Fun day!

So..I get a call Thurs. afternoon from my sister saying she's thinking about coming down.  Her husband was planning to go out of town tomorrow and she didn't want to be left behind yet again.  That and she was tired of the snow already with their most recent storm.  And last but not least (the real reason I think lol) she wanted to see the new niece!  Her husband's sister lives nearby (well sorta, in a city not far from me lol) just had a baby last week.  Her husband's mom is also in town from Oregan visiting the new grandbaby and family.  So long story short, she ended up leaving yesterday and spent the night in Amarillo and made the rest of the drive in today--that's a 12 hr drive with 4 kids (one under a year old) by herself.  I think she's out-down our 2 day drive to Washington when Jesse was almost 2. LOL

I was already planning to go see my mom today.  She was on her way to FL to visit my grandpa yet again and she's always on American, which of course is almost a guarenteed lay over here in DFW.  Since I live close enough to the airport, we just run over there and hang out to visit for an hour or 2 depending on how long she stays.  Well, today, we had a little surprise--she didn't know my sister and kids were coming down so she got a shock when they all came up behind us after she met us.   She was of course quite happy to see almost all the grandkids together. 

Tomorrow my sister is heading over to her sister-in-law's house to visit them and the new baby, and to surprise the other grandma that doesn't know she's here.   (Contemplating tagging along myself to see the reaction. LOL)  She did tell her sister-in-law though, she didn't think it was very nice to show up unexectedly to a new mom's house with a week old baby. LOL  We're providing room and board for a few days, and I'll be taking her to the homeschool bookstore Tues. since that's the day Rachel has class.  She also wants to make a trip to IKEA, but not sure if we'll do that with her, or if the others want to do that since it's up closer to where her sister-in-law lives. 

The cousins are having a ball, although everyone was pretty tired tonight.  They don't get to see each other often, in fact last time we saw them was in early Dec. last year, almost a year ago.  Ben loves the baby and is actually being nicer to her than he was with his cousin Teegan in WA this past summer. lol  Alexis thinks Rachel is IT lol, and Drew takes after Caleb and spent the evening in there playing with Knex.  Jesse has been floating around playing with various ones depending on what they're doing at the time. lol  It's going to be a  crazy busy week, but since Jodie will be visiting other people as well, it won't get too bad. lol 

And I'll leave with this...

Grammy and the crew--that was there.  Caleb didn't go.

The 2 of the 3 Anders 2008 grandbabies  (Ben in Jan. and Leah in Nov.)

Crocheting...

I was asked to write down this little story so, I thought I'd do it here.  It's pretty short, not terribly exciting, but it is sentimental which is probably why I was asked to do it.

Years ago, back in high school is when I first learned to crochet.  I was looking for a new hobby to try.  The lady that taught me was a close friend of the family, Mary.  She and her husband were like adopted grandparents to us.  Ours lived out of state clear across the country and we didn't see them often.  But Dan and Mary where there for almost every holiday, and big occasion such as my high school graduation (along with my real grandparents)  She played the piano at my wedding and even made my wedding dress along with my mom.  At my youngest sisters wedding, Dan was included in the "offical" family pictures just a few weeks after Mary had died. 

Anyway, after the brief crocheting lessons, I gave it up for along time.  About 4 yrs ago or more, I was going through some old stuff in my closet and came across a bunch of grannie squares I'd made in the past and decided to pick it back up again.  I again, was looking for hobby that was easier to manage with small kids.  We were living in the apt. with no place to put up my sewing machine, I'd stopped doing cross stitch long before that, it was too tedious.  But the crocheting was do whenever I had a few spare minutes.  So after several attempts at duplicating the granny squares and some online instructions to refresh my memory (it'd been awhile LOL) I was back at it again.  I remember emailing them with a couple pictures of whatever the project I was doing at the time to show Mary her attempts at teaching me something weren't futile after all.   That turned out to be only a few months or so before she died. 

After she died, Dan let me loose in her craft room and garage where she had TONS of yarn she'd collected over the years and basically let me have anything I wanted.  He certainly didn't need it and was just going to give it all away or something.  I ended up with 4 boxes of yarn and stuff.  I have almost all of her crochet hooks and knitting needles (not that I can DO anything with the knitting ones. lol) and other odds and ends.  I even have a couple unfinished projects she'd started, then stashed away.  They too are knitted so they're still sitting here. 

Much of what I brought back was baby yarn, which is what I've been using to make all the hats for the missionary hospitals our church denomination supports in Africa.  It's also what I used to make a baby blanket for my sister, that I now have back to copy the pattern from.   I still have plenty of yarn to make into hats and blankets.  I've added a couple skeins of yarn I got myself, but majority of it was hers.  I'd mentioned that to the lady from our church who also does hats for the ministry (she's our White Cross contact for our church) and she's the one that wanted me to write down the story.

In other crochet news...  I've set up a goal of sorts.  I want to try and do one hat and one dishcloth a week in addition to whatever other ongoing larger projects I have in the makings.   The dishclothes I can either give away, sell, or even donate to other ministries. (I've heard of some like places that help abused women get re-established on with household things--something like that)  It's a pretty small goal, but considering I usually have several things going at once, it's easy to forget about them.  My closet will thank me for space I'll gain.   If it goes well, I might up it a little.  With that said...here are my latest projects in progress...

These will be pillows.  The teal is left over from a project I did for my MIL and the one I just started (mixed red one) will be mine.  A box full of more colors are on their way including a solid olive one that matches the red (there is green in there if you look close lol) that will match my sofa.  

This is a baby hat in progress, not with Mary's yarn, but a new one I just got recently--I liked the fall colors, seemed apporpriate for the season. It's white with orange and yellow specks

This is the beginning of a baby large baby blanket in the pattern I'm copying from one I made before.  This is a color I've had several skeins of forever so I'm using them up.  I'll probably keep it on hand for a shower gift next time I need one. It's a perfect neutral color for a boy or girl.  It's a quick easy pattern which is why I like it.  I also like the built in border, I think it looks nice when it's done.

Week one down, 33+ more to go...

Our first week back to school was a success!   So far I'm very happy with our curriculum.  The first day was kinda funny... I'd had alot of complaining and whining about starting school.  But then I had to drag them out of their books they were reading when it was time to do the group work! lol  Guess it wasn't so terrible after all.

We are using My Father's World which is a mixture of a literature based, classic, unit study type curriculum.  We have a handful of books, a mix of fiction and non fiction, that are the main part of the curriculum for the year.  Then I have several from the library on whatever topic we're covering that week.  It includes Bible, history, literature, and science for Rachel.  (Caleb does a separate science for 8th grade.)  We read bits of whatever books are on the schedule for the day, then do a project of some sort.  So far we've done some map work, drawn diagrams for science, and they wrote a couple paragraphs on what we've or they've read.  Today they didn't want to do the project in the book (it was more of a craft type thing) so I had them draw and write about something they read on their own from the book basket (library books)--something different than what we did as a group this week.  Rachel did a picture of Mt Vesuvius that buried Pompeii and Caleb wrote a short thing on how the Romans built their roads with a drawing.  They both do the same thing, but I expect a little (or alot depending on the project) more details/more indepth from Caleb's.  There aren't any worksheets and stuff really, just whatever they do with what we've read.  They've taken to it better than I expected, particular Caleb who's older so I wasn't sure what he'd think of the books.  He's devouring one in particular I got from the library. lol  He's also required to read a biography on Julius Caesar that I'm not making Rachel do.

Then we have the usual math, grammar, handwriting for Rachel, vocabulary for Caleb, and I can't think of what else, alot of which they can do on their own unless they need help.  I work with Jesse while they do those things, then after Ben goes down for his nap we do our group work.  After lunch we finish up whatever isn't done and I help whoever needs more one-on-one help before Ben wakes up.  Actually I don't let them eat lunch unless I kow they are completely done with me. lol  That way if Ben wakes up, I know they can finish on their own with him interferring.  Usually that's Rachel with math, and Caleb with something lang. arts related. lol  Aside from having to cram alot into Ben's nap time, it's going pretty smoothly so far.  Granted, the first week was a bit light, but it's enough to get a feel for how it works.  It also has one day of the week that doesn't have much planned to use as a review day, special projects, time for field trips, etc.  I'll be taking advantage of that once they start their classes later in Sept. so I don't have to rush as much to get things done, lunch eaten, etc. before we leave for the afternoon.   

Ms C is back working with Jesse again as of today and that went well also.  For school he's doing Saxon phonics, a math workbook, and handwriting.  He's already ahead in all of them.   He'll be done with the math and handwriting by Christmas at the rate he's going. lol  I was already planning to get him a new handwriting book, it's a preschool one I had before and he'd already done a few pages.  I wanted him to finish it before moving on to the K one.  He's doing at least 3 pages a math a day.  They're pretty easy so far, we'll see if he slows down any as it gets a bit harder.  He likes his phonics workbook, but he's not as fond of the oral parts.  Most of the lesson is oral working on phonemic awareness and stuff (which is why I picked it due to his speech and all)  Apparently that part is a bit boring.  

In other news...there are hints that it's cooling off around here.  Not quite to fall yet, but the day time temps are in the lower 90s and as of tonight, the lows in the upper 60s!  That's very nice to see before Sept! LOL 

I'm also getting another new dryer.  Mine works great but something is messed up with the timer thing and it keeps running forever.  Fortunately the timer works enough to cool down when it's supposed to so I don't bake my clothes when I forget to check it. lol  I could've had them order parts and repair it, but with it being so new, that kinda made me nervous.  If I had the option of getting it replaced, I was all for that!   I wanted to be sure I didn't end up with a lemon or something.   He did say it is one of their best ones and is a pretty new model that hasn't been out long.  It's cheap, very basic, but it doesn't it's job, which is what I wanted.  I'm not so much into all these fancy ones with all the weird buttons and stuff.  I don't want to have to have a college degree to figure out how to run my dryer. LOL 

I guess that's all for this week...  Not sure what's in store for the weekend...  I know next week will be busy.  I have *three* meetings in the evenings.  I'll probably skip one, because by Thurs. I'm going to be done.   But it'll also be a short week.  Chris has both Fri. and Mon. off for Labor Day.  Not sure if we'll take both days off school or not...we could adjust for it since their classes don't start until the first full week after Labor Day.  We'll see how things go and what we end up doing.