Julie's Blog @ Homeschool Hammock

A Year Can Bring Big Changes

Julie — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:44:20 +0000

The last time I updated my blog, I had made one wedding dress and now I’ve made two…and a wedding cake. There were certainly no thoughts of moving 600 miles from home, but that has happened, too. It seems I have been really busy over the past 8 months or so and it would have been wonderful to have a blog record of all the events…but I certainly don’t have that. I have taken thousands of pictures that will never appear on here, but I would love to share some of our highlights of the last months not previously discussed on my poor, deserted blog.

Julie

2 Boys + Legos + R2D2=Too Good to be True!

Julie — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:32:56 +0000

This weekend the Lego store near our house had a special event where kids could build lego bricks. A Lego Master Builder was on hand to use the bricks to put together an 8-foot-tall R2D2 built entirely out of Legos. We went on Friday and Colin and Eamon built a few bricks of each color and turned them in for a Lego Certificate. On Sunday we went back to see the final pieces added to complete the model. We had to wait for a while, but we enjoyed seeing the last layers of bricks added and the streamers falling from the sky as all the crowd cheered and yelled, “LEGO!”

If you click on the pictures, you’ll see the larger version of the whole thing instead of the thumbnail.

Eating with chopsticks 101

Julie — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:03:21 +0000

Eamon usually does surprisingly well eating with chopsticks when we cook Chinese food. However, he is used to eating rice and some version of stir-fry. One night when we had lo mein, he tickled us with his method of getting the noodles to/in his mouth. For anyone wanting lessons on a proper way to use chopsticks, I don’t think this is it! I have to admit that he is extremely cute, even though he was getting incredibly messy!

Basketball 2009

Julie — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:54:35 +0000

Colin’s basketball season just ended and we’re a little sad for it to be over. We enjoyed it more than the last time he played. He improved so much over the course of four months of practice and 7 games. He plays excellent defense and he finally scored two points during the last game. Hopefully he’ll get to attend the basketball camp this summer at the church he played for. We’ll be anxiously awaiting the beginning of the next basketball season!

Snow in Georgia? Sometimes…

Julie — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:42:34 +0000

Growing up in South Georgia, I never saw much snow; as an adult, I’m still excited to see the flakes falling from the sky. The boys were thrilled that we got snow, no matter how little. At one point the flakes were huge! They were the biggest snowflakes I have ever seen! Eamon said it looked like it was raining clouds, and I agreed. Thankfully the snow melted quickly and didn’t disrupt our lives with power outages or any other unwelcome inconveniences. We enjoyed the beauty and excitement while it lasted!

Wedding 11/11/08

Julie — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:18:10 +0000

Here are some pictures of the wedding and bridesmaid dresses I made in the fall.

A glimpse of Spring and Summer 2008

Julie — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:41:18 +0000

Sometimes the drab color palette of the outdoors this time of year gets me down. Just in case you’re the same, I wanted to share some pictures I took of flowers in my yard over the past year. Most of the flowers I planted I chose because they attract birds or butterflies. I’m a nature lover and have a passion for amateur photography, so these pictures warm my heart even when it is cold outside. Ignore the fact that it neared seventy degrees in Georgia today!

Making up for lost time…

Julie — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:21:16 +0000

Here are some of the things we’ve been up to recently.

This was the inside of the pumpkin when I cut it in half. I love the way you can see three distinct sections.

This is the pumpkin after I baked it.

The pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting were wonderful as usual.

This was my first experience with a spaghetti squash. I will not be giving up pasta for squash, but it was really neat to see how it got its name. It was tasty with our Chicken Parmesan, too.

My wonderful husband carves our pumpkin every year. I think he does a great job!

I made a batch of pepper jelly with jalepeños from our garden.

We dressed up to visit grandparents. I made my costume and the pirate costumes. Colin was Thomas a few years ago and passed the costume down to Eamon since he loves trains.

Oh yeah…and I turned 30!!! Here is the birthday card I got from my husband…a “mock” newspaper/tabloid article. It even includes my name misspelled once, which is a necessity to be real, as anyone in the printing industry knows!

Dresses

Julie — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:05:26 +0000

Well, after six weeks and a lot of work, I finished sewing a wedding dress and two bridesmaid dresses. I don’t have pictures from the wedding yet, but I will post them as soon as I can.

What a mess! In order to cut out the wedding dress, I had to completely rearrange the kitchen, push my kitchen table and sewing table together, then drape the rest of the satin in a chair.

For the first fitting, I made a muslin bodice to make sure it was the right size. For the second fitting, I pinned the bodice to the skirt lining.

It took a long time for me to decide how I wanted to arrange the embellishments. I don’t know how many times I moved them around before I figured out just how I wanted them.

These are pictures of the dress before I embellished it.

I took these pictures before the dress was completely finished and I still had some of the embellishments pinned on.

This is with the train pinned up the way it would be bustled for the reception. She planned to tie the sash in a bow to keep it out of the way.

These are pictures of the finished wedding dress.

This is the only picture I have of one of the bridesmaids in her dress. After the picture was made, I still had to hem the bottom and steam it to get all the wrinkles out.

A Beautiful Day for a Walk in the Park!

Julie — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:55:46 +0000

On Saturday, we got up and decided to drive to a nearby park. It turned out to be even better than we could have imagined. We set out to identify trees using a field guide I had checked out from the library. I know the names of a lot of trees, but I wanted to try to name some I didn’t already know. As it turns out, the book I had was near impossible to use, so we gave up and I just told the boys the trees I recognized already. I guess I’ll be asking for a new field guide for my birthday or Christmas.

The leaves were absolutely gorgeous and when they reflected on the lake, it was twice as nice. Notice how the leaves blur together like a watercolor painting where the water is choppy and look like a perfect mirror image when it is still.

When we started out, there was a chill in the air, but as the day grew older, it warmed to a nice warm temperature…all in all, perfect weather for a day outside.

One of the boys noticed a furry little caterpillar crawling in the grass beside the trail and I took some pictures of it. I hope I identified it correctly. Using the bug guide, I picked the closest thing I could find.