"Let's think of something to do....

While we're waiting." That was always my favorite song on Mr. Rogers. The kids are dying wanting to start on Christmas projects and crafts. I told them they have to wait until December, or we'll run out of things to do. So, here's what we did to kill time today. I pulled out all the extra stuff from the girl scout meeting the other night and set them to work cake decorating. It's something I normally don't let them do, because I hate giving up the control. I want things to be precise and perfect. Really I should figure that if I have so much fun doing something the kids would as well. I think next week sometime I'll break out the graham crackers and let them go to town making their own Ginger bread houses ..... by themselves.

Buckets and wreaths

A while back I saw Martha make one of these super sweet wreaths. After checking out the stores to try and find any kind of wreath for less then 5$ that didn't look stupid and having no luck, I decided that this would be the perfect afternoon kid project. 3 bags of gumdrops, half a box of cut up toothpicks and one styrofoam wreath form later, I love how it turned out. I'm just waiting for the squirrels to discover it. Then today I remembered a tutorial I'd seen awhile ago on Whipup (thanks to http://vintagericrac.blogspot.com/2007/09/back-with-buckets.html ) for making fabric buckets. I had these quilt squares that I'd made a couple of months ago and thought they'd make a great fabric bucket. I love how it turned out! I'm thinking they'd be very cute stuffed with Christmas goodies for friends and teachers or whom ever.

Mexican Market

Every year the second grade has a big Mexican Market to finish off their unit on Mexico. Each student has to make a couple of dozen items that could be found in a Mexican Market and then they sell them to each other. We spent our weekend making Day of the Dead Sugar Skulls. I discovered that puff paint actually works really well for this project. You can get pretty good details, and then it kind of melts down into the sugar. It gives you a really neat effect. Then, my favorite part was when Miss C realized it's all about the presentation and came up with the packaging technique. Bags, shredded colored paper to contrast the white skulls and then a label.

A week of being grateful #3

I am thankful for friends. I think there are days when I know I love my friends more than my husband. I remember being about 12 and eating dinner with my grandparents and a group of thier friends. There was one woman who was new to this social circle. She kept saying how alone she was. She'd reached a point in her life where all her friends had died. That has always stuck with me. I'm thankful every day that I have friends to call on for adult conversation, to rescue me from my reality if I need a break, but at the same time give me a reality check if I need it. I'm thankful for friends who build me up and make me feel loved and amazing. Thankyou.

A week of being grateful #2

I meant to post this last night, but I wasn't on the computer much. Yesterday all day I felt so thankful that I had a house. The morning news started out my day by saying that two families had lost their homes due to a house fire. It started in one families garage and moved next door. Both houses were a total loss. The thing that struck me the most was when they were interviewing the Mom and she kept saying how she had just finished making her fruit pies that evening. It's so amazing the things that become important to you in times of tragedy. Never mind all her belongings and home and everything else that was a loss, but her fruit pies. I felt overcome that I needed to help these families. Then I started thinking about all the other families who have been homeless, but aren't getting the attention because their homes didn't just burn down. There are so many people that need assistance. Then I started looking around my house. Yes, I wish it was much bigger. I wish that I had a studio and not just the back of closets, a playroom, a soaker tub, a yard, etc... But I do I have a home. It usually smells of freshly baked goods or fresh laundry. A lot of the time there are happy voices and fun projects. I have a place to get away from the cold or hide from the heat. I have an address for mail to be delivered to. I have rooms to send my children to;) I have a kitchen to bake in and a table to gather around. I have a bed with lots of warm blankets and squishy pillows. I have access to hot and cold water by turning a knob and electrcity with the flip of a switch. I have a home and I am grateful for it.

A Week of Being Grateful : #1

I have a bad habit. I am a negative person. This week I will try not to be so negative by focusing on things that I am so grateful for. I know it's important to aw knowledge the ways in which we are blessed. It's good for the soul to let some sunshine into our lives every now and then to chase away the clouds. Here is my first ray of sunshine: my family.
I am so blessed to have a loving husband and three amazing munchkins. I am even blessed for the trials we have as a family. I was watching the Today show this morning, they were doing a special about St Judes hospital. Watching all those amazing children with horrendous illnesses, I couldn't help but feel so grateful for my children's asthma. I am also glad that the biggest fight my honey and I had today was about being on time for something. I'm grateful that the worst word my children call each other is Twit. I'm grateful that we sit together to eat meals. I'm grateful for bedtime rituals, cuddling after prayers, made up stories and Friday night movie night. I love the rare chance I get to have a date with my husband, or just holding hands. I love warm sweet smelling baby breath against my chest when he's falling asleep. I'm glad we still all enjoy being together as a family. I am grateful that I have these precious people in my life.

Skirts 2&3

I just finished these up. They go with the Cherry skirt I posted about earlier. These are going to some little girls in Italy for Christmas. They were a lot of fun to do and I'm really pleased with how all of them turned out. I think my favorite one is the one with cherries.

Living Craft

Yesterday I was at Joanns and saw this new magazine called Living Craft. I thumbed through it briefly while I was in line to check out. I put it down thinking I didn't really want it. Then I went home and started remembering all the amazing things that were in it. All day long I have felt like a drug addict needing a fix. I ran back to Joanns this afternoon and picked it up. When I got home and started to read it, I finally felt calm, almost high. I haven't felt this way about a magazine since the Martha Kids and Baby magazines. It's really that good. There's ideas in it for felting with your kids, making snails out of wax, and my favorite... A knitted farm play mat. How genius is that? There's some really cute things in it. I highly recommend at least going to the store and looking at it. Maybe you'll become an addict as well!

Cherry skirt

A friend of ours ordered 3 skirts from me for his nieces for Christmas. Here's the first one- size 9-12 months being modeled by my baby. I'm still trying to decide how to do the other 2.

.85

That's right, do a double take if you need to. I actually filled my tank today for .85 a gallon. Can you believe it? Some days I do feel very blessed. GMC was helping run a promotion today to make people more aware of E85 gasoline. So, if you have a flex-fuel vehicle you could fill up for .85 a gallon. I'm still in shock.

Embroidery Design Collection III

Here's some lovely pictures for us to drool over together. I just got it in the mail. I would love to embroider some of these designs onto jeans, but I don't know how to transfer the design to such a dark color. My faves are the ballerina and the girl with ther kerchief in her hair. This is a really beautiful book.

Christmas idea

I finally retrieved these from my broken digital camera. For the party favors for my 5 yr olds birthday back in September we made flannel boards with space pictures. So easy and so cute! For the flannel boards we went to the thrift store and picked up a bunch of old picture frames. We covered an appropriate size piece of cardboard with Space flannel and stuck it in the frame. Voila, you have a flannel board. For the pictures we just found some on-line, colored, laminated and hot-glued felt to the back and voila you have flannel board pieces.

Recipe Eye Candy

Yesterday I was at Anthropologie and saw this amaing cookbook. It's so full of color and amazing pictures, I just had to get it! It's called Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros. One of the coolest things about this book is the Table of Contents. She's broken up all of her recipies by color. She's also got tons of old memories from when she was a child and beautiful pictures of vintage toys strewn about with the food. The recipies seem to be mostly comfort food types. I haven't had a chance to sit down and read through it yet. I've just skimmed along the surface. One recipie that I did see that I want to try, are the fried rissoto balls. Can you really go wrong with frying rice and cheese? I plan on getting my kids in bed early tonight so I can kick back and read my new cookbook. We'll see if that happens.