Quite thoughts

I know I've been posting quite intermittently lately.
The ideas are there, but the time hasn't permitted with various activities prior to and during the Passover season.

We're spending today quietly together, which means a few minutes to sit and quietly write here too. I'm contemplating getting us all out for a walk today too, but rain's a possibility ~ which is lovely! but means staying indoors.

Term two starts back on Monday and I've been busy writing up a weekly timetable which hopefully will help us fit in all those activities the children want to do. It's always been a struggle to get it all done as I think our 'eyes are bigger than our stomachs'. My intention with homeschooling was to give the children opportunity to learn topics they may miss in school, but choosing which one at any particular time is the fun part. This term, I'm sidetracking a bit with Science and covering Health (incl. food groups, the body, first aid/safety) instead. Social Studies will include learning about mapping for Maestro, whilst Mariposa will focus on 'People in our community' and then 'Australian flags and emblems'.

Maestro is also learning the art of writing reports from research with his English program. He's always been able to competently teach himself the library system, even though we've also worked together re: the Dewey system and cataloging, but this is the next step. I look forward to seeing how it will all come along, showing another step up in his learning.

We've left working on Mariposa's Ruby Doll for a while now, so that's something else we need to work on. She's very keen to practice her sewing skills. I want to help make her a house for her dolls too. I saved this page a while ago on making a fabric doll house. I certainly have enough quilting fabrics to do this, so this should be lots of fun for us to work on together.

Speaking of quilting, I have 2 on the go I need to finish. One is the very first I ever attempted to piece together, so it just needs backing, binding and quilting. Maestro really wants this for his bedroom, so there's some incentive! The second is a Mystery Block of the Month quilt I started but still haven't finished. I think I may have issues finding backing and binding fabrics now as it's been so long ... but hopefully that won't cause too many hassles. I only ever finished one quilt entirely. It was for my Nana's 90th birthday last year:

We were at my aunts' the previous year, celebrating Nana's 89th birthday. She had 3 more great-grandchildren on the way. On drive home, I thought making a quilt with all the names of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren embroidered onto it would make an appropriate gift. So, I headed down to the fabric store the next day and they had a sale!! All quilting fabrics were reduced, so I picked up enough to make a decent sized lap quilt for $40AUD. I then played with designs on graph paper until I had worked out how to fit everybody's names into a box. Well, you can see the result. I was quite happy it worked out so well and now Nana has it at the foot of her bed.

So, lots of plans for these next 3 months. Hopefully we haven't bitten off more than we can chew, but if we have it will only mean relaxing and rescheduling.