Reading Machine

When I was a little girl my dad nicknamed me his Reading Machine because most days he would come home from work to find me curled up on the couch reading a book. Mason must have caught the reading bug from me because he has turned into a Junior Reading Machine.

Mason has always preferred non-fiction over fiction because he loves to learn facts about real things. It's this thirst for knowledge that has made him the walking encyclopedia that he is. A while back my niece, Rachel Faye, was drilling her mom with questions about volcanoes. When Whitney said she didn't know the answer to several questions in a row, Rachel said, "I think we should call Mason, he'll know all about volcanoes." I love that story because it illustrates perfectly what a fountain of knowledge (albeit random knowledge) Mason is. He'll make a great contestant on Jeopardy one day.

Mason's latest reading obsession is the Magic Tree House series. It is a fictional series that incorporates facts about a certain topic throughout the story. Every book also has a companion "Fact Tracker" book that is a non-fiction book filled with facts and information about the topic of that book. An example is the book Tonight on the Titanic. After reading several books from the series Mason was reading through all the different titles deciding which he wanted to read next. He stopped on this one because he didn't know what the Titanic was. After a brief explanation that it was a big ship carrying thousands of people that had hit an iceberg and sunk on it's first voyage, Mason's mind started going a hundred miles an hour wanting to know everything there was to know about the Titanic. My limited knowledge could only explain as much as Leonardo Decaprio and Kate Winslet had taught me, most of which probably wasn't accurate at all. So the next day at school he found the book in his teacher's library and asked to borrow it. Then he came home and read the book start to finish without a single break except when I read it to him while he ate his dinner because he wouldn't put it down long enough to eat two bites. I loved watching him as he read the book aloud. It was a lot like observing someone watching an action packed, suspenseful movie. There were parts he couldn't read fast enough and would start stumbling over the words because he was so anxious to find out what happened. It didn't stop after the last page was read. When Mason called Grandma Nancy to tell her he had finished the book she was flipping through the channels and ironically the movie, Titanic was on TV. When Mason found out there was a movie he was going crazy because he wanted to see how the ship tilted out of the water and broke in half.  Not feeling comfortable showing my 6 year old Hollywood's version, the next day we looked up and watched several History Channel documentaries on the Titanic. Mason couldn't fall asleep that night because he was going over and over everything that happened in his mind. The following day he begged us to take him to Barnes and Noble so he could spend all of his hard earned money on the Titanic Fact Tracker. He finished reading it in a day. As soon as he finished it he sat up and announced he was going to make the Titanic out of Legos. At first he got a little frustrated because by this point he knew the exact layout of the ship by heart, and he wanted it to be an exact replica. Since he couldn't make it the exact same he decided his would be the shipwreck version that was at the bottom of the ocean because it had a lot of  broken and missing pieces and was green like his Lego piece he was using to build it. I thought he did a pretty good job.

Mason asked me to take a black and white picture because that is all they had in 1912 when the Titanic sank.

Artwork like this can currently be found all over our house.

I love seeing Mason enjoy reading  the way that I do. Hopefully it will rub off on my other kids, too. 

Found Miles like this one day.

The Little Things

A few days ago I walked into the room and my jaw hit the floor when I saw Ellie just hanging out, lifting up her legs and grabbing her toes like it was no big deal! I squealed with excitement as I fumbled around trying to find my phone to take a picture to send to Scott and my mom. They were not going to believe this!

"Look who I caught playing with her toes!"

You might be thinking to yourself, what's the big deal? Don't all babies grab their toes and play with them? Well, yes, they do, and with my first three babies I thought it was just a cute thing that babies did. I now know that it is actually an important milestone that helps develop the muscles and balance needed for sitting. After spending the last three months of therapy trying to help Ellie lift her legs and reach for her toes and wondering if she would ever do it on her own, it is way more than cute, it is amazing! It is just another one of the little things that we took for granted with our older kids. With Ellie, we've learned there is no such thing as a little thing. I have started to noticed that rather than steady and continual progress Ellie seems to go weeks and even months without reaching new milestones and just when I start to get discouraged and fear that she will never progress she blows me away by doing something amazing...like grabbing her toes. Here are some of the other little things that we are celebrating that Ellie can do.

At 8 months old, Ellie is 24.5 inches long and just over 13 pounds. She is about the size and developmental level of a 4 month old. She has yet to roll over from her back to her tummy, but that doesn't stop her from twisting and contorting to roll from side to side as she watches everything going on around her.  It is becoming more common for me to set her down and leave the room only to return to find she has turned 180 degrees and her feet are now where her head previously was.  As previously mentioned, we have been focusing in therapy on building the strength and balance needed for sitting. I feel like she is close to having the strength, but still has a ways to go before she has enough balance.  She has started picking her legs up and kicking them around more, but still doesn't really put any weight on them when we try to stand her up.  

In addition to finding her toes she also found her hands this last week. Now whenever there isn't a toy or person to watch she just entertains herself by intently studying her hands and watching them play with each other up above her head. She has busy little hands and is getting better and better at deliberately reaching for and grabbing things rather than just grabbing whatever her hands touch. The other day I was rocking her and the whole time she was reaching up and grabbing my hair. It felt so natural and reminded me of when Mason used to play with my hair. She brings everything she grabs straight to her mouth to gnaw on. 

As much as she loves having things like her binky and toys in her mouth she has decided she isn't a fan of having food in her mouth :(  She shutters, cringes, and gags when I try to feed her bananas off my pinky anymore.  She still loves her practice bottles and gets super excited when she sees me shaking a bottle, but unfortunately the doctors believe that her pneumonia last month was caused by aspiration, so we have had to back off the bottles until we can make sure she is swallowing safely.

She is most age appropriate in her social development. She remains very smiley and interactive with us. She has the biggest, brightest smile that she loves to show off. Although we have started noticing a touch of stranger anxiety around people she doesn't know. This last week we experienced what may have been the best "first" I have experienced in all 7 years of motherhood. We were able to hear Ellie laugh for the first time with her speaking valve on. It was magical. I caught the tail end of it on video and I watch it multiple times a day. 

Words cannot describe what that sweet sound means to me.

Thank you Ellie for teaching me that it is the little things that are actually the big things in life.

Mason's Quiet Book

Last but not least is Mason's quiet book. I told Mason and Brynn that I was making quiet books for Ellie and Miles, because that's what this project started out as, but they were so in love with all the pages that I decided to make books for them, too. I surprised them on Christmas with their books and they were so excited to have books of their own after months of me telling them that I was sure Miles and Ellie would share their books.  Mason may be my oldest, but he is my child that love love loves little trinkety things so these books are right up his ally. 

Clips and Locks

by: Anne Durham

Inspired by: little hands, big work

 I love this page. All of those pieces tuck away inside of the treasure chest and then you can pull them out to practice locking and hooking and then unlocking and unhooking things. Perfect for my 6 year old.

Banana Split

by: Lulu Suberville

Inspired by: Imagine our Life

 This page blows me away every time I look at it. Every piece of it is so well done! There were tears shed over who would get this in their book. Brynn has begged me to make the same page for her book. I don't know...maybe next year. 

Wow, 5 days in a row of these pages. Overload.

 Tic-Tac-Toe

by: Andrea Carruth

Pattern from: Pops and Podge 

Doodle Pad

by: Cammi Bates

 Mason loves playing tic-tac-toe so this page is great for him.

This doodle pad page is so simple, but so great. Inside the pocket is a notebook, pencil, and stickers. Perfect for my little artist. I don't know if I would trust putting a pencil or crayons in Miles book since he would probably draw all over rest of the book.

Sandcastle

by: Kenzi Openshaw

Pattern from: Imagine our Life

 A fun little sandcastle page.

and more of the same.

Truth be told I have one more page I am still working on for Mason's book. So, I don't have a picture yet, but I'll add it in once I'm done.

I Spy

by: Ashley Allen

Inspired by: Imagine Our Life

I'm just making a few modifications to the page to personalize it for Mason.

On the back of it is

Seasons Tree

by: Summer Carroll

And that my friends is what I've been working on for nearly 4 months. I will conclude the week of quiet books with a quick post explaining how I sewed the pages together and made the covers.  I felt like there were tons of sights that showed off their quiet book pages, but it was really hard to find out how people assembled the pages, so I will just put it out there how I chose to do it in case anyone is interested.

Miles' Quiet Book

 We've made our way to Miles' book. Miles was the child who I originally intended to make a book for before this blew up into a 4 book project. This book has transformed sacrament meeting from a 1 hour wrestling match into a struggle to keep him from yelling the names and colors of his shape page so loudly...until the last 10 minutes and then it's still a wrestling match...apparently I need to add a few more pages. We don't just use the quiet books for church, though. This has been great for the times I have my hands tied with Ellie. Miles comes and plops down on the floor in her room with his quiet book and does all the activities while we talk about them. There are still plenty of times the ipad is used in this capacity, too, but it's nice to have another non-technological option.

I See Me

by: Ashley Allen

Inspired by: pagebypage2

 So this page originally had a reflective material on it for the mirror. While finishing the page I ironed the back of the page and apparently the heat ruined the material because after it was completed I realized it just looked like dull foil. Oops! So I took the material off and ordered this plastic mirror. Because the page was already sewn together and finished I haven't quite found the best way to attach the mirror and not have it look so awkward. Miles doesn't seem to mind and loves pulling faces in the mirror. Of course we love the BYU pattern as well. I thought that was a cute idea since everyone in the group has a husband attending BYU's MBA program right now.

Caterpillar Counting/Matching Shapes

by: Jen Avery

Inspired by: Jenna's Book

 This is hands down Miles' favorite page! 

The magnets used on the shapes page work really well. Jen used Neodymium magnets which are super small and strong enough to work even through several layers of felt. You just have to make sure the magnets are sewn into the book and pieces in a way they can't come out because these are the kind of magnets that if a kid swallows one it could be a big problem.

Okay, these pages are getting old by now, I know.

 

Zippers

by: Anne Durham

Inspired by: serving pink lemonade

Barn Page

by: Lindsay Miller

Inspired by: serving pink lemonade

 I love how Anne added this little pouch onto the zipper page. I'm thinking of putting some little coins or something fun in there for him to unzip and find.

Of course the barn page is a hit as well.

Mr. Potato Head

by:  Marissa Mortensen

Inspired by: Kayla Danelle

Same old, Same old.

You might have noticed a few similar pages to Ellie's book like the beads, barn, and Mr. Potato Head. Remember that I was in two separate groups, so other people did not get two of the same page for one book.

One more book to go tomorrow and that's Mason's. His has some "older kid" pages that fit his personality perfectly. Can't wait to share them with you.

Brynn's Quiet Book

Next up is Brynn's quiet book. 

Brynn might possibly be the child that likes the quiet books the most. She will sit down and go page by page through every book until she has done every single page. She always wanted to help when I had my sewing machine out working on the pages. I don't know how I would have ever done it without her helping me push the back stitch button and pulling out pins for me. Probably would have finished much faster, but it was fun to spend the time with her and see her so excited about sewing. This is what inspired her to ask for her own little sewing machine for Christmas, which my mom gave her. 

I often thought while I was working on the books what a fun project this would be to do with a teenage daughter to teach them how to sew. They would learn so many different sewing skills like how to sew zippers, button holes, straight lines, controlling tension, sewing on a button, hand stitching, how to use different materials, how to assemble things, the list goes on and on. Not only would it be a fun way to learn all the skills but then they have a great book they can use for baby sitting and eventually when they have their own children. Not to mention it would be a whole lot of Mom/Daughter time since we know these things are a time commitment. I think I might do this with Brynn when she's older.

On to the pages.

Paint Pallet

by: Cammi Bates

Inspired by: Serving Pink Lemonade

Brynn is my painter so she loves to get her brush and "paint" everything around her. The colors are attached with Velcro and so you can take them off and switch them around.

Fruit Puzzle

by: Makana Hansen

Inspired by: Bubbles and Bobbins

Brynn loved this page from the moment she saw it. She is a puzzle girl.

Seasons Tree

by: Angie Gardner

Inspired by: Serving Pink Lemonade

I decided I wanted to add snaps to this page. The snaps I had were too big for the original pieces so I made some new pieces that were a little bigger.

Clothes Line

by: Andrea Carruth

Pattern from: Pops and Podge

I have to mention that when Andrea signed up for the group she told me that she had never sewn before. When I saw her pages (the other one is in Mason's book) I think my jaw hit the floor. What can I say, she caught on quick! The extra laundry goes in the basket and you hang it up to dry with these adorable little clothes pins. My sister in law mentioned an idea of how cute it would be to do a little doll on the other page that you could stick the clothes on to dress. I thought it was a creative idea.

What Time Is It?

by: Heather Palmer

Can you believe that Heather embroidered all of that? The pocket is full of different numbers that stick to the magnets in the "digital clock" so they can match up the time that the analog clock says. Great way to teach how to tell time!

Bumblebee Lacing Maze

by: Angie Gardner

Inspired by: Imagine our Life

This page is a source of conflict between Brynn and Mason because Mason wishes it was in his book. I can't say I blame him, it's a fun page that was done very well!

I do have to mention that Brynn is already closer to knowing how to tie the shoes than Mason. Maybe that will motivate him when his little sister passes him up.

That's it for book number two. 

It may be hard to believe, but some of my favorite pages are yet to come. Next up...Miles' book.

Ellie's Quiet Book

 First up is Ellie's Quiet Book! 

I have to mention that after we swapped pages I did go through and modify some of the pages to make them better fit a specific child's book and/or development level. 

With Ellie's book specifically I tried to fill it with the pages that were most appropriate for her understanding that we don't know if or when she will be capable of doing some of the skills, but she should still be able to enjoy the pages.

 She already loves to grab and shake the beads.

Barn Spread

by: Brooke Christensen

Inspired by: Jocelyn's Quiet Book

 This page is incredible. Brooke used all premium felt and everything is sewn on. There were no corners cut and no detail spared on this page. Ellie already loves looking at all the animal puppets.

 I plan to add different textures to Ellie's flowers so that it can be more of a texture page for here since her stiff little fingers aren't going to be buttoning and unbuttoning anytime in the the next few years. 

The hair acts as more of a grabbing/texture page.

 Hopefully she will eventually enjoy driving the little cars around.

Match the Socks

by: Heather Pahulu

Pattern from: Imagine Our Life

 Is this not the cutest page ever!! You open the dryer door and take out the socks and find the match. They stick together with magnets. Heather did an amazing job with all of the hand stitching on this page.

Shape Memory Game 

(modified into a Shape matching page by me)

by: Erin Rigby

Inspired by: U Create

 This shape page was actually a 2  page spread shape memory game that I really liked.  I really wanted Ellie to have a shape page in her book but knew a memory game will not be within her capabilities so I modified the page by sewing one shape to the page with a magnet behind it and sewed a magnet into the matching  pieces turning it into a shape matching page. The pieces are easy for her to grab and hopefully one day it will help her learn her shapes.

Mr. Potato Head Spread

by: Shellee Salmon

Pattern from: Jocelyn's Quiet Book

 Who doesn't love playing with a potato head. Plus, a great way to learn eyes, ears, mouth, and nose identification.

Ellie loves the puppets.

There is book one. Stay tuned for another book tomorrow.

Quiet Book Groups

Welcome to a week of Quiet Books!

 As I started compiling a post about the quiet books I made my kiddos for Christmas it was obvious there was way too much for just one post, so I decided to break it up and spread it over a week of posts.

I remember being a little girl at church and seeing the family down the bench from me pull out a fabric quiet book full of fun activities with buttons, zippers, snaps, and much more. I thought it was the neatest thing and would have given anything to have one of my own! That memory stuck with me over the years and when I started having kids of my own I desperately wanted a quiet book. I looked everywhere and it soon became apparent that the only way to get my hands on the type of book I wanted was to make one myself. Me being nothing more than a basic sewer (and the fact I use a word like sewer that I'm pretty sure is not a word at all) I was too intimidated. Then my sister-in-law, Jenna, introduced me to the idea of a quiet book group. This is where you get a group of about 8 people together and you each make 2 pages (either a 2 page spread or 2 separate pages) eight times and then get together and swap pages and viola ..you have yourself a quiet book. Doing it this way saves a lot of time and money. It is way easier to make the same page eight times over rather than try to figure out how to make all the different pages yourself. It is also generally cheaper to buy the supplies in bulk.

So I reached out to my fellow BYU MBASA girls to see if anyone was interested. I got such a great response I ended up making two groups with 10 and 11 people in them. (In retrospect that was too many people per group and we should have divided up into 3 groups).

I sent out a spreadsheet where everyone signed up for what pages they wanted to make. The instructions were to choose a page that had a theme or skill (i.e. buttons, zipper, snaps, magnets, matching, shapes, colors, counting, etc.) that hadn't been chosen yet. You can find endless ideas and even patterns for pages on pinterest.

The only guidelines given were to make each page on a 12x12 piece of cotton fabric of your choice, use any material for the pieces on the page, leave a 1" border around the edges of the page empty to allow enough room to sew the pages together without the pieces running off the page, and try to keep it gender neutral. If I did it again I would probably set a few more expectations such as all pieces sewn not glued or other things to make sure the pages everyone creates are durable enough to withstand a lot of little hands playing with them, because believe me, with all the time and energy you will put into this book you are going to cry if it starts to fall apart in the first month. We set a date for our page swap before we started so we had a hard deadline. We gave ourselves 2 months to complete the pages. I wouldn't do any less than that. Once the pages were swapped it was up to each person to decide how they wanted to sew their pages together and assemble their book on their own. I will include a post on how I finished my pages and covers later this week.

Once it was all organized it was time to dive in and get to work sewing my pages.
 I'm going to start off today by showing all of the pages that I personally made and over the next few days I will show the completed books and all of the pages within them.
*Warning: This is a time consuming project! Do not commit to a group unless you have time to dedicate to it.*

Group 1 pages 

Mailbox Page

Pattern by: Imagine Our Life

I did a little product research by making some trial envelopes for Brynn and Mason to play with. They did not like having velcro on the envelopes and it was hard for them to get the felt letters in and out of the envelopes. So I left the velcro off and printed out some letters on card stock and laminated them. I liked how they turned out and they got the kiddos stamp of approval, pun intended.

Braiding Page

Inspiration from: Craftalicious Gals

I really loved the idea of a braiding page. Some might feel this page is too girly, but it is one that Mason asked me specifically to make. Not only does it help the kiddos learn how to braid, but also how to wrap an elastic around things. I plan on gathering a few more random hair clips and bows to put in the little bag so they can do the hair in different ways. I wanted to do brown hair but Scott suggested I do blonde hair so I did half and half and let people decide which they wanted. I think the blonde turned out to be more popular....story of my life ;)

I sewed the little pouches by looking at a few tutorials that were something like this, and then adapting them to fit what I needed. I tried to get high quality yarn so it wouldn't just fray and fuzz up. I used puff paint for the face and thought it worked well.

Group 2 pages

Counting Bead Page

Inspired by: still: living

If I did it over again I would put the beads on thicker ribbon so they didn't just slide around freely all the time. For some reason I had a really hard time keeping the tension right while sewing these pages. I'm  not smart enough to know why and how I could have fixed the problem.

Flower Button Page

I combined ideas I liked from several examples and made up my own version.

I decided I liked having the flowers sewn down to the page better than having loose flowers that could get lost.  I found this perfect elastic ribbon that I love because it is fun for the younger kids to stretch and play with the flowers and it gives more slack and makes it easier to button the flowers on. 

I found the best order to assemble the page was

~sew the flowers together with the ribbon inside

~sew the button holes

~sew the buttons onto the page (make sure to use some kind of interfacing behind them so they don't pucker or rip through the fabric)

~hook the flowers on to buttons and then pin the ribbons where you want them and sew the pot over them.

Because I am apparently out of my mind, I decided to make not one....not two....but FOUR quiet books. Once I saw how excited all my kids were about the pages I was making I was envisioning riots breaking out at church over the quiet book, so I decided to divide up the pages from both the groups I was in and make a few extra pages to fill up the books. By this point in the project the words Quiet Books were pretty much swear words in our house. Now that I'm all done I'm glad I did it, and the kids really do love having their own book, so it was worth it. Here are the extra pages I did just for my books.

Tie the Laces

Pattern from:  Pops and Podge

  I altered the pattern a little to make my shoes a little different and I sewed all the pieces down instead of gluing them like it tells you to. I bought kids sports shoe laces at Walmart. They look a little long and goofy, but remember it is much easier to learn how to tie with longer laces than if they are too short.

Noah's Ark Page

Looked at several examples and made up my own pattern.

I originally thought about doing this page for one of the groups but the idea of finding a way to sew a bunch of animals was too daunting. Then after I had done my group pages I saw someone just use these finger puppets from Ikea and I was sold! The page itself is very quick and easy to make and then just pick up a package of puppets and you're done. This shows the entire pack of puppets, but I only put 5 in each page.

Car Page

Again, I looked at a lot of examples and made up my own page.

I looked and looked at car pages and they all had different things I liked about them so I combined several ideas to make my own car page. I used vintage micro machines from my husband's childhood rather than matchbox cars. I like how they aren't as big and bulky. I liked having road signs on it so they can learn what the signs mean. I drew the signs with puff paint and then attached snaps so they could move them around. I opted to use puff paint rather than stitching for the lines in the road because I thought the cars might snag on the thread and eventually break it. This is definitely a favorite page.

All together I sewed 66 pages.

The whole project from start to finish took 3 1/2 months. I took on this project not because I had oodles of spare time and energy, but because after months of being home bound and doing nothing but take care of Ellie day and night I needed something. I needed something to take my mind off life, something to look forward to, something productive to accomplish and this was the perfect thing. For the most part I really enjoyed spending my evenings after the kids were in bed working on these. I did have to give up a good amount of precious sleep to do this, but it was worth it for the little bit of sanity it gave me during some very difficult months.

I can't wait to show you the finished books with all of the amazing pages everyone made. I really lucked out having so many talented women in MBASA that wanted to join the groups. My pages were pretty mediocre compared to some of the pages that were done. A huge thanks to all of my group members for all their hard work and helping me accomplish this goal of mine. 

Check back tomorrow to see the first of the completed books.