We also made "thankful" leaves. Here is where I have to thank my dear friends for thinking of me and bringing the leftover craft pieces from an event to my house (so thank you, A!). These leaves are super cool. They have a wax like covering that, when scraped off, have rainbow colors under it. Originally, I was just going to have the kids do designs, but then I changed it up and decided to combine another activity I had planned with them. I was going to make a "thankful" tree with handprints. To save time, I just used the leaves. The kids were great. The things they came up with were, well, interesting. I didn't want repeats, so they couldn't use what the other had done. They decided they were thankful for their family, friends, dog, country, world, and the sun (because without the sun, there would be no life...guess someone is paying attention in science). One of the nicest parts of this was that Sunshine got to practice writing and sounding out words. Instead of a tree, we are hanging them from the dining room chandelier, sort of like a Thanksgiving centerpiece.
Even during all the craziness here, we've made time to do fun little crafts. I saw the cool idea of melted crayons on a pumpkin on Pinterest. So, I got my pumpkin all ready and then, I stood there, for over an hour, with a hair dryer, and still, some crayons never melted. Luckily, with Husband's job, he has a heat gun. After getting that out, the pumpkin was AWESOME in under 10 minutes. I do not suggest doing this if you don't have a heat gun, unless you have hours to kill. Will definitely do this again next year, minus the time with the hair dryer! Another thing I found on Pinterest was this door sign. I didn't want mine to be as long, so I changed it up a little. The kids got to pick the kind of faces they wanted on their hands. Yes, I know this is the second time I'm posting this, but this time I added a link with it. This time of year would not be complete without pumpkin carving and painting. This year there were pumpkins everywhere! We had more pumpkins this year than we have ever had in the past, and it was great! Both kids got to tell Daddy exactly how their wanted their jack-o-lantern faces to look. They turned out super cute! Sunshine's is smiling, of course. Monster's looks mean. I got to do the surprised one. While Husband was working with the carving, the kids painted pumpkins. I painted our annual taped off "R" pumpkin because, by the time we got to that one, the kids were pretty much done. Sunshine also made us some very nice paper jack-o-lanterns at a MOMS Club event we attended. Every year since Husband and I have been carving pumpkins, we have tried roasting pumpkin seeds. Last year was the closest we came to success. Still, even then, Sunshine was really the only one who would eat them (which is odd since she eats nothing!) This year, I found yet another recipe for pumpkin seeds. After all our failure, what's one more recipe to try? This recipe has you soak the seeds in salt water. This one was a success!!! I did change up the recipe though because we have had issues with our seeds burning. By changing it up, my way took a LOT longer than the recipe says. Completely worth the time though! I soaked the seeds in salt water like the recipe said. After that, I let the seeds air dry, well, almost completely dry at least. Then, I baked them at 200 degrees for several hours. My first batch was faster than my second because I tested it out with only about 1/4 of the seeds. I'm glad I did test though. I didn't add the salt to the top like in the recipe. I did this because one complaint last year was that they were too salty. So, I left off the additional salt. I'm so glad I did because they were plenty salty from just being soaked in salt water! I will definitely be doing this one again next year! Immediately after Halloween was over, I started working on Thanksgiving. I feel bad for Thanksgiving because I need to rush since it's so close to Halloween and Christmas. I want to cram as much Thanksgiving stuff in as I can! First things my kids did was make Thanksgiving cards (and Veteran's Day and winter holiday, but most were Thanksgiving) for veterans and active soldiers. I forgot to take pictures of them, but my kids did a great job! And now, Monster knows how to spell country due to writing, "Thank you for serving our country" over and over. We also made "thankful" leaves. Here is where I have to thank my dear friends for thinking of me and bringing the leftover craft pieces from an event to my house (so thank you, A!). These leaves are super cool. They have a wax like covering that, when scraped off, have rainbow colors under it. Originally, I was just going to have the kids do designs, but then I changed it up and decided to combine another activity I had planned with them. I was going to make a "thankful" tree with handprints. To save time, I just used the leaves. The kids were great. The things they came up with were, well, interesting. I didn't want repeats, so they couldn't use what the other had done. They decided they were thankful for their family, friends, dog, country, world, and the sun (because without the sun, there would be no life...guess someone is paying attention in science). One of the nicest parts of this was that Sunshine got to practice writing and sounding out words. Instead of a tree, we are hanging them from the dining room chandelier, sort of like a Thanksgiving centerpiece. No autumn is complete without collecting beautiful leaves and no Thanksgiving is complete without turkeys. We combined the two this year. The house at the corner of the street where we pick Monster up from school has the most vibrant red leaves. Sunshine gathered a whole bouquet of them. We then made turkeys and used those wonderful leaves as feathers. Unfortunately, the picture really doesn't do the leaves justice. Speaking of turkeys...Little Miss Sunshine had a project due for school. She had to "disguise" her turkey so he could make it through Thanksgiving. The kids could disguise the turkey anyway they wanted. Sunshine combined the interests of her family. First, the turkey had to be sparkly with a crown, of course. But her turkey also had to have hiking boots since Sunshine's family loves to hike in the fall. It also had to be playing UNO, which is one of Sunshine's favorite games. She did almost the whole thing on her own. I only cut out UNO cards and the turkey and drew the hiking boots. She colored and glued and drew everything. It turned out super cute! The UNO cards fold down and on the other side, she glued colored paper and wrote numbers. (This is a reminder for everyone else in her class....turkeys are due Friday!) And because nothing in this house is complete without a science lesson...... Sunshine's friend's birthday is coming up. He is very into the solar system right now. So, we did a mini lesson in which Sunshine made her friend a model of the solar system. She's very excited about it, so don't tell ;) There were probably more things in there that we did, but when I'm this far behind on posting, I can't be expected to remember it all!
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I know I've said it before, but autumn is my absolute favorite time of the year. I love everything about it. It's also our busiest time of the year. For some reason, I feel like this particular autumn has been our busiest, and maybe it has since our only "free" day happens to be Fridays. We are booked with activities until December. To add to it, I've been advocating for the school levy coming up. I feel like everything I've been posting revolves around this levy, so sorry everyone who doesn't live here (and if you do live here, make sure you vote YES for the school levy!).
Even with all the craziness, we've been having a great time! We've spent every weekend hiking. The past two weekends, we just beat the rain. Well, last weekend we actually ended up eating lunch in the rain, but it held off through the hike! All of our new hiking boots have been put to great use! Autumn wouldn't be autumn without many, many fall activities. We've hit several, but the best was this past weekend when we went on our annual trip to Pinecrest Farms. This was either our 5th or 6th year going with friends. In all those years, this was by far the nicest weather we've had! It was a sunny 75! We went on a hay ride, picked pumpkins, went through the hay maze and played in the soybean box! Aside from all the outdoor stuff we've been doing, I've been doing a few crafts. I think our Halloween door hanging turned out pretty cute. My list of things I want to get done this fall is growing and my time is getting shorter. I'm just hoping I can make it to the end of October without completely burning out! I've completed two of the projects on my list of things I wanted to accomplish this year. I'm pretty pleased with them. The first is the "I love you because..." frame. I had the perfect frame, just needed to get off my butt and print up "I love you because..." We've been taking turns writing messages for each other on it. It sits right next to the coffee maker, since that's the most important thing in our house. Saturday, I had a few free moments before heading to our final Christmas celebration with Husband's family, so I made the snowflake ballerinas. Unfortunately, I only have white paper right now. They turned out quite well, but Sunshine didn't like they were just white. She, of course, wanted pink and purple. I also tried out a new recipe for our final Christmas dessert. I made what I would call Cherry Fluff, but the recipe is actually called Cherry Salad. Way too sweet for even my taste. I ended up just picking out all the cherries to eat. It also made enough for an army. I only used 1/2 a bag of mini marshmallows and 16 oz of cool whip and that was still too much, in my opinion. After the initial taste test, I decided to add almond extract, which turned out to be a good move. It was really easy to make, but not worth repeating.
While getting back to writing and trying to fit in everything that we did for a month, I forgot about two projects that were accomplished. The first was making a nutcracker for Monster and the second was converting the train table into a Lego table. One afternoon, around the beginning of December, Monster and I were in Hobby Lobby. He found a wooden nutcracker, unpainted, that he really wanted to make. It was 50% off, so it ended up only being $3, so I figured why not. When we brought him home and really looked at him, Monster got nervous about painting him because it was going to be much more complicated than he thought. The poor little nutcracker sat there and sat there, not even looking at us since it had no face, for weeks. One day, I asked Monster if he wanted me to paint it for him. That made him extremely happy. Monster's favorite color is blue, so he chose the nutcracker to be in two shades of blue (which was great for me since when he wanted to paint it, he had chosen about 6 different colors with lots of detail). Once I really sat down to work on it, it took me about 2 hours. I'm not happy with the cheeks, but I plan to redo those at some point. Monster loves it though, and that's what matters. Our second project was converting the train able into a Lego table. Found a pin on what to do. Seemed easy enough. And it was. Our biggest issue was that we didn't want to spend as a much as the woman did who blogged about it. We used 8 - 10 x 10 baseplates. We followed the seam on the train table so it could flip back into a train table if so desired. Monster loves it! We use it for all sorts of building, not just Legos. We got some nice bins at Target to keep under the table for extra Legos and Playmobil stuff.
I don't have resolutions. I also try not to set unrealistic goals. 2012 was a pretty good year for accomplishing and creating things. However, the last two months, I slacked off big time. This year, I'm creating a list of things I'd like to do. Here are my hopes for 2013.
Now the fun stuff. Here are the crafts/activities I would like to do this year: There are also so many recipes I'd like to try, but I'll just highlight a few here: I am realistic. I know I may not get some of these things accomplished, and that's fine. These are just hopes, not goals. If I don't, they go on the list for 2014. Even if I don't get one of the things on here accomplished, I plan on being happy, and that's what really matters most. I feel as though the past two months have just been playing catch up. Though I'm actually on top of tasks, I've been way behind on getting things posted here. I've also been extremely bad at taking pictures of, well, everything. Around Thanksgiving, I finally got my pictures organized on my computer from June on and realized that I stopped taking pictures. For all of July and August, I think I only have 40 or so pictures. This a hint to my friend, L, to get on emailing me pictures of my kids since I think she's taken more than I have. We did hand craft a lot of the Christmas gifts for neighbors and teachers. Sunshine made her teachers reindeer thumbprint ornaments. Since Monster's teacher this year is the aide from last year, he had already made her a reindeer thumbprint ornament. So, for her and the teacher on maternity leave, he made snowman fingerprint votive holders. To go along with those, we made essential oil hand sanitizer, hand scrub, and room spray. Monster had no interest in helping there, so Sunshine helped make all that. For our awesome babysitter, we made the reindeer ornament but with both kids thumbprints. Because we have plenty of beer bottle tops, I made bottle cap snowmen ornaments. They turned out quite cute. I've posted before how I can't stand party favors and how I'm constantly on the search for things that are not candy or just plain junk. Before Thanksgiving this year, I found some foam bookmarks and foam stickers to decorate them. I had also seen an idea on Pinterest for Christmas card display that I wanted to make. Funny thing is that a friend of mine made hers first, and I decided I really liked it, so I definitely had to make one. Pretty simple. Found a cute, cheap sign at Target, hot glued some ribbon on the back, and got mini clothes pins from Hobby Lobby. Whole thing cost less than $10. We also did a couple random crafts, some I got pictures of, some I didn't. This month has been different for the Rock household. This is the first time in 6 years we were in good old Ohio for Christmas. It was bittersweet. It was nice to have the kids open their presents here, but there's something really wonderful about swimming on Christmas day. Since we didn't have to ship presents this year, I procrastinated. All gifts were bought by December 1, but we had a wrapping marathon on Christmas Eve. For extra security, we set up the webcam aiming at the stairs so we could see if any creatures were stirring. Christmas itself was nice and quiet. We celebrated with my parents and uncle who was here from Florida. Sunshine got her Cinderella doll, paper, pencils, stickers and Squinkies (she promised not to eat them) she asked Santa for. Monster got more books than any kid should be able to read in a year, but, since he's Monster, he has most of them read already. He also got some great new spy stuff and Legos. I took about 3 pictures on Christmas. Can't believe I was that absent minded. We did take video though, so I guess that counts for something. Oee, our elf, was here again this year. He wasn't so creative this year, but much braver. He hid in a lot of places the kids could touch. He was extremely trusting this year and believed in the kids. Pictures of his spots are coming as soon as they are organized and uploaded from my camera. My worry for the polar bears is a bit less. We've had below freezing temps and lots of snow. In fact, the day after Christmas there was a blizzard that dumped about a foot of the white stuff. Since Husband has been home for a week, we've been taking advantage of the snow instead of damning it. When he goes back to work tomorrow, I'll damn it again. But, the kids sure have been having fun!
For the New Year, I decided to actually bake something fun for breakfast. I made some yummy caramel rolls. Well, at least Monster and I thought they were yummy. Sunshine liked the taste, but not he texture and Husband doesn't like sweet breakfast food. I have thoughts for another post about what I hope to accomplish in 2013, but it will have to wait at least one more day.
Hope that everyone had a great holiday season! Through all the craziness, I have done a couple of crafts and found some cool new products to use. Wash and Brush Timer. I had seen this a while back and bought it to give to Sunshine for Christmas. Her hand washing has been so fast lately, that I couldn't wait until Christmas to give it to her. It is great. Only problem is that Sunshine is three feet tall. I have it affixed to the mirror and she has trouble reaching it. So, I still have to be in there to push the button for her to wash her hands. Good thing is that she's doing a much better job of hand washing. Teeth brushing is also a little easier with this, but my kids are good teeth brushers anyway. Thankful Wreath. I had found some cute wreaths for autumn on Pinterest, but none were exactly what I had been looking for. I had thought of using this one and adapting it to make it into a thankful wreath. Then, I found the "Wreath of Plenty". It was exactly what I had been looking for. I sat down with the kids and Husband and we all came up with things that we were thankful for. Best part of this one is that we can add to it year after year. Unfortunately, I didn't have straight pins and the thumb tacks just didn't cut it for securing the leaves. Each time the door closed, leaves would fall off. Next year, I'll have straight pin ready to go! Number Balloon Scavenger Hunt. I had originally pinned this to help Sunshine with number recognition. I never got around to it doing it for her. A couple of weeks ago, Monster had a friend over. I decided to do this for them as a scavenger hunt. They loved it! Sunshine and I hid all the balloons before the boys got home from school. The pack of balloons I got had 15 balloons, so our hunt went from 1-15. The boys had a blast finding them. I promised the boys that I would make it more challenging next time. Next time, I'm going to put math facts on the balloons and they need to solve them and find them in order. A week after Monster and his friend played, Sunshine had her friend over and the balloons were still sitting in the laundry basket. I decided to try it with Sunshine and her friend. Once again it was a hit. Since they are only 3 years old, I didn't hide the balloons, just spread them out every where and they had to find the numbers. They played it three times in a row! Beer Cap Ornament. A friend of mine and I are going to be making snowmen bottle cap ornaments. We have so many bottle caps, that we will never use them all for snowmen, so I found this idea and loved it! I made this wreath for another friend. I used all Great Lakes Brewing Company caps because she loves Christmas Ale. Husband thought it was super trashy, but I knew my friend would appreciate it. Solar System Model. A friend of mine took Sunshine to swim lessons on day, so Monster and I had time to ourselves. For Mommy/ Monster time, we built a model of the solar system. Monster got an awesome science kit that had the model in it. It was so much fun to work on this with him and have some one on one time. He even let me paint Neptune, which is my favorite planet. Snack Skewers. For Sunshine's snack day, she wanted to take grapes and blueberries. I figured I'd try to make it easier for her teachers and I skewered the fruit. Since the kids are only 3, I cut off the sharp ends. This is about as creative as I can get with snacks. We are also currently working on transforming the train table into a Lego table. All the train pieces are packed up to be put in storage. We've bought the base plates. We just need some time to get it all together. Monster is very excited about it. He's asked Santa for Legos for Christmas so hopefully we get it all done before the man in red arrives.
I've got a ton of projects to finish up before Christmas. Hoping I get the motivation to complete them. The good news is all the gift shopping is done, so that frees up time for other things. Sunshine moved up a level in swimming, so the time is different. I'm hoping that gives me some time to finish projects up as well. Stay tuned! A while back, a friend wrote a blog about goody bags and how she's not a fan. I'm right there with her. Since most goody bags are filled with candy, I find them a waste because my kids eat very little sweets. I'm always on a mission to make goody bags that are different and have at least semi-useful stuff. If not useful, at least consumable like stickers, temporary tattoos, pencils, paper, etc. School treats are more difficult because there are more kids. It's just not economical to buy cups, tattoos, stickers, etc, for 28 kids or even 15 like in Sunshine's class. Because of cost, I usually resort to candy for school treats. This year, both kids have children with severe food allergies in their classes. I was going to do rings for Sunshine's class, but they come in such a huge pack that I'd have leftovers that I most definitely don't want. I went with Yummy Earth lollipops. Even though they are candy, they aren't near as bad for you as other candies are and they are soy, nut, wheat, gluten, egg and dairy free. For Monster's class, I went with pencils. Not just any pencils, those cool pencils with the tips you pull off and stick on the bottom when they get dull. As to not have to try to figure out how to pass these things out, I had a friend who has access to a dye cut make me pumpkins. They turned out pretty cute. I didn't spend a fortune and it's not just extra junk. Best part is that they are all done, a week and a half before they are needed!
I am a firm believer in child led art. I remember teaching preschool. Most of the art activities that the kids took home were really done by the teachers. Then, I changed my approach. I started doing more child led art. Sometimes the activities taken home looked nothing like what they were supposed to, but the children had more sense of pride in these activities.
I really hadn't thought much about this until Sunshine started school. I love Sunshine's teachers. I think they are amazing. The projects that Sunshine comes home with are cute and creative. They are also not child led. Does she still enjoy them? Most definitely. However, the difference in her attitude towards crafts she did with minimal help and crafts she did with a lot of help are different. For example, at the beginning of the year, they did a Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See project. She got to glue on a picture of herself all by herself. It's sideways. The bear is completely crooked It doesn't matter though, she loves it and is so proud of it. Just recently, they made a lion. Super cute, but the only thing she actually did herself was drawn whiskers and eyebrows (and the eyebrows she added at home). Know what she's proud of on that one? The eyebrows. A week or so ago, Sunshine,her friend, and I went to a story time at Barnes and Noble. There was a craft after the story. It was a woven mat. Now, most of the people who went to this are my friends and read this blog, so I'm not meaning to offend anyone with what I say next. Sunshine and her friend's mats were the only ones that turned out looking like 3 year olds did them. In fact, as we were leaving, my one friend made a comment about how the craft didn't really matter since she was the one who did it and not her child. Sunshine loves her mat and is so proud of it. It's hanging on the fridge and she likes to show it off. She doesn't show it off because it looks just like it's supposed to. She shows it off because she did it herself. There are times when you don't necessarily want child led art. Last year Monster made his teachers Christmas ornaments. No child led art there. It wasn't for him though, it was more for me. A friend has some awesome artwork her kids did with hands and feet. Again, not really for the kids. The finished product is for the adults. It's important to have that kind of artwork as well. However, when it's for fun, I believe child led art gives the deepest sense of pride and allows for the most creativity. In my continual journey to try to organize my life, I came across an idea on Pinterest that sparked my idea for corkboard in my cupboards. Well, the Pinterest idea and a friend of mine. My friend has pictures hung up in her cabinets of friends and family. I have always thought this is an awesome concept, but never got around to doing anything like it. After seeing something similar on Pinterest, I remembered I had two cork pieces left from a project we did years ago. One afternoon, I finally got around to hanging them. They will eventually have more stuff, I'm sure. For right now though, only important info. All the emergency contact information is in snack cabinet for Monster or a babysitter. Medicine information is in the cabinet that contains the medicines (and, as a side note, did you know you shouldn't store medications in the bathroom because of the humidity from the shower? I just read that). My plan is to get at least two more squares for the pantry door as well. Also in my search for organization, I'm always looking for something to make my van not a disaster zone. I don't even really keep much in the van anymore. I'm old school when it comes to kids in the car. I believe they should be able to drive to Target without watching a DVD. However, I remember when I was younger, I used to take coloring books and books to read. Those are things my kids have in the car. For Christmas, Nana got each of the kids this awesome Color Wonder travel set. LOVE it! It is completely perfect for the travel. Since my kids are readers, they also enjoy books in the van. I have tried a basket in the middle, I have a tried a basket for each of them. Those kept the van neat, but the biggest problems were the kids having to step over the baskets getting in and out and Sunshine not being able to reach anything. I have seen some awesome Pinterest ideas, but most involved sewing, which I just don't do, and the other involved baskets, which I just explained, don't work. While making the paper holders for the kids, I came up with this idea. I really wasn't sure it would work, but using all recycled materials, it really didn't matter. This is attempt two at making yogurt drops for the kids. First attempt went smoothly until taking them to the downstairs freeze. The wind blew the door shut on me and the tray of drops fell on the floor. Attempt two was a success! The kids loved them, and frankly, so did I! This week's failed recipe? Crockpot Italian Chicken. Honestly, I didn't think it was all that bad. Not great, but not bad. Husband and the kids, however, didn't like it at all. Sunshine chose to go to bed instead of eating it. One more food pin I can delete.
I have been working on several other projects this week, also. They are in the process of being finished, so stay tuned! |
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