Sewing!

Here is what I've been up to sewing lately! I haven't done very much through Summer, as we always seem to be going somewhere or doing something outside. 


These are dresses for my good friend's daughter, baby sister (due soon!) and her daughter's doll. I hope she likes them!

Here are car rolls for my friends sons.

A pouch sling for the baby sister above. I used to make these to sell, but I don't have enough time now.

Super Hero capes for my boys. They LOVE these! I got the pattern and the templates from Georgia Leigh. Great tutorial and printable superman/spider man templates. I made them reversible with Spider Man/Superman for P and Superman/Flash for C. They have worn these every day since I made them, they even wore them to our little home town festival and the County Fair!

Dinosaur Unit Study!

We did a lapbook unit study on dinosaurs this summer! I'm finally getting around to posting about it! We mostly used this lapbook and study guide for our dinosaur unit. Although I would not recommend the book they used for most of the unit, it wasn't scientific enough for this mama! It was a great study guide though and had some great activities. I also found some other printables from Enchanted Learning. The kids had a lot of fun doing it!

Here is the lapbook:

Inside:

Under blue flap:

 P's favorite dinosaur was the Ankylosaurus. This poem was in one of the books we read.

Here the kids are digging dinosaur "bones" out of clay. I got this cool kit from Hobby Lobby.

The kids are being paleontologists again and getting dinosaurs out of the ice. They mostly melted it in the pool!

We made a dinosaur diorama! P had a ton of fun coloring and gluing in the dinosaurs.

We also made dinosaur "eggs" out of paper mache and a balloon and painted them, but I can't find those pics!

Then we visited a Natural History museum near us that had dinosaur bones! The kids really loved this!

The kids acting "scared" of the T-Rex behind them!

I also recently got our time line up on the wall! I used blue painters tape. We are lamenting and adding facts as we go along. 

Elderberry Syrup

My parents have a 40 acre farm and woods and have tons of wild elderberries growing. So I decided to make lots of elderberry syrup and dehydrate some too. There are a ton of great benefits to elderberry syrup, I'm glad to have lots to last us through the winter. It says to take 1-2 TBS a day to help the immune system (for adults), I'll give the kids a little less. I'll probably double that up when I feel like I'm coming down with something. It is not good to eat the berries raw, as I've heard they will give you stomach upset. There are recipes out there for muffins, pie, jelly, wine, etc, but I just made the syrup.  

Here are about half of the berries we picked. I forgot to take a pic before we started stripping the berries off of the stems.  

Here is most of the berries off of the stem.

The elderberries simmering. This step took a long time and no matter how long you cook them down, the syrup never got really thick.

Here it is all done with the honey added.

My husband and I are disagreeing about how long elderberry syrup lasts! He read that it only lasts 1 month in the fridge, I read 3-6 months in the fridge. So we froze some of the syrup, left some in the fridge and dehydrated some of the berries to make more syrup if we need to. If you have an elderberry tree or know someone who does, now is the time to pick and make your syrup!


Here is the recipe I used:

• 1 cup fresh or 1/2 cup dried elderberries
• 3 cups water
• 1 cup raw honey (make sure your honey is raw and from a good source and make sure to cool the syrup before adding the honey, so you get all those good benefits from the raw honey too!)

1. Heat the berries and water to a boil, then reduce to simmer for 30-45 minuets.

2. Mash the berries, strain, cool and add 1 cup of raw honey. I add a half cup of the purple liquid to a measuring cup, then pour in honey until the total volume is 1 1/2 cups. Then stir to mix well, and add to the rest of the reserved liquid.

3. Bottle and store, refrigerated. for 2-3 months.

4. Enjoy a tablespoon daily to keep the immune system strong, use more often when afflicted with the flu.

I also got a few peaches canned. I'll be doing tomatoes soon! I hope to get enough tomatoes canned this year to last us through the Winter and Spring. I canned almost enough to last us last year, I believe we made it until April or so. I used my new BPA free tattler reusable canning lids on the peaches, I'm so excited to have these this year!

Summer!

Its Summer, my favorite season! We are outside a lot, even in this heat! It got up to 105 this week, ugh! Anyway, we've been doing a lot and here are some of the things we've been up to since I last blogged!

At the park, after it rained so much this Spring, the river was really high.

At a local historical museum!

Spray painting a sheet with watered down paint in a spray bottle.

 At the park with our homeschool friends!

 L and A at A's Birthday Party!

L and A's Grandma, aka the clown! 

 Sparklers at a friends house!

 Playing dress-up at the library.

 We went to an ice cream social at the park!

 Sweet boy! (Finally smiling AND looking at the camera!)

We went and saw "Annie" put on by a local performing group. The little girl that played Annie is homeschooled! L is now obsessed with Annie and sings all the songs, all the time! I had to make her a dress and matching doll dress, but she is going to be Annie for Halloween, so two birds with one stone!

Getting ready to watch Cars 2!

Having fun in the pool at home!

At the beach!

Lanie at the last two American Girl classes at the book store. I'm so impressed for a free class, they do such a good job!

Our garden at the beginning of summer:

Now: (Yeah it really hasn't changed much. I am really not impressed by Mel's Mix in the book Square Foot Gardening. No matter how much we water and add compost, it never seems to do well. We will not being using Mel's Mix next year. But I do love Square Foot Gardening!)

 This is our other garden plot, with regular top soil, in the beginning of summer: (We did the corn from seed and the zucchini on the right from seed and the watermelon was a seedling that we bought.)

 And now: (we added the tomato plants in the front after that first pic was taken.)

 I don't have a before pic of this one, but these are all tomatoes and one watermelon. 

Our first baby watermelon!

A baby cucumber!

 My herbs. They on the other hand are doing well with Mel's Mix, although I think they would be much bigger with regular topsoil.

I think I'm all caught up now! :)