RaptorMama

Yay!  My kids are finally out of school for the year and we are all thrilled.  🙂  They are truly at the best ages.  I know that last year I said I wasn’t going to let my twins hold me hostage anymore, but this year I really mean it!  lol.  First let’s take a look at the May goals though, shall we?

1.  Hexie block number 4.  I went down to the wire on this one, but I did get it done.  🙂  I love the embroidered hexie for this one.  
2. Hogwarts Summer School.  I didn’t get anything done on this.  lol.  But we’re having fun anyway!  This week we spent a day at the Thinkery with friends, Kate has gone swimming and to a fun birthday party, and we’ve gotten to hang out with my mom and dad in their awesome backyard.
3. Kate’s vest.  Done!  The girls had their bridging and I am still in disbelief that I have a junior girl scout!
4. Road Trip Prep.  Whoops.  lol.
5. Scrapbook.  I’d love to get April, May, and June done.  Well, I did get April done so that’s something.
6. Project Life.  November, check.  December, not so much.
7. Summer Bucket List.  Done!  We are going to have so much fun!  Plus, I just ordered some Pogo passes which will let us do ton of fun stuff this summer.
8. Make summer currency.  Still need to get this done.
9. Summer Store.  Still need to get this done too.
10. Teach Kate to ride her bike!  Looks like I was slacking pretty hard core this month as I didn’t get this done either.  lol.  Onto next month!

June Goals

1.  Hexie block #5.  No lie, I’d love to make some progress on block #6 as well.
2. Plan Hogwarts Summer School weeks 2-6.
3. Kate’s patch blanket.  I need to get a few things sewn on before she goes to camp.  🙂
4. Road Trip Prep.  It’s next week!  I can’t wait for beach time!!!
5. Scrapbook.  Fingers crossed for a May and June finish.
6. Project Life.  I’d love to finish December and get a nice start on January.
7. Summer store/ currency.
8. Write Kate letters for camp.  I like to send her a little something every day while she’s at Girl Scout Camp.
9. Order Prints.  I bought a print credit (200 prints) while Persnickety Prints had them on sale and I’d love to get a big batch edited and ordered.  I also want to order the 8×8 prints for the kids’ interview books.
10. Plan Kate’s 9th birthday party.  She keeps going back and forth between wanting a big party and wanting to have her BFF sleep over.  lol.

You guys, it’s almost summer!!!  I am so ready to have all 3 of my babies home with me.  🙂  Plus, this year we’re doing a Hogwarts theme and I think it will be really fun.  But first, let’s see how I did in April…

1.  Lists.  This was so fun!  I only ended up making 9 lists and a couple of them are still blank, but I really enjoyed this.  Some lists were plain and some I jazzed up with some prisma pencils.  I don’t think that I am the type of person to actually keep up with a real bullet journel (Erin Condren for Lyfe!!!) but I did like having a place for the occasional brain dump.  It was also fun to try to work on my lettering.  All in all, I’m keeping this around.  🙂
2. Hexie Flower.  Done!  In fact, I wrote a whole blog post about it.  🙂
3. Hogwarts Summer School.  Oh my gosh, I have been having so much fun with this!  Brainstorming has been going fantastic!  Now I just need to actually get organized and create some actual plans.  lol.
4. Sunshine.  I don’t know that it’s happened everyday, but I have been spending more time outside.  It’s been so nice!
5. Plants.  So far so good!  It was a little touch and go with the tomatoes for a bit, but my mom sorted them out.  🙂  My little gardens make me happy every time I look out of my window.
6. Schedule for Xander.  We have a bit of a lose schedule, but mainly we’ve just been hanging out.  It’s actually been really nice to have some one on one time with him. And Mia is kicking butt at school!  She is walking and talking so much!  It’s been amazing.  🙂
7. Project Life.  Well, I didn’t get nearly as much done as I wanted to, but I did get 2 weeks of November done.  I really need to just sit down one weekend and power through some photo printing so I can get closer to caught up.
8. Scrapbooking.  I did much better on this goal!  I got February and March scrapped, and I have all of my photos printed and sorted for April, May, and June.  🙂
9. Fix Dresses.  What can I say, sewing hexies is more fun than sewing buttons.  lol.
10. Twin Party.  Done!  It was just a simple family party, but I think everyone had fun.  🙂

Now for May goals!

1.  Hexie block number 4.  I’d love to get an extra hexie block done this month so I can get 12 done this year, but I’m not sure that that will be possible.  lol.
2. Hogwarts Summer School.  I’m hoping to get week 1 and week 2 all planned out.  Week 1 will just be my kiddos, but starting week 2 we’re going to have 2 of our old friends joining us 2 days a week for the summer.  🙂  I loved the idea of the booklets last summer, but they kind of fizzled out after a few weeks.  This year, I think I’m going to have a weekly schedule with a different activity focus for each day of the week.  I need to flesh out this plan this week.
3. Kate’s vest.  I need to get Kate’s vest all sorted out before bridging.  I can’t believe she’s almost a junior girl scout!
4. Road Trip Prep.  My mom and I are taking the kids to Corpus for 2 days to go to the beach and the aquarium.  I need to come up with some a road trip booklet for Kate and ponder some car activities for the babies.
5. Scrapbook.  I’d love to get April, May, and June done.  I’m not at all sure that’s possible, but it *might* be because I already have the pics printed.
6. Project Life.  Oh my.  Um, maybe November and December?
7. Summer Bucket List.  I love summer bucket lists!  I was hoping that Kate would want to help me make one this year, but she’s been meh about it.
8. Make summer currency.  The drachmas were so awesome last summer that we kept them going all year!  This year we’re switching to galleons, sickles, and gnuts obv.  I need to find some way to create the actual coins.
9. Summer Store.  I also want to create a store of sorts where Kate can turn in her galleons for stuff.  Last year it was mainly candy and screen time, but I want to come up with some different options this year.
10. Teach Kate to ride her bike!  Y’all.  It is way past time that she learns this.  We’re going to be having some “broom flying” lessons this summer involving the bike.

How have I not blogged about my hexagons yet?!? If you follow me on instagram, you know that I am obsessed with hexagons right now.  🙂  In fact I just finished up my 3rd block!

Maybe I should back up a little.  Since I’m insane, I’ve decided to make a king size quilt entirely by hand out of tiny 7/8th inch hexagons.  I imagine I’ll be finished sometime around my 80th birthday.

Why so tiny?  Because I have fallen in love with charm packs.  These are little bundles of fabric precut to 5 inches by 5 inches.  You can make 4 hexagons out of a piece of fabric that size if you make the hexagons 7/8th of an inch.  🙂

Say hello little hexagon!  First I baste the fabric around a piece of paper, then I stitch the hexagons together into little flowers.

Remember when I said that each piece of fabric was big enough to make 4 hexagons?  I go ahead and baste all 4 hexagons at the same time, but I’m only stitching one in for now.  I want to have a good mix of fabrics throughout the whole quilt so I put the other 3 aside for now.  Once I’m 1/4 of the way through, I’ll stitch up the rest.

Here’s my current stash of “orphan hexies.”  There are 670 of them.  ::imagine a shocked emoji here::  Once I have 9 flowers, I stitch them together into what I’m calling a block.  So far I’ve made 3 of them.  I don’t plan on stitching the blocks together until I’ve finished all of the blocks because I keep buying more fabric and I want to make sure that there’s a good mix.

Each of these blocks has 9 flowers along with some extra hexies to join them together.  All in all, each block has 75 hexies.

I thought I was doing pretty good until I laid them out on my bed and saw how much farther I had to go!  lol.  I’m guessing I will need somewhere between 7×7 and 9×9 blocks.  Which means somewhere between 49 and 81 blocks.  On the low end of that number, it will take me roughly 4 years to complete the quilt top if I can manage to keep going at my current pace.

 

You guys!  My tiny babies are 3!!!

I know, Mia.  It snuck up on me too.

Weren’t you guys just born yesterday???

My sweet Emilia Marie.  5 pounds 3 ounces at birth, this tiny peanut got down to 4 pounds 8 ounces before she started gaining weight.  She may still be tiny, (she was 24 pounds and 31.5 inches today at the dr) but she’s not letting that hold her back!  She’s quite the little climber; I’ve found her on top of the kitchen island multiple times.  lol.  She’s walking all over the living room now, and if you hold her hand she’ll walk for quite some time!  She’s also got probably 75 signs?  And since she got her latest set of ear tubes she’s been making so many more sounds.  She’s probably got around 20 verbal words.  It is so exciting to see her expressing herself.  🙂

And here’s my sweet boy, Alexander James.  He also started out at 5 pounds 3 ounces, but he only dropped down to 4 pounds 13 ounces before he started eating us out of house and home.  🙂  Today he was a positively robust 27 pounds and 36 inches.  We always think he’s so tall until we see him around any non-Mia sized toddler.  lol.  He is soooooooo busy!  He literally never stops running and talking.  RaptorDad refers to him as The Narrator.  He’s a little bit crazy and I’m always running behind him terrified he’s going to break his arm, but thus far his bones seem to be made of rubber.  lol.

Mia Bear starts preschool tomorrow and she’ll be gone 4 hours a day 5 days a week.  She is so ready.  Xander and I are not ready.  lol.  We are going to miss her so much!  I know this is best for her, but it still hurts my heart.  I’m ready for summer when I get all 3 of my kids home with me all day!

You guys, my tiny baby is starting preschool in April and I’m not handling it all that well.  :/ So I will be aiming to distract myself in April!  But let’s check out March first, shall we?

1.  Surgery Recovery.  Mia did amazingly well!  And I cannot say enough wonderful things about the staff at Dell Children’s Hospital.  Seriously love them.  Also hope that we never have to be admitted again.  lol.
2. Files for interview books.  Done!  In fact, you can check out the actual blog post I wrote about it here.  🙂
3. Print interview books.  Done!
4. Assemble interview books.  Also done!  Damn, I was on a roll this month.  😉
5. Patch Blanket.  Done!  Or at least, caught up for the moment.  It’s a bit of an ongoing project.
6. Macaroons.  Well, we made an attempt.  They were awful, but we did check them off.  I’m going to find a new recipe and try again at a later date.
7. St. Patrick’s Day fun.  Well, we did a teeny bit, but I want to do better next year.
8. Order name labels.  Done.  Excuse me while I go cry in the corner.
9. Scrap.  Not a lot here actually as our weekends have been crazy.  Hoping that I can get some time in the art room soon.
10. 3×3 hexie flower.  Done!  Love making progress on this project.  🙂

So April…

1.  The easter bunny brought me the cutest little notebook and I’m going to use it for some bullet journal type lists.  I think I’m going to try to create a list a day for April.  Today I’m making my ultimate travel bucket list and my goal is to have 100 items on it by the end of the day.
2. 3×3 hexie flower.  I’d love to make one of these a month.  🙂
3. Hogwarts Summer School.  When I asked Kate about having a theme for the summer a la Camp Halfblood last year, she was so stinking excited!  She immediately suggested a Harry Potter theme and I eagerly accepted.  This is going to be so much easier than last summer!  There’s a ton of stuff on pinterest.
4. Sunshine!  I do so much better when I get more sunshine in my life.  I’m going to make it a goal to spend at least 30 minutes outside each day that it’s not raining.
5. Plants!  My mom helped me start some garden beds int he back yard and I’d really love the keep them alive.  Apparently this means that I need to water then every day.
6. Schedule for Xander.  Mia is going to be going to school 4 hours a day 5 days a week starting April 11th.  Cue massive mental breakdown.  lol.  I want to make some kind of schedule for Xander and I so we don’t both just sit at home and mope about how much we miss Mia.  lol.
7. Project Life.  I’d like to get November and December 2017 done.
8. Scrapbooking.  I’d like to get February and March done.
9. Fix Dresses.  I have a ton of really cute dresses that are missing buttons.  I need to just sit down one day and fix them.
10. Twin Party.  Oh my gosh my babies are almost 3!!!  We’re just having some family over, but I still need to plan something.  🙂

It’s field trip time!  Over spring break my mom and I took all the kidlets down to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and it was amazing!!!  Like stunningly beautiful.

And they have this amazing kids’ section!  It’s relatively new; it had just opened when I was pregnant with the twins.  Y’all, it is totally worth the drive!

They had a ton of fun water activities.  Kate and Xander loved the waterfall.  🙂  And Mia loved the little stream.  I would be prepared for your children to get soaked.  lol.

We happened to be there on a Friday and they had the cutest little preschool mommy and me class.  And it was free!  Or rather, it was included with admission.  lol.  It was so much fun!  I actually considered if Xander and I would be able to make it down there in time after we dropped Mia off at school (she starts in April ::sob::) but I think it’s just a little too far.  They had a bunch of rocks and seeds and stuff for the kids to touch and smell.  Then they read them a story.

The second half of the class was a nature walk!  I had to put Mia in the stroller so we could keep up with the class, but the instructors were so good about it.  The other kids would gather around a plant to smell it and then they would bring something over to Mia so she was included.  It was not something I asked for, but it was certainly appreciated.  🙂

All in all, this place gets 2 enthusiastic thumbs up from me.

Check out the amazing bluebonnet pics I got this year.  #NailedIt

My kids are such naturals.  Xander especially has the makings of a model.  hahahahahaha

Don’t worry, I have plans to attempt this again next weekend.  Kate is going to be gone this weekend camping with her Girl Scout troop (I miss her already!!!) but I’m semi confident that the bluebonnets will still be looking good next weekend.  Fingers crossed!

I finally finished the interview books for Mia and Xander!!!  Longtime readers might remember when I made an interview book for Kate.  If not, check out this (super old) blog post where I did a tutorial.  🙂

Well, now that the time is nearing for my tiny baby big girl to start school I realized that I needed to get my tush in gear and make ones for the twins!  Amazingly enough I was able to get all of the supplies, though I may have paid a bit of a premium for a few of them.  Whoops.

I also realize that I never came back and updated the old post once I actually used the book so here you go.  🙂  I’m using Kate’s book for the photos since I actually have it up to date and the twins’ books are still blank.  I take Kate’s picture on the first day of school every year.  At first I thought that I would take it in front of our door so you could see her growth over the years with the door knob as a reference point, but I quickly realized that our poo brown HOA mandated door color is not an attractive backdrop for photos so I switched to our front porch.

Of course, then we came to the last day of school.  We were filling out the interview book on the eve of the last day of school and RaptorDad just assumed that I was taking pics on the porch with the chalkboard for the last day of school.  Which seemed like a great idea to me!  But then, where to put the pics…  I decided to make use of the backsides of the cardstock and added a velum pocket for the annual report card.  This is also where I put her class photo.  I actually take a picture of the picture (don’t worry, I pay for the 8×10) and resize it to 4×6 so it fits in the book.  (I covered it up because I don’t like to post pics of other people’s kids online without permission, but you get the idea.)

I love seeing how her answers change every year!  And I love having a sample of her handwriting.  <3

And since the whole books is already put together, it’s easy to keep up with.  🙂  Sometimes there’s a delay in printing the pics because I don’t want to pay shipping for one 8×8 photo, but the actual interview portion only takes a few minutes and is always fun to do the night before right after dinner.  Side note: apparently 8 is the new 13.  yikes!

This is actually one of my favorite memory projects because it’s so easy!  It’s a fair bit of work and expense upfront, but now that is’s done, it’s done.  🙂  Well, except for the idea I recently had for the cover page, but I’ve got to convince RaptorDad to put his mad photoshop skills to use for that.  lol.

 

What’s up spring!!!  We had a busy fun filled February and now we’re on to a busy (hopefully) fun filled March.  🙂  Let’s see the February goals.

1.  Make my bed every day.  I did better at the beginning of the month.  lol.  But I would really like this to become a habit.  The room looks so much nicer when the bed is made.
2. Sell all the cookies.  We did it!!!  And we will not do it again.  lol.  At least, not this many.  I know that plenty of people sell 1000 boxes or more, but 400 nearly killed us this year.  I’m thinking more like 200 next year.
3. Get my family well!  Ugh.  We continued on the sick train in February adding a couple of ear infections, some throat gunk, and bonus pink eye.  ::yuck:: BUT, Mia is scheduled for new ear tubes on Tuesday and as a bonus they’re going to take out her adenoids and maybe her tonsils at the same time.  It’s not going to be a fun recovery, but we’re really hoping that this solves her recurrent sinus issues once and for all.
4. Embroidery for quilt.  Still a work in progress…
5. Spring break plans!  Sadly, our spring break plans devolved into surgery recovery plans.  Kate is going to get to go to Houston for a few days though so that should be fun.
6. Interview book prep.  I’m still deeply in denial about preschool, but I did order the actual albums.  Now I just need to recreate the file and print the pages.
7. Finish Kate’s patch blanket.  I need to do this…
8. Bake something with Kate.  Success!   We made King Cake for Mardi Gras, and she took the lead on making some scones for a little tea party she had with her BFF.
9. Valentine craft.  No, but I did score a canvas that I want to use for a St Patricks Dat handprint craft.
10. December Daily.  I didn’t do a darn thing for December Daily, BUT I did finish a whopping TWELVE project life layouts.  🙂

March Goals

1.  Surgery recovery.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.
2. Create files for interview book.
3. Print interview book pages.
4. Cut interview book pages.  I still need to find/ purchase all of the embellishments, but that can be done at a later date.  I ::have:: to have the pages printed before Mia starts school.
5. Patch blanket.  I need to just dedicate a few nights to getting it up to date.
6. Macaroons.  Kate and I want to try to make macaroons over spring break.  🙂
7. St Patrick’s Day festivities.  We’re going to attempt to make some pretzels.  Also, the aforementioned handprint canvas.  Maybe other stuff?  We’ll see.
8. Order name labels for Mia’s stuff.  ::sob::
9. Scrap!  I’d love to keep the momentum going on Project Life!
10. Hexie Love.  I’d love to get another 9 flowers stitched together.  🙂

I’ll try to get a few non-goals blog posts up in March, but I make no promises.  lol.