All the cute blankets!

 I have been sewing again! I wanted to try making a scrappy blanket.  So I did.  I just sewed scraps onto flannel and then hemmed the edges.  Easy peasy.  Although it was a good a bit of work.  But is it really work when it is this much fun?!

I had this awesome Japanese backing and finally put it on this blanket.  I forgot how much I dislike working with batting.  But it came out really cute. 

Then I tried making a more manly scrappy blanket.  There really is a shortage of usable manly colors of kimonos, so it is a lot harder to make boy baby blankets, and everyone seems to be having baby boys right now!  I made this for a lady I met at the church and I wanted it to be special. I love how it came out. The backing is blue with white polkadots.

I did the strips of kimono on flannel and it was no longer as satisfying as it was before.  Now I just want to put scraps together!

So I did.  I did another boy blanket so I have one ready.

The back however.... is a bit messier looking.  I need a deeper plush flannel to hide the seams!

A Little New Year's Fun

 We were a little social for New Year's.  Some really cool people we know invited us to their New Year's Eve Eve Party on Saturday night.  They were clear that if you didn't like games, then this was not the party for you.  It was NOT the games I expected!  Everyone was put on either the blue team or the purple team and we competed in a bunch of different games. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of noisy craziness.  There were ton of small children and chaos.

We went outside to play soccer with a giant ball, but got sidetracked by the park.

They enjoyed the park for a while and then we went in for a rousing game of Musical Chairs. Big kid and small kid versions.  

We also played "Rooster on the Roof", which was new to me and I was surprised how many people turned out to be incredibly competitive.  Rylee and I did okay, but we didn't make the final 3.  Dan participated in "Box of Lies" and won his round.

Dan also participated in "Egg Roulette".

 His egg was not the hard boiled variety. 

And apparently I was dreadful about getting any more photos.  It was a really fun night with lots of food and friends and I was too busy stuffing my face, or chatting, or laughing to take pictures. 

Goodbye to Percy

Levi has had a very good time with Percy.  Mostly.  When he was awake, Percy wanted to play all the time and would steal Levi's toys and eat his food.  But they did have a lot of fun together.

Percy got his first set of shots on Wednesday after Christmas. The next day we were told he had a family that wanted him and on Saturday we would be delivering him.  The family has 2 weeks to try it out and then commit or not. 

Rylee got in her last snuggles with the puppy. 

Levi was all ready to send him off! 

Last Callie photo. 

Last Delaney Photo 

Last Percy photo.

We wish him and his new family the best of luck and hope they love each other even more than Callie loved Percy!

Lunch with the Ladies

 Okay, it was lunch with all the kids, but that didn't sound as fun.  We discovered that there is an Udon shop at the mall that is the same kind as the one we left behind in Iwakuni.  So off we went to enjoy delicious Udon and tempura.

Not thrilled to have her photo taken.

Slurping her yummy noodles. 

Enjoying her tasty lunch.

Forced Family Fun

We decided we needed to get the kids out of the house and we needed to explore something on Okinawa.  So after Christmas, we did.  We dragged them out to the Okinawa Peace Memorial Museum for a good time.  The kids were adamant that they were NOT going to have a good time, and they refused to.

Heading into the Museum.  It was interesting and depressing. 

They perked up a little when we went outside, but they pretended they were still not having fun. 

Josh wasn't helpful about when he was taking this photo for me, so I was busy being silly. 

 And Dan was trying not to laugh at me.

 This part was a little reminiscent of the Viet Nam Memorial.  It has 200,000 names on all these stones, for all the people who died.  It was nicely done.

Up a hill were a bunch of other specific memorial things, like these stones. 

They agreed to a group shot, but not to looks of delight.

These two were happy to climb the rock though. 

 And at the end, I bought everyone ice cream for their cooperation, if not their enthusiasm.  Check out all the cool choices! I kind of wanted to try the "Mango Tango" but I didn't.

 Rylee tried the pineapple ice cream.  Yummy!

 Marian tried out the Sugar Cane flavor and proclaimed it delicious.

Delaney sampled the Cookies-n-Cream flavor and liked it.

There are three kids in this tree.  Can you spot them?! 

We had sandwich fixings in the car so we ate lunch while the girls climbed the tree. 

There's Rylee. 

And Callie... who beat a hasty retreat once she disturbed an ant nest and they came after her.

 Ad Marian is on her way down so we can go home.

It ended up being a really good trip, considering all the resistance to it.