Meet our new friend, Alpha Rex.
I’m tired and Alan is waiting patiently for me to go to bed, so I’m going to leave you with this for now. I’ll tell you more about Alpha Rex another day.
Alpha Rex
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Author Archives: Tessa
What’s going on?
Here is a peek at what’s going on in our world.
Everything bagel pretzels! A grocery store score!
An obstacle course for the Lego Mindstorm bull dozer Lex planned all week and eagerly built with Alan one Saturday morning.
A mid-afternoon trip to the bowling alley. Lex won both games!
Eve is the world’s slowest bowler, but she has fun with it. :)
Blueberry picking!
We went with some friends and it was a beautiful day.
Eve eventually switched to collecting rocks and wood chips to bring home. Yay, more “nature” for the collection.
We made muffins, which disappeared in a day, and froze a bunch. I think I’m going to make more muffins tomorrow. I could live on blueberry muffins! :)
Poor tired kids couldn’t even make it up the stairs at bedtime.
We had planned a trip to the lake today, but the weather was pretty sketchy so we went to the playground instead.
It started out as a simple puppet show…
Look at what happens to my living room when I have a cup of tea in the dining room with a friend and we ignore the children for awhile! This is a theater, I’m told. I’m sure there will be a more lengthy blog post on this later!
Our new toy
Like the juxtaposition of the old and the new? :)
Doggie pillows
We finally finished our first embroidery projects (started here and here). The kids made pillows for their doggies! Each pillow has a design on the front and the doggie’s name on the back. Mema and I helped Eve with the name side of her pillow, but she did the front and Lex did all of the embroidering on his. We sewed them together with the sewing machine, stuffed them with old quilt batting from a previous project, and I hand-stitched them closed. Don’t look to closely!
A proud crafter shows off his handiwork.
Yes, their doggies names are Alex and Jesus. Can you guess whose is whose?
The designs are kind of vague. Eve’s pillow, in the back, is a flower and some sky, I think. Lex’s is a flower, a sun, blue sky, and green grass at the bottom. Not too bad for design-on-the-fly by first timers! (sorry for the terrible photo quality!)
Lex wanted to rush right upstairs and give the doggies their pillows, but I said, “Wait! What do we always do first when we finish a craft project?” Lex stopped and replied, “Oh yes, we need to take pictures first!” Then he brought the camera upstairs to take pictures of the pillows in use. :)
Alex was “happy and surprised” with the gift.
Jesus thinks her new pillow is very comfortable.
Friday afternoon…
Them playing with someone else’s Legos at the library Legotime, me sitting on my butt reading a magazine. Good times. :)
A skirt!
With more Anna inspiration, I found this simple skirt tutorial and made Eve a skirt! I am so excited and it was SO easy! Eve insisted I make one for doggie as well. Of course.
I started it yesterday afternoon while the kids worked on their embroidered pillow projects (more on those later) and bounced around. I did a bit more after they went to bed. I left it with the hem pinned up and the waistband elastic pinned together so I could try it on Eve this morning and make sure it fits. It did. This afternoon I finished the hem and closed up the waistband and voila! A cute skirt!
A cute skirt.
A fancy waistband.
A snazzy hem.
A shy model.
A silly girl and her doll. (Apparently doggie wasn’t in the mood to wear a skirt today so Kristin volunteered instead.)
More piano hunting
Time is running out and we have many more pianos to find. Splash Camp has been taking up most of our time and energy these days! After camp on Wednesday I had haircut appointments scheduled for them, so we stopped by two pianos in the area as well.
Located in an artsy building, this piano is painted with chalkboard paint and available for decorating.
We all signed our names and left little notes.
This one is my favorite so far. It’s decorated in a “blues” theme, with lyrics and blues history and other decorations. The back (why didn’t I get a picture of that?!) is covered with white tiles decorated by lots of different people to show what “the blues” meant to them.
I like how they have a song written inside the cover. Clearly a lot of thought was put into it. It’s a very well done piano!
Lex’s To-Do List
Mowing the lawn, with a little help from dad.
This picture makes it look like he took off on his own! Really it lasted for about 20 seconds. He helped Alan do maybe a quarter of that side yard. Then Alan did the rest. You gotta start somewhere though, right? He was eager to learn, but tired out quickly. It’s a hard job for a little guy!
After dinner piano practice, explaining 8va and slurs to Alan.
Not bad for a Sunday!
About Lex
I have two thoughts for you this evening, both about Lex.
First, we were out and about this morning for his piano lesson. We’ve established a bit of a routine with lessons, then walking around town finding pianos, then getting bagels for lunch. Today we had gotten lunch and were about to settle on a bench to eat lunch, when this big group of people came up to the nearby piano and started remarking over it. Lex, all on his own, started talking to them! He told them why the pianos are around town and that there was an accompanying Valley Quest. They were interested and responded well to him. He had a little trouble making eye contact and keeping himself facing them, and I’m sure they had a little trouble hearing him, but overall I was completely surprised and impressed with his actions. He was brave (by his standards) and confident and knowledgeable. He is growing up!
This afternoon I encouraged them to do a summer journal entry since we’ve been so busy doing things and they haven’t done a journal entry in awhile. Eve eagerly drew a picture of the Home Depot car at the races, but Lex decided he wanted to make a 3D car instead. He is an ambitious boy! He drew it out on paper, all one piece, like an exploded out top view. If that makes any sense. Then cut it, colored it, folded it and taped it together. Then he experimented with 3D wheels, with no luck, so he resorted to flat wheels attached with fasteners so they really turn. He was so proud of his project! Tomorrow he plans to make an interior. I’m not sure how that will go, but he has ideas!
He went to bed tonight with a to-do list running through his head for tomorrow. Practice the piano, do some Khan Academy, play more of his Transformers game, learn to mow the lawn (Alan’s idea!), make more paper cars, make a paper Nascar race track… there was more I can’t remember now. I know Alan also wants to take him to Home Depot for some project shopping. So much for a down day before Splash Camp starts again on Monday!