My "New" T-Shirt

So the other day I got the itch to work on a sewing project. I scrounged up an old T-shirt I don't wear anymore and started cutting!

I used a VW bug from the banner in Joe's room as a template.

Kaity snapped this picture and the next one.

Here it is, attached, but with no embellishment yet.

To finish it off, I sewed on beads in a simple starburst pattern.

I wore this when we drove up to Helen on Saturday for a VW show. Here are me and the kids in our VW shirts ...

Creative Kaity

The other day, before she'd even had breakfast, Kaity sewed a bag for Joe. She did a great job!

It's hard to see, but she embroidered a 'J' on it in blue thread.

My beautiful babies.

Say What?

My kids go through stages where everything they say is funny to me. They're are without a doubt in one of those stages right now!

Me: Joe, I will pay you a nickel for every pencil you find and bring to me.
Joe: I'd need, like ... Twenty of those to make even ONE dollar! That's too little.
Me: Okay, I'll pay you nothing then.
Joe: Okay, I'll do it for the five cents.

Later the same day ...

Joe: Mommy, you have hair on your toes.
Me: Yes, sweetie.
Kaity: You have hair everywhere on your body, Joe, except the palms of your hands.
Me: And the soles of your feet.
Kaity, matter-of-factly: And of course Hobbits have the MOST hair on their feet.

Kaity's Turn

Last night our church held the award ceremony for our children in the AWANA program. For those of you not familiar with AWANA, it's an acronym meaning Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed, based on the scripture verse 2 Timothy 2:15 - "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." The program is based around scripture memorization and other biblical precepts like sharing your faith and serving others. AWANA in our church ends after the 5th grade, so this was Kaity's last year. She was very excited to have earned the Challenge award for finishing the 3rd book in the Truth & Training level (3rd-5th grade for us), which is technically the highest book our church offers. There is a 4th book, however, for churches who offer T&T for 6th grade, and Kaity worked hard to earn that this year, as well! The award for finishing all four books is the Timothy award and she was the only one to receive it for this year. The exciting thing is that she did it in 3 years! In addition to her awards, our children's pastor presented Kaity with a new Bible.

The awards are actually pretty cool - the Challenge award is like a green glitter "snow globe", and the Timothy award is blue and green oil in water.

My sweet, smart girl.

Oh, Boy ...

I know I just had a blog post about Joe, but oh, my goodness ... that boy! I could write a book on phrases I wish I had never had to say! My new entry for the day is, "Do NOT put a booger in the toothpaste!"

That is all.

Strawberry Fields Forever

I know this is a pitiful excuse, but I haven't posted much lately because our camera batteries died and I can't find the other pair I KNOW we have. I suppose I could buy more, because that will ensure that the ones I already have will immediately turn up. Murphy's law. Anyway, we did go out last Wednesday to a strawberry field to pick our own berries, and I had the camera - complete with batteries. If you have Facebook you've probably already seen these, but here they are anyway, for my virtual scrapbook:

My very first baby girl, who, it pains me to say, will be a middle-schooler this fall.

Daddy and Selah

Joe-schmoe!

Kaity took this picture of me.

She also took this one of her little sister!

This sweet little outfit was Kaity's when she was this age.

Naturally, Joe found the ONLY mud puddle in the entire field.

I made strawberry freezer jam with some of our harvest. It turned out pretty well, I think. I'll be sharing that recipe over on my kitchen blog, Barefoot in the Kitchen.

21st Century

This past week, Jeff and I took advantage of free upgrades available for both of our phones. We've had a lot of fun exploring the new features our phones have, one of which is voice-activated dialing. A couple of days ago, Jeff was playing around with his. He would say, "Call _____." and the phone would respond, "Did you say, 'Call ____?'" to confirm his choice. Well, my number is saved in his phone under "Beautiful" so here's what happened ...

Jeff: Call "Beautiful".
Phone: Did you say, "Call Lynnette Shields?"

I'm sure my mother will be pleased. :)

I'll close with a picture that has nothing to do with today's post, but it's a recent one of Jeff and me. We went to his cousin's wedding on Saturday, so we took our weekly bath early and changed out of our overalls for the occasion.

Joe-Schmoe

Our little boy is such a ham. He's always saying funny stuff, sometimes even on purpose! He just has such a way of remarking on his observations, and the wording he uses along with gestures is pretty comical. Here are a few recent examples:

I made breakfast pizza as part of dinner one night. After tasting it, Joe ventured apologetically, "Mommy, sorry about this, but ... I'm not a big fan of pizza with scrambled eggs."

Having sent the boy to his room to clean, I noticed it was mysteriously quiet. I looked up to see him standing in his doorway. "Joe, are you cleaning up, or are you playing?" In a disappointed tone he replied, "How did you know who I was? I'm wearing a hat and sunglasses!"

And on the subject of cleaning, I sent him upstairs to bring his laundry down so that I could sort it, wash it, dry it, and fold it. As he lugged the hamper down the stairs he sighed wearily, "Being a six-year-old kid isn't easy, I'll tell you that!"

This is a picture from our recent trip to pick strawberries: more on that later!

Easter Egg Hunt

On Sunday after church, I hid our Easter eggs for the kids to find. I have to get more creative every year, because the kids keep getting smarter!

Matching up colors is a classic egg-hiding trick.

Green egg, hidden in a tree branch, also a classic choice.

I like to follow the kids around and take pictures of how stinkin' close they were to an egg without seeing it. I've circled the eggs in each of the following pictures:

 

I love this one! They each had a "special" egg with a prize inside. In this picture they are each standing right next to their own egg! I crack myself up.

Easter Sunday

Well, last night Selah had a fever of 104.8 ... so no church for the two of us today! She's doing fine otherwise, and I'll probably end up taking her to the doctor tomorrow. Her fever is down today, thankfully. When Daddy and the big kids got home from church this morning I dressed Selah up in her Easter dress and snapped a few pictures of my three babies.

Selah was crying so I told everyone else to cry, too.

Done modeling and ready for her nap!