Today was a beautiful day!
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A tiny LEGO sewing machine
Lex wanted to make this post himself, but I’m tired of waiting for him so I’m going to do it. He likes to talk about blogging, but so far he shows very little interest anything that involves much typing. I’m thinking about teaching him to touch-type. Do they still teach that in school? I was taught in high school, but I know kids these days are learning computer skills much earlier… but I digress…
Last week when my sewing machine was out and on the table, Lex started wondering if it would be possible to make a real working Lego sewing machine. We decided probably yes, but it would be hard. He decided he wanted to make a Lego model sewing machine instead, non-working. The next day, completely unprompted (great minds think alike!) Anna sent me a link to a Lego sewing machine tutorial. How timely! Lex was thrilled!
A day or two later Lex got to it on his mental to-do list and off he went. He made a few modifications, some he explained to me, others he didn’t. He was very proud of his final product and his personal touches. I was very proud of him and his excitement for even the littlest things in life!
A proud Lego builder!
The red disks off the end is a spool of thread. The other colored things in front are extra spools of thread. He thought it would be good to keep a few extras on the machine.
The tutorial says to use a “tiny hammer or a pick axe from a mini-figure” to make the foot. Lex was so excited to find an axe, but when he started building he said, “Oh, this is from a regular figure, not a mini-figure.” The axe was too tall. Never fear though, he just made the sewing machine taller to compensate! Nothing stops him!
The yellow squares are lights. His addition.
The whole time Lex was working on this, Eve and I were also playing with Legos. Eve had a continuing narrative that she and Lex were workers in the Lego Genius factory and I was trying to be a worker. I worked hard on a building (I’m not real creative with Legos!) to prove to her that I am also a Lego genius and should be allowed to work in the factory. I eventually convinced her and we all worked happily in the Lego Genius factory for awhile… until I got bored!
I don’t think I really qualify as a Lego Genius. I get bored too quickly. :)
Alpha Rex
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.
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. :)
LEGO picture
A LEGO picture with my initials.
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.)