

Kyle wearing Gramps's hat and looking adorable.

For some reason I didn't manage to get one picture of Emma the whole day. Sometimes she hides from me or takes bad photos on purpose! That girl!

Service

I've been so busy. The call went out to our stake for 100, 90 x 90 quilts for the Church humanitarian efforts. They were completely out. We had to have them all done in 2 weeks and our ward was assigned to get 16 done. I went to work right away, using some fabric for tops that I had in my stash for close to 7 years at the least. When I started thinking about how long I had those fabrics I was amazed at how fast the time - space continuum gets as you get older. What the heck? Really 7 years have gone by that fast? Wow.

Wait what was I saying? Oh, yea.

I was happy to put this fabric to good use. Shortly after I got these two tops done we found out that all the fabric and batting had been donated and all we needed to do was pick it up. So I used the donated fabric for the backs of these quilts and the batting too because it was already cut
90 x 90 for us! I also did one up from fabric that was donated by another fun lady in our ward. So I did 3 myself, excepting the tying part. But I had a hand in that as well, I just didn't do it alone. Each quilt had to be 90 x 90, have a 1/4 inch seam around the edge and another seam at 1 inch in. Then it had to be tied every 4 inches. I was working vigorously and Wednesday, Thursday and a few hours on Saturday were spent in the church gym working on these large, fluffy double size quilts. They were a bear to get through the sewing machine for the 1/4 inch seam and the 1 inch seam as well. Had to make sure that all the fabric laid just right and practically had to strong arm them through the machine. Good thing my machine is a heavy duty one! It went a little easier if someone helped guide the quilt as well, and it went better when I had a large church table to work on!

Here are some pictures of tops that I made from my stash fabric. Just to give you some idea how big these actually are it takes 5 yards of fabric to make the top and 5 yards for the bottom.

Noah's ark fabric.

Just cute little country bears and
on the green is quilting baskets.

The final count turned in by our stake was 104. That is going to touch a lot of lives for just a few hours of work.

Perks

The Scout Master's new job has it's perks. His company co-funded a new traveling exhibit on the Hubble Space Telescope. So we were invited to be some of the first to see it. We traveled a few hours to Science Central who opened early for the employees of the funding companies. We had such a good time. We did all sorts of fun things. Our favorite ended up being this climbing wall with "window." We also went into a blow up planetarium (looked like an igloo) to watch the winter night sky rotate around us while picking out the constellations. If you know the Scout Master at all, you know that he is in love with space and all the science and technology that goes along with it. So he was in heaven. We even met some influential people from the Goddard Space Flight Center (The Scout Master's dream come true).

The kids in the "window" on the
climbing wall.

The Scout Master riding the bicycle in the sky.

The official Ribbon cutting ceremony
for the exhibit.
The first two men from the left are
Martin Fisher (director of Science Central) and Russ (can't remember his last name
to save my life) from Goddard Space Flight Center. More on him in a minute.
See the little scissors in the right hand corner? That's the Scout Master's boss.

Bridget and I in the
"window."

As a result of our kids being so super cute, right after the ribbon cutting ceremony the Scout Master went right up to Russ (can't remember his last name to save my life, even though I have tried to look it up on the internet) shook his hand and started up a conversation. He adored our kids and asked to have his picture taken with them. He got several and I didn't even get one. I really should have gotten on in retrospect. I just didn't want to seem to forward at the time. Our kids liked him too because later they sat through his one hour lecture on the Hubble Telescope and the largest clean room in the world at the Goddard Space Flight Center. I learned so much from his lecture. I can see why the Scout Master is always in awe of space flight and the technology that goes along with it. We had a great time. Thanks USSI for giving us this perk.

B's First Braids

If you need to know one thing about Bee it is that she HATES to have her hair combed. I mean starts yelling "ouchy" when she sees the comb. Then she usually thrashes about with her hands over her head, trying to block you, until the whole thing is over. The detangling spray gets more on her arms then her hair. It's actually very funny. I laugh almost every time. Poor girl, her hair is just thin and it gets all knotted and tangled without even trying. But for some reason I was able to get her to let me work on her hair a few times this new year. Here were the results the first time.

A single french braid.

And here was the next time. She sat still long enough for
me to do two! So cute!
She totally posed for this picture!

When we were done both times. She went around showing everyone (me, Kyle, The Scout Master, Emma, the dog and some stuffed animals) how pretty her hair was. So I know she likes it. Too bad when we go out she ends up rubbing her head on her car seat or the church pew and it all comes undone. But it sure is cute while it lasts!

Playing Catch Up Yet Again

Granny's visit was great, though I have to say that I feel pretty bad because she watched the kids and did my laundry while the Scout Master and I went places and worked on projects. But it is what she truly loves. She is a home body for sure and it was nice to run out without having to take the kids everywhere and have to worry about what time we had to hurry back to the house. I will publicly apologize for the INSANE amount of laundry that there was. You know how it is when you clean up the kids rooms and you see that they have stuffed the dirty clothes everywhere! I am sorry Granny, but you did a great job and it was very very helpful to me. Just don't tell anyone that your whole vacation was spent babysitting kids and doing laundry! Though before we took Granny back to the airport we did get a private tour of an historic home that is part of The Center for History near were we live. Couldn't have asked for a better time there. We got to see thing that people usually don't see because of our great tour guide and the fact that we are the only people at the museum that day, besides the workers.

We took Granny back to the airport on the 2nd and got her all checked in, then headed home again to real, no built in babysitter life. Then next afternoon I taught RS. At least now it is our ward's turn to have church in the afternoon. That means we get to sleep in on Sunday mornings and still make it to church on time!

The weeks of this new year have just started to slip by faster then last year's did. Emma is a Brownie this year and one of the Leaders quit so that moved me and another mom up to leader positions. I am unable to go to the classes so I just help plan and help run the meetings whatever they want done. I like it that way. Along with Brownies comes the thing that has been consuming our lives and will until March 9th. Cookie sale time. We have done 2 booths and taken orders until our heads have spun but still we need to do more because we haven't really sold that many.

I've even already started and failed a diet. But then again I have been somewhat sick for the past two weeks. Nothing major just uncomfortable. Curse you genetics, curse you and your tricky way of passing on the unpleasant.

We've been sledding (sorry no pictures, didn't want my only camera to eat snow and get ruined) but it was a fun time and the kids were so cute. B's inter tube accidentally got pushed down the hill, with only her in it (up to this point an adult had gone down with her each time). The Scout Master caught her at the bottom of the hill and she was laughing and giggling and thereafter refused to go down with anyone else. Once I pushed her down the the waiting Scout Master and by the time she got to the bottom of the hill she was asleep!! Funny girl!

I think that should bring you up to date with our goings on around here. Hope you have a great day.