I'm SEW excited!

My beloved Hubby has agreed to let me use the proceeds from our yard sale to purchase a new sewing machune that embroiders!!! I ordered it today, and I can hardly wait for it to get here.

The dress that Rosy is wearing in the pic above was my project this afternoon during the ballgame. It really helps keep my blood pressure in check if I have something to do while I'm watching the game. This dress is a combination Crimson Tide / Christmas dress.

Learning to Applique

I am still working on my appliqued outfits for Rosy and Superman. This week's project was a fall ensemble. The fabric is a "bright" olive green corduroy with the letters in a cream, olive, and tan plaid. The stitching is done in plum. The kids wore these Sunday morning to our church Homecoming. III had a nice tan sweater with an olive stripe on the sleeves. He is very glad to be too old for monogramming!

My next project is an Alabama dress for her if I can find any houndstooth fabric. If I can't, I may have to use black and white gingham. Superman is also due for a Christmas outfit.

If any of my local readers know of a good source for someone who does machine embroidery, I need a hook-up. I really want to be able to do some applique and embroidery combination designs.

First Christmas

We started decorating today. I think we are going to have a wonderful Christmas!

On Sunday nights, Superman attends Discipleship Training with Mrs. Linda, Mrs. Renee, Miss Katelyn, and Miss Kayla. One of the fun things they do each week is the Hokey Pokey. Most of the other kids are a little older than Supermas and can Pokey on their own, but apparently, Superman's good teachers always help him participate. (Sometimes this leads to spit-up!)

Last night, Mrs. Linda and Miss Katelyn had the nursery at church so all the kids clamored for the Hokey Pokey. You wouldn't think it would make a difference to a 6 month old, but I think Superman recognizes the song. We got him home and were talking about it and he got all excited. Hubby helped him stand up and he showed us his Right Foot In and Right Foot Out. The video is dark because we had already turned all the lights off, given him his last bottle, and were trying to get him to sleep when he decided it was time to dance.

Superman can finally hold his own teething ring! This is far better then when I used to have to hold it.

Notice his orange nose! I found out that feeding them too much squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots turns their skin orange from the inside. I had been trying to scrub it off for days until a girl at church told me what was happening!

Check out the newest baby cage! First we used a storage crate until he outgrew it. Now we use a hand-me-down little kids fold out sofa. It makes a perfect cage because it's high enough to keep him stable, but low enough for him to see over. He has just enough room to move around, but it's soft enough that tipping over doesn't hurt him. Right now, we sit it on the love seat, but we will have to move it to the floor when he gets a little more mobile and stronger.

New Hat

We took Superman shopping last night to get him some new winter hats. His big head won't fit in regular baby hats. We had to shop in the toddler section of the stores. He got a cute Santa looking hat from Old Navy and then he got the cute knit one from Children's Place. Children's Place had a cute fleece one with two points on the top that had tassels, but he cried everytime I tried it on him. I assume that meant that he didn't like that one. He cheered and babbled for this one and the one from Old Navy so I assumed that he wanted them.

Chef Rosy

I've always including III and Rosy in our special occasion cooking, but, lately, I've decided to teach them both some practical cooking skills. For III, so far that means he's learning to read directions and fix microwave lunches. For both of them, it means they are learning cleanliness and some measuring and mixing skills.

Tonight, Rosy made her first chicken casserole. I boiled the chickens for her, but she did all the rest. I let her put an "S" (for her real name) made out of lunch meat on top of it. I'm really impressed that a 7 year old can cook supper. I am hoping that they will both be able to make corn bread by the end of this winter.

Fall Frolic

We wrapped school up early today. Everyone got a good after-lunch rest time. (Superman, Twinkle, and I slept. I'm pretty sure the big kids played.) Then we went outside. The kids are always allowed in the backyard, but to go down the street on bikes, skateboards, or scooters they have to have an adult. Our neighborhood is really flat, but we live close to the entrance and I'm always afraid that someone will squish them.

This was Superman's first prolonged experience with fall weather. At first he really protested the hat, but once we got outside he seemed thankful for it.

This is what I imagine that he would look like if we were Yankees. By the way, it was only in the low 60s. I'm not sure what we will do if I have to take him out when it really gets cold.

Iraqi Fun!

We have been studying Iraq for the past 6 weeks at Roses Prep. Talk about a complex subject to teach to elementary aged children. Frankly, it was a complex subject for me to prepare to teach. We are trying to learn about each of our focus country's foods, traditions, history, people groups, art, literature, and politics. We always start each country study with a bulletin board that gives an overview of the country.

We found some neat children's literature from Iraq. There were some old stories including a Middle Eastern version of Cinderella. There were some good modern stories, including The Silent Music (a story about calligraphy) and The Librarian of Basra (about the librarian trying to protect the books during the war). However, we noticed that the modern books villified ALL soldiers and made no difference between US/UN liberation forces and Saddam's troops. A large part of our study time was spent with me helping our children understand why we invaded and what we were hoping to accomplish. BTW - this tied in very well with a lot of the conversation around the Presidential debates.

We were able to find a movie that showed religious persecution in the Middle East. It is the story of a young man who comes to college in America and becomes a Christian. He then returns home to the Middle East for a visit and his family discovers his Bible. The movie depicts his family turning him out into the streets and his ultimate decision of whether or not to remain in the country as an undercover missionary or whether to return to the USA.

We cooked Iraqi foods. We had a dessert called ma'mouni which is basically a cream of wheat with a simple sugar syrup mixed into it then topped with cinammon and whipped cream. Hubby and Rosy loved it. III and I could barely swallow it. It seemed to grow in our mouths. We also made Shish Taouk (chicken shish-kabobs with Iraqi spices) and Summag Salad. Summag Salad was amazingly good. It was thinly chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions in an olive oil dressing. We were supposed to sprinkle summac on it, but summac was only available across town, so we subbed seasoned salt. It was fabulous! We also had rice and pita bread with our dinner.

The best part about the study was the art project. Ancient Babylon was located where modern day Iraq is. We studied the ancient ruler Hammurabi who was famous for uniting the Babylonian empire around 1700 BC. He had the first codified law and he displayed monuments with the laws carved into them in the major cities of his empire. There is still at least one of his original monuments in existance today. For our art project, I had the kids read some of Hammurabi's laws and then come up with 10 laws of their own. (I chose 10 because of the 10 Commandments.) If you want to know what's really important to kids, read these laws.

1. If you make the baby cry, you must go to bed at 7:30.

2. If you sneak any food, you can not have dessert for three days.

3. If you wake up the sleeping baby, you must change his diapers for one whole day.

4. If you hurt someone, you must pay them a dollar.

5. If you make lower than a B, you must make Mommy and Daddy's bed for five weeks.

6. If you steal from someone, you must clean their room for five days.

7. If you don't rinse your spit out, you must clean the sink for one whole week.

8. If you don't do your chores, you must do an additional chore for the rest of the week.

9. If you act out, you do not get to watch TV for one week.

10. If you wake Mommy from a nap, you must fold all the towels for the rest of the week.

We made our monument more modern than Hammurabi. Ours is silver with each rule printed out in the kid's choice of Word Art font and colors. They created their own self-portraits to go on top of the monument to mimic the portrait of himself that Hammurabi had carved in his monuments.

Home School Fun!

We took Election Day off school this year. We had been studying the candidates and some of the issues, and the kids really wanted to go with me to vote. Note that they are all in Red-state clothing. Rosy and Superman's outfits double as Roll Tide outfits. We had raspberry and blueberry (red, white, and blue) muffins, red grapes, blueberries, and sausage for Election Day breakfast. Both kids said that they wished I would cook breakfast and read them a story during breakfast each day

We have been studying Iraq for the last month and one night Rosy was reading an Iraqi fable to the boys. I will post soon about our Iraqi cooking and their modern day Code of Hamurabi.

Lime Pie

For his actual birthday on Thursday, Hubby asked me to make him a lime pie. My family has a recipe handed down from my Aunt Joanne that calls for a large container of Cool Whip, a can of sweetened condensed milk and limeade concentrate. Mix those together and put them in a graham cracker shell and you have an incredibly rich and tangy pie.

As we were eating the pie, Superman was begging for a bite. Hubby gave him some and the baby went nuts. He giggled, cackled, squealed, and hollared for about 20 minutes. I've never seen anyone on such a pure sugar high. It was hilarious. I think that he would be able not only to walk, but to break dance, if we gave him this stuff everyday.

Hubby's B'day

Hubby turned 38 last week. His birthday was Thursday, but we celebrated with the kids when they came home Saturday. As you can tell, we had chocolate cake!! I think the little chocolate goatee makes Superman look like his dad!

Budding Musician

Superman is a budding musician. Now that he can (almost) sit up, we have started buying him some new toys. He got this piano at Wal-mart last Friday. He cackled and cackled at it in the store, and he loves it even more at home. It will keep him entertained for almost 10 minutes. That's a new record for anything other than eating!

Big Boy and My Soapbox

We had our 6 months check-up today for Superman. He is now 28" tall and weighs 19 lbs. 4 oz. He is in the 90th percentile for height and the 80th percentile for weight. His big head is 45 cm now and is in the 80th percentile. At his 4 month visit, his head was in the 95th percentile. At least now it is a little more proportionate.

I had to go buy him some new clothes today. He has outgrown almost all of his everyday "play" clothes. I went to Belk last night and to the mall today and shopped. I've come to the conclusion that I really like Carter's clothes. Besides being cute and durable, they have a height and weight guide on the size tags. We invested in several little fleece outfits and a few new (longer) pairs of pajamas.

Tonight was a pre-Thanksgiving dinner at our church. Superman was in fine form. He wanted out of his car seat as soon as we got there and he went from person to person to person. He cried for Mommy occasionally and I would hold him for a minute, but he mostly wanted to be with whoever would take him around and play with him. That has got to be a trait from his dad's side because I'm such a hermit!

One of the ladies at church mentioned tonight that she saw a little bit of Rosy in him, so we compared him to her baby pictures. There is a stunning resemblance. I may be biased, but if he looks like her, he's going to be a handsome fella!


Here's my political speech for the year: It's no secret that we were supporting the McCain/Palin ticket at our house. I am really struggling to try to understand where God's hand is in the current situation. I'm very surprised that Barak Obama was elected President. I feel like we are entering very dangerous times for Christianity and for our nation's future. I urge every Christian to make our nation's future a matter of prayer daily. If you don't think anything bad can happen to us, you really should go back and do some Old Testament reading about what happened to the "chosen" people when they strayed from Godly principles.

Half Birthday

Superman is 6 months old! He was getting his bath at his birth minute, so he got to take his birth minute pics in his birthday suit! He is sooo big! He has a doctor's appt. Wed. and we will find out his height and weight and head circumference.

Hello Kitty!

Here's Superman at our church's Trunk or Treat! He was adorable and actually agreed to wear his hat almost the whole time. The only time we took it off was when we were holding him and were tired of being "boinked" in the head with it. He had a great attitude all night and even took a little nap while he rode around in his stroller.

BTW, to Aunt C and Uncle J - this stroller and car seat combo has been a life saver a million times over. You won't believe all the cool stuff it will do. It's seems that every time he grows a little bit, there are new features we can enjoy. We've only recently started sitting him up to ride around. (Previously, we always just snapped the car seat in and let him ride that way.) Last night we found out that he's big enough that we can just lay the seat back down and he can snooze. There's also a little panel that we can velcro in place to close up the leg holes if he is snoozing and starts sliding down!

Today, our Superman is 6 months old! It's hard to believe that it's been 6 whole months and hard to believe that he hasn't always been there.