RaptorMama

I’m trying to decide between 2 designs for my blanket project. Excuse the *very* rough sketches. 🙂 The bits with the black scallops are seed stitch (bumpy) and the bits without (the middle) are stockinette (smooth). Preferences? Other ideas? I’m leaning toward the stripes personally, but I’m open to other designs. 🙂

Progress so far:

The girls wanted to do a project today do we’re gluing down pony beads. They’re doing the first letters of their names. It’s keeping them way happier than I thought it would. 🙂 Good for their fine motor too.

We took Kate out for a photo session ice cream a few days before her birthday.  She got 3 scoops since she’s 3!

Have I mentioned that she’s now a cowgirl?  I love the boots!

      

She thought it was pretty darn awesome.  🙂

It’s been a busy few weeks around here.  🙂

I just sent out a lot of happy mail.

 

Y’all, I need another project like I need another hole in my head. I can’t seem to help myself though. 🙂 I’ve decided to make another blanket. No reason, I just like them. Mainly because I can only knit rectangular things and it’s too damn hot here to wear a scarf.

Remember the rainbow rice?  I decided it was time for a new sensory tub so we got a few bags of split peas.  (I’m totally copying this from a million other people; nothing original here. 🙂 )  The split peas feel really cool, kind of slick.  I kept wanting to play with it too.  I learned my lesson about doing these kinds of things inside- way too messy!  We took this outside.

Kate loved scooping it, pouring it and trying to carry it across the deck in a spoon.

She also gave some to our dog Ninja.  She was hysterical about it.  She told Ninja very seriously that it was only pretend food and she shouldn’t eat it.  🙂

Scooping peas is serious business.  🙂

I take these pictures every year and frame them in a triptych frame from Ikea.  I have them all hung together and it’s really cool to see how much bigger Kate’s gotten and how much my photography has improved.  The first year I had to have my mom take the pictures.  🙂

Kate wasn’t really in the mood for pictures when we took these, but I think I still got some good ones.  It was a hot out and we had a bit of a walk to get to the location that I wanted to try.  Note to self: get your stuff together the night before so you can leave before it’s 1000 degrees outside.  Next year, I’ll also make sure to paint both sides of the letters.  Kate thought it was funny to mess with me and show the wrong side.  Also?  She prefers the letter A to the letter D.  The pics were almost ADA instead.  Or AAA.  I had a lot of cute As.  🙂

Good thing we remembered our water shoes today. 🙂

We don’t let Kate watch much TV at all.  We’ll have family movie night maybe twice a month, but that’s it.  It’s easy for us since our only TV is in our bedroom.  Letting Kate watch a movie is an intentional choice, and we have to sit with her since she’s in our room.  We like it that way.  We usually pop some popcorn and make an event of it.  Kate gives great snuggles during movie night.  🙂

That being said, we live in Texas and in the summer that’s roughly equivalent to living on the surface of the sun.  Time to broaden our horizons.  Enter the dollar theatre.

The girls and I met Will and Libby one afternoon for The Lorax.  Now, we did have to wake up 3 of the 4 kids (I’ll give you three guesses as to who wasn’t asleep) but it ended up being just fine.  The kids had a blast and it was air conditioned.  Win win.

Today we decided to have a little fun with some chemistry, namely baking soda and vinegar.

It’s pretty simple.  I filled a baking pan with baking soda.

I put some vinegar in a muffin tin and added some food coloring.  The girls requested red and blue.

I used an old medicine dropper to draw up the vinegar.  If you have older kids, they might be able to do it themselves, but I went ahead and did it for them to minimize mess and arguments.  Next time we finish a bottle of baby tylenol, I’m totally saving the little bulb syringe so they can do it themselves.

They thought it was super cool and they were great about taking turns.  I think we’ll be adding this into our project rotation.  🙂

Edited to Add:  I totally thought it was Monday as I was writing this.  Sorry it’s a day late!