A Little Visitor

This morning, we all heard a thump on our front window.  My son looked outside, and there was a bird laying on his back, on our front porch.  He was struggling to breath, it was so sad.  But I was hoping he was just stunned from hitting his head on the window (which wasn't even clean!).  Finally, he turned over.  That is when I recognized him, a Cedar Wax Wing!  They came to our tree last February and they are so cute! (I had to memorize their markings, then found them in our Sibley Bird Guide.) They love the berries in our Chinese Cherry Tree.  We decided if he didn't get better after awhile, we would take him to the bird lady on the corner, who cares for wounded birds.  Thankfully, he made a full recovery and flew off, after about an hour of sitting there.  But I did get a couple  of pictures while he was looking better. 

Isn't he cute?  I love his bandit eyes.  I went outside to give him some berries from the tree, and he flew off! 

My Quilts

I recently uploaded my quilt pics to photobucket, so thought I'd share them here.  I might have posted the first two in the past, but I don't want to go searching, so excuse me if you have seen them :)

First quilt, all by hand, took two years!

This one took much less time, mostly because the blocks were bigger.  All hand sewed. 

My first machine pieced, from a class.  I plan to hand quilt it:

This one has been a long time coming.  My middle son wanted a zebra quilt, and it took a few years to figure out the fabric and pattern!  I machine pieced it, because it had been so long, and machine is much faster.  I started hand quilting it today!  That will take me awhile, as my neck bothered me pretty quickly :(

Butterfly Grove

Here a couple of pics from the Butterfly Grove in Pismo Beach.

"Fighting" butterflies

At the beach, my 9yo got tired of coloring in the sand, in his art assignment, so he got creative:

Sunset pic that my dd took while we were driving off.

Pictures from Grandma's visit

Grandma, making cookies!

Christmas cookies

Stockings!

Christmas nap:

New Year's Eve 2009

Aquarium of the Pacific:

Lorikeets:

On the Queen Mary:

At the Lego Store at Downtown Disney.  No, we didn't go to Disneyland, but we did stay in a hotel right across the street!  We hope to go before the kids are all grown!

Sophie with R2D2, who is made entirely of Legos.

Grandma's Visit

Grandma from Canada was here for 6 weeks at Christmastime!  The first few weeks were filled with getting ready for Christmas...shopping, decorating, baking cookies, shopping, shopping...  Plus a few field trips and homeschool gatherings.  Christmas was nice, the kids were happy, everyone was blessed.  We ate good food. 

After the New Year, we had one more week off of school.  A few of us were sick.  The second weekend in January, we finally were able to take some time and go to Anaheim & Long Beach for a couple of days. We found a great deal at the Desert Inn that has rooms that sleep 8 & 10 people!  On Sunday, we went to the Aquarium of the Pacific .   It was great.  It was cheaper for us to buy a year pass, so we hope to go there again this year. 

 We also got to go to the Queen Mary, which had free admittance for CA residents in January.  It was interesting, but we kept getting separated!  The weather was fabulous, in the 70s & 80s!  A big difference from eastern Canada!

We didn't have time to go to a decent beach, so later in the week,  all of us, minus the Daddy, drove to Pismo Beach.  We couldn't have asked for better weather.  I missed the turn to the pier, so we ended up driving passed the Butterfly Grove!   We went back there after lunch.  It was really neat, about 25,000 butterflies migrate to these elm trees every year! 

Then we went to the beach by the pier and sat in our chairs while the kids played in the freezing water.  It was  a great day.  Since it was a school day, I had the kids draw a scene that they saw while sitting on the beach.  They all did great!  Ben got wise and put real sand on his paper, though!  He got tired of coloring it in, I guess :)

And so we got Grandma all warmed up for her trip back into "the deep freeze" as she called it :)  We  all miss having her here. But I think she is probably having a nice quiet time in her new apartment. :)

I will add pictures later.

Christmas Fun

A few things we have done for Christmas:

I made this little mini apron for my annual homeschooling moms ornament exchange:

California Snowman :

Gingerbread house.  We only had to decorate it. 

Our cats, Sparrow & Gandalf,  taking a moment to not fight and enjoy the Christmas tree together:

The Family: Together in God's Presence

This is a great article by John & Noel Piper.  It is very encouraging for those who prefer to keep their kids in church with them, as it is not a very popular practice.  Something to think about.

The Family: Together in God's Presence