Last Week on Blogger

Here’s what’s been up on my blogger website last week.

Finding Uses for Unused Things-Wax Crayons In a semi-regular new feature I use something old to make something new as I strive to simpify our lives.

Introducing My TOS Homeschool Crew Mini Crew I introduce the 4 women that make up my mini-crew for this year’s TOS voyage and share their blog addresses.

What’s going on in my Garden Wednesday I update about my square foot garden.

Friday Fave Fives-June 25th Pretty self explanitory. Featuring a picture of a meal from Liam’s “Delisio Restaurant.”

Stictch, Sketching and Scrapping Sunday-June 27th My weekly meme with plenty of time left to join so please check it out!

Stitching, Sketching, Scrapping Sunday

Good morning!

I hope that you had a wonderful week and had some time to get some craft work done. Did you finish something up or start something new? Maybe you and your children worked on something together this week (as this this my homeschooling/parenting blog) those projets might be interesting, too.

This week, as I thought it would be, was still all about hats. I actually didn’t get as many done as I had hoped I would because I had a very much in arms baby this week. My needle for knitting in the round also broke and I could not find one as small as the store. I’m not looking forward to knitting the whole hat on double point needles. I always only use them just as much as necessary.

Here’s a couple pictures of this weeks creations (not finished as my tapestry needles is jammed into a drawer I cannot currently get open).

Newborn beanie. I hope to find a rainbow ribbon to thread through and tie.

Top of beanie.

Ruadhán in a bit bigger of a hat and loving it!

I also made a bear hat but didn’t take a picture as the ears are not attached yet. It looks really tiny so I think it would only work for a preemie baby. Then again my chidren were all born with massive heads so maybe I am not a good judge, so I am asking you, what circumference would you make hats for the newest newborns (say that you want to fit for the first couple weeks)? Let me know in the comments section and please link up with your projects from the week!

Friday Faves-June 25th

It’s that time again! What were your favorite moments, things, places this week. Please join me at Living to Tell the Story and share!

1. Having my beautiful son cook me breakfast almost all my himself. Liam’s Delisio Restaurant has been keeping me busy helping him choose recipes and overseeing the kitchen but I wouldn’t change it for the world. He is happiest when he is in the kitchen and that makes me happy, too!

2. Having my daughter feel ill on Wednesday morning. Yes, this is a strange fave to have, but it really gave us all time to relax and spend time together. I think that we’ll need to schedule a pyjama day at least once a month.

3. Having above said illness be short lived and hopefully only hitting the wee girl. Knock on wood. I do NOT handle the “ickies” well (though, I think I am getting much better) and really hope that this is the end of this round of illness.

4. Getting to know the neighbours more and more. I’m quite painfully shy and in my year and a half here I’ve hardly met any. I resolved myself to get out there in the world and I think it has given me more of an approachable aura because withuot effore I’ve met the lady from across the street AND another Mama to two children that lives just down the road.

5. Having our first salad of greens from our garden for supper tonight. YUMMY!

…or Rather I Almost Moved

or maybe I’ve halfway moved. I’ve tried, I’ve really, REALLY tried to fall in love with blogger. I’ve fooled around with the appearance of my blog over there for HOURS each evening but when I started dreaming about my blog and then loosing sleep over it, I decided that something had to give. I hopped back over here last night just to reminise about the past and noticed this gorgeous theme that screams KATRINA to me. Not knowing what to do, I went to bed. The hours I’d put into the blogger blog to end up with a finished product that I wasn’t happy with bothered me but at the same time there were some features that I appreciated that do not function over here (it’s so much easier to follow blogs for example and there’s a HUGE number of widgets to choose from). Then it came to me, the WORDPRESS blog (this one) is screaming Katrina, why don’t I use it for MYSELF? I love homeschooling, reviewing, and updating friends and family about the kids but really, that stuff has never really, REALLY been posted for ME. I didn’t go off on tangents (too much).

So from here on out, my plan is to use this blog for myself. To explore my views. To write about my passions and very likely sometimes to just write (as that was truly the original plan behind Mama Manuscripts…but it morph into a “day in the life of” blog rather quickly)

My reviews and family updates willl be on my Blogger blog. http://mamamanuscriptsplace.blogspot.com My weekly crafting Meme will be there as well (as my main reason for moving was to have a pretty Mr. Linky).

There will likely be just words on this blog from now on. I will, at least for the first while, post an informational post once a week with links to everything I post on my blogger site (as that page is not showing on search engines because THIS one is instead and I want as many people as possibly to see my reviews for the TOS Homeschool Crew. I’m anticipating that MOST of my readers will find themselves more at home over at Blogger so I encourage you to follow me there first and formost.

Thank you all for giving me several great years on WordPress and I look forward to sharing more on Blogger (and here for those that are interested in my ramblings…though I have no idea where they will lead *lol*)

What’s Going on in my Garden Wednesday

Well, since I no longer have a baby belly to update about weekly, I’ve decided to update on my other little project, the square foot garden. I’ve been quite impressed with it’s growth. I think the mix of warm days and on and off showers has done wonders for it.

The only think we planted from seeds were bean bush and they have popped their heads above ground in the past couple of days. The cucumbers are doing well and so is the leaf lettuce (already being enjoyed in our sandwiches). I wish the chard was doing more but it is still early in the season. I’m anxious to eat it and a sure I will be sick of it come fall!

Strawberries are indeed trying to take over the beats and new year we will definitely give them their own container! My Cauliflower looks really good but we had no success with it last year so I’m up for any advice on how to keep the heads from going to flowers so easily. There’s a row of tomatoes along the top as well and they are the smallest I have but I have hope!

These are my peppers and Tiny Tim tomato plants. The pepper plants have buds not and the Tiny Tim’s are starting to flower so there will little fruits there soon enough!

My Scotia tomatoes and some Romaine lettuce doing will. There is a lone pepper plant looking a little sad and I think cucumbers and carrots as well.

My yummy and successful spinach! We’ve been eating up the baby leaves and have some maturing quite nicely as well. There’s also three pepper plant being taken over by carrot tops and some leeks that I am no so sure about. I’m hoping to actually get some heads of iceburg lettice this year but didn’t have success with them last year.

My herbs are doing well but I won’t post pictures as they won’t change much from week to week with us using them.

I hope you all have beautiful gardens as well!

Introducing my TOS Homeschool Crew Mini-Crew

I was honoured to be selected this spring to come back for a second term on the TOS Homeschool Crew. As a proud first mate (just a fancy term for someone that is returning for a second or third consecutive voyage) we’ve been assigned several other new crew members in order to make their early days on the voyage as calm as possible. I’ve had a great time getting to know my mini crew through e-mails and their blogs and I am looking forward to introducing them to you all.

I give you, The Virtuous Vessels: Carrying you Towards Quality Homeschooling Products!

First up we have Holli-Marie at Taylor’s Mark Orthodox Academy. I’ve enjoyed visiting her blog and reading about the different activities her 4 lovely children are involved in. She certainly keeps herself busy!

Next is Lisa over at Homeschool Circus (don’t you love that name?). She is also the Mama of 4 children. I’ve enjoyed her blog and am hoping to implement the chore chart and allowance guidelines she uses in her house with my own children. Thank you!

Then we have Sweetie over at Life in the Tribe. This Mama of 7 seems to always have time to write on her blog! I’m enjoying her writing style and her photos.

Finally, we have Tea and Tomes (two of my favorite things!). This Mama of of 4 shares the ABCs of parenting in her About Teas and Tomes section of her blog and I have to agree with her, the ABCs are never boring! Go check them out for yourself!

I look forward to getting to know these wonderful women more and more over the year and I hope that you will visit their blogs from time to time to read up on the products that we will have the priveledge of reviewing for you this year.

Bonne Voyage, my friends, we are ready to set sail!

Finding Uses for Unused Things-Wax Crayons

This looks familiar, doesn’t it?

If you have young kids at home then you most likely have broken up crayons. Not only are they broken up but they are never used. They are just sitting on the shelf taking up space. In an effort to organize and simplify my life, I decided that the crayons MUST go. Not wanting to just toss them I did the whole, not so creative idea, of melting them in a mini muffin tin. Morgaine stayed occupied for the better part of an hour peeling the crayons and loved the final results.

She loved them so much that she’s using them for the first time in over a year, and actually putting them away when she is done with them. No more stepping on stray crayons trying to make a get away!

Stitching, Sketching, Scrapping Sunday – June 20

First of all, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY TO ALL THE DADS OUT THERE!

Secondly, thank you all so much for making the second week of my meme successful. 5 links sure beats the single, solitary post from me the first week! I’ve enjoyed all your posts! Some creative girls out there!

This week has been all about HATS! I made hats for my Ruadhán when he was tucked nice and cozy on the inside but he, of course, decided to be born with the most massive head (90%) so all the hats fit for about a week before helping to grow Moragaine’s doll hat collection!

Her dolls appreciate all my effort I’m sure!

However, I had a friend request some hats for her new photography business and I couldn’t resist. Well, actually, I offered my help. I’ve only gotten one knit up so far. She only sent the patterns to me yesterday and there are a few I’m itching to try, but first I had to knit up a blueberry.

Of course, we have to model it for you. I know that you all like a good baby picture from time to time.

Too bad I’m supposed to be making newborn hats! I’m anxious for the children to head to be tonight because I hope to get a smaller, bluer blue berry knit up this evening. I hope to have several more hats to share next week.

What crafty things have you been up to lately? Let us know by checking in below!

Friday Faves- June 18th

It’s time to share your top 5′s from the past week! Head on over to Living to Tell the Story and let us know what you especially enjoyed this week.

My favorites include:

1. Lots of smiles from my little guy. This is the first week that Ruadhán has been really expressive and smiling in reaction to the world around him. Sure, he’d had the occasional smile before but when you’d try to make him smile again he’d totally refuse!

2. Taking the family out for lunch to celebrate Liam’s promotion to Grade 2 (and Grade 3 in math, he won’t let us forget). We’ll continue to school through the summer but it was a nice day and I wanted to mark the end of one year and the start of another so we found a restaurant where we could eat outside and enjoyed the afternoon.

3. The moment when the older two finally fall asleep and the house is quiet. Their behaviour has been trying and I have to say it has been nice to be able to relax in the evening.

4. Getting to know my mini-crew for the TOS Homeschool Crew 2010-2011 voyage. There’s some good things coming and I look for to sharing with you all again this year.

5. Tim Horton’s English Toffee Cappuccino. I would not have gotten through the week without it.

I’m off to make myself a nice Cap’ now….have a great weekend, all!

I’ve moved…

my blog that is!

You can find me here

I LOVE wordpress and this blog will be used for something I’m sure (I have no idea what exactly). the regular family updates, my meme and all my homeschooling reviews will be on the new site so please bookmark me there!

I hope to see you all soon. Lots of new and good things coming. I’ve just taken a few days to try and get things set up!