OOoo, Crochet

Did I ever tell you that I own a Crocheting Business? No? Well, I sure do!

I was introduced to Crochet at the age of 10, but my sweet Auntie who showed me how to make doilies. I was impressed with how a tiny hook and crochet thread can be manipulated into loops and knots and suddenly it's an intricate piece of artwork. 

I tried my hand at crochet for a little while after that experience, but even with the book she sent me, I just couldn't quite get the hang of it and ended up putting it down for about 13 years.

That's was when I was a newlywed and pregnant with Thing 1. I was suddenly unable to work, and bored to tears. Mom got me started in beading, which I still love to work with, but I needed something I can take with me to my appointments and not be afraid of spilling a rainbow of little glass shards into the bottomless pit of bead hell.... also known as carpet.

So I took up crochet again. I wasn't very good at it. I couldn't read patterns yet, my tension was terribly tight, and with no one to help me, I again put it down for a while. 

7 months after having Thing 1, we make our big move across country to where we live now. At this point we had move with my parents and, until we were on our feet, living with them. Confined to one bedroom for the next 2 years, I picked up crochet again. This time, with the help of youtube, especially this wonderful lady, it took! 

Suddenly the heavens opened up and angels started singing!

Now we flash forward a few more years and I have started my own business. I specialize in baby items, like hats and toys, but my newest adventure that I have trotted into this week is taking my children's drawings and making softies from their design.

 © OOoo, Crochet 2013

 © OOoo, Crochet 2013 

 © OOoo, Crochet 2013

The one in the middle is Thing 2's drawing and I got it finished just in time to give it to her on her birthday this week. She had been hard to part with it!

This I really LOVE doing. I just love how each is unique, each is an artistic challenge, and because I'm only making one of them, constantly changing! The artist in me is extremely happy. So happy in fact, that I would really like to just specialize in doing just this and be the Imaginary Friend Factory. Good thing kids like to draw!

So if you are ever in store for something unique or even just want to see more of my work, head over to OOoo, Crochet. 

I am having a contest right now! I'm trying to reach 100 likes on my page. So far we are a little more than halfway there. As soon as we get 100 likes, a random liker is going to win one of my famous owls! 

 © OOoo, Crochet 2013

Will it be you? HOO know!

With Love,

Emily

Pirate Unit- Flags

We are taking a break from the ocean, as we are heading out to sea with Marlin and about to meet Dory, and decided to learn about the Pirates that sail on top of these waters.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 are really into this unit! In fact they have found every pirate movie and tv show we own or is on Netflix. After diving into a few pirate books from the library, we were off on an adventure.

First we made Pirate bandannas and eye patches.

The bandannas are a large square I cut from some fabric I had and then I got out the puffy paint (that takes me back to my childhood in the 80's) and painted on a skull and cross bones. To identify who is who's, for Thing 1 he also got a shamrock for luck and Thing 2 got a heart for love.

The eye patches are just black foam cut out to look like a patch, with two holes (diagonally from each other works best)  and black yarn to tie them on. The kids wore them for about 2 minutes and promptly hid them from me.

Also, today we looked at all the different kinds of pirate flags, discussed why the pirate would chose certain icons and why it would be scary to anyone hauling treasure on their ship, and also how the skull and crossbones are still used today as a sign for poison. Little safety lesson thrown in courtesy of the Jolly Roger!

After we looked at all kinds of pirate flags, Thing 1 and 2 made their own.

Thing 1

Thing 2 

Thing 1 is my minimalist. However, according to him the blob in the middle is a bloody red skull and the blob falling off the flag is a boot. 

I think it looks like a talking head spewing out jewels, but that's just me.

Thing 2, however, is my extravagant 'I-have-to-hid-everything-so-she'll-stop' artist, and she put on the entire booty on her flag. It's been several hours and it's still not dry enough to hang up yet. Sure is sparkly though!

Tomorrow I plan on having them cut out and assemble their pirate ship, which will float on top of the water on their doors, and sometime this next week we'll go on a treasure hunt! My in-laws are coming for a 2 week visit this Tuesday, so I know they are going to be helping out with the treasure hunt!

Arrr Matey!

With Love,
Emily

Alice Inspired Critical Thinking

As I was cooking eggs this morning, I was thinking about how to help my children learn and about how to make what we're learning fun. When I have my parent-teacher conferences, (to myself I think I sound like Rain Man and Milton Waddams smushed together, but thankfully my kids see me as Pooh going "Think, think, think"), it's when I come up with some interesting ideas.

Well, my brain blast this morning was how to help my kids with their critical and imaginative thinking. So much of today is just told to us, and not a lot of it expects you to think for yourself or even respond to what was said, so when my brain hatched this thought, I knew it would help or at least be an interesting experiment!

Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, when her and her father think of at least 3 impossible things before breakfast, I asked my children what 3 impossible and silly things could they think of. My example to explain was a hamster jumping on a trampoline chewing on bubblegum. That ensued a fit of giggles between the two, and I knew I had them hooked.

So here is their first attempts at thinking of 3 Impossible and Silly Things (Before Breakfast).

Thing 1 (6 year old boy)
A pig farting while breaking pictures in the mud.
Alive books dancing with pictures on the ceiling.
(realizing he's just looking around for his inspiration, I then told him to close his eyes and think of the last one)
Pigs jumping over the moon while wearing underwear and Gangam style shoes.

Thing 2 (4 year old girl)
A cow jumping on the moon while eating cereal.
A cow with circle feet getting eaten by pigs in the mud. (Uhhh...What!?)
(Get off of the cow hunny, think of something else)
A spider playing with spider babies in the desert.

Well, as you can see my children are completely nuts. :o)

I will be doing this again, at least try to do it every day, and write down what they said for my own journaling  I found that it really sparked some imagination and got them thinking, because they went off to play and it was some of the best role playing and pretend games I've hear them do yet!

So if you try this, comment below what they've said! I'd love to know that Thing 1 and Thing 2 are in good company.

With Love,
Emily

Here Fishy Fishy Fishy!

As part of our Ocean Study, we read about the fish that live in the coral reef. Inspired by a pin on Pinterest, made our version of fish!

Materials: For one fish
Paper plate
Giant googly eye
Sequins
Glue
Tape
Scissors

How to:
Have the child cut out a triangle (I drew it on first). This is the mouth!
Tap the triangle to the opposite side. This is the tail!
Glue on googly eye. Now the fish can see!
Glue on scales. Now the fish can swim!

You can use ANYTHING for the scales. Buttons, pompoms, feathers, glitter, or even just color the fish. I liked the sequins because they reminded me of the Rainbow Fish book we had read the night before.

I have found that Thing 2 liked doing the glue part, but got tired of making the glue dots. She wasn't done in putting on the scales so I would put on a bunch of glue dots for her and then she had the (more fun) part of sticking on the scales.

Thing 1 didn't really care for this craft as much, and I had to be creative in encouraging him to put more scales on so the poor fish could swim!

All in all, this was really fun, and kept them engaged for about 10 minutes in total.

With Love,
Emily

I've got to save what??

My in-laws are coming for a visit at the end of the month, so I'm inspired to go through the house and do an over all spring clean up. You know the kind; random decluttering, figuring out where you put the home for such and such, still trying to find a home for the things you got for Christmas, and general hot spot clean up.

Well, I ran into the pile of school work that Thing 1 has done, and even though we've only just started homeschooling this past Christmas, it's a big pile. I also just started teaching Thing 2 preschool, and we all know what a mess that can make!, so my pile of papers is going to start doubling soon.

So I called my mom. "HELP!" I yelled into the phone, and as soon as she got her hearing back in her ear, she asked what I needed help with.

Since my mom homeschooled me, she's always the first person I go to to ask my homeschooling questions. Things are very different when you're the teacher and not the student!

I wanted to know what I needed to save and what can I throw away. Where I live, homeschoolers are considered a private school, and I do not have to prove or keep records of what I taught, but I like to keep something so that I can go back to it if need be.

Mom advised I should just keep a sample of what each child is learning. Kind of like a scrap book. Then the idea popped in my head,

  LAPBOOKS!

I don't know about you, but I love a good lapbook. I was all excited and said, "Hey! Like Thing 1 is learning addition 1-10. I can make a lap book with him with samples of problems and his answers!"

Mom thought that was a great idea.

Lapbooks are not only just a good way to keep a "record" of what we are learning, but I can also pull it back out if Thing 1 or 2 needs to review! Easily stored in my green file bucket thingy, by using folders as the lapbook I can write on the tab what it is without having to pull out every single one.

Now my mission is to not only make the house presentable, but to also make a bunch of lapbooks. Now the temptation is which one do I do first?

How do you keep record of what your child is learning? How about grading? Leave your comments below, I would love some advise!

With Love,
Emily

**UPDATE** Heard a tip somewhere, can remember where sorry, but the tip is Duct Tape. Yes, take the Duct Tape (or packing tape in a pinch) and on the back fold of the lap book, make an extension the length of the spine of the book. Put tape the same way on the other side so that there is no sticky part of the tape. Then get out the ol' 3 hole puncher and punch in the holes. Now you can take your lap book and store it in a binder instead of a fine cabinet! 

Have you had your coffee today?

I don't know about you, but coffee is essential in the morning for me. If I don't get my coffee, I'm pretty much a zombie with the face that makes Grumpy Cat look happy. If I don't get my coffee in the morning, I will suffer headaches by the afternoon, and by that night I'm ready to be executed just to make the pain stop.

Yes, I'm addicted.

But there's something else more important that I used to struggle with; spending alone time with God. I see the things on Pinterest and my Facebook wall, like "Don't forget to thank God, because He remembered to wake you up this morning" and "Be the woman that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, the devil says 'Oh great, she's up'" and "God should be the first your morning and last in your evening". I feel the guilt trip that comes with it. Yeah, in the morning it seems that my coffee is more important that digging into Gods word and spending alone time with him.

In the morning, I'm up at the same time as my kids. That's about 6:30. I've tried to get up earlier than them, but I'm a night owl, and mornings are so hard for me to get up, because the night before my brain is so active. I think best when the kids go to bed for the night. I can plan better, I work on my crochet orders, I clean the house. My nights between 8-12 is when I'm active! It's my second wind!

One day it occurred to me. My alone time with God doesn't have to be in the morning! There is nothing that I know of in the Bible that says that my alone time with God has to be between 5 and 6 AM. So when do I have my alone time? Well, if you haven't guessed yet, it's at night! Just like my coffee is essential in the morning, my alone time with God is essential at night. It's when the kids are quiet, I know I'm not going to be interrupted  or have to stop because the kids are up for the day, and it's when I'm the most awake and ready to listen.

I belong to the Bible Institute. It's free and there are lots of things for me to study. I'm being taught by some of the best scholars in the modern Christian world. The fact that it's recordings, means that I can do other things at the same time, like working on my crochet. While I'm cleaning the house and being away from the computer I have BBN (Bible Broadcasting Network) radio on. I've been listening to BBN all of my life, and it has fed me as a child and now as an adult. When I'm in the car BBN is on. When the kids go to sleep, if I don't put on a CD for them, it's BBN radio they fall asleep to.

But that's actually not the only time I spend with God. I spend time with him all day long. Did you ever have an imaginary friend as a child? Remember talking them randomly throughout the day? Kind of the same thing with me and God. I talk with him all day long, because he is always here with me. I envision him standing in the room with me, to make it easier sometimes, but basically it's the same thing as prayer, except that I'm not closing my eyes. Being home alone with Thing 1 and Thing 2 most of the time, I need to be able to vent frustration, voice my concerns, and bring anything that else that is vexing me to his feet. I believe that if the universe is his throne, and the earth his footstool, then my problems can easily be handled by God. How awesome is our God that he wants us to just talk it out with him?

Then there are, thankfully, many more times that I catch myself singing to myself. It's usually a hymn that pops in my head, sometimes it's just the tune, but when I stop and think about it, it has to do with whatever the situation is, or with what I'm doing. I just love how God brings exactly what I needed to hear with my heart through a song learned in childhood.

I don't feel guilty anymore about not having that alone time with God in the morning. It's great if you can do it, because for some people it's a great way to start the day off on the right foot. But if you find that you just absolutely can not get up in the morning to have that alone time, don't let others make you feel guilty over it. God wants to have that relationship with you all day long, not just a 5 in the morning for a squeezed in 15 minutes. God wants to you be ready to listen to what he has to say, so if you're not a morning person, obviously you are not ready. Anytime is the right time to spend alone with God. There has been many times that the 5 minutes in the bathroom is a few minutes of alone time with God!

Now that I have you convinced that alone time is anytime, don't be afraid to have some alone time with God in front of your kids. I know, I know,...

WHAT!?

No really! Have some alone time in front of the kids! They need to see how important it is to have that time with God. When they see you having a couple of minutes with God they are asking themselves, "Why is it important". As they see you spending that time, they learn that God is always there to listen to them whenever they are tempted, full of questions, excited about something, God wants to hear it all! It is so wonderful to be the model of how to have the most important part of your day. 

So just as I make sure that I have my coffee in the morning so I can function physically, I make sure I've spent time alone with my Creator so I can function spiritually. 

Have you had your coffee today?

With Love,
Emily

The Story of a Rose Bush

Once upon a time there was a newly married couple. As a wedding present to each other, they planted a rose bush in their front yard. Oh, what a beautiful rose bush it was. How excited they were to see the buds bloom to huge fragrant flowers.

As spring warmed the earth, the rose buds started to blossom and as sure as they had hoped, the roses were just as lovely as their love for each other.

Summer came and the roses were in their prime. The lady of the house loved to go out to her garden and cut a few roses to brighten the inside of her home. She had to be careful though, for the thorns were sharp, but surely as hard as she tried she still pricked her fingers more than once.

Autumn came and the rose bush was no longer blooming, but had quietly gone to seed. It wasn't as pretty as when it was first planted, and the couple were sad that it would be a long time before the rose bush would bloom sweet scented flowers again.

When winter came the rose bush lost all of it's leaves and looked quite dead.  Now the couple were sure that they had somehow killed the poor plant, and thought about digging it up and throwing it away. But something kept tugging their hearts, just wait. Wait and see what might happen in springtime.

It was truly a long winter wait.

Spring finally came one day, and the sun slowly warmed the earth again. The couple went to see their rose bush, and hoped upon every hope so see,.. yes? Is it true? The rose bush was slowly peeking out little green leaf buds! Oh how joyful the young couple felt!

The rose bush had spent that long cold winter growing it's roots to become a stronger plant. When spring finally came not only did the rose bush grow more beautiful blooms, but was a mightier rose bush than when it was first planted.

Every year, with much tender love and care from the married couple, that rose bush continued to grow strong and healthy, and produced many magnificent roses in return.

****

This story is not actually about a rose bush. It's about marriage. When we first fall in love, everything is beautiful, the future is bright, nothing could possibly go wrong and the couple believes that there is nothing annoying about the other.

Falling in love is easy. It happens TO us. It's like tripping over your own feet. You didn't plan it, it happened TO you. Same thing, except you probably didn't embarrass yourself over your clumsiness, or fell flat your face. And if you did, at least the relationship started off with laughter.
So falling in love, is like the rose bush being planted. The rose bush had nothing to do with it, it happened TO it.

What is hard to do, is stay in love. That is something you have TO DO. Just like the couple in the story, to take care of a rose bush you have to water it, prune it, keep bugs from eating it, cure it of any diseases, etc. In a relationship, you have to work at seeing each other, talking and sharing life's experiences, finding the boundaries, keep others from trying to sneak into the relationship, and support each other in good times and bad.

This is active work.

To keep that plant alive, you have to work at it. To keep the relationship alive, you have to work at it.

In every relationship there will be thorns. My husband has chewed with his mouth opened as long as I've known him. It's my biggest pet peeve and no matter how many times I have told him to stop, and he replies 'sorry I'm trying', he still hasn't stopped. That is one of my thorns. His thorn with me, well, he's told me recently that he tries very hard to fall asleep first, because apparently I snore if I sleep first and then he can't get to sleep.

Which brings me to this point. We as human beings are lumbering, slobbering, and down right smelly people. Yes, I know you're thinking right now, 'No I'm not!", but think about how you are when you are alone, and you know you are not going to be interacting with people anytime soon. You betcha sweet bippy that you are scratching in places you wouldn't in public, you pass just as stinky gas as anyone else who eats beans and cabbage, and since you know you aren't going anywhere or seeing anyone you probably are still in your pjs and hadn't showered. Yes? You're human.

Now if you have found someone who loves you in spite of all I have listed, that person is a keeper!

Marriages will always go through times of Autumn and Winter. Everyone has wondered "What if I had married that guy" or "What does so and so look like now?", or "OOOOoooo, look at that eye candy". That's normal. What makes it potentially harmful to your marriage is if you obsess over it, and look away from your mate. Yes, I know there are times you look at your mate and wonder why in the world did you chose them. I know that the thorn in your relationship is never going to go away and once in a while that thorn pricks you and it hurts more than anything and you think, if only I was with so and so, I wouldn't have to deal with that.

But let me tell you something. Everyone has thrones. They might be different thorns, but they all still hurt. What's important is being able to deal with the thorns in your own marriage. As much as I want to throw a screaming fit as I hear my husband crunching on each individual kernel of popcorn that I can hear more clearly than the movie itself, I know that if I do I'm not showing love to my husband. I'm not even showing Gods love to my husband. No, I would be showing every level of hell itself, because it's the most irritating thing he does to me. So what do I do? I protect myself from that thorn! If it's a movie I don't really care about, I'll play the computer with headphones on. I'm still with him in the same room, spending time, but I don't hear the deafening sound of popcorn snapping against my eardrums. Or if it's an actual movie date, I'll make sure to give him his popcorn early so he can get started on eating, while I'm in the kitchen making myself an equally crunchy snack that will, again, help me drown the sound, and by the time I get back the popcorn is half gone.

If you are working on your marriage, and you are going through a Autumn or Winter, know that Spring is soon coming. Know that as you both work at loving each other even though times are really hard right now, you are growing roots deeper into the ground and that makes you both stronger together, and as spring comes you will be a mightier couple.

My husband and I are going through our Winter right now. Because of the economy, he is working two jobs just to make the ends meet. He does this so that I can stay home and homeschool our children. It's important to us that our children are protected, and fully equipped with the armor of God before we send them out into this world. Our sacrifice to do this, is my husband and I only see each other three days out of the week. We've been doing for almost a year now. It's been hard acting as both parents and I have new appreciation for all single parents in the world. But this journey so far has tested my trust with my husband, his trust with me, the very foundation of our marriage and our love for each other.

In all honesty, last summer, when this journey started, I never thought I could handle it. How can I possibly sleep by myself? How can I deal with not seeing my husband everyday? How am I going to survive my kids!?

It was completely God. 

God is the center of our marriage, the center of our family, everything that we do is centered around God. It's only his strength that is keeping us going every day. It's only his love that keeps us in love with each other. It's only his peace that we know one day our Winter will be over, and Spring will be here again. That is a day I look eagerly forward to. I dream about my husband being home for dinner every night. I have a new appreciation for what my husband has to do to provide for his family, and I only love him more deeply because of his sacrifice. This is my root in the relationship growing deeper and stronger. Because of God taking care of us, I know that when our Spring comes, we will be a mightier married couple, more deeply in love than when we first met and we will bask in the treasures that are waiting for us.

Though Winter is a long wait, how sweet is the reward of Spring.

With Love,
Emily

Are you happy?

If you looked at me now, you might not guess that for about half of my early life I was a lean and graceful ballet dancer. Shoot. I look at myself now and think what the heck have I done.

This is the story of being on both ends of the body spectrum and learning about being happy; for all butterflies are beautiful, because they are all different.

*****

Growing up I was never the fat kid, nor was I the kind that are lighter than they look. You know what I mean. You swear they have bird bones. No, I was the child that had the round bottom and the cute chubby cheeks.

Then when I was just barely ten, I went through puberty. I shot up six inches, c-cup, 27 inch waist and mother earth hips. I was a very lovely and curvy young lady. I took on the family stature of my dads Austrian roots and not my mothers tall and slender English roots. This is when I learned that my beautiful hourglass figure is going to be capable of holding a lot more sand than I realize.

Sometime between 12 and 14 I went from a thin 120 lbs to 170 lbs. I realized something was wrong when I couldn't make a single pirouette that I have been easily capable of since walking age. It was then that I learned about my weight gain and started walking everyday and eating salads for lunch. After two years I seemed to have lost all of the weight, but the scale would continue to scream at me 155 lbs.

I finally went to a doctor. He took one look at me, looked at a chart and said that for my height I should be 120 lbs and being 155 lbs I am morbidly obese.

Yes. You read that right.

Morbidly Obese.

That crushed me. At 16 I was labeled as the fat girl in my mind, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was working out upwards of 20 hours a week, eating extremely healthy (I don't think chocolate had passed my lips in those two years) and there was no more change whatsoever.

It wasn't until I went to college and took a weight management class. When asked how much I weighed I ashamedly said 155 lbs. Everyone was shocked, including the teacher. "No, that can't be right, you must 135 lbs at the most." Yeah, I heard that a lot before. 

BMI testing was pretty new then, so we all took a BMI test. I came out as 11%.  

That's 11% body fat.

Under 10 is unhealthy.

I was considered the healthiest student in the class! 

Was I happy? Yes and no. I was happy to learn that I was NOT morbidly obese and I wasn't happy, because my body image was permanently changed from what I looked like a 120 lbs. 

The world is such a mean place. We are bombarded every waking moment with the label of if you have curves, if you are more than a waif of a body, you are considered fat, ugly, and have no part of the beauty culture.

Thank goodness things are starting to change! Curvy women everywhere are starting to stand up and say 'Hey! We're here, we're beautiful, and we will never look like a "Top Model"'. 

Am I still 155 lbs? Ha! I wish. No, after meeting my hubby we grew fat and happy together. It wasn't until I had Things 2 that I realized how fat I got from being happy. I weighed 240 lbs. Wow. I was a size 8 at 155 lbs and at my heaviest I was wearing a size 20/22. 

Have I changed myself? Yes. I realized that I wasn't healthy. I was happy, just not healthy, and in my head I am still that ballet dancer able to run after the kids, but my body told me other wise. So that's when I decided to get healthy for my kids. They needed a mama who was able to chase after them, not watch from the sidelines. 

It's been 2 years since I started up the old regime of walking and eating salads again. This time around it's taking me a lot longer to take off the weight and I have learned why.

For one, when I was in my teens I didn't have my own business to run, I didn't have children to raise and teach, I wasn't married, I didn't have anything to look outward to. All my focus was on myself. Nowadays if I squeeze in walking time I have to take the kids, we don't walk as fast as I want to, we're always stopping and exploring something, and that's all right with me. The fact that we are out and about together as a family and discovering life is more important than me looking like I did in high school. 

And two, Thing 1 and Thing 2 are still very young, so we all kind of eat like 5 year olds most of the time. I'm a master at peanut butter and jelly, by the way. 

So 2 years and I'm down to a very nice size 16. I can squeeze into a 14, but honestly the number doesn't matter anymore. What matters is the fact that I can chase after my kids during a round of Dragon or Zombie Mommy. I can sit down on the floor and actually get up again without Thing 1 pulling from the front and Thing 2 pushing from behind. I look at myself and I don't think fat, I think healthy. Sure I can lose more weight, and if I do great! All that matters is that I'm healthy and I can make memories playing with the kids.

So my question to you my dear readers...

Are you happy?

With Love,

Emily