Our Fall Home

Scenes of fall around our home this week:

HAPPY FALL!

Birthday Photos

Here are a few of the photo's from our birthday celebration this week - my youngest daughter turned 4!

Here's the birthday table - I made her cake and decorated it from scratch - she wanted a "chocolate cake with white icing and lots of little pink flowers on top".



She seemed pleased.



Ready to make a wish and eat cake:



She wanted a ballerina outfit:



Close-up of the birthday girl (and no, the wall in that room is not pink - it's cream - not sure what's up with that!)



It was a great birthday party!

Another Celebration

Hard to believe that my "baby" is turning 4 years old tomorrow! We had a celebration at the first of the month before hubby left with the Reserves so he'd get a chance to celebrate with her. We also took her to her favorite Mexican restaurant where they sang her a birthday song in Spanish and she got a delicious free dessert!

Tomorrow we'll celebrate with Meme and Papa - having lunch and presents and cake and time of fellowship with a little one that is another year older! Stay tuned for pictures!

4-H Sewing Projects

My oldest daughter and I will start today on our sewing projects for the upcoming Harvest Festival on October 10th. Our 4-H club will have booth to sell various home-made crafts; the money raised will go into our funds to help offset the costs for various members who travel to different state competitions.

We are signed up to make several aprons (adult and child), some fleece scarves, some beaded bookmarks, and some I Spy bags.

I'll keep you posted as we go along and will put up pictures of our progress.

Also, I've (finally!) updated my HOMESCHOOL tab to show what we're using for the 2009-2010 school year, just in case anyone is interested!

Have a great Sunday!

4-H Friday

Today is the first Friday of the month and at our house during the school year, that means 4-H and Cloverbuds!

My oldest daughter is starting her 2nd year with 4-H and has chosen sewing, photography, and community service as her primary areas of focus this year.

We're getting started this weekend with a sewing project that will carry us into most of next week - sewing items to sell at a local Farmer's Market Harvest Festival on 10 October. The proceeds from the items that are sold will go into our club 4-H fund, primarily to help pay for the Forestry Team to go to the State Competition in a few weeks. We'll be making tons of cute items to sell and I'll be sure to show you how some of them turn out here.

New this year, I'm leading the monthly craft activity for our 4-H group. I have 2 teen leaders who are helping me - I essentially have gone through and decided on a craft activity for the group for each month and made a supply list. I purchase the supplies, get the components ready, then make an example of the craft. The teen leaders are then supposed to lead the craft at each meeting.

I chose crafts for each month that would qualify to be entered in our annual 4-H Craft Fair next July. The categories are very similar to those for our local county fairs in the fall; this gives our students an opportunity to make neat crafts that they can enter into several different fairs if they want.

Today our craft was leaf magnets: I took posterboard and cut out various leaf shapes that were about 3 inches in diameter. We hot-glued a magnet button to the back of each one. Then, the students covered the front with glue and wound a strand of variegated yarn in fall colors around the template, working from outside edges into the middle. They ended up with a really nice looking fall magnet for the refrigerator - from a distance the yarn almost looks like a velvet or felt. I'll post pictures when I can get them downloaded.

I'm leading the Cloverbuds group again this year as well - my middle daughter is participating in this group. Cloverbuds is for children in K-3rd grade and is an introduction to 4-H type activities.

In Cloverbuds today we learned what 4-H is, the 4-H pledge and then studied about pumpkins and where they came from. Then each Cloverbud was able to spend the rest of the time on their craft for the month: Pumpkin Painting!

The Cloverbuds had a great time - I have a large group so far this year - about 30 students. As invariably seems to happen though, by the time Christmas passes, we seem to end up with a core group of about 8-10 students who stick with us to the end.

Late this afternoon, the girls and I painted our pumpkins for the house. They turned out really nice and I'll have pictures of those sometime this weekend!

He's Off

Well, got up at 3:30 this morning to help hubby get final things packed and a nice send-off breakfast complete with some home-made iced coffee.

He left for Ft. Knox, KY around 5 this morning. He's arrived, signed in and is going through the sometimes labor-intensive and patience-trying aspects of being in-processed.

He'll probably be home once more this month to get the rest of the items he'll need for his 1 year there; then will have a chance to come home for a weekend about every 3 months.

This mobilization, we'll have the chance to go see him as well, since my youngest is going on 4 instead of 2 months, like she was during the last mobilization. To me at least, it is a bit easier to travel 5-6 hours with a 4 year old than a 2 month old!

Now, next up on the agenda - working through some sewing crafts that our 4-H Homeschool Club is selling at the Farmer's Market Harvest Festival on 10 October - the proceeds will help send our Forestry Team on to the state competition.

More soon!