October Greetings

Doodle #2 did end up losing his tooth - the Friday after my last entry. He came home from school with a tooth necklace around his neck and a big smile on his face.

 So far, that's the only tooth action we've seen - no other wigglies yet!

The boys are all excited for tonight. So far they've had two Halloween parties and one field trip to a pumpkin patch/hayride. Here they are from one of the party trips:

Doodle #1 is less than excited as he couldn't find his mask. We made the mistake of letting them use their costumes for dress up right after buying them. Thankfully, the Ninja Turtle will be fully geared for tonight! (That's Mario from the video game on the left and we still haven't figured out who's on the right - it was just too cool to pass up!)

Our trip to the pumpkin patch/hay ride was just Sunday. Once we finished having fun there, we went to work at home raking and bagging the last of the leaves and then set to carving our pumpkins. I have the boys help me clean the pumpkins out, then draw the face they want in marker. Here is the result:

 Pretty fun! I'm looking forward to trying them out with candles tonight.

This fall has been a funny one for colors. I don't know if it's due to our dry weather or just that I've overlooked them before, but we ran across many leaves that looked like they had been painted. Here's the first one we found - it's a couple weeks old and still looks dramatic:

Here are some more from a maple tree.

We've also already had our first snow:

This snow was part of the storm that combined to make hurricane Sandy so damaging to the Eastern Coast of the US. Makes me feel lucky that all we had was some snow that didn't stick.

Even though it's only Halloween, the boys are starting to get excited for Christmas. Part of the reason is a care package from my parents:

...with aprons for making Christmas cookies! So far, the aprons have been worn for everything but cooking. It hasn't been a good month for baking - too much running around, by the boys have had fun wearing them as just about everything else!

Though I didn't manage to complete a UFO this month, I did get to do a little more sewing. I joined a Wonky House block exchange on Swap-Bot. Here's my swap block:

I've wanted to make a wonky house quilt for a while now, and figured this would be the perfect way to get myself moving. I had planned to make two at once - one to keep and one to send, but lack of time prevented that. I don't particularly need any more in-progress projects around the house, but couldn't resist!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you're all having a wondeful fall/spring!
Laura

Sewing Emergency!!

I've been narrowing down my choices for tooth pillows for about the last year. (You can see where this is going, right?!) A week ago, the twins excitedly reported that a school friend of theirs lost not one, but both of her top front teeth! Ack! Time to get those patterns out! So, I got in gear and had all three boys pick out a fabric for their tooth pillows. So, patterns, fabric, and accessories are all gathered nicely with plans to start on them over the weekend. Saturday evening, Doodle #2 comes up to me and says "Mommy! Look!", as he wiggles one of his bottom front teeth! Looking closely, I can see that not only is his baby tooth loose, but his new tooth is already showing at least an eighth of an inch! Looking even more closely, I see that the loose tooth along with two others have changed colors a bit. How have I missed this?! So I sneak in the hand sewing during church and an afternoon playdate and, after some alone time with my sewing machine Sunday night, we have a new member in the family:

I used cotton for the body, felt for the eyes and fangs, and fleece for the hair.

Doodle #1 keeps trying to wiggle his teeth, but no luck yet - and I've checked the color of his teeth - no urgency there either. *Whew* So I can exit emergency mode for making the other two pillows. We've decided to wait to introduce the boys to their new friends on the day that they become needed - kind of a rite of passage. Now to figure out where I'll put Doodle #3's so that I remember where it is in two years!

We had a great end to summer. The boys' school has a walk-a-thon every fall where the kids all take a hike over to a local waterfall and back to raise money for their classes. The day was georgeous - warm and sunny. I headed to the walk from work and quickly wished I'd thought to bring a pair of shorts. The kids did wonderfully! We've been in drought conditions for a little over a month (we're much luckier than much of the US), so the falls and the creek leading to it were dry. I don't remember being there before when the falls had stopped completely...

The shadows in the water are all kids of fish that have been caught in the pool left at the bottom of the falls. The rain promised for the next day turned out to just be a wind storm that took all of the warmth away and left us reaching for our winter coats. I'm definitely not going to complain, though, as one city in Northern Minnesota received over a foot of snow from that front! How painful it would be to go from shorts weather one day to snowboots the next... The rain is finally supposed to show up today, and I'm hoping for some drenching rains to help us catch up - and help those fish escape that pool!

Wishing you just the kind of weather you're wanting - whether you're in spring or fall!

Fall Update...

I grew up about 600 miles southeast of Minneapolis - in Indiana, where I grew to LOVE fall with the warm days, cool nights, and beautiful fall colors. My love for fall has waned some since moving to Minnesota as falls are usually cold and rainy, with the rain stripping the colorful leaves from the trees before they're done showing off and snow chasing not far behind. Imagine my delight when I still need to wear shorts on September 30th and the leaves have been allowed to reach their peak! It's been a glorious fall - beautiful sunny, warm days - a great way to end the summer! Normal Minnesota weather is supposed to return by the end of the week - hopefully the rains will wait until the leaves finish their show!

The twins were excited to celebrate their 20th day of kindergarten last week. (Wow, that was fast!) In that time, we've become part of the PTA, reading and classroom assistants, an email mentor, and boy scout leaders of some form (yet to be ironed out). We've already had two fundraisers along with a book sale. And I thought life was busy before! We haven't entered the world of homework yet, but I can only imagine how that will complicate matters! LOL!

In the midst of these changes, I was able to complete my monthly UFO challenge. While digging through my stash, I found some Halloween 9 patches and charms from exchanges I was in in the mid 90's. Six 9 patches, to be exact. I had seen a disappearing 9 patch tablerunner some time ago and decided it was the perfect project to take on - with the perfect timing! So, I completed the first for August and the second for September. Here's August:

And September:

One for us and one for our neighbor who's so good to us. It's great to have two new Halloween decorations ready and on-hand BEFORE Halloween arrives! I have no idea what I'll be tackling this month for a UFO. Hmmmm... maybe there are some Christmas blocks in that pile of 9 patches. I can hope...

One last picture to include... a capture of the old header to make sure Gma & Gpa see it before it goes away....

Happy change of seasons - whichever way it's heading for you!
Laura

Big Changes

We hit a big milestone today...

...the first day of kindergarten for the twins. Over the last couple weeks they got so anxious about it, I started to wonder if we were going to make it. On the way in the school, one was about to pull my finger off, trying to get me to hurry while the other was hiding in the back of Cita's shirt, trying to slow us down... LOL! Opposites at every opportunity! Luckily, there was a Lego bin sitting in the middle of their room, so they were instantly at home:

They hardly noticed it when we left. We had been in the classroom twice before, so the boys were already familiar with the room and their teacher. They even have several friends in their class from church and preschool. I'm expecting to pick up two very excited boys this afternoon - exhausted and bubbling with excitement over their new adventure.