Messy Homestead

I love the Summer Reading Program at our local library!  You get a prize when you sign up, and then you get prizes when you read 10 hours for the summer. You get a little sheet that helps you to track your hours and how much you read. This is our second summer doing it and it is so much fun! Especially now that Judah is finally starting to make a connection that how much he reads is linked to something. Last year had a hard time with figuring out how to document our reading, because we definitely don't always read for 15-minute chunks. So this summer I decided to use little rocks that you can find at the dollar store and we count each of those as five minutes. We each get a jar, and after we read for five minutes or however many minutes, we get to stick that number of rocks into the dark! It's nice because I get rocks for reading on my own, and for reading to the boys! From left to right: my jar (biggest because I read the most!), Judah's jar, David's jar, supply

I can't take any credit for this idea. Judah (age 3) was sitting at our island with some water and a crazy straw. I heard him saying "there's a J for Judah!" So I came over and saw that he was scribbling and I decided to write his name for him - which he loves to see! What a fun idea!

I have been on a crazy sewing kick lately! Nothing I make is good enough to sell (or even give away!), but I enjoy making these things for my kiddos. Here is a rattle that I made for David, my 10 month old. I used scrap fabric and some embroidery thread. I got the idea from this website, but instead of printing out the pattern, I just freehanded some shapes. and since I'm still learning what all the terms mean, I had to re-do the ears three times! But I learned an important lesson for a dress that I'm making (finishing - I started it many many years ago!), so I'd much rather redo little itty bitty ears than a whole dress!

We received a gnome house for a white elephant present a few years ago and it came with a very cute little family. I have been wanting to make more people and I finally did it! Viola! As per the Waldorf way, they don't have smiles because then they can have any emotion. However, when I made one and showed it to Judah, he requested eyes. So they all have eyes. I guess they can just never be asleep then. I followed the directions here .

We've already talked about how I love cloth napkins (see here ) and they really feed my sewing itch because they are SO easy and make me feel like I'm accomplishing something. I was inspired by this blog post to make ones for my boys because Judah has loved using cloth napkins lately! I spent roughly $4 on fabric and they each took about 5-10 minutes to make (I got faster as I went). Judah loves them and it's also really fun to share these with his friends when they come over!

I love learning to sew! And I love cloth napkins. I'm a nerd. My sister-in-law had a ton of really cute cloth napkins that she had made for a baby shower and I got inspired to copy her (story of my life). Here's my latest project! I know, three of one color and one of another? Whatever, don't judge me. That was the scrap fabric I had. They are roughly 9" (or maybe 9.5") and are "square". I love them! Next: check out my Kid's Cloth Napkins !