Shopping at Hobby Lobby is dangerous. They have way too many cute things. We were shopping for something and ran across a panel kit to make these cute hobo bags, and they were clearanced down to $5. I thought, "Hey, this will be a fun thing to do with Kendra!" and she wanted to do it, too. Never mind the idea of redeeming myself from a less-than-stellar mom moment. You see, a while back Kendra had a church activity in which they were having the girls sew little quilt squares and put them together into quilts. I have a machine, so I offered to bring it and help out. Let's just say my patience wasn't my strong point that night when Kendra repeatedly didn't sew straight. Sigh.
So onto the HOBO BAG! First, I taught Kendra how to iron the fabric. She'd never ironed before, and there are still many ironing lessons to come but this flat fabric was a good place to start.
Then the sewing part---Kendra did the straight line work and I did the curves and harder piecing together stuff.
And, of course, every novice (and even expert!) has to pick out stitches sometimes!
Let the record show: Kendra does NOT like to sew. Nope. Not one bit. This was the second attempt, and it was equally unsuccessful in the straight-line department. Tears ensued, frustration occurred, but I insisted that she finish what she started. There was drama, feelings of inadequacy, and then more drama when the frustration led to remembering (and crying about) some instances in which two of her (really good) friends had made her feel inferior by telling her she shouldn't try certain things because "maybe she isn't really that good at it". Really? All of that while sewing? Goodness, the way a girl's brain runs sure is strange sometimes! After some unplanned discussion about determining her self-worth based on what SHE knows about herself and not what others think, we got back to sewing. The sigh of relief when she finished her part was HUGE. No, I don't think we'll have many more mother-daughter sewing projects in the future. But, we do have hobo bags! And maybe even a little better way to handle friends who try to tear you down so they can build themselves up. Maybe. Sigh. See? Hobby Lobby can be dangerous!
Got to go sailing with our Ballards again during my birthday week. It has become tradition, and one I truly love. I've said it before---sailing is pretty much heaven on earth for me.
Sherry, gorgeous as always. We got to have some nice conversation on our sail. BONUS!
Toes hanging off the starboard side, getting a little spray!
On the bow of the boat the whole time---delightful! Especially fun when the boat is at a 30 degree angle...hence, the foot on the metal post to keep my bo-hiney ON the boat instead of in the water! (This isn't 30 degrees, but trust me, we got there a few times!)
Better posture = looking skinnier. Also, Sherry's command to "stick out your chest" doesn't hurt either. :-)
Cool turtle we saw as we docked at a restaurant for dinner. Sailing to dinner--can it get better? I think not.
Scott's aunt and uncle (Joni and Jim) were in town from California. SUCH delightful people. I'm so glad I got time to get to know them and enjoy them!
As we were pulling back into the boathouse, Scott summed up my thoughts exactly when he said, "What is better than owning a boat? Having friends who own a boat." AMEN.
It is pretty neat when your kid figures out what she is good at and what kind of extra-curricular stuff she wants to participate in. We did the "try everything" thing--soccer, gymnastics, ballet, baseball, basketball, piano. None of those stuck out as something Kendra liked a lot or excelled at. For a long time, Kendra has said that she wanted to be involved in theater arts when she gets to middle school and beyond. This year, myself and another teacher friend started an after-school club called PACK--Performing Arts for Kids. Kendra joined, of course, and yep. We found her talent and her interest. The cool thing is while she is fantastic at drama, she isn't a drama queen in real life. THANK GOODNESS!
Our PACK club performed a small play this year--we traveled around the school and performed in classrooms during the last week of school. Kendra played "Dorothy Dragon" and was so good! Here's a dumb mom moment---I recorded our last dress rehearsal but then turned in the camera to our librarian during the end-of-school rush, and forgot to download it. Sheesh. But another teacher took and edited this neat picture (click on it to see it larger)...
One of the high schools in the district offered a three day mini-camp for theater and I signed Kendra up for that as well. In three days (only 1 1/2 hours per day) they came up with a story line for a play given only a setting, and they learned stage combat. They learned how to hit, slap, fall, and die "safely". Kendra said, "I'm really good at hitting, Mom, but I am not that great at slapping yet." Words a mother loves to hear. :-) Here's a tiny snippet of the play they produced and some pictures:
When we were leaving on the last day I stepped over to thank the theater teacher. He told Kendra he really hoped she would be coming to his high school. No, she's not going to that one, but it sure was a nice compliment!
All in all, I'm glad we signed up for the Wilton cake decorating class at Hobby Lobby, but honestly I am very glad we are done! The class itself was fun, but the preparation and clean up was exhausting!!!!
The class required that you prepare and fill bags with icing beforehand. Please note my disaster of a kitchen as I am making several different colors of icing! They gave us a recipe for buttercream, but it really grossed me out because it contained shortening, not butter. EWWWW. We would work hard on our cupcakes and such and then I didn't even want to eat them. So, I googled "buttercream frosting" and found an amazing recipe---honestly, it tastes like fluffy vanilla ice cream. For our final class I prepared bags with that stuff and was so excited to have something I would actually want to eat. Note: the only issue was that because it had butter I had to keep it cold, and butter gets pretty solid when cold. We had to knead the bags a lot before we could use it, but it was SO worth it.
On our final night we learned how to make roses, which were so much easier than I ever expected. Of course, I don't have a picture of any of them. We also used all the skills we learned in prior classes to make our final cake. Mine is the purple one and Kendra's is the green. Our teacher made the rose on Kendra's cake as a demo and was kind enough to let her have it!
Kendra made the shaggy mum flower and I made the pom pom flower for mine. Notice the theme--the cakes were going to be eaten the next day at school--on the LAST day of school. The teachers loved them! :-)
We both received certificates of completion for the class--a highlight for Kendra!
I am glad we did it, but please remind me NOT to take a "fun" class in May!!!! End of the school year is just too busy!
