Easter 2014: The year of Navy

For some reason, we decided that Easter would be navy and a pop of color.  Each family got to choose their own color.  This was not well thought out—it’s hard to get navy this year.  Within those parameters, the girls chose their own fabric. The green dresses were going to be navy with green accent, but we couldn’t find the right navy, so we switched them out.  Then to choose the pattern… the little girls had this pattern, Butterick 5743. I especially liked the v-back, which none of the girls wanted.  There was also a different capped sleeve pattern, which I loved.  The older girls this one, Simplicity 1927 . This Simplicity pattern has a homely dress for the cover dress, but view C is real cute.  It gives the tweens a shape. Jocie wanted a maxi dress, so I modified the pattern. The baby had Butterick 3782, but instead of pleats, I gathered the skirt, and made the same capped sleeves as the girls'. Some of the moms’ got in on the action,   

 

 

 

Word of advice, don’t pick out the theme without going to the fabric store first. 

Tweens Sew!

I had my older granddaughters come over to sew maxi skirts.  A couple of them wanted maxi skirts for Easter, but were over ruled.   These were super easy for them to do- we used this blog and drafted a pattern.  I want them to be able to read and use patterns.  Then we pinned it on 

 and they cut it out.  

 

 

 It’s so nice that they have developed the skills to cut and sew. 

I hang around, trying to figure out what I want to organize the fabric that keeps multiplying.  I forgot to get a pic of Jocie cutting or sewing, because we were watching “Dance Moms”,  but I got her modeling her skirt. 

They go together so easily, and the girls learned to put in a stretchy waistband.  This project just takes maybe an hour start to finish.

PS—Don’t use striped material for a 9 year old to sew—it takes forever to match the stripes! 

A few days later, my niece came over to sew her skirt… It really does take an hour!  And I bought another bin and some more comic book boards to finally finish organizing my fabric.  More on that later!

Grandma Day Camp 2014 Bama Bound

Right at the end of Day Camp, My daughter and family went to Alabama to visit my son and family.  They took a few day camp things with them.  They started with the flag ceremony.  

Then went on a big hike. 

 

Michael seems to be among the missing in pics…

By a rock—Whale Rock… 

And somehow they tired Addie completely out!

There were paracord bracelets made, but no pics…

 

Grandma Day Camp Day 3 -- Mountain Man

We didn’t have enough kids around, so we invited more.  Another brother came and brought his 4 kids for this.  Of course we started with the flag ceremony and just 5 songs. Here we are singing 'Alice the Camel'

 Then a quick knife safety for my brother’s kids and away to the woods we go!

Here are the activities:

                          ·         Stump pull -- you stand on small stumps and pull your partner off his using a rope... or for team, you stand on a big stump and pull the other team off... these big stumps came clear from Texas. 

 

 

·         Leather work

 

    ·         Fire building  -- the kids used flint and steel to light the cotton ball, then added the tender, kindling and on to the big wood. 

                            ·         Camp fire lunch

·         Knife throwing  -- Yes, you read that right!  They had rules for all these activities...

 

·         Ax throwing -- Everyone still has all body parts!

                          ·         BB gun shooting -- no one lost an eye!

·         Colter Run

The Colter Run is: the kids were divided into teams, with three on each team- one to shoot the BB gun, one to throw the ax and one to throw the knife.  These were a distance apart, so there was also running involved.  You got points for speed, accuracy and had to do it safely.  They loved this, then divided themselves into other teams, and ran it again.  We need a photographer-- Kate left and no one took pics...

Sometime thru it all, Bigfoot was sighted in the woods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was great, but most of the kids took off to kill him with their walking sticks! 

One ran back to the adults, saying, ‘I almost peed my pants’.

 

 

 

The untold story is that my oldest grand kid has a gorilla suit and she turned around and saw him, and knew he wasn’t down in the woods,  so she was getting out of there. 

 

 

 

This was tons of fun.  Time to go home, now!

 

 

Grandma Day Camp 2014 Day Two—the most fun day ever!

 

We were up at Kim’s house and drove up in time to milk goats.  Jocie the kid milked Joc the Goat.  Yes, the goat is named after her. 

 

 

 

  

  Then on to the flag ceremony- they had to put up a temporary flag pole for camp. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Then the singing.  On down to the woods to get some walking sticks. 

 My brother was in charge of finding these, and came across a whole bunch that he cut.  Back up to the house to sit in the yard and whittle.  Everyone got matched up with the right size stick to whittle.  And go over the rules-- the blood circle. 

 

 The kids LOVED being turned loose with the knives and whittling.  They were very safe with their blood circle—you can’t get within their arm reach when they have a knife.  Even with a 1 year old toddling thru, they were very safe.  They wanted to whittle the whole morning, so we got way behind.

 

We had lunch with the lunch committee cooking hamburgers, pork and beans, and green beans on the buddy burners.  They produce quite the fire! 

The hamburgers were declared ‘better than daddy’s on the grill’. I can’t believe that I let my children cook on these with not much supervision when they were younger.  There was a lot of flame, and putting them out wasn’t easy.  We were going to cook pie crust sprinkled with cinnamon sugar on the buddy burners for snack, but ran out of time.  We cooked it in the oven.

 

 

 

We then went down to collect water samples to filter. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pond, stream and spring.  We looked in microscopes to see which was cleanest and then made water filters out of 2 liter bottles. 

After filtering the water with the filters that we made out of a 2 litre bottle, rocks, sand activated charcoal and a coffee filter, then using chlorine bleach to purify the water, some of the kids drank it.  They are all alive and well. 

We painted our picture frames, and ran out of time for the Dream Catchers, God’s Eyes and pony beads. We were also going to make some kind of bee house.

 

I don’t even know if we took down the flag.  We're supposed to be looking tough...

 

Bonus pic!!  Here is #lydibug wearing her shirt...  representing on the west coast!

Grandma Day Camp 2014 Day 1

Once again in Feb, we started planning Day Camp—and by planning, I mean making a list of what would be fun to do this year.  We start in Feb, because we work the polls, and Feb is a low turnout election, so we have all day to think and list in between voters.  We start by listing the popular things from last year, trying to think up a sewing project, and thinking of a theme.  We couldn’t come up with a theme, but wanted to do a preparedness type of camp.  My g-kids ages range from 13 to 1 and my sisters from 11 to 1.  I have 9 and she has 5.  Last year all mine came, but this year only those that lived near were able to come.  So we had a total of 9 kids from 13 to 1.

Kim came up with the theme—“Into the Woods”, because we were going to play in her woods.  She has acreage with a creek running thru and all kinds of fun.  Goats and chickens, also.  

 

My brother was going to come up for July 4^th—he usually does, and brings his snake, Xena, so he was put in charge of one day.  He had participated in ‘Mountain Man’ with his Boy Scouts. 

 

 

 

 

So on Monday, we started at my house with the flag ceremony

 

and camp songs—and it takes a long time for each kid to choose a song.  Even the non-readers have to flip the pages and look over each selection.  And the more verses, the better.  Even those too cool for school can't help singing!

 

 

 

Then, on to decorating the shirts.  Kim’s daughter- in- law helped designed the logo and her daughter cut it out on the silhouette.  On the back, we painted tree trunks and made leaves out of hand prints and finger prints.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 While they dried, we started our rip-cord bracelets.  The kids loved making them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then lunch by the lunch committee, english muffin pizzas and veggie sticks.  Each day, there is a flag ceremony committee and lunch committee.  They rotate around, so everyone gets a chance for all.

 

 

After lunch, we made the buddy burners and hobo stoves. 

 

The burners are made up of rolling up strips of cardboard, putting them tight in tuna cans and pouring melted paraffin wax over the cardboard.  Do this outside, so the over pour of wax isn’t in the house.  Then Tom, my brother, cut the big cans with an opening in the bottom a little larger than the tuna can, and we put some vents at the top with a triangle punch can opener.  You need to save the tuna can lids—you use them to put out the fire.  The wax needs to go over night to harden up.

  

 

 Then, onto knife safety and whittling.  We used the Cub Scout books for this, and practiced on Ivory soap.  I think the soap is much more unsafe than using twigs and would not recommend it.  SAFETY HINT: The five year old thought he could really man a knife by himself and kept trying to sneak off to play with the knife on his own.

 

 

 

 

For the afternoon snack we brought back a crowd pleaser…POOP ON ICE!!  The lunch committee cooked the No-Bakes and dished up the ice cream.  YUMMY!

Somehow, we made can stilts and dream catchers.  Really the dream catchers aren’t finished, but we ran out of time.   Then quick singing and flag ceremony and they all go home!