Sewing and Birthdays

Our weekend has been pretty busy even though the only thing we had planned was to feed the missionaries Friday evening.  I went to the grocery store Friday morning to get items we would need for our dinner plus other things we needed. It was the first time that WinCo was requiring to wear a face mask in the store. I hate wearing a mask and will only do it when required. Every time I wear a mask I seem to have breathing issues afterwards. Thus far I have only worn a mask in Costco, Walmart and WinCo but more and more businesses are following suit with the mask rule. I'm not too happy with that but hopefully it will help the way they hope it will.

Anyway, we decided to have taco salad for our dinner with the missionaries so I decided to start chopping vegetables around 3:30. They were scheduled to come over at 5:00 which was also the same time that I needed to take Nikki's friend Angie to work and pick up Nikki from her job. I was expecting Curtis to be home before I needed to leave but of course he ended up working a little late. Fortunately I was able to contact the missionaries and have them come at 5:15 instead and most of the food was ready before I left. I did have to put Garrett in charge of finishing cooking the taco meat when I left but it was nearly done and Curtis was finally almost home.

We had a good visit with the missionaries. They were Elder Blake and Elder Bell. One was from Arizona and the other from Oklahoma. One of them was in South America originally but was reassigned to the Boise mission. The kids and Curtis were excited to show them our playhouse project after we ate and had a spiritual message. They got on the swings but I didn't have my phone out there to get a picture of that but did get a picture of them looking around on the playhouse.

After the missionaries left, most of us packed up and headed over to my in laws. We left the two boys at home to enjoy their video games because our main purpose for going over to my in laws was that my mother in law was going to help Nikki begin her sewing projects. Nikki had already cut out the pattern pieces for her shirt project but we waited to do the fabric cutting until we were with Gaya. I'm so glad we did because I learned a new and better way to cut fabric! She has a rotary cutter and it's so much faster and easier than using scissors and makes nice straight cut lines. Gaya has a nice setup in the room they had built in their garage. It was originally to use as a bedroom but they converted it into her craft room.

My mother in law is not used to working with stretchy fabric so this was new for both of them. Nikki did not pick a very easy project to start with just because of the stretchy fabric but they're getting through it. Fortunately Gaya has a nice newer sewing machine that she can just put the setting in for stretchy fabric and the machine knows what to do. She also decided to surge up the sides to help because the fabric kept getting bunched up. Gaya would sew the curved and more difficult spots and Nikki would sew the straighter easier pieces. Nikki even got to use the surging machine for the first time. She is having fun doing this and can't wait to finish this project and wear her new shirt!

Using the surging machine.

Saturday morning Curtis and I decided to wake up early so that we don't waste the day away even though we hadn't officially made plans yet. I decided to go spray some weeds in the yard while Curtis worked on making a birthday post for his mom on Facebook. It was Gaya's birthday and the night before when we were over there she had mentioned to Charlotte that she still needed to get Charlotte a birthday present since she missed it because of the pandemic. And Charlotte told Gaya that she was going to get her a birthday present too. Charlotte was so excited about both getting a present and picking one out for her grandma that we went shopping in the morning. This was the first time we took the younger kids to the store and we were all wearing masks. We picked up two new tennis rackets and then Charlotte picked out a geranium flower and balloon for her grandma. Curtis picked out an Almond Joy candy bar as well for her gift. Then we took everything home and Curtis, Garrett, the little girls and I went to go play some tennis before it got too hot. We called Shauna on the way over and she came and played with us so we were able to play doubles. Of course the girls only tried playing on a different court for a couple of minutes before getting bored. The only reason they have tennis rackets their size is because my neighbor friend Ashlie gave them to them. So the girls mostly just watched us play. At first we were going to play at the courts by Lincoln Pool but all of them were being used so we turned around and went back to West Middle School. Those courts had some sort of rubber mesh that they laid on top of the old court. It felt a little different but we liked playing on it.

After we played tennis we took the girls over to the playground to play for a bit but we didn't stay long because it was getting hot and it was lunch time. When we got back to the house I had the kids pick out a birthday card for Gaya and then we all signed it. We ate lunch and then played some board games while we waited for my in laws to come over. They were out and about shopping and said they were going to drop in after they were done. So Charlotte and my mother in law had a gift exchange. Charlotte received a stuffed owl covered with sequins.

I found the girls matching shirts that morning on a clearance rack at Walmart for only $1. They are exercising type shirts. Charlotte was especially happy to get the shirt because Alice had two exercise outfits that were handed down from a cousin but Charlotte did not and she wanted one.

We had a good visit with them and then they took off to do other fun birthday stuff. Jack had his friend Rhett come over to play. First they played on the video games and then the 3 boys played the Harry Potter board game that we have while Curtis and I cooked dinner.

And while we were cooking dinner Nikki got her bird out and was playing with him on her head and Alice's head.

We finished off the night with watching movies. The younger kids, including Jack's friend, went in the office and watched the old version of Little Rascals and then a Clifford the Big Red Dog movie. Nikki, Curtis and I watched "Shipwrecked" on Disney+. It's an older movie that was made in 1991 I think. Then we put the boys in charge of getting the little girls to bed while Nikki, Curtis and I all walked around our neighborhood a couple of times. I cleaned up the kitchen when we got back and didn't get in bed until after midnight so I felt really tired this morning.

I do have to say that I was impressed this morning by Garrett. We had church at home today and Garrett got himself showered and dressed in church clothes without me saying anything. Then he got our front room all set up for doing church, including getting the sacrament ready. While I was working in the kitchen on cutting up a pineapple he found the little girls in the family room playing and told them to go get dressed and even helped them get their dresses off the hangers for them. He also picked out our hymns for today, although we did change one song just because we wanted to sing pioneer related songs to celebrate Pioneer Day. (We sing a total of 3 songs: opening, sacrament and closing). I also noticed that Nikki took out the trash in the kid's bathroom without me saying anything, which was really nice. And she also volunteered to help Charlotte tie her dress when Charlotte was trying to ask me to do it for her while I was still cutting up pineapple. It always makes me so happy when my kids jump in and do things without me asking or telling them. For that matter, while we were playing tennis yesterday Jack was gung ho on getting chores done at home with Nikki. Yes he does it because he wants to earn his video game time or to have a friend over but I didn't have to tell him that. He already knows and he just did it first. Both of my boys have been pretty good at that this summer.