Frog Tape Winner

YAY KATE! 

 The winner of the Frog Tape Giveaway is Kate!  Thanks to all who entered. 

 In other news, I dress my baby in the same shade of aqua as my walls.  (Windswept)  I think I find this more humorous than said baby. 

 Seriously cute.  I love this boy. 

My husband has some family in from Milan, Italy.  In typical Italian fashion I had less than 24 hours notice of their arrival to our house.  Nice.  I will admit it caused a teensy bit of marital stress, but thankfully I was able to pull together a good-looking table for them.  Prosciutto, golden honeydew (way better than the regular, BTW), parmesano reggiano, salami, 53 other kinds of cheese, Italian Meatloaf, and some red wine.  Bellisimo!

 The summer is winding down and honestly I am quite thrilled.  Don't get me wrong, summer is always nice but for real... I hate watering flowers every single day.  (They barely made it to July 4th this year.)  And it's been so hot that being outside has been uncomfortable.  Especially with a baby strapped to me. 

So now that it's not 300 degrees outside we've been doing everything on our trusty picnic blanket.  This particular day we did scratch art.  I always thought you had to put black paint on top of the crayon-ed paper but this lovely blog post said nope!  Put black crayon on top of the colorful crayon.  Okey dokey!
We did and it worked!  And since we were outside, the girls used twigs on the ground as the scratching devices.  Very cool.  I love sharing art projects with them that I remember doing as a kid.  I remember doing my first scratch art thinking it was so magical. 

Our little homeschool will start soon and I am loving the build-up to it.  The planning, the book buying and lending, the new materials here and there....  Such anticipation for all of us as we explore these unchartered waters.  Sewing has been a great resource already as we've used it for measuring, counting, adding, and of course fine motor skills. 

Isabella is making a pillow for a penpal and although we're about a month past the penpal's birthday she has done most of it by herself.  I am super excited to have her finish it up and hope that she will be encouraged to make more things for others.  That will be a blog post for sure!

Enjoy these last summer days.  Hopefully your flowers have fared better than mine.