Summer vacation is here!

Ok, I guess it’s been a little while since I’ve updated my blog! Wow it’s been like.. half a year! Wasn’t it just yesterday that it was January? Well, I’ve been incredibly busy with my kiddos! My twins just finished 3rd grade and my little guy is off to 1st grade in the Fall! Our schedule has been pure insanity, what with a combination of baseball practices/games (for all 3 kids!), piano lessons, taekwondo class, Kumon, swim lessons,  and speech therapy sessions added into the mix!  I also volunteered in my son’s Kindergarten classroom and signed up for a year long art project where I got to paint a life size picture of each kid in the class as they took turns being “VIP of the week”!  Yes, it was super time consuming because I tried to make each picture as detailed as possible and was able to get a pretty decent likeness of each child on paper.  The look on their little faces when they saw their “portrait” and seeing how each kid looked forward to their own week made it all worthwhile.  I know the kids aren’t going to remember a lot of details from their Kindergarten experience but if they remember how cool their “VIP of the week” experience was, that’s cool with me! Plus they get to keep their pictures at the end of the year. Here is a shot of some of paintings that were displayed during Open House.

Painted kids
Painted kids

 

The school year has finally come to an end and the kids are now off to various camps and summer school.  Things are already a little mellower even though the schedule is still plenty busy.  At least I have a bit of time to sit down and try to update this blog!

In addition to having no school, summer is the time of Fairs!  The San Mateo County Fair (Bay Area Peninsula, near San Francisco) was held last weekend and I decided to submit a couple of my dolls for the Crochet Competition once again! This year I chose “Gordy the Goat” and “Spencer the Cat”.  I didn’t have time to make something completely new for this Fair so I went with some of my older favorites.  The Fair administrators do not release a list of the winners…you have to attend the Fair and run over to the display with the hope that there will be a ribbon dangling from your entry – I was thrilled to discover that Spencer had a red ribbon  (2nd place) and Gordy got a white one (3rd)!  Gordy even won an extra special ribbon for the “Year of the Goat” category! Pretty awesome!  The first place winner was a christening outfit and blanket set for a baby doll.  It was beautifully made but my husband was upset because he thought it was basically “apparel” and shouldn’t have been categorized under the “Non apparel – toy/doll/doll accessory” category.  I wasn’t upset at all – I’m happy to win anything!! 🙂  I leave you with a few shots of some other entries!  XOXO and I promise to check in again sooner than 6 months from now!!  Hopefully this summer I can get the creative crochet juices flowing again!! 🙂

2nd place winner
2nd place winner
First place winner
First place winner
Judge's Choice - crochet hippo
Judge’s Choice – crochet hippo
cute hedgehog
cute hedgehog
Blue ribbon winner of the Non-apparel category for Knitting
Blue ribbon winner of the Non-apparel category for Knitting