Pictures from Abbi's birthday

The birthday girl! I had two pictures to choose from for
the birthday picture, and I decided on this one, because it is
so Abbi like with the cheesy grin :). This is in the zoo garden.

The bear sulking, haha! He wasn't happy with his
brother for slapping him into the water :).

The kangaroos. Abbi wanted to see these first off, then the
fish! Our zoo has a kangaroo walk-about, and it's Abbi's favorite!

We also got to see the Meerkats, one of my favorites,
although, I think they look more like dogs than cats, haha!

We stopped at the restaurant at the zoo (only Bethi and Mommy had been there before this) to celebrate Abbi's birthday.

I think this was at the monkeys...

Bethi and Andrew in the garden.

Tori and I decorated the cakes, which Mommy made the
day before. Abbi got both Bob and Larry, because she couldn't
decide which she would like better :). The whole time Mommy
was cutting the cakes Abbi was making Bob and Larry say
"Ow! I'm hurt! I'm hurt!!!" Heehee, she is a goose!

Emmi isn't usually this calm! For once she was happy to
watch the others playing with balloons instead
of trying to join them. I think we wore her out!!!

Happy birthday Abbi!

Abbi-girl is three today! She has been talking about her third birthday for two or three months now. She has been so excited that she will be "Big'a" on her birthday ("Big'a" said as she stands on tiptoe and reaches for the sky)!
This past year Abbi reached some milestones in her life, which included growing enough hair to put in pigtails (now Emmi is our bald baby...) and starting to talk super good. It was funny, because she wouldn't learn for the first 24 months of her life, and then she was talking none stop in a week!
She is such a sweet girl! We've got a busy day planned for her, and she is so excited! I'll try to get some pictures to post soon.

Happy birthday to Daddy and Mommy!

Yes, they share a birthday. That was one of Mommy's dreams when she was a little girl; that she and her future husband would share a birthday. My Grandparents also share a birthday, so she thought it would be really neat :). They have both done so much for all of us children, and we love them so much!!! And here's to our favorite Daddy and Mommy...

Happy Birthday, Daddy and Mommy!

Emmi in the kitchen

Sweet baby girl rolling out pizza dough. See her floured sleeves?
She had flour all the way from her eyebrows to her toes :).

Yesterday Emmi wanted me to be right there at her side all afternoon, and I was going to make pizza for supper. I decided t0 set her on a chair and let her "help". She was alright with not being held, as long as she could stir the dough, something she has never done before. She was so excited! She would laugh every time we put some thing else in the bowl. The only thing she didn't like was dumping the dough on the counter. She made it very clear that she didn't think that should be done! She was alright with it though, once she got to help roll it out :).

Tatted bookmarks: Cross

Another pattern I created. This one can also be made in close to half an hour. I tat using a shuttle, so I'm not sure how easy it would be to convert these to needle tatting.

Cross bookmark:

This pattern is done with consecutive rings:

1. Wind tatting shuttle with color of choice.
2. Left side ring: *10-1--1-10*
3. Bottom ring: 15-1--1-15
4. Right side ring: Repeat from * to*.
5. Top ring: Repeat from * to *. Close ring.
6. Leave four inches of thread bare.
7. End ring: 5-5-5-5. Close ring.

Tatting abbreviations: (-) equals picot
(--) equals long picot
(numbers, like 10, 15, and 1) equals number of double stitches to tat.



Have fun!!!

Tatted bookmarks: Daisys

I created this pattern, which takes about half an hour to make. I hope you enjoy! As a note, I tat using a shuttle, so I'm not sure that these instructions can be used in needle tatting.

This is what you're bookmark will look like when done :).

Daisy Bookmark*:

This bookmark is made with consecutive rings.

1. Wind your shuttle, with the color of your choice.
2. First petal: *10-10*.
3. : Repeat from * to * four more times.
4. Leave about four inches of thread bare.
5. For end ring: 5-5-5-5. Close ring.

Tatting abbreviations: (-) equals picot
(--) equals long picot
(numbers, like 8, 5, and 1) equals number of double stitches to tat.

At first I made this with five petals and a leaf (and a really decorative top, but I liked the look of the simple top better)...

But, after Bethi asked me if I knew that one of the petals was a different color than the rest, and Tori asking if I ran out of thread, and Mommy saying "A leaf?! Oh! I thought it was a llama joke..." (and the fact that it just looked better with five rings instead of six), I just made five petals. And that's how it'll stay ;)...

Tori has earrings now

Last month she was out with Mommy, and mentioned wanting earrings. Mommy told her that she would talk to Daddy about getting her ears pierced sometime after his trip to Michigan, which would give Tori enough time to fully decide if that was what she wanted. She still wanted them this morning, so Daddy took her out to get it done. She did a great job, only flinching slightly with the first one! She did really good, and is so excited!

Day three of our visit...

Mommy and Grandma talked about it and we decided to stay the night over and just leave really early the next morning. We ate supper, got most of the stuff back out of the car (heehee...) and then watched "The Widow's Might" with everybody but Grandpa, who had to work. We headed to bed, fully expecting to get up early and get home in time for a visit from some of our friends we were expecting. But, plans changed again. We decided to stay and and do some shopping and go out to lunch with Grandma before we left. Our Aunts were working, and Grandpa had worked all night, or they would have loved to have come too ;).
Before we dropped Grandma off at her house, we stopped in to see our Aunt at Starbucks (that is were she is working right now.). Then we made a quick stop at Grandma's to drop her off, pick up the rest of our stuff, and tell Grandpa goodbye.
We then headed to our house, where we were stuck outside for about fifteen minutes trying to get the eight frogs and nest-looking thing off our door! We live right by a retention pond, and have had a few frogs in the house, so we always try to move the cute little things before we open the door. At least, they're cute until you have to move eight of them... heehee, we love the frogs, but dislike the noise they make when they land on concrete from five feet up the door... and dislike even more when they land on us!
We had a fun time at Grandpa and Grandma's! Haha, everybody was already asking everybody else, "When can we do it again?"!

More of our visit...

The next morning we decided to take the day pretty easy, due to the late hours the night before :). We had another enjoyable day. Aunt Amber took Mommy, Tori, Aunt Tessa, and I to the gallery were she sells her art (and, after that, to Baskin' Robins, as Mommy hadn't gotten to go the day before, haha...). It was really neat. There were so many cute handcrafted items there! I saw some little place mats that were really cute that I know how to make, I just never thought of making them that way. Another project added to my ever growing "crafts to do" list...
Andrew was so excited when he heard that we were going to Grandpa's house, because he loved taking the trash to the dump with Grandpa last time. Well, Grandpa had taken the trash just before we got there. So, Grandpa took Andrew to get ice cream and then throw their empty bowls away at the dump :). Andrew loved it, he has been talking about it the last three days :). Even Abbi got to enjoy some time out of the house with somebody, because Aunt Tessa and Aunt Amber took Bethi and Abbi to the store to pick up some eggs. She loved it!
At about five, we started packing up the van so that we could leave as soon as supper was over. But, there was a bit of a change in plans...

A visit to Grandpa and Grandma's

Daddy had a business trip this week, from Tuesday to Friday. We've missed Daddy these last few days, and can't wait to see him tonight! We decided that we would go have a sleepover at our Grandparent's house. The plan was to get there on Tuesday morning, the day that Daddy was going to leave, and then leave Wednesday afternoon.
We woke up early on Tuesday morning, and got the car packed and everyone fed and dressed. Then we all got in the car and settled down to enjoy the two hour trip. Tori and I only went about halfway there before our Aunt Amber picked us to take us to go volunteer at a garden that she enjoys working at. She said that she volunteers about once a week. We had so much fun!!! After we were done with the weeding that we were put to work at, she took us to Baskin' Robins and then to the Music and Art store to find out how much it would be to replace a violin string. They told us it would be about three dollars to get the string, then a little bit more for them to replace it.
We headed to Grandpa and Grandma's to join the rest of the family. The little ones had had so much fun with Aunt Tessa. They had done a few crafts, played outside for a little bit, and read lots of stories! We visited for awhile, then Aunt Amber took Bethi, Tori, and I to get the violin re-strung. We had meant to do it earlier in the day, but we forgot to get the violin out of the van before we went to the gardens. It was so neat, because I learned so much just in those fifteen minutes! We were lucky. The lady who was working was really sweet. She informed us that our violin was full sized (I didn't even know that there was more then one size!) and showed us how to use the tuner and peg compound. After the violin was tuned, Aunt Amber took us to Baskin' Robins again, because Bethi hadn't went earlier. Aunt Amber loves Baskin Robins ;).
That night, we put the little ones to bed, and then Aunt Amber, Aunt Tessa, Mommy, Tori, and I (and, before we were done, Emmi and Abbi, who woke up in the middle of the night.) played games. First we played Deal, but since Mommy and I are the only ones who enjoyed that, we decided to play Scrabble instead of another game of Deal. It was 3:15 before we were in bed! We were laughing so much that night!!!

Just a little hodge-podge post...

We've been busy here keeping up with all the work and fun that comes from being a family of eight!
Our garden is coming along well. We have three little ears of corn on our four corn stalks that look promising, and we're already harvesting some of the squash and tomatoes from our summer garden. The tomatoes look so pretty sitting on the windowsill waiting to be used :).
Andrew hit a new level of boyish-ness the other day... Andrew has become the resident bug-catcher, and the other day he found that it was fun to chase girls with them, haha! He thought it was funny, but he was very nice and got rid of it quickly!
Last Sunday at church, Abbi was asked what her name was. She mumbled her name with her fingers in her mouth. This was repeated. The third time she was asked, Mommy said "Say 'Abbi' really loud." So Abbi looks up, takes her fingers out of her mouth and says (really loud)- "Abbi really loud!!!"
Last week we learned to be extra grateful for our air conditioning! The air conditioning went out early Saturday evening, and the house got up to 90 degrees, which was a lot hotter then our enjoyed 70 degrees! Daddy was able to get somebody out to fix it Sunday afternoon, and it took five minutes to fix. We're REALLY enjoying our cool house now!

Gifts from Abbi...

~Jesus answered, "I tell you, if these people were

silent, the very stones would cry out."
Luke 19: 40, slightly paraphrased.~

(Those are rocks, if your wondering! She brings Mommy and I some rocks every time she goes outside with Tori. I think it's kind of cute... :) )