Craft Mom Strikes Again!

Well I'm getting ready for a craft Fair and taking requests! A friend of mine wanted some toddler belts for her little potty trainer so they can keep her pants on, but still easily removed, so I made her these.

They are really simple if you're even a little crafty. You need:

Knit Elastic

Matching Thread

Snaps

Snap press

Scissors or cutting blade

Ruler, measuring tape or self healing cutting board (which has measurements marked)

Awl

Measure out the knit elastic (bought in 3yard bundles, though you can probably buy by-the-yard somewhere) on your chatting board at 10" lengths.

Fold and sew each end with about 1/2" seam to create clean seams.

Using awl, make holes starting from each end at at 1.25", then 2" (from first hole) and 1.25" from second hole. (Totaling six wholes)

Use the snap press to insert male snaps into the outer holes, and four female snaps into the remaining holes, being careful to have them facing the right direction (all smooth sides should be on one side while all male/female sides face the opposite).

Now you're set with awesome toddler belts! Have fun!

My Frozen Sisters Apron Project

I have begun my projects for this fall's craft fair circuit and I'm really quite proud of this one! These Aprons are fun for play time as well as helping mom and dad in the kitchen.

I have these and others in different fabrics that I'm selling at the craft fair, also available for purchase online, but if you are crafty, then you could always make your own! Here's how:

First, cut the fabric to the right length and width, plus an inch to allow for hems.

Next, fold the fabric in half and cut off the corner to create the sides of the top. I did between 4-5" across the top, and tapering down the sides, depending on the size of the apron, leaving about 8-9" of fabric for the chest of the apron.

After pinning and heming a quarter inch hem around the entire apron, pin the 1" ribbon on to the sides and top in three places. And the top I chose to fasten in D-rings to make the neck strap adjustable.

Stitch the ribbons and D-rings on and add a hem on the ends of the neck strap to help it be secure when wearing. Then either hem or melt the ends of the waist straps to keep them from fraying.

That is it! My beautiful Frozen Sisters apron, now available on MyStore.com

http://www.mystore.com/snuggle-bunny-kids48963

Good-bye Summer

We had a fun summer, though I didn't document it all here. We ended the summer with a camping trip where we met with cousins and grandparents...it was awesome! 

Beautiful mornings

Exercising in the brisk morning air

Hanging out beside the fire

 

Wildflower fields

Scavenger hunts, swimming, fishing...like I said...it was awesome!

Now school is off to a running start. 

Being a homeschool household, we started a little earlier than public school so we can have 4-day weeks (woohoo), giving us Fridays to go on field trips, play dates, long weekend vacations, etc.

We are really already almost 30 days into our school year today, and already my kindergartener is starting to read, my preschooler is proficient in her numbers colors and is learning to read and write the letters she is always singing, and y second grader is doing 4-digit addition, subtraction and "carrying" math. My kids are awesome! In fact, EVERYTHING IS AWESOME! Hehehe

Weekends are too short

What is it about weekends that makes you feel like you must accomplish something?! God should have called for two days of rest, since Sunday morning consists of rushing around to eat, shower, dress 4 kids, get myself dressed and pretty, and out the door in time to get to church. THEN, by the time you're out of church you need to drive home, get clothes changed for all 6 of us, get lunch rolling while somehow nursing the baby and breaking up fights over whose stuff is whose, and then eating. Next thing you know we are remembering we need clean clothes for the new week and wondering what's for dinner!

Anyway, since that is our "day of rest", I figure Saturday is "sleep in, eat at restaurants, no dishes and nap time" kind of day! My hubby however sees it as "get yard work, garage organizing, sorting and chores done" kind of day. 

I get it, I do, we need to get these things done, and Sunday has about one hour of actual rest, but honestly, when DO moms get a break!?! The answer my dears, is 2031! When my baby boy is 18 I will be 51 years old! No way am I waiting that long! Lol so we figure out how to make chores fun family time, my hubby lets me sleep in Saturday and I give him Sunday, and after the weeds are pulled, the laundry dome and the kids all fed...we hae an amazing moment to share with our kids...the ice cream man came down the street!

They got to run out and pay a man to hand them ice cream, right in front of their house...what a wonderful world!

Adventure is out there!

Well we ended up in a tire predicament as my minivan wobbles down the road on bald tires, my hubby's car gets a flat! Go figure! So we and needed to get 3 new tires for our minivan and 4 new for the hubby's car (so much for building a savings!) 

After calling around we found the best option (with the help of my dad) and made our appointment for this morning and headed out bright and early.

I had fun reminiscing in the tire store, having grown up with my dad working in tires stores and the like. That smell...fresh rubber tires...such a huge part of my childhood memories! 

I was just telling my dad yesterday how I used to think that the little rubber "hairs" on brand new tires we OBVIOUSLY what went missing when a tire was declared "bald"! Made since to me! And the first thing my six year old says when I'm showing hima tire on the rack? "This one's almost bald!" I love my son!!!

Since it would be about 45 minutes, we took an impromptu safety field trip! 

Lessons on "ditches at deadly" as we walked alongside the arroyo along with how to use a crosswalk and safely cross major streets, it was quite an adventure!

We ended at the best possible field trip destination...Starbucks!

Even the kids enjoyed the adventure of going INSIDE! (Such a treat to exit the vehicle for coffee now a days)

Yes, mom got them chocolate milk...spoiled!!

Finally we headed back and collected our wonderfully smooth rides with one more lesson about shadows! 

What an fun and productive adventure!

Preparation Begins

As we near the beginning of the 2014–15 school year, preparation begins in our homeschooling home. We've cleared out all of the street papers broken crayons, and old workbooks as we open the box and pull out all the fresh new workbooks for everyone's new year. 

This is the first year of having three students at the table, as our three year old will begin with part time preschool curriculum along side the bigger kids. It presents a challenge, but an exciting one! As we pull out the crisp, new, shiny books, the kids are super excited, and already my kindergartner to be has flipped through half of her books and looked at every single picture. With cubbies full of new books 

and mom's shelf covered in teacher manuals all I can think is… I need more shelves!! ;)

So my next project will be putting up a shelf or two (which I have prepped for installation right next to the cabinets) so I can have a little more space to organize my "teacher stuff" and still have space for all the "craft stuff". 

When I was younger, and without children, I had this idealistic plan of keeping craft supplies always on hand at kid level...accessible...so my children would never have to ask if they could do crafts. However, every very time I leave markers, scissors or glue down for little fingers to grab, my unattended munchkins will inevitably color, cut or paste something in a permanent and destructive manner, making mommy sad. I have therefore put away that idea and accepted that I DO need shelving up high...super high...and to keep craft time supervised...for now. Maybe we'll revise this in a few years when the older kids are old enough to help keep the chaos to a minimum...not today, oh no, not today!

And so, with the start of the school year looming ahead of us, I get more and more excited...my favorite part...the endless possibilities! 

Supermom Moment!

I was going through some boxes in the garage and found two old car seat covers from our original infant car seats from 2007. I had sent the expired seats off to recycle and apparently saved the covers just in case our next child was a boy...which he is! However, I was given an updated travel system that doesn't expire before my son is supposed to move to the next size, and it's a nice red and blue boy pattern. Back to today, 1-year after moving finding an unopened box here I find the covers I tucked away for future baby boy, now eight months old.

What to do, what to do?

Well, of course the first thought is...throw them out, duh! Who needs more stuff we don't need, and who's going to buy a car seat cover...that's just weird! Then I realize one thing...my 2007 Evenflo Expressions High Chair  needs a new cover! See, our original cover from 2007 made it through 2 kids, but was killed in 2010 by the dryer (since it wasn't supposed to be in there-oops!). 

We put up with it until my third child was born in 2011. At that point I took the cover down to Joanne's Fabrics and copied it, using fabrics that looked like the same quality and even putting a vinyl layer on it...really cute, but STUPID! They Vinyl was more trouble than it was worth and in the end it got just as dirty and nasty...yuck! It took so long to make that I just tore off the vinyl that tore after only a few months, and we lived with it...stains and all.

Now the "new" cover is stained and...well Pink! So my son needs something new. I was going to go down and get fabric and start the process all over again until today!! This is perfect!


I put the carseat cover on to see if the buckles lined up, and they are PERFECT, so all I needed to do was cut a whole for the plastic leg guard that keeps babies from slipping out the bottom...       Sew around the edges of the new hole...  And VOILA!

Repurposed car seat cover...

meet your new home!

   

And did I mention...it's washable!!

Did I mention I have two car seat covers? So with a mere 10-minutes more work I'll have TWO covers to change out when one needs washing!

Feeling quite the Supermom Today...yes indeed!

Zowy! It's Z End

Day Z: Zebra, "Robot Zombie Frankenstein", Zuccini

We made it to the end of our alphabet Summer!! It was six weeks of activities and outings, and it made me exited for new activities this school year with our newest preschooler as well!

We had Fried Zuccini snacks and colored our Zebras of course!

    

Tomorrow was going to be a Zoo outing, but I think that will be delayed a week due to swim lessons ending with a swim party tomorrow instead...can't do too many activities in one day, exhaustion and cranckiness go hand in hand!

Today is also the end of my 6 year olds Summer Reading challenge!

For the last six weeks he has had a 30-minute per day reading goal, and he had some wonderful people sponsoring his reading goal so as to earn money for some age appropriate and challenging books for our  little reader, since all our books are preschool and board books!

In addition to the 30-minute daily goal, we made a personal goal of reading 50 books this summer. He reads by himself and to his sisters every afternoon as well as a story before bed. Well, he met his goal and then some! As of today the final count for books read is 73 BOOKS in only 6 weeks! And three of those we're chapter books he read on his own, sometimes sitting for a whole hour reading quietly! I could not be more proud of my little reader! Thank you to all his sponsors, and I hope you will consider sponsoring us next summer as well.

What a fun summer break!

Yeah, We Are Almost Done!

Day Y: Yak, "Yoko Writes Her Name", Yogurt


We had to cancel our outtings for the day due to a sick baby, so we did some straightening up around the casa and a movie break...Frozen again! Yeah! ;)


Our animal of the day was a Yak, which the kids thought was funny...this pic...not so much a yak as a skull on a bush lol

One day left in our Summer Reading Challenge, my son has finished so many books I lost track! today he read 5 books (only one had a "y" title)

I'm going to go through and count all the books for tomorrow's final tally. I'm kind of excited to see how many he's done in only 6 weeks!

After some yogurt and some more x cookies we sat down and watched some Winnie the Pooh while the girls took a nap...nice relaxing afternoon :)

One more day and our Alphabet Summer adventure is through...then what will I write about!?

X-citing X-Day

Day X: X-Ray Fish, "Max and the Tag-Along Moon", X-Cookies

It's nearly impossible to find X foods, so we went with the shape on this X day more than the spelling...obviously!

We listened to xylophone music, exercised, read extra books, and colored X-Ray fish!

We had to go ask neighbors for flour...which didn't work since nobody was home...sigh!

So determined, we went to the store and bought flour! 

The finished product

Yum! Maybe not pretty, but I couldn't find my x cookie cutters...still tasty though!

What a Wonderful Day

I name this blog ironically because I had a child wake in the middle of the night sick, and had a second kid get sick in my car this afternoon as we pulled into the garage...yuck! Doesn't the germ parade know that we are not on the letter "y" yet?!? Yuck, yuck, yuck!

Ok, regardless of the sickness in my home, attitudes are still high, so we went ahead and did our letter of the day activities...by their request, not my need to finish on time, I swear! 

Day W: whales, "Wagon Wheels" by Barbara Brenner, Watermelon

Our animal was whales, and we even broke the no tv rule to watch a Whale episode of Wild Kratts on PBS kids.

We did a fun water experiment, "sink or float" using several objects around the house.

The kids hypothesized whether each item would sink or float and then we tossed them in the water. The piece of watermelon rune (little upside down square in the plate) floated, which amazed the 4 year old, as did the floating wood block! After all, the hair tie floated, and the block was much heavier than that! It was a lot of fun to explain density and such and watch them not their heads all, "hmmm, fascinating". I love homeschooling!

We obviously got the watermelon rine from somewhere...today's treat!

Sliced like a FB post I saw a few weeks ago from my friends Tanya. Fun finger food!

Ok, so the day wasn't a total loss, here's hoping the kids are done with this yuck!

Vultures, the Lot of Them

Day V:  Vultures, Vampire's Vacation, Vanilla

Another difficult letter to figure out animals for, but this website with the letters and animals mixed...very helpful www.colormegood.com

Vultures! Everywhere! Carnivorous, scavengers...not a fan of vultures :)

My big reader read an entire chapter book today, over several sessions and a total of 2-hours...amazing! He's really enjoying these "A to Z Mysteries" series books. Not all of them are at my library branch, so I think I'm going to have to start requesting them for holds and have them delivered to our branch. 

And today's snack...not so much a snack! Lol I dipped toothpicks into vanilla so the kids could taste it and we discussed all the things we eat that are flavored by vanilla. They still enjoyed it, but apples followed the lesson so they had something into their stomachs!

Second S Day, Two T Days and Unbelievably Difficult U

Day T: Turtles, "This Tree Counts", Tomatoes

We'll we extended our S day and T day both since some of he other letters are harder to work with at this point.

This kids decided to color snakes after all

Monday's continued "s" theme meant extended Story time, and my 6year old read for an entire hour in one sitting (peaceful!)!

We also ended up having some delicious Strawberry Shortcake, which definitely made the extended S day worthwhile ;)

Since it is summer, we have been hitting the park every day, so Sunblock was another S thing I pointed out to them this week! Lol

For T day we colored Turtles, read a chapter book on T-Rex (as well as others), and ate tomatoes. I was going to make fried green tomatoes, but walmart didn't have them and I didn't want to go to multiple stores with 4 kiddos in tow! 

We drove past a construction zone and pointed out all the different construction Trucks, and got some fix a flat stuff to fix the bike tires so we can work on losing the Training wheels this summer too!

The last day of this week we did the letter U, which  meant sea urchins

The book "Under a Prairie Sky", and watching the movie "Up".

There were no U foods, so we just skipped that...kids didn't even notice ;)

It was a long week, but lots of fun!

Something Spooky This Way Comes...

My children were quite unruly this morning! We had planned a trip to the zoo, with seals, seal lions and reptiles (for yesterday's theme) but Noooo! I mean literally, changing clothes and pant less when we are supposed to be out the door...REALLY?! Must be a full moon...OH IT IS! And Friday the 13th you say?! Well we are not going anywhere, these kids may very well be about to change into ware wolves or something! Sheesh!

It's ok, we go with the flow, even when the crazy juices are flowing...

Day S: Spiders, "Space Case", Sausage Breakfast Burritos

Started the day off right, with a yummy homemade NM breakfast burrito (don't know why everything went crazy from there), and also had some sugar snap peas and string cheese for snack time.

We improvised, due to cloudy, windy weather, a space shuttle to have lunch in...as well as snack and story time! We used that thing all day!

Then for some reason, the kids chose spiders to color...Bleh! I didn't even want to see them, let alone take a photo...spent the afternoon telling me I had a spider on me...thanks!

Road kill Stew!!

No, not really! Sheesh!

Day R: Rainbows, "Reptiles are My Life", Radishes

Ok, though I didn't get is posted yesterday, there is good reason...I was planning that we were taking a zoo trip on Friday and would see reptiles in,person, but that was a bust, so here is Thursday's R day in Review:

We colored Rainbows because nobody wanted to color raccoons...go figure!

Had 40-minutes of reading, since RELAXING was on the agenda ;). Woohoo!

And had Radishes for snacks...not a hit at all! Lol. I thought there were not as spicy as it turns out they are! The kids decided that the red part made it spicy and would eat the white part if I sliced them up, leaving little red peels everywhere...weird kids ;)

Quiet...Not Quite Impossible ;)

Day Q: Quail, "the Quicksand Question", Quiche

This morning Abbi and I made breakfast Quiche! Fancy schmancy new family favorite!

Made buiscuit dough, molded it into muffin pan, added turkey bacon crumbles (5 pieces cooked) mixed 3eggs and 3Tbs milk, poured it over the bacon, sprinkled with cheese and baked 18mins at 400*. (Makes 9 quiche)

They were really stinking good!!!

With only quail in our Q animal vocab, we colored also Queens and Quiet!

 (subliminal messaging from momma?)

Our story today was "The Quicksand Question", which was a rather long book and took the entire 30-mins...which is good since it's the only "Q" book I could find I the entire section! Seriously!

We had peaches (yup...still have plenty of P foods) and quesadilla for our snack.

Now. This may be switching languages, but we live in New Mexico, so "Spanglish" is our state language, so there!

I actually did get a little over 30-minutes of Quiet while the youngest was napping, so it was quite a lovely day