Beauty Shop in a Box

My mom compiled a Beauty Shop in a Box for O and my niece for Christmas, and they LOVE it! She gathered a hair dryer, curling iron, curlers, hair straightener, etc from thrift stores and family members and cut off the cords (for safety). O loves for Guh-guh to put her hair in curlers, and both girls have had so much fun with this wonderful gift.

Snowman Writing Practice

I downloaded these great Snowman Writing Practice cards from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I laminated the pages after printing them (before cutting) and put them together with a book ring after cutting them. They are so convenient, and O has enjoyed using them in the car, at home, and at Guh-guh's house.

Check out Confessions of a Homeschooler for more great printables!

A Snowman Snack

O LOVES bananas so this snowman snack was perfect for her! I cut a banana into 3 pieces to make the body of the snowman. I pu them on a straw, but the straw was really unnecessary. I used a piece of orange for the hat, dark chocolate chips for his eyes and buttons, and a raisin for his nose. Easy, delicious, and fun!

An Easy Ribbon Hairband

Since O is a ballerina now (she started taking dance lessons this year, and she plans to dance in The Nutcracker next Christmas), she enjoys wearing her hair in a bun. I'm not very good at fixing hair, but luckily my mom is! Whenever my mom is around, O's hair is always braided or in a bun. Mom put together this ribboned hairband to "fancy up" O's bun, and O was thrilled, of course :) To make the ribboned hair band, she just tied the ribbons to a hairband. Simple, easy, fast, and super cute in my girl's hair!

Thanks!

Thanks for all of the kind comments! My girls are feeling better, and we haven't had to do a breathing treatment with E in over 24 hours :)

I'm beginning to think I should've never taken a blog break since it's so hard for me to get back to it :) However, my OCD need to document our activities will not allow me to completely stop the blog. I have SO many things that I'd like to blog about...several handmade gifts that I haven't yet shared, many product reviews, fixing cloth diaper elastic, E's Montessori bedroom, our winter activities, our Montessori activities rotation system, etc, but I just haven't had the time to take pictures, and I only have about 3 minutes at a time on the computer...usually late at night when I'm too tired to do much. So, I will be back, but it may be a few days or a week before I'm up and running again. I'm hoping to find a block of time to write about 20 posts at once (set to post once a day) so that I can sit back and be a lazy blogger again! Thanks again for your words of support.

Happy New Year!

It's been a rough week. Both E and O are sick, and we have to give E breathing treatments every 4 hours. Hopefully, both girls are on the mend and next week will be better.

It's been nice to not think about this blog, and I'm feeling a little ambivalent about continuing it. However, I'm sure that I'll get back into a blogging mood eventually...

Taking a Break

Just wanted to let you know that I'll be taking a break from this blog for a while...probably until the New Year. See you then :)

The Best Stocking Stuffer!

E wasn't thrilled about being a stocking stuffer, but she makes a cute one! We're putting the finishing touches on a Christmas morning treasure hunt for the girls and then it's off to bed. Merry Christmas!!!

Bell Activity

I brought this activity out of our Montessori rotation box since I thought was appropriate for the season. O enjoyed doing this work...until I borrowed a couple of bells for a handmade gift :)

The idea for this activity came from The Wonder Years. It's a simple and fun activity which was easy to put together. I took 10 bells and removed the balls from the centers of 5 of them. Then I put them in a bowl together. O picks up one bell at a time, shakes it, and determines if it should go on the sound side or no sound side.

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter & Ritz Sandwich Cookies

O, E, Elliott, and I made chocolate covered peanut butter & Ritz sandwich cookies for Elliott's work friends. This was a fun family activity! I was glad that Elliott participated since it was fun to see him and O working together...they are SO much alike! After spreading peanut butter on 1 cracker, O asked "Can I lick my knife now?" They were both so excited whenever a cracker broke, and they devoured them like they were starving. I'm fairly certain that sneaky little O broke a few crackers on purpose :)

When we started this activity, E was watching us from her bouncy seat. That did not suit her AT all since she likes to be involved in all of our activities. I put her in the sling (after O tried the sling out...she STILL fits, which is absolutely thrilling for her!), and she was perfectly content. E is not a baby who will tolerate being left on the sidelines!

To make the cookies we spread peanut butter on Ritz crackers and topped them with another Ritz to make a sandwich. We melted Wilton's meltable chocolate in the microwave and dropped each peanut butter cracker sandwich into the melted chocolate. We used O's chopsticks to remove the cookies from the chocolate and placed them on an unfolded cereal bag (instead of waxed paper) to dry and harden. This was fun and simple, but not so fast since it took quite a while for the cookies to dry and harden (and we only had one cereal bag on which to place them).

Model Magic Hand & Footprint Ornaments

O, E, Elliott, and I made hand and footprint ornaments using Model Magic a few days ago. It was SO much easier and works SO much better than using plaster of paris (we made ornaments using O's hand and footprints for her 1st Christmas using plaster of paris. It was difficult to get the footprints just right because the mixture was too watery, and the ornaments are heavy and easily breakable).

To make the ornaments, I rolled the Model Magic into a ball and then used one of O's playdough rolling pins to roll it out. I cut out an appropriately sized circle using a bowl. Elliott brought E over and we pressed her hand and then her foot into the Model Magic. We let the ornaments dry for 24 hours before adding a ribbon and putting them on the tree. I need to sand around the edges, but I'll worry about that after Christmas. I'm VERY pleased with how they turned out :)

O was excited that we also made an ornament using her handprint. She had a lot of fun playing with the Model Magic while we were making the ornaments. We also made handprints of both girls for O to paint that we'll display all year long.

Model Magic is fairly expensive. I bought a large tub months ago (to use for making landforms...maybe I'll eventually do that :) from Hobby Lobby using a 40% off coupon. One package from the tub (it came with 4 packages) made 7 ornaments.

Handpainted Rolling Giraffe

O is proudly making all of her gifts for Baby Sister this Christmas. She enjoyed painting the rolling giraffe (using acrylic craft paint). After she is finished, we'll paint it with coat of mod podge to give it a finished look. (We will watch E closely to make sure she doesn't put this toy in her mouth. The paint and mod podge are nontoxic, but it can't be good to get it in your mouth...)

Felt Sugar Cookies

I can't believe I finished these cookies before Christmas Eve! They weren't top priority on my long list, but since they were so simple to make they eventually made their way to the top while other more important things were cut :)

To make the cookies, I traced cookie cutter shapes onto ecospun felt and cut out 2 of each of the shapes (I did this at least 6 months ago...before having a baby and forgetting about them completely until just a few weeks ago). Once I remembered the cookies, I started carrying them around with me for a couple of weeks hoping for a few minutes to work on them. I finally found the (less than) 20 minutes that I needed while waiting for Elliott's workday to be finished (we ride together) last week, and I sewed the 2 sides together using embroidery thread. I decided not to stuff the cookies.

The girls both went to sleep fairly early (gasp!) a couple of nights ago, and I worked furiously on Christmas gifts...the cookies made the cut once again, so I painted them with fabric paint. It's supposed to look like icing, and I guess it does. I think they'd look better with felt embellishments instead of paint, but they're done and that makes me happy. I packaged them in a Martha Stewart cookie box (bought at 75% off after Christmas last year), and they are under the tree!

Our Felt Gingerbread Village

I've really enjoyed playing with our felt gingerbread village this year. I say "I" because O hasn't been very interested in it, but I've had lots of fun :) I made the felt village last year, and I was hoping O would be as excited about it as I am...maybe next year. The directions for making the gingerbread village are here.

Painted Peg Doll Necklaces

Painting these tiny little dolls was one of my favorite handmade Christmas gifts this year (along with the Thing Finder Necklaces). I've been planning to make peg doll necklaces for O and my niece since last Christmas, but I was not looking forward to it since I did not enjoy making the peg doll family for O's birthday in July. However, I really enjoyed this and plan to make many more (maybe this will be a good item to make and sell on Etsy...).

To make the dolls, I painted them with acrylic craft paint and then added details using paint pens. I painted the dolls to match the girls' Christmas dresses (yes, we have matching dresses for ALL 3 girls :). After I painted the dolls, Elliott drilled a tiny hole into the top of each doll and screwed a small circle screw into each hole. I then painted them with a coat of mod podge to finish and protect them. I threaded a thin ribbon through the screw to make the necklace, and they were done (I may switch the ribbon for a stretchy elastic cord).

I wrote the girls' names and the year on the bottoms of the dolls. After Christmas, we can shorten the ribbon and the necklaces will turn into keepsake ornaments for next year's Christmas tree. E (who is only 3 months old) is obviously much too young for a necklace, so her tiny doll is already hanging on the tree. My niece was SO excited when I gave her her necklace this afternoon. I'm already planning on making tiny birthday doll necklaces for the girls. These dolls would also be great additions to O and E's birthday ring!