Trying to Sew

Ok, I've never claimed to be very crafty. I enjoy to do them, as many of you know, but they definatly look like a grade school art project. So lately I was surfing the web looking to buy a superhero cape for Micah. Well let's just say that those things, if they were of any quality, were WAYYYYY out of my price range (come-on we're talking about a toy for a 3 yr old, he doesn't have high expectations!). Well, I found a very basic pattern that allowed me to sew the superhero cape. I figured, how hard can that be?! Although you have to remember I have virtually ZERO sewing experience. In middle school we learned to sew drawstring bags & I feel like I can make those pretty well (I've made enough TMI dish bags to be a bit of an expert) but I've never tried anything else. Well, but 1 am last night I had finally finished it. It definatly isn't perfect & there's probably a reason why I'm not going to show you close up pictures :-) But Micah LOVES it & that's what matters & when all was said & done it only cost me $10 in materials (much better than the $30-40 they wanted on-line!). So here is my first attempt at sewing:

From Fall '08

Micah puts up with Mom shoving a camera in his face :-)

From Fall '08

"Super Dog!!," says Micah. This is his new favorite superhero show, "Krypto Super Dog" on Cartoon Network...it's kinda strange, but innocent.

From Fall '08

The Superman side

From Fall '08

The Batman side

I think if I got good at making these, they would be great for a birthday party...but I've got till next June to see if that's a crazy idea :-)

Life in Rural California

I recently received a story explaining what life used to be in our small community 50 yrs ago...and you know what? little has changed :-) The article describes the long windy drive up the mountians to a small valley community surrounded by trees. Today all the timber mills are gone, but the trees still stand. People enjoy to live in this rural community because they really don't want to be bothered by civilization, they are very independently minded & figure they can do it for themselves. Today we got our first rain in over 6 mos. I'm told that the winter months involve a lot of heavy rains, but I haven't seen much of that.

Last weekend we took an exciting drive over to Eureka, on the California coast. It was beautiful & reminded us a lot of the NW (which we miss so much). You would have loved to be a fly on the wall as Micah exclaimed from the back seat, "Wow, it's beautiful!! Look at that!!! It's amazing!!," as we drove into the town of Eureka. Our little Micah has spent so much time in rural America that he gets excited when he sees the "bright lights of the big city" :-)

Well, I origionally started this post as an excuse to update many of you with some pictures from the last couple months, but it seems like I haven't been taking too many since Family Camp. But we have been busy!!! After Family Camp we all went down to Monterey to do promotions for Teen Missions at Spirit West Coast. Then we had a lovely visit from Ryan's parents (Ryan's mom agrees that it's not that much fun to drive the windy roads to get here :-). Finally we all traveled back up to Oregon to join the family camping at Ft. Stevens. Micah had a blast playing with his cousins & Ryan even joined us for a couple days. Since then, life has slowed down a bit, the fires have died out & Micah & I have been exploring the area.

So here's some pictures of life in rural Northern California:


Micah after playing in the sprinklers after a hot day


Micah is obsessed with watering the plants although I don't know how much good it has done, we were gone so much & it was soooo hot this summer most look like they've lost the battle.


Micah building a "castle" while mom works on the computer


Me at 32 wks, some of you have asked to see how it's coming along