My Weekend Alone

So this weekend something really exciting happened.

Haley got married!

So Brandon's sister got married and we are all really excited for her.  The kids absolutely love Aunt Haley and they are pretty excited about their new Uncle McKay.  Now the hard thing about this, for me anyway, was the fact that their wedding day was a month before my due date.  Needless to say I had an issue with driving that far at 36 weeks, and flying wasn't an option, so the plan was for Brandon to drive.  At first I thought he was going to be our lone representative but then he started talking about taking the kids out of school so they could be there too.  And then we saw on the school calendar that they had testing days leading up to the wedding weekend so they only had to miss one day of school but were gone from Thursday to Monday.  So then I thought Brandon was going to just take the older two, but of course Britton wanted to go and then I thought I was going to have a relaxing weekend with just me and Bradley.  And then Brandon said, "Why don't I take all four?"  I told him he was crazy but I wasn't going to fight him all that hard.  So Brandon loaded all the kids up and they took off and I spent the weekend by myself.

Here are some pictures of their weekend.

 Their colors were yellow and teal so I made the girls some skirts from this tutorial and then I made ties for the boys and Brandon and the baby.  I made the ties with a pattern from The Ribbon Retreat.  If you have this pattern I have to warn you I've had to play with it a bit.  The first time I made a tie for Brandon I used the insert to make the tie longer and it was way too long.  So for Brandon I have to use the pattern pieces for the 7-10 ages, but this is too long for William.  The 1-3 age tie length works great for Bradley but is a little short for William.  So for William I split the fold in half on the pattern pieces.

 The whole reason they made the trip.

 There was a lot of staying up late, and dancing.

 More dancing.  The kids really like McKay.  I was lucky enough to get to meet him when I took the kids out to my parents for spring break.  And he was great with them then also.

Dancing with Aunt Haley.

So that is how they spent their weekend.  Okay that wasn't everything but Brandon only took pictures on the day of the wedding so I don't have pictorial proof of other activities that were participated in.  Brandon did say that everyone loved the kids.  I think that might be because they were the only little kids there, they are the only grandkids on that side of the family.  That isn't to say that there aren't loved on my side of the family, but the novelty of small children may have worn off a little.  So you might wonder what I did with my weekend.  So here you go.

 Yep, I made a blanket.  But not just any blanket, see here.  It is a lot of sewing.  So spent Thursday sewing, pretty much all day.  I did take some breaks to finish the laundry.  And I got all the baby clothes washed.

And after the sewing there is the cutting through the back layers, rounded the edges, and put some bias tape around the edge.  So that is the last baby project since I put an edge on some swaddling blankets made from cotton gauze.  And for the rest of the weekend I slept as long as I wanted, went to church all by myself, and got the grocery shopping done before they got home.  Brandon now agrees with me that he would have to be crazy to drive that far with four kids by himself.  I don't think he will be volunteering for that anytime soon.

School days

That's right, school has started for us.  Don't they look ready?  Their first day of school was August 2.  Is that crazy early for anyone else?  William only had about 7 weeks of summer vacation.  Basically just June and July.

 Our great big kindergartener.  The schools changed this school year and kindergarten is full day.  Which is great in one way, William picks Caitlyn up from school and they come home together so I don't have to be right there when the bell rings.  So far she is loving it.

 Britton is now talking about when she will go to school.  Two more years of that I guess.

 Third grade, wow.  I can't believe he is in third grade this year.  He loves school, thank goodness.

 Everyone had to have their picture taken.  I love this picture, mainly because it reminds me of Crystal.  For those of you who know my little sister, if she smiles really, really big her eyes tend to disappear. (Love you Crys!)  So this smile of Bradley's definitely comes from my side of the family.

All the kids together on the first day.  Why Britton is wearing long sleeves on a hot day, I have no idea.  And don't you like how Bradley is still in his pajamas?  This happens on a lot of mornings.  Britton and Bradley are trying to come to terms with being the only ones home.  I'm hoping that they figure out how to play well with each other.

Sunprint Shirts

So about four years ago I was flipping through channels while waiting for Brandon to come  home from work, something I still do, and I got caught up in some crafting show on PBS.  That is what happens when you only have over the air channels, but luckily PBS had four digital channels.  Anyway, I saw them do this really cool thing with fabric paint.  So I got some and we made shirts at a family reunion and then I promptly forgot about them.  When we moved I realized that I still had them, and I thought that this summer might be a good time to use them again.  And I managed to use them twice.  So money well spent right?  I may have to actually try using them as fabric paints instead of just doing the sunprinting but for now that is all I have used them for.  So here you go.

Okay, so first things first.  The paint is Setacolor Transparent fabric paint.  I found it at Michael's, but I don't remember how much it was.  Only the transparent colors will work, from what I have read.  I have four colors, red, yellow, blue, and pink.  I bought the pink because I couldn't mix pink.  But you can mix the colors together and it works just great.  If you are doing sunprinting you have to water the paint down.  I read somewhere that it was suggested a 2:1 ratio, water to paint, but you can water it down as much as you want the colors just won't be as vivid.  Then you need something to paint, natural fibers suggested.  I went out and got a couple of packs of undershirts so the kids could do this a couple of times.  Wash whatever it is you are going to be painting.

 Here is my watered down paint.  Since I was making shirts for Independence Day I was just using red and blue.

 My washed white shirt.  Inside the shirt I have a piece of cardboard with a plastic bag over it.  This is so the paint doesn't bleed through.  And you have to wet the fabric down before painting.  So I just sprayed it really well with a spray bottle.

I have no pictures taken during the actual painting process.  The watered down paint and the damp material makes the paint spread and bleed.  So it gives it a tied dye effect.  But you can leave more white between sections.  I was working fast because Brandon was at work and the kids were all over the place.  After you paint you make a design with whatever, I spelled out USA in pennies.  Press your design into paint so it sticks.  If you are using paper designs you may have to place something heavy on them if it is windy.  And then you put it out in the sun.  It can be done inside but it works faster outside in the sunlight.

 The coolest part, where you have placed your objects turns white.  The paint is drawn to the sunlight.

 So here is the whole design.  Not really fancy, but I had some unsupervised children whilst I was doing this so I went for simple.

Naked baby "helping" is completely optional.

We did shirts twice this summer, I mostly did the USA shirts by myself, and we had friends come paint with us one day.  And I took absolutely no pictures of that process.  But here are a couple of our shirts after.  We used stencils and craft sticks and canning lid rings.  Britton had used lots of colors on her shirt and then spilled the blue paint, so that is why the one shirt is mostly blue.

Once the paint is dry you heat set it, they suggest an iron but I have found that if you throw them in the dryer it works just fine.  Of course I tried to make a couple of shirts and wasn't happy with how they turned out, so I washed them in super hot water and bleach and the paint didn't budge at all.  So the paint has staying power.  And it doesn't feel like a painted shirt so it acts more like a dye.  So there you have it.  And the paint was still good four years after the purchase.

Summer Days

Well, we didn't disappear I promise.  So this is going to be a quick recap of our summer, I know it is August but our summer vacation is over because the kids have been in school for a week.  More on that latter.  Hopefully I can keep this short and sweet.  Fingers crossed.

Big excitement for June, Caitlyn learned to ride her bike without training wheels.  We knew she was ready and she told us she was ready, but the day we headed out was full of tears and screaming.  Once we got her to calm down and talk to us we learned that all of that emotion was connected to her memories of William learning to ride her bike.  She was convinced that if you learn to ride a bike you get hurt.  We had to tell her that most people don't break their arms when they learn to ride without training wheels.  Within an hour she was riding.  I of course have no pictures, they are on Brandon's iPod and I am too lazy to find them.  She even survived her chain coming off mid-ride which caused a small crash.  But she has made some long ride, she rode with Brandon while he ran and they went 4 miles or so.  Also in June we had three days in a row of 100 degree weather, which we were told never happens here.  The kids were already all sleeping downstairs, because we have no AC, and I spent some time down there also.  Brandon had some really long hours at work that week because there was a horrific fire west of town.  But we made it through June.

Bradley had a birthday to start our July.  I can't believe that he is two.  He is a funny kid, he really likes to make people laugh.  He still isn't too sure about people, of all sizes because he doesn't really like to be around small kids he doesn't know, so nursery has been really fun.  He has gotten better and halfway through July he decided he wanted to go to nursery.

 Opening presents in the middle of our heatwave.  Bradley developed an aversion to clothes for a couple of weeks because I wouldn't make him get dressed right away and he wasn't sleeping in pajamas.

 Angry bird pizza for our birthday boy.

 I just love his expression after he blew out the candles.

 The kids decided that he needed his own hooded blanket so we found an angry bird one.  Of course William and Caitlyn also picked out an angry bird stuffed animal for him.

Did you notice a theme?  I decided to take it all the way and made angry bird cupcakes instead of a big cake.  The kids were impressed, at least they acted impressed.

So you can imagine that the city had a ban on fireworks during the fourth this year.  I think the whole state had a ban.  We didn't do a whole lot for the holiday because Brandon was still working an off schedule, not 12-14 hours but more a normal morning shift starting around 3.

 But we did shoot off William's baking soda rocket.  It is the little blue and orange thing at the top of the picture.

Everyone got a turn.

 We also went to the park.  A longer bike ride but we all made it alive.  Brandon seems to think it is funny to say "let's go for a family bike ride" and get me out on a bike.  We went on one last week, when I was almost 34 weeks.

 Willing to spend time with the family when I'm sure he wanted to just sleep all day.

William on a rock.  

I did make shirts for the fourth this year, that will be in another post.

To finish off our July we had visitors.  Brandon's mom came out to spend a week with us.  The kids were really excited to have her there.  Bradley kept his excitement for the middle of the day, he wasn't very sure in the mornings and evenings.  And of course I managed to take very few pictures of the things that we did.  We showed her around town and tried to have a memorable time.  We did take her to the zoo and we finally made the drive up to the Monument to the Sun above the zoo.  Brandon ran up to it during his 5k but didn't go in and we had been meaning to go up there.

 At the zoo they had some teenagers doing face painting.  All the kids wanted to participate and once Bradley watched the others he was excited for his turn.  I was amazed that he sat so still for so long.  But here is our little tiger.

At the top of the Monument to the Sun.  An interesting monument, the land was purchased by a man who wanted somewhere for his ashes and the ashes of his wife to be interned.  During the building of the monument Roy Rogers, who was good friends with this man, died and his friend decided to name the monument after him.  As you climb up the steps inside the monument the walls are covered with pictures of Roy Rogers from different points in his life.

The very last week we had cousins visit.  Jacob and Hannah came to stay while Cami had camp but I got absolutely no pictures of that.  The kids had fun playing with their cousins and were sad that they had to go home.

So there you have it, the capsule version of our summer.  We did spend time at the pool and the spray park and I had a few doctor appointments.  For the first time ever I am measuring ahead of schedule, but not far enough ahead for them to change my due date.  And now the kids are back in school.