tidbits

Here are a few little tidbits from my life lately.

1. Patches.

I always fix my kids pants when they get holes in them, unless they're in the back side, in which case they go in the future-levi-blanket pile. If it's summer time, the pants get turned into shorts, if it's still the school year, I put patches on them or something, because I'm not going to buy new pants in the middle of the year...unless none of them fit anymore. (That happened to Josh this last fall!)
Last year, I put big contrasting patches on the knees of all Elora's pants; they were cute for a while, but eventually even the patches were starting to get holes. If I lived anwhere else, I might've been embarassed. Or maybe I wouldn't be, I don't know.
This year, I tried something different. I had seen several patching ideas on pinterest that I loved, and wanted to try. I bought some felt in preparation for Josh's first knee hole, but Elora beat him to it. Because the hole appeared in February, I had the brilliant idea of making a heart, and doing decorative stitiching arount it, combining two ideas I had seen. (I did this style on a pair of my own pants on a small tear at the knee, using blue turquoise thread..I like it, but I have no idea what other people think about it.)
Underneath the felt is levi material, so it's durable. This photo is after it's been worn for a few months and the heart shape is looking more ragged; also the other knee got torn later on, and I wanted it to look different than the first. The thread is actually pink, but the camera made it look more white.  I would've loved jeans like this when I was a kid, and I hope Elora likes it as much as I do.



















Later, I got to make Josh's pants for which I'd planned. I saw this like a year ago, and I've seen other friends try the idea, but I doubted anyone around here would've seen this idea before. It's a similar thing to Elora's pants, but you make a little monster guy out of the rip! Josh loved it, and was showing all his teachers and friends.




















Unfortunately, he forgot my admonition not to crawl or slide around on his knees, and it was already tearing out when he came home, along with the other knee. He begged me to fix it, because he still really liked it so.....it didn't look quite as nice, but I "fixed" it. Ha. At least he'll still wear them.



















2.Puzzles.

 I spend a lot of time fixing things that Eli breaks- it's just the nature of having a toddler I suppose. Books are his most common target (grr), but recently he's added to his repertoir by destrying more and more movie covers. I figured he thinks I'm bored and might like a few puzzles to put together; I got to do these all the same week:



 



















We used to have a door that locked over the movie cupboard, but the door got broken a while back. Someday we'll replace it, but for now, this is what happens!


3. Creating.

When Elora was home during the day, it was easy to get her started on creative projects. If I wanted to keep her busy I could just say, "Hey, why don't you go draw me a pretty picture!" And on holidays and season changes I could always count on her to help me make flowers, snowflakes,pumpkins, or anything else we needed to decorate our house. The boys have been a lot harder to motivate in the creative department. Josh doesn't like to do anything artistic, though he's become a little more confident now that he's done a few things in kindergarten.
Jonah is slightly more interested in making things than Josh, but he won't just do it by himself like Elora; he only wants to draw if I'll sit and watch him the whole time. One thing he does ask to do on occasion is play with the playdoh.
A few weeks ago, he was doing really good making things on his own, and he called me over to see his most recent creation, a little man! I was very impressed, especially since he hasn't really started making figurative scribbles in his drawings yet. Good job, Jonah!




































4. weather

Sometimes in a rural area, the weather is the most exciting thing going on. This April it started to finally warm up, there were hints of green everywhere, and even some of our lilies were starting to push through the soil. Then, we had a snow storm. Of course. As I've explained before, the snow doesn't usually fall in a uniform blanket on the ground where we live. Generally, there are heavy winds along with the snow, causing it to pile several feet high in one spot, while just a few feet away the ground will be bare.
This was a picture I took out our kitchen window, as Elora demonstrated the depth of the drift by our house. Hey, she's wearing her heart pants:

























 During the storm, we took a short video of Joseph taking the garbage out too, if you're interested in seeing that.

http://youtu.be/aypp30leNLA

Isn't our family life so exciting?