4-H and Artwork

Our eight year old is enjoying his first year in 4-H.  We didn't realize every project he signed up for would require separate meetings, but it hasn't been as overwhelming as I had expected.  It's actually motivating him to finish his homeschool studies quickly, so he can go to his activities.  He's not allowed to go unless school and chores are done, and I don't think he has missed anything yet.  

Yesterday he had air rifle.  He is doing pretty well.  He is also in robotics and archery, and other activities will be starting up later in the year.  He tells me archery is his favorite.  He also starts violin lessons this week, with a group of beginners - 6 weeks for $20, with the violin rental provided.  Should give him enough time to figure out if he likes it enough for us to invest in lessons.  And he goes to a homeschool co-op class once a week too.  With all that, and our church AWANA club and skiing, he keeps pretty busy.  We're debating adding Boy Scouts to that too eventually.  We'll see.  And to think most people think homeschoolers are "unsocialized" ... lol.

 I had to laugh when I saw the back of his target.  He had drawn an elk (well, two of them) on the back of his target.  I think it's a pretty amazing elk considering he's only 8 years old.  And I don't think I could beat it.  He does nothing but draw and read in his free time - usually both.  He'll read something and then copy an illustration or draw the scene he just read about.

This was a picture he saw (or a variation of it) in one of the books he was reading about the coast guard.  I really need to get his blog going again so he can post all of these.  He's been asking me to and I just haven't made the time to do it.  I think I'll get out my old computer and show him how to scan pictures and update the blog on his own.  Sounds like a school project to me ;)

A Little Fabric Therapy ;)

 

 Well, after all the stress of yesterday, I'm due for a little fabric therapy - lol.  Actually, I've gotten back into sewing as I mentioned before thanks to Karen's blog, as I mentioned a few posts ago.  So now I can't seem to stop the stream of projects I want to start - ha.  I should be finishing some - like a quilt I made for my niece that still needs to be quilted and bound.  Maybe I'll get that one out too.  The fabric above is for a quilted tote bag I'm making.  My daughter asked me to make one like her friend has.  Problem is, she's in North Carolina, and I'm in Wyoming.  The solution? Skype!

She held up the bag, turned it inside out, and so on, and I snapped pictures.  (it's inside-out in this picture). She didn't have any way to measure it, so I had her hold up her three ring binder next to it so I could get the right size.  Then I set to work creating a pattern.

 I figured out as long as I was making one for her, I could easily make one for me at the same time.  The library fabrics are for my bag.  These two are my favorites.

She requested brown and black - or one or the other.  So these are her fabrics.  I got everything cut out on Monday, but I haven't had a chance to sew it yet.  I can't sew during daycare, and last night the eight year old and I went to a fine arts council performance (the Turtle Island Quartet - a strings quartet) so last night was out.  I doubt I'll get to it tonight either as we have AWANA club at church. So maybe tomorrow.  I'm hoping to get hers into the mail by Saturday.  That's the goal anyway.

The other day, my Connecting Threads magazine came with this adorable arrows quilt pattern in it.

I immediately thought of the fabric I bought at Christmas ... one print had all kinds of trucks on it.  I bought it because my husband drives a cement mixer and I thought it would be cute for the boys, but I had no idea what to do with it.  This pattern just screamed for that fabric.  It even has arrows on it :P So the car fabric will be the arrows, and the dark blue will be the background.

And when I saw this on the Quilt Taffy blog last week, I had to have it :)

 Is this superhero fabric cute, or what?!  And the price for the kit was decent, so I just went ahead and order it.  (Lest you think I'm being undisciplined, I should tell you that I actually have a budget for fabric - lol.  Of course, originally I had planned on saving it all for after-Christmas sales, which are always amazing, but what would the fun be in that?  May have to increase the budget ... lol. May have to get more productive first!)

I have had these charm squares for a long time.  I got them on a ridiculously good sale, and wasn't sure how many it would take to make a quilt so I think I have something like six or eight packets of them.  I'm thinking half-square triangles with these, then play with the layout on a design wall.  It only just occurred to me that I can use the flannel board cover I made for my toy storage cabinet in the daycare (formerly known as my living room) as a design wall. Duh.

I think I won one of these small jelly rolls, and had them add another on as I didn't think it would be enough to do anything with.  I think I'm just going to start sewing strips together and cutting them up and re-arranging them until I get something I like.  Fun and no-stress.  Although it probably will be stressful because I'm an extreme planner.  I even lay out and plan with great care my "random order" quilts.  Lol.  It takes a lot of planning to make something look random. HA.  Yes. I am that obsessive.

So until I can get to the sewing machine, I'm back to hand stitching my hexagon quilt.  I think I'm going to start joining my diamond units together.  I'm about out of papers, so I need to connect some so I can re-use the papers.  I also think I'm going to try to make a diamond shape without the papers and see if I like that any better.  Sure seems faster if you could cut out a couple of steps...  We'll see.

My Life Just Got Infinitely More Complicated :(

Ever have one of those days where the world comes crashing in around you?  Like the weight of the whole world is on top of you?  I had one of those days yesterday. I kinda felt like that scene from the Wizard of Oz - where the witch gets squashed by the house, and all you see are her feet and striped stockings sticking out.  (That was a witch right?  I haven't seen that movie since I was a kid, and I'm way past being a kid lol).

 Anyway, to get to the point, a little over a year ago, we had the baby tested for food allergies.  We found out he was allergic to eggs, dairy, wheat and peanuts - and we later learned the hard way that the peanut allergy causes anaphalactic reactions.  I recently bought these three cookbooks.  They are wheat freee/gluten free cookbooks, which I figured would give me pretty much everything I needed, as  eggs and dairy are easy enough to substitute.  I noticed several recipes called for Almond flour, and thought it would be nice to know if our one year old could have almonds - thus eliminating a lot of carbs along with the allergy-causing foods.  At the same time, I knew there had to be something else he was reacting to because his eczema has gotten much worse and he's itchy all the time, despite our avoidance of those four foods.

Well, we got a call from the doctor yesterday with the results of the new test (which by the way cost us nearly $500!).  The results were not good.  The pediatrician had expected an improvement in the allergies.  He has been telling us all along this is a temporary problem and should get better fairly quickly.  Well, that's apparently not going to be the case.  He tested "significantly worse" in all categories, and now is allergic to a bunch of new stuff - including almonds, walnuts, and most other nuts, soy and corn.  Corn is an extremely difficult allergy on its own because corn is added to everything (can you say high fructose corn syrup?), but on top of everything else, it's nearly impossible.  Most wheat free prepared foods substitute soy or corn - or both.  A quick look at all our "convenience" specialty items we've bought for him (at great cost) shows why he's reacting so badly - they all have soy and/or corn in them.  So until I can figure this all out he is going to only be eating plain fruit, vegetables and meat.  And then there's the issue of what to cook it in - can't use butter or corn oil, or even crisco - which is made from soy...  So maybe you can see why I'm a bit overwhelmed.
 

I had started a binder awhile back for recipes he could eat.  Now I'm going to have to go through all that again and basically start from scratch.  I found a couple of recipe books on Amazon that are supposed to avoid all the allergens in each recipe.  I found four that I like but I'm not going to pay $50 to get all of them, so I need to figure out which two I want the most.  It's crazy but it looks like I will have to buy two because the main dish one doesn't have any baked goods in it, and I want to figure out something for bread and crackers for him.  It's especially hard now that he's a year and a half old and sees what everyone else is eating and wants the same thing (like a biscuit).  And the daycare kids eat things all the time that he can't have - crackers, cereal, pizza, etc.

Our pediatrician is a wonderful doctor, but he tells us he is out of his element with this level of allergies, and wants us to see a specialist.  He recommended the National Jewish Hospital in Denver, which apparently specializes in allergies.  They are an 8+ hour drive away.  And we have no insurance.  And this is an ongoing problem. And our eight year old and his dad both have diabetes, which is expensive too.  So yeah, that whole image of the house crashing down and squashing me?  Not too far from reality lol.  But I have a positive attitude about it, and I'm not depressed, as this post may sound.  Just overwhelmed.  But better today than I have been.  I'm not sure how we're going to pay for it all, but one day at a time, right?  This too shall pass.  And I am soooo grateful that we're dealing with things that can be managed, and are not terminal.  I have a friend whose husband recently passed away from cancer - within a couple of months of being diagnosed, leaving her with seven children to raise alone.  And I have another friend whose kindergarten daughter has a degenerative disease which could (and will) take her life at any time.  So given that perspective, I've got a walk in the park :)  And I always did like parks anyway :D

Go Speed Racer! Go!

 So after all the drama, our eight year old did get to race in his big race today.  It was held up at White Pine Ski Area - our local hill.  Next weekend he gets to race at Teton Village in Jackson Hole :)  He's pretty excited about that (him and his dad, who can't wait to get the cheap parents' ticket).

 Here he is at the starting gate.

Ready, set, GO!  The high school race team had a race up there last weekend and he got to watch them.  He told me (and everyone else who would listen) that he was going to use their technique.  

I guess it worked for him.

He won his age division!!!!!  He didn't expect to.  He thought his friend Shawn would beat him.  But Shawn got second place.  I was so proud of him... and very disappointed to have missed it.  (But as I explained in the last post, the baby and I were busy at the clinic all day).

These three are great friends.  :)  That's the benefit of living in a small town.  Good job guys!

Stitches. Not How I Planned To Spend Our Saturday

 

So today the little boys were supposed to spend the day with Bugga while my husband and I went to the local ski area to cheer on our 8 year old in his ski race.  We both volunteer for the club (I'm the secretary and he's an assistant coach)  so we had responsibilities.  But just as we were getting ready to head out the door, the baby fell and busted his lip open.  It peeled back the lip, creating a loose flap of skin.  So I made a quick phone call to let the ski club know I wouldn't be up right away, and headed up to the clinic.

 It didn't really seem to bother him much, and the bleeding had pretty much stopped by the time we got there.  I debated even taking him in, thinking it would be $100 to tell me I was over-reacting.  Not so.  He needed stitches, and they wanted me to come back three hours later, after their urgent care hours were done.  He was going to need to be sedated.

So we went back to the clinic at 11:30, and they kept him there until 1:30.  He was given sedation drugs - ketamine - known on the streets as "special k" -  but not knocked completely out.  He did really well, even if he does look really sad in these pictures.  These were taken while he was drugged out and not making connections.  The picture above reminds me of one I saw in a book about the holocaust.  Spooky.  And heart breaking.

 It took five stitches to get him all put back together.  We have to go back Wednesday to have them taken out... hopefully without sedation.

They had him all wrapped up tight so we wouldn't have to try to hold his arms down.  But once the drugs kicked in, he was pretty calm.  The worst part for him seemed to be the shot for the pain killer, which they gave in the top of his leg.

Starting to wake up.  He was so wobbly at first - felt like a bag of jello.  Then he was kind of freaking out because everything felt weird.  He couldn't sit up but really wanted to.  He would just fall over.  Poor guy.  He was also kind of funny.  He was talking about a car, which he had been playing with right before the procedure.  Then he wanted to take the pulse-ox off his toe, but had to leave it on, so I was showing him the light on his toe.  He leaned way forward and stared at it like, "Dude, there's a light on my toe..."  Then we switched to counting toes, and he would giggle and repeat in a very drugged slur, "three, four!"

It was all good in the end.  He got to eat two popsicles. He finished the first one and said, "Want pop" so they got him another one. He managed to drip all over the place because his lip was numbed and he was really drooly.  He kept wiping his belly with a kleenex - like you would with a washcloth in the bathtub.  He was very thorough.  Even scrubbed his armpit and back ... with the sticky kleenex.  Definitely gonna need a bath when he can sit up straight.  He's napping now :)

Anyway, I'm so thankful that this little guy is okay.  Don't know what I'd do if anything happened to my little guys ... any of them.  Or my big ones :)

It's been just a horrible week here in our little county.  We've had all sorts of bad stuff happening.  My husband's aunt has had gallbladder problems - requiring several trips to the hospital. A 90+ year old lady died after being hit by a forklift at our local grocery store.  I feel horrible for the manager, who was driving it.  He's a really nice guy, and it sounds like he's taking it really hard. There was a really bad wreck at the other end of the county that night that critically injured a guy who is our age, whom we know.  His mother is my husband's aunt's sister.  Then the next morning a guy froze to death here in town.  On the evening of Valentine's Day, an 18 year old committed suicide. Then after I got home today I heard on the scanner that a 16 year old was injured in the local "one-lunger" race (vintage snowmobiles).  He has a punctured lung and they are in the process of life-flighting him now.  Just talked to my mother-in-law, and he is a distant relative too, up here from Cheyenne by himself (a 6+ hour drive) - his parents home in Cheyenne, and they're life-flighting him to Idaho Falls (another 3 hours farther away).  So I guess our stitches really aren't as bad as some others have it.  I'm just wondering when all this will stop.

Happy Valentine's Day :) and Simple Breakfast Cookies

Yesterday was Valentines Day.  It didn't seem much like a holiday to me though.  It was a very busy day.  

My sweet husband did get me these beautiful roses though, and a box of cashews.  (I'm phasing off my diet, but still trying to avoid too many sweets :)

When my four year old saw me smelling them, he asked if he could smell my trees - ha.  They were long stemmed before I cut them to fit the vase.

But the best thing I got for Valentines Day I didn't even know about until this morning.  I was exhausted yesterday after undoing this All.Day.Long.

Yeah. I had child locks on the cabinets, but over time they had loosened up with use.  So while I went to bed early last night (extremely rare for me - it was 11) my sweet husband installed magnetic cabinet locks! WOOHOO!!

Today has already been more peaceful ;)

I guess mad etch-a-sketch skills run in the family ...though it must be on my husband's side, because I could never get the stupid lines to go where I wanted them.  Anyway, the eight year old is a genius with it, and now the four year old is really interested in it.  He had to show us is skills...

He made stairs - and he called them that and brought them to show us. :)  Who knows.  Maybe we'll have two artists in the family.

 The baby was having fun with a baby.  We're trying to help him learn to be sweet with the baby.

He's pretty rough with his daycare friends.

Just hangin' out...

The eight year old and I had such a great time working together on the plant hangers we found directions for on pinterest, that we decided to keep trying to do activities from that site.  We found a great recipe for healthy breakfast cookies.

I was skeptical about how well they would turn out.  They just had two ingredients - bananas and oatmeal.  The directions said to smash two bananas and add a cup of oatmeal.  You could stop there, or add whatever you wanted.  We added raisins and cinnamon (and chocolate chips to a few of them).

The eight year old pretty much did it all himself.  He made breakfast for the whole daycare.

He baked them at 350 for about 15 minutes.

 We did figure out that you have to press them down before you bake them. They don't spread at all, so when he put them on the tray with the cookie scoop, they came out of the oven more like cookie balls ... which could be fun if you wanted to decorate them like the cake balls everyone is into these days.  But we smashed the next pan down and everyone thought they were more like cookies.  You should have seen how excited the daycare kids (and my four year old) were when I told them we were having cookies for breakfast - ha.

And the best thing is that my littlest munchkin can have them too - even though he's allergic to eggs, dairy, wheat and nuts.  We didn't put any chocolate chips in his, but there are some dark chocolate chips I've found that he could have.  But oh, what a mess that would have been.  I like the idea that the original poster of this recipe said - that you can eat half a pan of cookies, and all you've really eaten was one banana and a half cup of oatmeal.  Can't beat that.

The four year old is really into watching chapel on the computer. It is broadcast online from the Bible college my daughter attends, and he knows she is watching the same thing. He always tells me she is there :)