Pillow Covers

I'm finally finding time to sew again!
I'm finally getting around to making these things! I bought the material a bit after little A was born. . .and it took me about about 3 1/2 months to finally have time and energy to make these simple pillow covers.

We have these big, big, big pillows in out playroom, but they are quite multi-coloured with a very loud print. I'm not a big fan, so I found some soft flannel that would match the walls. Because of the lack of floor space, I had to do some measuring for it all on beds!
See the ugly pillows? See the new material, cut out now, but not sewed. . .

The "pattern" I used was REALLY easy--all just measuring! Imagine a duvet cover. . .pretty much the same thing. After measuring the fabric to fit the pillows, I just sewed a simple square (sewed three sides) with one side open. On that open side, I sewed in about 3 inches on both sides, then attached Velcro to the opening part. Of course, it has been so long since I have sewed, and lack of sleep does wonders for your brain, that I first attached the Velcro to the wrong side (ie: the Velcro was on the outside of the pillow, not the inside so that it would close nicely and stay hidden!). After taking that all apart and attaching it correctly. . .

They are finally done! What a simple, simple project that took, like, a whole week to do from start to finish! (With only short blocks of sewing time in the evenings IF the baby is happy. . .not so much for sewing time!) But I LOVE the way they match the playroom walls, and the kids love the "softness" of it compared to the old ones!

See the Velcro closings? Now I can take them apart to wash when needed. . .

Simple, and finally done!

Airplanes, Part 2

I guess I am a glutton for punishment. . .or I just love making my kiddos happy!
We went to the airshow again. . .although this time it was along with all those other airshow attenders who didn't want to pay the carload price but wanted to share the side of the road with us! And I might have to add, this wasn't a bad view!
Opa found the "exact same place" as they had last year (according to E--he knew exactly when to tell Opa to stop the van! How do kids remember these things?), we pulled out the lawn chairs and snacks, and enjoyed the sunshine waiting for some of the acts to appear.

Last year E had a toy military airplane to play with. Since then it lost a few wheels. . .and it magically got "lost." Hubby went out the night before--after his long day at the show--to find new airplanes for the kiddos. That is a tough job during the week of an airshow I guess, and he came home with the last one in the store. So. . .I looked through my collection of "My Little Ponies" saved up to give Princess A as gifts and found one with wings. . .that is close enough to a flying aircraft, right? It turned out these little surprises were just perfect for both of them and kept them busy as we watched!
At first this was all we saw. . .far in the distance (right overhead of my hubby, though). See those specks above the treeline, below the mountain line? Those are the Harvard Mk IVs I believe.

We brought along binoculars to check them all out a little better. It was neat when the Skyhawks (parachuters) came out--you could see their faces and hand signals/directions!

In between the sky acts. . .way too much fun! Apparently E had the "Golden Eagle" who got away, and Princess A was just following in the fun with "Star-fly-er".

A little closer. . .

But then came the Snowbirds. . .and those were right on top of us! We could even see the pilots. . . of course I don't have any pictures of that. . .I'm not that great of a picture-taker! And they were loud! There was one point when we were so busy watching what the bunch in front of us were doing that we didn't even notice the two zooming in from behind us until they were right on top of us. . .and LOUD!

E and A's favourite "heart" trick. . .

E and A had names for all the tricks. . .a mountain, a cross-over, a maple leaf. . .

All done until next year. . .

Airplanes

On Friday we went out to the Abbotsford Airshow. We have been hearing all the noises of the air crafts and planes throughout the week, but now we were able to take a closer look at it all.

We spent most of our time at the "Static Displays," taking breaks in between to watch some of the performances in the sky. E loved it all--he was a little hesitant at first because everything was SO big compared to his toys, the pictures he had seen and what he remembered about seeing them in the sky last year. But soon enough he was running off to see all that there was to see. Princess A, on the other hand, spent most of her time in my arms. She liked seeing it all, but she wanted it all via the comfort of mom's arms!
We got some "ear protection" for the kids because it was loud for them. . .and man, did we collect loot! Everyone who saw the kids wanted to give them stickers, pencils, tattoos, etc. There were also lots of people around to explain what the planes and air crafts were used for and what their jobs were.

I got a few photos of some of the sky acts. . .however, this is the best I could do when my picture-taking was limited by a preschool child draped around me!

E and A were most impressed with the times that they made loop-de-loops and hearts in the sky. Here is the three of us in one of the air crafts--taking a break in the cool shade from the sun!

Here is us outside that same aircraft. . .see how teeny we are in comparison?

And here is a "fuller" picture of the same aircraft. Its amazing how these things can fly in the sky and all the things they can do!

E is being a pilot. He decided he didn't want to fly anywhere today because he had to learn a little bit before he could take off. {smile}

In a much smaller plane!

Here, I think, is the Lancaster and Eagle in the runway preparing to park for the afternoon. This is as close as I could get to them. My ears were ringing from the noise of it all!

The snowbirds lined up and getting ready to take off. . .

We had fun. . . my hubby was a little jealous because he couldn't get time off of work. However, he gets to be there the rest of the weekend as an emergency worker. He won't get to see all the stuff we did, but he'll have a great seat on the runway for the sky acts. (He may also be putting out a few grass fires as part of the war tank/bomber demonstrations).

Menu Plan Monday

Hi again. . .

Like I said before, its summer. Things are lazy and busy, all jumbled up into one. So blogging is also that way. . .more on the lazy side for me lately!

So this will be easier, because I can just tell you what I had some of the days!

Monday- pizza, salad

Tuesday-baked potato soup (w/ baked potato toppings), buns

Wednesday-Hamburger Helper salad or cut up veggies and dip

Thursday- Chicken Enchiladas, guacamole and chips

Friday- leftovers

Saturday- hamburgers and toppings

Sunday- pancakes and sausages

Last week I didn't post. Oops! Some of my meals included French Toast Casserole, CP Cheese and Bacon Chicken (w/ potatoes and corn on the cob), and Crock Pot Thai Chicken (w/ rice and salad). The two crock pot meals were done because of the weather and the convenience. . .and I was gonna have company on both those days. . .but didn't. Then came the challenge to make a left-overs meal out of each of them as there was double what our family would eat. Here is what we did:

CP Thai Chicken: we changed this recipe into wraps. Cut up the meat in strips, added some onions and peppers and carrot strips, made some tortillas, and there was supper. My kids seemed to like eating it that way better!

CP Cheese and Bacon Chicken: This one I used to make pizza. Again, cut up the chicken into strips, topped a pizza shell with some BBQ sauce (not too much as the leftovers also has some sauce) added peppers and more bacon, topped it all on the pizza crust, added cheese, and there you go. 20 minutes later we had a delish supper.

For more mpm ideas, visit http://www.orgjunkie.com/

Summer Reading Review Continued

If you missed my first post about the summer reading club I am doing with my kiddos (and are interested in reading it), go to this post.
Otherwise, here is a continuation of my {humble} reviews a few of the books we've read together.

Week of July 19-25

The Turn-Around, Upside Down Alphabet Book by Lisa Campbell Ernst.

See the little sticker on the book? This one is recommended by the library to develop early reading and literacy skills.

In my humble opinion, I'd have to agree!
This book is great. I remember taking it out last summer with my son, and he found it again this year and loved it! Each letter is big and bold in the middle of the page, set against a contrasting-like background. Then you have to turn the book to view the "picture each letter creates at each angle. The denellian writing tells you what you should be able to see. This year it was neat to see E show Princess A what the picture was supposed to be and even read some of the words. It was also neat to see if they came up with another picture than the ideas given in the book. Later on E even made a picture out of the letters in his name. . .not quite following the way the book uses letters to make pictures, but it sparked something of interest for him, so I'm grateful for this book. Princess A tried to join in, but her pictures are usually just blobs of colour at this point. My only negative for this book is that because most children's books are not written using denallian writing, some of the letters caused him some trouble in reading (ie: the letter k).

The Princess Party by Joy Allen

If you have a princess in your house, you can't NOT take this book out! It's a little rhyming story about a group of girls having a princess party. It's very cute in that you see each girl dressed as a different kind of princess--from ballerinas to cowgirls. . .and you see their "real" clothes under their dress-up attire. The photos also show a little brother in the background (hee-hee!) of many of these scenes. Another creative bit to the pictures is that when the rhymes refer to "castles" or real princess-type words, the girls are shown jumping on a trampoline or playing something in the backyard--again, spurring the imaginative minds of little kids.

My Heart is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall.

You might be familiar with other books by Michael Hall, but this one was just GREAT! Again, rhyming verses about animals, all created using various sizes and colours of hearts. This book can definitely be a good one to have around Valentine's day, along with a google search on making animals out of hearts. Many "teacher pages" have printables on how to make dogs or penguins (two I've used) using different sizes of hearts for a Valentine craft or Centre activity.

Week of July 26-August 1

Whose Garden Is It? by Mary Ann Hoberman; Illustrated by Jane Dyer

I chose this book for my kiddos because we had been weeding the garden and "tending" to its growth(its amazing how you can get a little bit of watering done to your garden during a water/sprinkling-ban when you give a kid the nozzle!) But this book went far beyond any gardening information. It showed ALL the parts of a garden and environmental factors that work together to make a garden grow. So when the question "Whose Garden Is IT?" is posed, it becomes clear that this is not an easy-answered question. Very thought provoking. Perhaps a little beyond my kiddos in terms of the thinking process, but still quite enjoyable. It would definitely be a good book to read along with any plant, garden, or spring unit in school.

The Animals Watched: An Alphabet Book
I LOVED this books too!This was great because we recently bought some passes to the zoo, and as small as our {local} zoo is, many of the animals in this book are at the zoo. Aside from an illustration of that particular animal, the minds eye was at work. The book told the story of Noah from the perspective of each of the alphabetical animals. I thought that was very creative. The other thing I liked about this book was that it didn't pick common animals. B wasn't for bear. (Yes, Z was for zebra, but come on, what other animals that started with Z could have walked two by two into the Ark?) Capybaras and Kiwis were featured. Then, at the back of the book, there were a few pages giving a brief paragraph of information about each of the animals (where the lived, what they ate, etc). In a household of Zaboomafoo-watchers, this book was definitely a hit!

Week of August 2

Yah. . .lost the photos on my camera, so. . .from memory, here goes. . .

Elevator Magic by ?

This book was good in terms of teaching some basic math skills. It did some addition and subtractions of what floor the elevator had to go to. (ie: 7-2=5. . .they had to be on the fifth floor if they were to go down two floors). But the "magic" part of this book was kinda dumb--in my humble opinion. The kid lands up on a floor and there is a farm taking over the bank. . or something along that line. There is nothing in the book that builds up to these weird occurrences on each floor and nothing that ties it all together except that it has been a fun and weird day type of ending. I could've done without this one. . .

Sea Creatures by?

Again. . .not sure who wrote it or published it. . .but it was an information book. The kind your kid takes home from the school library and you dread reading it with them because it goes on forever! This one was good in that it just had a few paragraphs on each page. We read a few each day, and it was bearable for me, and very interesting for E.

I know there was one really good book this week, but can't think of it at this point. Need the photo to jog my memory!!! I promise that next week I won't delete photos and I'll have a few more reviews for ya!

Playground and Waterpark

So this little post is for my sister. . . sorry.
My photo program is not downloading so good right now, so I psoted some photos here.
I am so dumb.
I deleted your pictures. . .and all the ones when you were out.
So I went back to the park and tried to take some more for you.
Hope this is okay.