Yeah, about that...

Day 6 of 31 Days of William Morris:

I fail miserably.

Guys, it was just a bad week to commit to an attention-to-detail kind of project. As I mentioned earlier this week, my dad had quadruple bypass surgery and that, among a few other pressing things, just took up all my time and mental energy. So I'm going to bow out now because I know with how busy our schedule is this month, it's just not practical for me to try and complete projects + blog about them in such a short time span. I'll continue to work on them as I find the time and then post if I feel they're worthy of highlighting; i.e. probably not the before/after of my sock drawer.

As a consolation post, I'll tell you about the time we took Jack to the historical village:

First, we stopped by the craft tables so Jack could make a buckeye necklace (as seen in pictures below) and I could make a turkey door hanger thingy AND a pine cone door hanger with a bell. I mean, free holiday decor. I'll take it. Even if it's for the kids. Then Jack spotted the animals and wanted to pet them.

 Then he wanted to make some good old fashioned rope. Tim helped. The sun hurt his eyes, I guess.

They tested its strength to make sure these people pretending to be from olden days knew what they were doing. Apparently they did.

We stopped for photo ops along the way with Aunt Katie and Grandma. Whenever possible, Jack took the opportunity to poke Moses. Or, in the picture with Tim, look like he was having the worst time ever (false: he was not). 

In the case of this family photo (our one and only...seriously. For a number of reasons, including - mostly - I don't photograph well) Jack chose to cut the shenanigans and without any prompting, carefully place his hand on Moses' shoulder. It's as if he somehow knew it's "what you do" for a family portrait. Moses, with this same uncanny sense of etiquette, turned and smiled at exactly the right moment.  I think they conferred privately beforehand knowing it was now or never - if not for this one picture, there may never be photographic evidence we belonged together.

After this, we stopped by the schoolhouse and sat the boys in the little desks which, much like the Sorting Hat at Hogwarts, seemed to determine their futures as students: Jack - fun, intelligent, a little mischievous. Moses - happy, good listener, teacher's pet.

We closed the afternoon with some apple cider and popcorn while listening to a brass quartet play. Jack ate almost an entire bag of popcorn himself and then led my mother-in-law very purposely by the hand back towards the popcorn machine where I was sure he was going to ask for more. Instead, he walked straight to the garbage can, dropped in his empty bag and headed back to our table without another word. As a staunch anti-litterbug, it was a proud moment.

For the price of 50 cent refreshments + that $1 raffle ticket for a hand-made quilt (we did not win), we had one of those priceless afternoons they tell you about in Mastercard ads. Except better.