Is there anything they can't do?

Or that they aren't willing to try...if I ask them? You may remember that Maris learned to do simple embroidery back here. She was so proud of herself. What's interesting is that when I brought her home, her 11 y/o brother saw what she made and he seriously said, "I want to learn how to sew,"  and I'm thinking, "Darlin', you're speaking my language." Unfortunately, with the holidays being so crazy busy, we didn't get around to it right away. But then, oh yes...but then I saw this project on Sew Mama Sew and it fairly shouted at me to be used to teach all the kidlings how to do simple embroidery. They love doing things for their parents and they love doing crafts...perfect, right? Yes indeed! Each of them drew their message on tracing paper and then put the image onto the material using a transfer pencil. However, next time we'll draw directly onto the material with a water soluble pen because some of the transfer pencil shows through the embroidery. There was a lot of needle rethreading and getting knots out, but still, will you look at all this fun and concentration?

Spencer soon found that the light from the aquarium helped him see where his needle should come up.

Maris took to it like the old pro she is now.

I think the tongue sticking out helps Konner with his concentration.

Talk about persistance! We began the project Saturday evening and though I left them with instructions to help each other finish, I was fretting that it might be too difficult or frustrating to do by themselves. So, I called Sunday morning to see if the kids could come to my house to finish and my d-i-l said they were already parked in the upstairs hallway working away. Really? How cool is that?

They did come over for a while and managed to get all the embroidery completed before they went back home. I worked on the envelopes, but each of them worked diligently to finish their letters.

I couldn't resist this one. Do you think she's had enough embroidery for the night? That's exactly how I feel some days when I've spent too much time sewing on difficult projects.

Konner kept saying, "this is so cool! This is so cool!" Shoot, even Spencer stuck with it in spite of it being pretty tedious for him.

I have to attach buttons and make buttonholes, but otherwise, the Valentines are ready for the parents. Mom and Dad are going to be so surprised. I ask myself, why didn't my mom do projects like this with my kids? Drat!
Isn't this just the coolest thing?