sunday (a tad late)

saturday

Happy, Happy Thanksgiving!

Lots to be thankful for!

Including my whole side of the family because they fed the four of us today. We were missing our fifth due to work. But we are not complaining because we are very thankful for that job too.

I am also thankful to have so many wonderful people surrounding me who eat my stuffing every single year.

We get a second coming of Thanksgiving when Jeff gets home from work in a couple of days.

We should be hungry by then.

Happy Thanksgiving and I hope you were surrounded by wonderful people too.

Little Leaves Of Thanks.

So I saw this cute little idea in the November issue of Real Simple.

It's just a bowl filled with paper leaves that you can write special things that you are thankful for on. Then you can read them aloud on Thanksgiving Day. We just cut up that very magazine to make our leaves and I think they look awfully pretty.

I thought I was the only one participating but I took a little early peek and found these;

"Famal" (family I think), "My Food" and "School" "Grandparints" written by Sully. And in perfect penmanship was "Colyer" written by Colyer. I think he is thankful to be able to write his name so well. :)

Here is my "Little Leaf Of Thanks" for today;

"JEFF, for being so patiently understanding about how important that 33rd picture of Minna's muddy feet is and for compassionately teaching, creating with and loving Sully today when he was upset."

What would your leaves say?

PS-I am also thankful to be up and running again! I will be back to my daily posts and I am so excited. I missed you! Look for updates from the past month over the next week.

So, if you missed us, we're baaaack....

New Header and No Sew Seasonal Garland

...or as we like to say-

"Easy Fall Funny Flags"!

We made our own garland! We were all sick and the sewing machine, that is sadly on it's last legs, was just not working so we needed something we could sew by hand, or not at all.

It was so easy and fun that all four of us joined in. The boys and I cut, designed, glued and strung. Minna stacked (and promptly un-stacked) our felt triangles for us. Good times!

Here is a neat post I found today that has a billion other ways to make a pretty garland. I think ours could have made that list too, don't you?

Here is what we did if you just have to have one for your house.

ROUND UP-

* enough felt in seasonal colors to make 24 flags (ours are about 5-6 inches across the top side)
* 4 yards of ribbon, twine, yarn or anything you want to string your funny flags onto.
* scraps of pretty season inspired fabric of your choice
* fabric scissors
* glue, we used white glue but I am sure there is a better glue to use for fabric
* pen for drawing design onto fabric
* tacks or hooks for hanging

GET WORKIN'-

Talk with the kiddos about what colors and shapes represent the season for you and your family. When we chatted about Fall, jack-o-lanterns, leaves and apples kept coming up so we went with those. Then we decided on colors that went along with those ideas. Orange, purple, brown and green for the triangles and whatever we had in scraps for the leaves and apples. Use what you have if you can.

Cut 24 triangles, or more of course. You can make them any size and cut out as many as you want.

Cut little slits at the top two corners of each triangle to thread your sting through.

Draw the designs you choose on the scraps of fabric. We used a fabric pen because it went on smooth, but almost any felt-tip pen will work.

Cut out the shapes. We used some cotton scraps and some felt. We just left the cotton pieces raw and didn't care or worry about fraying.

Glue your shapes onto your flags.

String 'em to your chosen ribbon, twine or string. We created a pattern but you can be crazy and just string away in any old order. The boys LOVE patterns so that was very important to them.

Hang your festive garland up with the tacks or hooks and enjoy!

We are going to start our "Easy Winter Wacky Flags" next.

Have a lovely Sunday evening.

Not A Wordless Weekend...

(I miss those. They will be commin' around again soon...)

Here is some embroidery though.
These were worked on during our sick week when kids and grown-ups alike were gettin' antsy and starting to slowly feel better.

I can't claim these lovely pieces but a couple of boys around here can.

Here is Mr. C working on a mom original design he named,
"Snake With A Pointy Tongue".

And below, is Sully's smiley masterpiece. He drew, picked out the color and wanted to learn the split stitch for this one. Very nice.

I think in the embroidery world the above works are commonly referred to as "man-broidery".

How about "kid-broidery"? Yeah, that's better.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Just Had To Share.

SOMEONE got to see S.F. and the Golden Gate
from a very different angle the other day.


He managed to get some breathtaking shots too.
Not a bad day at the office and it never hurts to look at things in a new way.


That way of thinking has helped me out a lot the past few weeks.
Makes for not so bad days at home.

Actually, makes for pretty great days at home. :)

Briefly Out Of Hiding...

How has everyone been?!

We have been kind of cooped up out here. Four of the five of us had a miserable flu bug that kept us under blankets for a week. We cuddled and recovered and are all better now. We even had friends over yesterday. What a treat!

Here is Minna-girl last week stepping out for the first time after days of not wanting to move. Poor thing is wearing her brothers old pajamas because the rest of her jammies had been soiled by one or more of many sickly substances. She was smiling and feeling so good in the fresh air and her cozy red pants. I desperately needed the fresh air too. I think we were instantly better.

We have also done some rearranging around the house. I will explain why and give you a tour as soon as the computer comes home from the hospital. Should be soon and the prognosis is good.



In an effort to bring the outdoors in while we were in our sickbeds, I set up a mini-nature table. We usually have rocks, leaves and other kid-found treasures all over the house. I am sure we still will, but I like the idea of a central location that can be played with and set up by both little and big hands.

Should be fun to see what the kids drag in. Hopefully no more germs.

Hope to be back regularly very, VERY soon

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

As For Halloween...

Yay! I am so happy to have these pictures to share. I don't have an editing program right now so they are not touched up or cropped or fiddled with. Just the basic goodness of our costumed cuties.

We have so much fun trick-or-treating with our Pleasant Hill buddies. Uncle S let's us invade his house every year which I know demands a weeks worth of recovery after we all leave. So much fun though.

Colyer the fire-fighter. We like fire-fighters around here. That hat was worn by every kid at least once...

Sully had the Harry Potter thing down. Lots of spells cast and capes flying...

And these two. Our kitty and pirate. We couldn't keep up. They could have gone 10 more blocks, at least.

Lastly, even though these guys weren't scary we got a kick out of the tail end of this poem-

We are scary as scary can be-
My sister, my brother and me.
We frighten each other,
We even scare mother-
Three Halloween tricksters are we.

Happy Monday and wish us luck on our computer diagnosis!

As For Pumpkin Week...

Well, Pumpkin Week for Out Here'n Two Rock was thwarted.

But we really did many wonderful things. All the great things that make up a good pumpkin week. I took pictures of all those great things too. Some real nice ones. My sweet ones got all dressed up and hammed it up for the camera. We had flowing capes and cute babies being so independent on their first big girl Halloween. We had a little fire fighter that told anyone who would listen that he had a uniform just like his Dad's. We ate pizza and candy and got a bit crazy. Plus, a bunch of neat people let me take some lovely family portraits of them, three whole sessions worth in fact. It was a blast of a week.

Wish I could share.

But I can't.

Thanks to what will go down in history as,

"The Great Pumpkin Week Computer Crash of 2009".

Yup. No computer now. Just a cute little net-book with zero photo editing capabilities. (Don't get me wrong I am VERY thankful for the e-mail capabilities it is providing me though.)

I am hoping that the info on our computer can be saved. We were lazy, sporadic back-up folk so the loss is potentially huge. Think recent birth photos and 1st birthdays and stuff. Nevermind, trying NOT to think about it.

We have a cool friend trying to work his magic on our hard-drive. Miracles do happen don't they?

I believe they do.

So, I didn't get to write about or share my beloved photos of our great week. And all of the photos I have taken recently that mean so much, may never be seen again. But those amazing, happy littles of mine that carved pumpkins and trick-or-treated with their best friends and played four square with me today, miraculously make it all better.

Hope you had a great week and a sweet, sweet Halloween.

Can't wait to be back up and runnin' soon...