Doing things I never thought I could do!

As school ended this year and the summer loomed ahead I was trying to figure out how to best entertain my kids. In the past I have overbooked our days because I needed to get out and hopefully to avoid any contention that might come from being stuck at home with no outlets. I found that while it did accomplish several of the goals that I had in mind (learning to swim, social contacts, less fighting, less TV watching, etc) it also created new problems (more exhausted mom, tired kids from running from one activity to another, not very many opportunities to relax and just enjoy the summertime). So this summer I had the idea that I would not sign my kids up for any outside activities and instead create some of my own for them.

So I came up with a master plan. We will be learning some homemaking skills with me as the teacher. I thought we could learn some simple recipes (since that is all I know), simple sewing, and have some time to just play. Of course part of me always thinks that I will make time to create activities that will help to stimulate their minds and create genius children (I never have and most of them are smart enough to get by, but are not genius by any test that I know of). As simple as I thought I would keep it, I discovered that I even needed to simplify more. In my head I can accomplish so much, but when it comes to the actual physical implementation my estimates are simply way off.

Now my mom and my Aunt Joy always seem to me to have it all together and have the ability to accomplish more, with ease than I can even in my wildest imagination. They were always taking all the cousins with them whenever they did anything and they were always creating new experiences for us when I was a kid. One thing that my mom does with each of her 19 grandkids each year is to make pajama pants with them for Christmas. I have always loved that she does this, but never thought I would have the patience to teach my kids plus others the minimal sewing skills that I have. I guess miracles do happen, because in my enthusiasm for this summer and the activities that I wanted to do with my kids I decided that I needed to include the girl cousins that live here who are old enough for me to handle with a sewing machine. On Wednesday we went shopping to figure out a pattern that would be simple enough to try out but have enough steps to teach some basic skills. We had a ball! It was the beginning of my first attempt to undertake such a monumental (to me) task! We picked out a pattern to make decorative letter pillows. Everyone picked out some material and we made our purchases and set the time and date to get together to begin.

So all day yesterday we went to work. First I had the girls iron their material and then they had to pin the pattern on. Next came cutting, sewing and then turning the letters right side out. I had in mind that we may get to the sewing part, but maybe we would save some of the steps for another day. However those girls were on fire and wanted to just keep going! We had so much fun. I never would have believed it could have turned out so good! The whole day I just kept thinking maybe I can accomplish things and be patient with projects and actually enjoy them...just like my mom!