West Lafayette

My family has a fascination with Fire Museums. And there's one in my town where I live. Of Course we had to go. It was fun and awesome. There was a free hat for the little boy. He loves to wear it around the house.

Learning how to drive with an Aunt.
Playing with an Uncle, who wouldn't let him drive.
We also went to our favorite park in West Lafayette.

Getting Wet at the Park. Second favorite activity.
Swinging at the Park--All time Favorite Activity.
We ended by doing all of the Friendly Hero's Signs. (Hurt, Cracker, Please and Thank You).
Best story about the aunt doing hurt. The Friendly Hero walked up to her knocking on his head, which is how he tells people he's hurt. She didn't know and so she knocked his head back. He was very confused and went to his dad and knocked his head and got the hug he was looking for. He never went back to the aunt to tell her he was hurt the rest of the trip--he found other people to give him hugs.

Interruption of Vacation Posts

This past week and a half I have spent every available moment (naps and early bed time) to finish this project for the Penguin. Which is why I was doing really well with blogging and then stopped. My blogging time was consumed with this quilt.

It's made with bug fabric and bright boy colors. I am also pleased to announce that I did the quilting on my machine all by myself!

A boy quilt for the Penguin:
A close up on the quilting:
There are two more projects I want to get done before the penguin comes, but I've finished two of the projects! I'm doing awesome!

Playing With Legos

The Friendly Hero takes after the Bug Hero. For those of you who don't know (I'm not sure if there are many of you out there...) The Bug Hero loves his Legos. We have a huge tupperware of legos and they are well loved and played with frequently. We recently got a new lego set and The Friendly Hero loves having it out on the kitchen table. He has started climbing onto the table in order to play with this.




We love the sound effects he makes!

Nauvoo

There were 3+ camera's on the trip, and we're in the process (hint, hint) of sharing pictures with each other. This means that while there were lots of pictures taken, I only have a few.
We loved Nauvoo, the Friendly Hero, was actually really good for the car rides. He was content for the five hours as long as we had plenty of crackers to give him. He loved the attention showered on him by all of his Aunts, Uncle and Grandparents.

They gave him some fun new toys:
And we spent a day in the temple.
I know this was my second favorite part of the trip. My favorite part was seeing my family, immediate and extended family. The youngest in the family just barely turned twelve, so we were able to do baptisms as a family, and then the endowed members of the family did a session. It was incredible to do it all and then be taken on a tour of the temple.

The Friendly Hero didn't mind being left behind because there was a swing for him to sit in for hours. A wonderful day and just perfect for the spirit of Nauvoo!

Give Thanks

For two months, I've been working on a Thanksgiving Advent calender. I wanted to make something to help our family give thanks all the month of November. And I love wool felt. This project was awesome, and I finished it yesterday! Each day is a pocket and we will put in things to help us be grateful for every day like "I'm grateful for my hands. Finger paint today" or "I'm grateful for cousins. Write or call one of your cousins and tell them how much you love them." etc.

The Friendly Hero helped as much as he could, by taking out pins, pulling the felt apart, trying to help me sew on the binding. I'm just grateful that he likes hanging out with Mom and is interested in what she's doing. I am glad that it's done long before the Penguin Hero arrives.

Friendly Hero, demonstrating what a big helper he is.
Give Thanks

Samara House

One of the places I took my family to when they came to see us was the Samara House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW). This house is known as being one of the few most complete FLW homes and still occupied by the original owner. Dr. Christian and his wife called up FLW to see if he would design a home for them, even though they were of limited means. He said that he would be happy to. He took his time doing so, and after five years he gave them the plans for their house.

FLW designed it after the Samara--which are the helicopter seeds in plants. He specifically used the pine cone Samara, and it's really cool to see the motion in the house. We enjoyed the tour and the stories about FLW. My two favorite stories about the architect are 1. While under oath he told the court that his profession was "The World's Best Architect." and then later when criticized by his wife he told her that he had to say it because he was under oath. 2. He had a habit of dropping by old customers and staying in homes he had designed. One place, as he stayed there he realized they had moved the furniture from where he had specified, so at 3:00 am he moved the piano back to where he decided it needed to belong. This man had a large ego.

As a family, we all agreed that it would be awesome to have an architect design your home, to have one pick out all of the details, down to the china, tables, carpet, fabric, furniture, and placement of everything is a little much for us. It's cool, but we all agreed we couldn't give some one else that type of control in our own home.

It was awesome to see it. A big shout out to the Bug Hero who took care of the Friendly Hero and let him nap while the rest of us toured the house sans child. He's amazing!

Outside the house, coming in.
The Samara Lamp. One of five in the home.The Dining Room Corner. Designed to make the room bigger than it is.The Living Room Windows. Samara designs near the ceiling to let in more light and make the room seem like it's in motion.The Living Room. View from Corner.The Samara Rug. The Dragon Statue out side.
A fun tour! I just wish I had a better camera to show off some of the really cool parts of the house.

Project

Project #1:

Old table and dresser that I found at a yard sale. They were old in poor condition. The paint was chipped in most places and it had a hideous gold trim all around it. I wanted to turn them into cute dressers/changing tables for the boys. We bought them about a month before we moved and the whole month, I kept wondering if they were impulse buys.

I had a sister come out and visit us the week after we moved and she helped out with this project. (Read: She painted most of the two. Friendly Hero just wanted to play around a lot and I took care of him while she painted and sanded.) In the evening--once the Friendly Hero was in bed, we painted the shapes on them.

I only have a picture of one of the finished projects, but both look awesome!


Project #2: Catching up on the blog, after a move and a vacation with my family! Stay tuned!