Happenings and Projects

I wanted to apologize for the lack of personal posts lately. (And that I haven't been to visit your blogs the last week or so.) I've been busier than I realized I would be:

*My sister is engaged now...happened last Sunday (November 7th) and she plans to have her wedding up by me. So between her working 60 hours a week and not having time and the fact that I live near everything, I've been trying to help figure out the wedding plans...it's starting to come together now and we can relax a little, but there is still a lot of work to do!

*I'm trying to make sure to do a little bit of preschool with the kids...I mostly read to them more (my goal is 5 hours a week, but even that hasn't been happening) and then we have creative time, music time, game time and learning time (where they work on writing/reading/etc.). We try do each of those "times" once a week. Morgan gets a lot of this in school, but I wanted to expand on her schooling here at home :-)

*I've been signing up for giveaways like crazy!! Because I don't work outside the home, I feel like it's my way of contributing. Winning food, gift cards, clothes and toys/books (for presents) helps out a little....plus it's fun just getting those "You Won!" e-mails! LOL! :-)

*I started doing a craft night with my mom once a week (or 3 times a week like last week) and it really feels good to finish a few projects. These are what I have done so far:

This is my first project. It's a book sling for over/next to Morgan's bed. I happened to have more fabric from when her bedspread was made (it used to be mine when I was in junior high/high school), so all I had to purchase were the dowels and the curtain rod brackets.

I sewed it at my mom's one night and put it up while Morgan was in school the next day. I surprised her with it when she came home from school that day. She still asks if I have a surprise for her when she gets off the bus on occasion-LOL!

I also made some curtains for the kids to go with the valences (there are 2 windows) they had from the nursery set...I know it's baby-ish, but I figured we'd stick with the gender neutral farm animal theme since they still share a room. This is the first that they've had window coverings since getting the new windows this summer!

This last project I actually worked on at home without my mom. I spun up a few small skeins of yarn made from raw (unwashed) alpaca fiber. Rich's Aunt and Uncle have alpacas at their place and had an open house that I spun at for 3 hours this past Saturday. I made these up ahead of time for them to display at the open house. (There is a black one too that I had already sent to them before this picture was taken.)

I have a few Christmas presents under way that I'm making for the kiddos as well. I just hope I can get them done in time because I'm really excited to actually make the kids some gifts this year...my mom used to make things for my sister and I-I'm loving being able to do the same for my kiddos! :-)

So that's what has been happening here! I'm hoping to catch up on here this week and visit everyone...so I should be by soon! :-)