CHRISTEPHI

I got a bit behind in my blogging about our weekly Adventures!  I'm going to catch up now because I know there are lots of other homeschool mamas out there looking for ideas and inspiration in their own homeschool adventures.  I hope to stay caught up after that! This week we learned about George Washington Carver.  He was an African-American scientist who developed hundreds of uses for peanuts, soy beans, pecans, and sweet potatoes.  His innovations were a great boon to southern farmers.  To honor his contribution to history, we made sweet potato pie. Miss M mashing sweet potatoes for sweet potato pie. The recipe was included in our Teacher's Manual for Adventures in U.S. History by My Father's World.  And oh, my stars!  It is so good!! Delicious sweet potato pie! We learned about why a body needs a head and why Jesus is called the head of the church.  The human body is one of Miss M's favorite subjects and she spent several ho...

Nothing is cooler -- and at the same time modest -- than a maxi skirt in the summer!  Inspired by this pin , I converted an old pair of holey jeans into a cool, flowy maxi skirt. I added a tiered skirt of cotton voile from Fabric.com with an underskirt of plain bleached muslin. I was careful to pull the front pockets inside out before cutting and sewing so I wouldn't render them useless.  I love pockets and wouldn't want to sacrifice them! Similarly, I did  not  want to cut off the back pockets!  So before cutting off the lower portion of the jeans, I picked out the stitching on the lower half of the pockets.  After adding the skirt, I re-stitched the pockets down right overtop the voile!  It's a detail I'm in love with! It's comfy, cool, and versatile! And feminine! I feel so pretty when I wear it! Perfect for summer!

Late last year, just before we got inundated with birthdays and weddings and holidays (and an illegal camera placed on our property by the police, but that's a story for another day!), Miss M decided she needed a new skirt.  Since the madness hadn't started yet, I let her pick out some fabric and sew herself a skirt! She picked a pretty paisley baby wale corduroy my mom gave her and a simple gathered-rectangle type of skirt with an elastic waistband. This was really the first time I let her use my machine on her own.  She was very cautious about the needle...so much so that she sometimes forgot to guide the fabric, so focused was she on keeping her hands out of the way.  But she soon got the hang of it! Her favorite part was using the iron to press the elastic casing and lower hem.  No pictures of that part 'cause my assistance was much needed. She cut, pinned, stitched, and pressed all by herself!  I was there the whole time to ...