The Moveable Alphabet...

...or not! My birthday was the day after Easter, so we celebrated on Easter with the delicious cheese braid that my mom makes for me every year. This year she bought candy letters to spell out Happy Birthday. After they sang to me, O started playing with the letters and making and reading words. What fun!



As an ironic side note, my mom gave me an avocado pitter for my birthday...I cut my finger the next day using a knife to pit an avocado. As I was bringing the knife down to the avocado pit, I was thinking "I should find the avocado pitter that mom just gave me." As I was bleeding all over the kitchen, I was thinking "I REALLY should have found and used the avocado pitter!"

Wet Chalk Art

Last Wednesday was a rough day for me. I was stressed over my inability to do the things I needed and wanted to do because of my wrapped and splinted hand. I was also feeling very discouraged by how slowly my wound was healing. I needed a quick and easy activity to cheer me up and to entertain O.

Art Jar to the rescue! We dipped chalk in water and drew on one our outdoor chalkboards. O said "I'm making smooth, broad strokes like I do with paint." She paused and then said "I made paint!!! Can you believe I made paint?!!!" She soaked the chalk in the water for a while, and it was even nicer to work with. She then started "painting" with her hands and feet by smearing them in the wet chalk. We had a lot of fun, and we'll definitely do this again soon.

On the Mend

My finger is finally healing! The stitches didn't work, and my stepsister who is a wound care specialist recommended against using glue. She did an ultrasound mist treatment on my wound, and I've kept it wrapped and splinted. It has healed amazingly fast since the ultrasound mist treatment. I'm hoping that I may be able to take the splint off within a few days. It's not easy to take care of these kiddos with only one good hand :) Here's a picture if you dare to scroll down...











































Don't use a knife to pit an avocado!!!

1st Sign!

E signed her 1st sign today...milk! Yay!

oh, well...maybe not

i'm not back after all :( i took my stitches out tonight, and my cut has not healed. elliott and i have it pulled closed with a bandaid that is held in place with surgical tape. hopefully, this will work and i won't have to go back to the ER. so, my hand is all bandaged up since the chance of infection is higher now that the wound is open, and typing with one hand is slow and annoying. i have so many posts to write, but it's not going to happen tonight. hopefully, i'll be back on schedule with daily posts by the end of the week. see you then :)

I'm Back

Thanks for all of the comments on my Unintended Break post. My finger is on the mend, and I should be back to regular blogging soon. I was supposed to get my stitches out today, but I accidentally popped one this morning and my finger didn't look healed enough to have them all removed. I'll probably clip the rest of them tomorrow. I'm trying to talk O into helping me (since she loves to pretend to be a doctor), but she's not interested. She said "I'm just a little kid. I'll be a doctor when I'm bigger." I asked when that would be and she said "when I'm 6 or 7 or maybe 9 or 10."

Unintended Break

I'll be gone from the blog for a week or so due to my utter stupidity...I sliced my finger to the bone while removing a pit from an avocado with a knife. Sweet O was running around behind me cleaning the blood up off the floor while E just wanted me to hold her. Thank goodness our neighbors are down here for the week and came to my rescue.

Yummy Birds' Nests

O and I made yummy bird nests with chocolate malt ball eggs for Easter! We had fun, and they turned out even cuter than I expected.

The idea and recipe for the birds' nests came from The Artful Parent. The nests are basically rice crispy treats made with cornflakes and shaped to look like nests. We made several changes in the recipe, but nothing major...we used Total cereal instead of corn flakes, we didn't toast our coconut, and we used a whole bag of mini marshmallows. I think making (and eating!) these fun, little nests may be a new Easter/Spring tradition for us!

To make the nests, we melted a bag of mini marshmallows along with a 1/2 cup of butter. We poured in a teaspoon of vanilla extract. We then slowly mixed in 4 cups of Total cereal and a fourth cup of coconut. We pressed the mixture into mini muffin tin cups to make the nests. After they were set, I took them out of the muffin tin. We refrigerated the nests overnight, and then we put the eggs in the nests to finish the recipe.

Happy Easter!

Could she get any cuter?!!! I don't think so!

We've had a wonderful Easter, but I have to admit that I'm glad that we are done with holidays for a while :) I feel like I've been constantly planning around and making things for holidays for months...wait, I have! My goal was to finish making handmade Easter gifts by the end of February, but I was up finishing up last minute gifts until after midnight last night. It was worth it though because O was SO excited about her handmade gifts...more on them later.

Happy Easter!

Easter Baskets for Fairies

O and my niece had a fun time making fairy Easter baskets on this week!

To make the baskets, I cut 2 cups out of a cardboard egg carton for each girl. They colored the cups with markers. We twisted a pipe cleaner to make a basket handle and hole punched a hole in each side of the basket. We put the pipe cleaner through each hole, and we were done! The girls filled their tiny baskets with flowers...most people would call the flowers weeds, but O thinks they are "beautiful!"

String Art

Our 2nd Art Jar activity was making string art! O was VERY excited when she chose this activity from the jar, but she wasn't very enthusiastic once we got started on it.

To do this activity, you need string (or yarn), paint, and paper. We dipped the yarn into the paint, placed it on a sheet of cardstock, folded the paper over the string, and pulled the string out. Then we "danced" the yarn on the paper which was much more fun and had a cooler effect than pulling the yarn. However, O decided that she liked painting with her fingers best of all!

Marshmallow Bunny Art

O was thrilled to do another marshmallow art activity today!

To complete this activity, I drew a bunny on a piece of cardstock. I gave O a bowl of mini marshmallows, and she bit each marshmallow in half before sticking the other half on the bunny. She's looking forward to eating the marshmallows off of her artwork after showing it to her daddy. Silly girl!

Shape Windows

O and I had fun reviewing her shapes using these shape windows (via Confessions of a Homeschooler).

I printed the shapes on cardstock and used an x-acto knife to cut out the middle of the shapes before laminating them. After laminating the shapes, I cut them out of the cardstock (I like to do most of my cutting after laminating in order to have a cleaner edge). Now they look like windows, which is a fun effect :) O had fun running around the room and looking at different objects through her shape windows, and she's looking forward to using the shape windows to teach "baby sister" her shapes!

Sticker Resist Painting

Our 1st Art Jar activity was sticker resist painting. This activity has been on my to do list for a very long time. It was fun, but I was a little disappointed (but not surprised) with the results.

To do this activity, O decorated a piece of white cardstock with stickers. She then painted the cardstock. After the paint was dry, we peeled the stickers off the paper. Unfortunately, the stickers tore the paper, so the effect was not what I had hoped. Luckily, I thought this might happen, and I warned O that her painting might tear. I was so glad that I forewarned her because I'm sure she would have been very upset if I had not. O had a lot of fun painting, and we are looking forward to our next Art Jar activity!

The Art Jar

We've needed something to jumpstart our art activities around here lately, and I decided that an Art Jar would be just the thing to do it! The idea for an Art Jar came to me when I was making my Pregnancy Journal Jar (a year ago!).

To make the Art Jar, I cut strips of card stock and put an idea for a simple art activity (using supplies that I have on hand) on each strip. I'm hoping that we'll do an activity from the Art Jar at least a couple of times a week. The ideas for the activities have come from library books, activities we've done in the past, and eventually I'll go through the starred items in my google reader and add more strips.

O is VERY excited about the Art Jar. We've completed one activity so far, and we are looking forward to our 2nd Art Jar Activity on Friday.

Since several people have asked what's in The Art Jar, I'd thought I'd share a list of a few of the activities. I don't actually have the jar with me now, so these are just from memory...

painting with marbles
painting with feathers
pop paper prints
leaf prints
string painting
make a sculpture with packing peanuts
make a sculpture with straws and tape
contact paper collage
medicine dropper art