Sewing With Children

With some encouragement from Amanda Soule's amazing book "The Creative Family" I tried some sewing with Katie the other day. We took an "adventure" (everything's an adventure with her!) to Hancock Fabrics to purchase a 6" embroidery hoop, a tapestry needle, and some gingham cloth. I had lots of embroidery floss stashed away from previous projects and let Katie pick out the colors she wanted to use. Here is the finished product:

I was so inspired I decided to try my hand at some embroidery too. This is my first attempt:

It was so much fun to be inspired by her project. I've never really been interested in embroidery before but once I saw how much she was enjoying it, I got excited about it too. Now we can snuggle together on the couch and sew together. What fun.

Geocaching

Geocaching rocks! Today, my friend Catherine, her daughter Anya, Katie, and I set out to "find treasure" (as the girls liked to call it.) Unfortunately, we didn't find the cache. But we had an awfully good time looking for it. For those of you who don't know what geocaching is, it involves entering latitude and longitude coordinates for a hidden "cache" into a GPS device. Caches are hidden all over the world! For more information, you can check out http://www.geocaching.com/. I think what I enjoyed most about the experience was how it encouraged us to notice all the beautiful, ordinary things that we usually overlook. For example, this awesome fallen log:

Can you see the face on this one?

Some recommendations if you decide to try geocaching with your kids:

1. Make sure your GPS is in a waterproof bag (or strapped to you) if you're going into the wilderness. I learned this the hard way when I took mine out of it's case momentarily and instantly slid down a lumpy, wet, pile of clay. Holding the GPS aloft, it was the only thing that didn't get covered in mud!

2. Check to make sure your cache has been found recently. The girls were very disappointed when they didn't find "treasure." I came to find out (once we were all drying out at home) that the person who hunted our "cache" last week-end couldn't find it either. We probably should have chosen one that had been located "3 Days Ago" or something (http://www.geocaching.com/ tells you when each cache was most recently found and logged at the website.)

3. Bring your spirit of adventure. Although it would have been great to "find treasure," it was awesome being outside with friends, touching slimy things (mold and worms), and finding all kinds of things that I've never noticed before on the trail (rock formations, mossy outcroppings, and cute little snails, to name just a few.)

I'll leave you with one last picture from our journeying day:

(Gotta' love an opportunity to show off your snazzy new rain boots and balancing act, right?)