Sundays Comin

Pirates in St. Augustine?

We went into St Augustine for the day last Saturday.

Little did we know that the pirates had come to town! Did you know that in 1668 the English buccaneer Robert Searle attacked St. Augustine? The raid killed approximately 60 people and the buccaneers threatened to return. The inhabitants were so fearful of a repeat that they petitioned the Spanish Crown for funds to build a more solid masonry fort. Four years after the raid, construction was begun on the Castillo San Marcos, which stands to this date as the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States.

Spring Time

It’s springtime here and up at the preschool that means we are hatching things. This year we went with ducklings. The last four years we have hatched chicks but never had very good luck (we would only get one or two) so we thought we would try ducks this year. We charted how many days till they would hatch and the kids really enjoyed checking on the duck eggs while they were in the incubator. Once they hatched the children enjoyed watching them in their crate. We got four ducklings and they are just the cutest things!

Even Tank Marie got in on the action. I brought the ducks home one day so we could keep an eye on them. John and I placed them up on our counters so that Tank couldn’t get to them. She was very curious about the ducks. She would just sit watching them for hours. When they would wake up and start cheeping (they don’t quack till they get bigger) she would come get one of us, crying till we would go in there and check on them. Even though we have taken the ducklings back to school she goes looking for them every once in a while.

Speaking of ducks we have quite a few in our pond out back. There have been two mallards chasing a female duck for days. They will chase her in the water and then she will come up on the banks and walk around. The boys will then come up the bank and when she thinks they are too close she flies away to the other side of the pond and the chase continues. Well they have lately been chasing her into our yard. It drives Tank crazy! She sits by the back door just watching them. One day last week I had a bunch of stuff to do in the kitchen so I let her lay in the backyard on her lead. And of course what happens? Those silly ducks chase the female right into our yard! The first time I happened to walk by the door right before the female climbed the hill into our yard. So I brought Tank inside. The next time I grabbed my camera and well you can see foryourself what happened.

So I had this great idea!

So I had this great idea. Now there is a loaded sentence! But really it was a great idea …it just wasn’t a simple as I thought it would be. John’s sister Christan and her hubby Jason had their baby on February 18th, a little girl. They named her Kaitlyn Paige and she is just so gosh darn cute!!! Thus where my great idea comes in to play. In high school loved to sew and I was pretty good. So I thought what a better baby gift then a good ole’ homemade baby blanket? A blanket that's simple...just straight lines I can do that!

Well come to find out my mom’s machine was no where to be found. The machine that my Granny gave me was broken and it was cheaper to buy a new machine then to have hers fixed. Who new that they didn’t make sewing machine parts from the 60’s anymore? After a couple months of research and a then quick look at the calendar and bank accounts I finally had to settle on the Singer Simple model. Yes! That's what it's called...Simple...it's endorsed by Martha Stewart. Can't do wrong with a Martha Product! I love it! It is so easy and simple to use and very user friendly.

When we were at Christan’s for Thanksgiving we had gone to this really great fabric store. She was looking for fabrics for KP’s nursery. Which was our project for that weekend (click here to see how the bedding turned out). After she left the store I ran back in a got some yards of two of the prints that she had liked. I found a pattern that also included a bib and hat that looked really simple. After a few practice stitches and stuff I started and well I think I did pretty good.