Moments to Remember :: More Paper

Joining Jolanthe today to share and remember a moment from the week.

There has been an enormous amount of treasures being delivered from #4. Mr. Wiedz was getting a little overwhelmed my all the paper being used. I walked into the front/school room the other day and found this sweet set-up and my heart just melted. I'll buy all the paper I need to for moments like these.

Project :: Coming Home Outfits

For the first time ever I didn't find out the gender of my baby. Every pregnancy so far I've gone to the 18-week ultrasound, found out the gender, then headed straight to Target for a coming home from the hospital outfit. This time I thought it would be fun to be surprised.

And it is fun.

It is also more work.

Right when I found out I was pregnant I found this pattern for the puerperium sweater...and fell in love. I cast on right away in an adorable pink yarn that my mom had given me with a wide purple stripe. I blogged about just the sweater quite awhile ago. I figured I could find a pair of pants to go with the sweater. Then I knit the booties (ravelry link). Then I figured the best outfit would be with little baby pants I made myself.

Then I realized if baby *was* a boy I'd feel forever guilty about having a whole handmade outfit for a girl baby but an afterthought outfit for a boy. So...

I cast on for another puerperium in a blue yarn that my mom had also given me (basically she gave me a whole bag of Belle Organic Amy Butler DK - I've used a lot of it...love it, though it does untwist quite a bit). I messed up and had to frog the whole thing at one point but puerperium's knit up so quickly that I was able to finish the whole thing in a couple of days (gotta love vacation knitting) and I was so glad I ripped out instead of just making it work. In my first puerperium I did a stripe in the middle of the sweater which made my yarn go farther...this one, I used nearly every inch of the yarn. I got to the sleeve edging and had plans to use a lighter blue...Mr. Wiedz suggested the same green I had used on my cowl and hat (still need to blog about those with proper pictures). It was perfect! My mom brought buttons to dig through when she came last weekend and I found the PERFECT ones!

Add some adorable, easy baby dino pants and I've got a coming home outfit for a boy and a cleared up case of future mommy-guilt. I have plans for using the same green yarn for a pair of booties and a hat (which can and will work for a girl baby too).

:: Yarn Along ::

Joining Ginny again this week.

I'm promising myself that I will post my finished projects that I am so excited about tomorrow. I tried to get it all together for a Tuesday post, but it just wasn't meant to be. Come back tomorrow though, and see what I've been up to!!!

On the needles :: I didn't get very much done on #3's sweater. Gotta pick it back up...I'm really so close to starting sleeves. I've been doing most of my knitting on the pants for #6 that I've started. I love them. The KnitPicks Swish DK is so soft. I can't wait to see them all complete...I think that's what's got me picking them up over and over. Plus, now that I've gotten to the semi-close to being done stage, I'm already thinking about what I'd like to cast on. I have plans for another pair of booties but need the needles that the pants are using...all the more reason to finish those pants!

On the nightstand :: I got When the Heart Cries at the church library a couple of weeks ago and read through the whole thing in a matter of days. So good. This was the first book for this author and she did a remarkable job. Can't wait to get book #2 on Sunday! Course that means I'm out of a book until then and going to sleep just isn't the same without a little reading time.

Would love to know what you're crafting or reading. Leave a comment to share. And any book tips would be greatly appreciated...needing something next time we go to the library.

Pinewood Derby

#2 participated in his pack's Pinewood Derby last week. Mr. Wiedz and #2 had worked on the car all of January. They learned a lot last year and used some books and tips and supplies that a graduating family passed down to us. They were quite excited about the whole thing this year.

The planning process. #2 and Mr. Wiedz consulted some books and drew out the design of the car and discussed their plan. It was a really great dad/#2 process to watch.

Standing nervously in line to weigh in and turn in his car. We were all hoping that it would make weight, that they hadn't done something wrong, that they would get the thumbs up to race.

Thumbs up!!!!

#2 named his car the "Dark Knight" and it joined all the other cars waiting to race.

All the boys sit around the track and cheer for their car and their friends cars. Each car get to race 8 races randomly choosen by the computer. They've got quite a great set-up and some really awesome dads who volunteer to run the whole thing!

Our whole family doesn't regularly attend the pack meetings. Of course, the Pinewood Derby is an exception as it is so fun to cheer on all the boys. But the meeting goes on so long that the little guys really start to wear out by the end. In a great turn of events, #5 had taken a weird 15 nap before lunch and so I was able to lay him down for his "afternoon" nap even later, like 3:00, and that helped him make it into the longer evening. Mr. Wiedz did have to provide some distraction as the evening wore down.

#2's car did great! He won a trophy for being the fastest Wolf! It was a great evening.

Moments to Remember :: Pinewood Derby

Joining Jolanthe to remember a moment from this week.

I'm going to post all about the Pinewood Derby this coming week but looking back through pictures this one really jumped out to me. I loved watching him interact with his friends. And watching his siblings cheer for him.

Linking up ::

Rowing :: Papa Piccolo

"The lion is the emblem of Venice, but the common cat rules its narrow streets and alleyways. A prince among these feline rulers is Piccolo, and what a fine life he leads! Especially after dark- when the streets are full of possibilities!

Then one night, Piccolo makes a discovery that threatens his carefree life and his independence and starts him on a new and special kind of adventure." From the book description on Amazon.

We took two weeks to row Papa Piccolo and we loved the book. I did worry it would get a little old reading it each day for two weeks, and while the boys quit sitting in rapt attention, they very much enjoyed the book and have started retelling parts of the story before I can read it...sign of a good book around here!

It seems like I'm trying to fit a lot more into the little boy's school time, which I am but it is going really smoothly and other than a couple of complaints about math I think everything I've added is going well.

FIAR Activities ::

We still start each day of our school time with reading our FIAR book. This year we started out reading around our school table but I wasn't liking that and was really missing the "cuddle" aspect of reading together so I moved our operation to the floor. We really need some bean bag chairs to make this part of the day even more comfortable.

I made a little fill-in-the-blanks "poem" about cats.

The book is illustrated in watercolors and the boys ask everyday to paint so we pulled out the watercolors one day and let them have at it. #3's actually looks like a picture. It's a tree with a cat in it.

A measuring lesson for #3.

At the beginning of the first week the boys had all the legos and a pattern to make gondolas which I used the second week to decorate the cake we made. #2 helped me with this little activity. I showed him a picture from creekside learning's (link below) site of a lego gondola. He recreated it with legos we had available then took pictures of each step, just like a lego instruction book. We then bagged up the pieces they would need to make the gondolas with his instructions. I formatted the pictures #2 took into a two page "booklet" that we laid out with the bags during centers.

We also talked a little about nocturnal animals since, "When nighttime came to the canals and narrow streets of Venice and almost everyone went inside and turned on the lights, Piccolo went out." I found a nice set of mini-books at homeschool share (link below) and we learned a little about the nocturnal animal habits and senses and advantages.

We also did our flag and map work, finding Italy on the world map and hanging our flag with the others to show our travels with FIAR.

All About Reading ::

I started All About Reading Level Pre-1 with both of the boys a couple of weeks ago. I am loving the program and can see them both learning a lot with it. We concentrated on letter B this week and rhyming words.

Each week there is a letter craft to complete that coincides with the story from "Zig Zag Zebra". The boys used an eraser to make blueberries on their letter B pages. I think another part of the program that is really helping is the repetition of each day. We go over the poster of capitol letters singing the ABC's each day. Now, this is probably something I should have been doing anyway but, I don't know, having a program telling me to means it's actually getting done.

Animal ABC

One new thing I added was Carisa's ABC Animals to go-along with our AAR letter of the week. This fun letter B will get bears cut out and pasted on top. There are other parts to her program that the boys like; tracers, story observations, etc. Fun stuff and helps spread the letter through the week. Baby even joined us for gluing buttons on paper, he thought he was so cool! Amazing little finger pinching the buttons and so proud of himself for getting them in the glue.

You Can Read ::

I also added Carisa's You Can Read program to work on sight words with #3 to our daily routine. There are a lot of activities that we rotate through. Parts #3 likes, parts he doesn't but he has started recognizing sight words in other things we're reading which is making this mama proud and he really feels like he's learning to read, just the confidence builder he was needing to move forward down this path.

Links ::

Creekside Learning :: inspiration and lego gondola idea
Homeschool Share :: nocturnal animals and other printables
1+1+1=1 :: Animal ABC and You Can Read

Linking Up ::

:: Yarn Along ::

I wasn't going to post today. My picture is practically the same and I figured there wasn't much to say. And there might not be but I love these posts and I love having them to look back on. So here I am. Joining Ginny and the other yarn along-ers.

On the needles :: I had to go sit at the lab and have a 3-hour glucose test this week so I was able to get some knitting done. At home since, though, I've been more in a sewing and digital scrapbooking mood so the needles have sat, neglected since then. Still working on #3's sweater. I'm almost to the underarms so that's exciting and will probably use the remaining yarn on the sleeves...must order more yarn before I loose momentum. At the lab I was also able to get the first leg of the tiny trousers done and start the second leg. I'm loving the knit picks swish dk, it is so soft and I really love the color.

On the nightstand :: Still reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire but I'm almost to the end and I picked up a book at the church library last week which should get me through until our next library visit. Library visits are getting more and more difficult to do by myself and (shockingly) no one likes to go with me so they have been moved further and further apart. We've got to try and go in the next week or so...everyone is getting dangerously low on books.