A Bright and Sunny Afternoon...

   It has been raining for the past week and we have had flooding around our house.  All the tiny, trickling creeks have become miniature Mississippi's! 

   So on Friday we decided to take advantage of the bright and sunny day and go for a walk/bike/ride to visit our neighbors! Joshua, Lillia, and Hope rode their unicycles, Joy rode her bike, Mommy walked, and Elainah and David got a ride in the bike cart behind my bike. It was very nice to be out in the sunshine after being cooped up inside the house for a week!

 Joshua on his giraffee unicycle & Lillia on her unicycle

 Mommy, Joy, Joshua, and Lillia

 Hope

 Our Amish nieghbor's made this red-neck go-cart...

It is a wooden wagon with a gas engine on it.

It can go up to 30 m.p.h.!

 Joshua R. starting it up...

Joy, Kathryn, Lillia, Hope, Hannah, & Elainah

Becca offered us some fresh pears from their orchard!

Tye Dying

   Eight years ago Mommy and the other homeschool mothers at our church started a club for homeschool girls, called, "Keepers At Home".  Every second and fourth Thursday throughout September to May we meet at a members home and are taught a skill that the mother of that member has chosen to teach.  This past Thursday was our first meeting for this year.  We were taught at Sis. Annette's home on how to do tye-dying.  We watched a few helpful video clips on how to do the different designs and then we began.
   Our shirts had been soaking for the last 20 minutes in soda ash water, this helps the shirt colors to remain bright. We wrung out our shirts so they were only a little damp and then we began to choose our designs.  I chose a pattern called "Sunbursts", everyone else in my family chose the "Spiral".

Wringing out the shirts

Joy and Lillia

Deciding what designs to do...

After we got home we had to let the shirts sit for 6 hrs.

On Friday morning we cut the rubber bands and...wala! a tye-dyed shirt!

We had to let them hang for another day, so all the extra dye could dry.

Elainah

Lillia, Joy, Elainah, David, Hope, and I

Sweet Joy!

  Hope & David

 On Saturday evening we all donned our tye-dye shirts
and went on our seven mile loop.

 Hope

 Lillia and Hope chugging up a hill...

 Daddy and Hope

 Mommy

Joshua pulling David

Making Pillowcases

          A few years ago we found out about a program called "ConKerr Cancer", a foundation that makes bright and cheery pillowcases for children in hospitals.  www.conkerrcancer.org

          ConKerr Cancer started when Cindy Kerr’s son was diagnosed with cancer in 2002.  She began to make pillowcases to brighten up her son's room and put a smile on his face. He loved them and so she began making pillowcases for other children at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

          Since then the pillowcase project, A Case for Smiles, has grown in amazing ways.  They have provided nearly 400,000 pillowcases made by thousands of volunteers from across North America and in South Africa. School groups, sewing circles, church groups, and fabric stores have all pitched in and are making pillowcases for the kids. 

        In the past three years ConKerr Cancer has established 125 chapters (so far!) serving children in 225 hospitals and pediatric hospices across the United States, Canada, South Africa, and Israel. 

The pattern they provide is very simple to follow and so today we pulled out the sewing machines and made eight pillowcases.      Me cutting out the pattern         Lillia sewing     Mommy and Hope sewing...         Night-night, Elainah...sweet dreams!     Boys being boys!