Crafts and Games with Locke

This rather frightening looking rattle snake started out as a man's tie.  Grandson Locke and I stuffed the snake with fiber fill, inserted a small plastic bottle with some beans for the rattle in the tail, and then I hand-stitched the head and tail openings closed.  Next we cut a forked tongue from red felt and sewed on some googly eye buttons for his eyes.
As you can see, the scary snake is actually a pretty nice stuffed critter with which to cuddle while watching TV!

More cuddly, though, than the snake is another crafting project we completed.  Locke has quite an assortment of Ugly Dolls at home, but I thought it would be fun for him to make one.  First, he sketched what he wanted OX to look like.  I then enlarged the pattern, and we cut out front and back from bright green fleece.  Locke was eager to try his hand at sewing on the little sewing machine that is actually is sister Lia's.  So he sewed on a pink oval for the inside of one ear.  I finished up with the other ear and the body.  Then Locke stuffed Ox with more fiberfill.  I attached a button and a gray circle for one eye, and the X is his second eye, which I embroidered with perle cotton.  The finishing touch was the brown felt cookie, with "chocolate chips" inked on with a Sharpie pen.

(The sword was one of our purchases at the Mayborn Museum.)

Probably more hours were spent, however, playing games than swimming, museum-going, or crafting!  First of all, there was the marathon Monopoly game, which first Locke's Mommy played with him, and then Granddaddy took over after she left.  This game lasted for three or four days, and eventually, Locke was the victor!    Here Locke shows off his trophy, and the huge stack of money that was left after Granddaddy went totally broke.  After new friend Riley introduced us to Uno, that became the game of choice.  Only this afternoon have we completed an extended game of Uno, with once again, Locke as champ, racking up 534 points to Grandmommy's paltry 315!  In this picture of a gleeful Locke, he is holding the score sheet and a few Uno cards!