Drop It In...Where Is It???

E and I have fun dropping small toys (but not so small as to be chokable) into this wipes container. I put the toys halfway in the slot, and she tries to grab them out to put them in her mouth. Occasionally, she'll push them the rest of the way in, and she reaches in to try to get them out. She'll also hold the container up to her eyes to look in it and shakes it...so cute. We have lots of fun with this simple activity. We use a Huggies wipes container since it has a rubbery material surrounding the opening which makes it easy for baby hands to reach in without getting scratched.

Fun with Unit Blocks

Unit blocks (and playsilks) are my most favorite toys for my kids, and we have really enjoyed them lately. O and I have fun building towers, and E loves to knock them down.

I need to find a new storage solution for the blocks...when they are put away in their bin on the IKEA storage unit, we almost never play with them. We left them out for a few days and played with them everyday. It's interesting how the placement of a toy is so key in the amount of playtime it sees...

1000!

I just noticed that I have 1000 followers on blogger. Thanks!

Baby in the Mirror

I've planned to write a post about E's Montessori bedroom, but I never have...mainly because we spend so little time in there. We sleep on the floor bed, but that is about it.

Lately, I've been trying to spend more time playing in front of these mirrors on her floor. She really enjoys them, so I'm trying to set aside some time each day to play in this space with her. I'm thinking of putting a baby gate in her doorway so I can leave her in her room to play by herself while I wash clothes. I have a feeling that she may climb the gate, but I may try it anyway...

Painting a Birdhouse

O painted a lighthouse birdhouse for her daddy for Father's Day, and she REALLY got into it! She started painting with brushes, but she quickly decided that she'd rather paint with her hands. She mixed the paint together and smeared it all over her hands and painted the house. Before I knew it, she'd smeared the paint all the way up her arms to her shoulders. Wow! Then she asked for a wet towel to wipe it off...Um, no. I took her out to the deck and sprayed her off with the waterhose. What a fun and messy day!

Tunnel Time

O and I have been setting up obstacle courses in our den for E to crawl through and this tunnel was a popular addition! We set up the tunnel for E to crawl through, couch cushions for her to crawl over, chairs to crawl under, etc. I was really surprised by how quickly she crawled through the tunnel and then continued to crawl through it over and over again. It's amazing how different she is from O...O didn't even start crawling until she was 10 months old. E is only 9 months old, and she is crawling, climbing, standing, etc and I'm very afraid that she may be walking soon. Slow down baby girl!

"Not a Paper Towel Roll"

O was having a GREAT time playing with a paper towel roll a few days ago, and it reminded me of the book Not a Stick. I started asking her "Whatcha doing with that paper towel roll?" and she'd say "It's not paper towel roll. It's a ..."

We had fun reinacting the book (with a twist)...O LOVES to reinact books, movies, recitals, etc. The "not a paper towel roll" was a telescope, microphone, megaphone, microscope, magnifiying glass, vase, cast, drumstick, sword, horse, train, etc. Who needs toys when you have trash?

Piano Girl

Playing her piano is one of E's favorite things to do! She loves to pull up to her piano, and I couldn't believe when she stood up and started playing her piano a few days ago. Our baby girl is growing up way too fast!!!

Little Ballerina Shadowbox

O just completed her 1st year of tap and ballet lessons, and she LOVED it! She spends most of her time dancing and putting on shows, so her recital was especially exciting for her (and us!). She glowed on stage, and we were so excited to see her so happy.

I made this ballerina shadow box as a memento of her first year of ballet lessons. I used double sided tape to attach her 1st pair of ballet shoes and her ballet picture to the matte. This shadowbox took about 5 seconds to put together, and I love how it turned out. O gets VERY sad when she sees it because she's so sad that she doesn't fit in her ballet shoes anymore (she has several hand-me down pairs that do fit), so she says that she can't even look at it. What a sweet and silly girl!

I'm looking forward to making several more shadowboxes of special mementos...the only problem is that I have no where to hang them. I wonder if we should buy a bigger house just so I can have wall space for O and E's artwork and shadow boxes...

From Art to a Softie

I found this post saved in draft from months and months ago. I can't believe I haven't posted this already...

A few months ago O drew this portrait of her baby sister. I loved it so much that I wanted to do something to preserve it (she drew it on lined notebook paper). After thinking about it for a few days, I realized it would make the perfect softie!

I traced around O's drawing with an iron-on transfer pencil (I have no idea where to find these pencils. I have looked and looked, and the only one I could find was in my mom's old sewing stuff, so it is probably 30 years old). I ironed the drawing onto a piece of cotton fabric. Then I embroidered along the lines using the backstitch. This was simple and fast to do, and O was VERY proud.



After I finished the embroidery, I cut out the fabric along with a same sized piece for the back of the softie. I pinned them right side to right side, sewed them, and left a small opening for turning. After I turned the softie right side out, I stuffed it, and my mom sewed the small opening closed. Done!

O stared it for a while and wondered why she didn't give baby sister a nose or a neck :) I'm looking forward to making more softies from the girls' drawings. I'd also love to make pillows using their drawings (which would make a great gift for grandparents).

Edit to add: I photocopied O's drawing 1st...I didn't ruin it by tracing over it with the iron-on pencil. The actual drawing is framed downstairs in the kids' art area and is hung low on the wall at their eye level.

Learning the Art of Patience

We always practice the art of patience by trying to catch minnows in the lake each spring and summer. We usually use our hands, but my niece left her net here which makes it much easier. O kept swiping (sp) at the fish to catch them and was getting frustrated. I reminded her that if she sat very, very still and was very, very patient they would come to her. They did, and she was thrilled. She named her minnow "Lucisander," and she loved Lucisander very much for the hour or so that she was in our bucket. When we went to pour Lucisander back in the lake, we discovered that she was gone from the bucket. This was a good lesson in determination since Lucisander was so determined to get back to her family in the lake that she jumped out of the bucket back into the water. O was sad, but I think she understood Lucisander's motivation. A few days later she asked if fish had good memories...she was quietly calling Lucisander's name and was wondering if Lucisander remembered her. Moments like these are what I want to remember from O and E's childhoods...we've put aside most of our Montessori and preschool work, and we've been spending hours and hours playing on the beach each day. It's a wonderful life, and I treasure every moment with my beautiful girls. God is good.

A Lesson Learned

I was suckered into subscribing to Mothering magazine by the promise of a free mini beco carrier. I didn't need another magazine to read, but I thought that O would love a mini beco carrier for her 4th birthday, and I've always been a little intrigued by Mothering magazine. So, a couple of days ago, I received a book in the mail from Mothering. It seems that the mini becos went fast, so they sent books to everyone else. HUGE disappointment. I called Mothering and left a message that I would like my money refunded since I only subscribed to the magazine since they were offering mini beco carriers for new subscriptions. Someone called from the magazine and was very nice. They'll cancel my subscription, but I have to go through the hassle and expense of mailing the book back. Grrrrrr. I would have thought that the people at Mothering would have been technically savvy enough to have a notice on their site that alerts subscribers when certain deals have been sold out...they only had 300 mini beco carriers, so after 300 people subscribed a message should have come up when the code was entered saying that the deal was no longer available. Anyway, what's done is done. I'm hoping that they'll cancel my subscription and just charge me for the book (I can save it for a birthday gift). I've learned a valuable lesson...don't subscribe to magazines just for the free gifts! Also, I don't think I'll ever be intrigued by Mothering magazine again...I'll stick to Living Crafts and Family Fun!

Conversation Jar

My mom made a Conversation Jar for us for a fun Easter gift. She filled the jar with questions and activities written on slips of paper. O chooses slip of paper each night during dinner, and we answer the question or do the activity. O really loves this nightly activity!

Where do you host your photos?

I've been using dropshots to host my pics for a while, but my account is full. I don't want to pay 60 dollars to host my pics...I need somewhere free! So, where do you host the pics that you blog? TIA

More on Earthboxes

Several people have asked for more info on the earthboxes, so here is the link. This is our 3rd (maybe 4th) year of growing our vegetables in earthboxes. Usually, we also plant tomatoes in typical containers, but the plants grow so much faster and produce so many more tomatoes in the earthboxes that we decided to only plant in earthboxes this year. We have our earthboxes on our 2nd story deck, so we have very few bugs. We are able to grow organic vegetables with very little work. We just have to remember to water them which is not as easy as you would think :)