The Panda Family!

I love when projects come together just how I pictured them.

I won a bloggy giveaway over at Craftevolution from the uber-talented Simone- she sent me a sweet little cache of wooden eggs, with a note asking me what I'd do with them. Well, honestly they sat in my to-do bowl in the kitchen a good long time before I had the guts to even think about using them. There's something about USING UP a craft supply that just scares me. I plan progressively smaller projects as the supply dwindles, to make sure there's always a little bit left. (Yes, I was the child who left 2 Tablespoons of juice in the fridge. I didn't drink it all!)

So, when I could put my new craft-blog-crush The Toymaker and my new wooden eggs together, I'm all over it!

I love how the Toymakers things are so versatile. There's something wonderful about open-ended, well thought-out, toys.

Right now, this small family (and their cottage) is sitting on the mantle but I think it will make a wonderful diversionary toy for Ernie when I need a few moments. There's something so magical about playing with a "Special Toy," especially when it's kept on a shelf!

A Flock of Butterflies

I think this is my favorite craft with Ernie so far- she made three, and I made roughly 20! It's so fun to see what the ink will do- where it will eddy and swirl, which colors will mix together, what the final product will look like. We're doing these as part of our F day- a Fluttering Flock of butterFlies.

Fluttering Butterflies

Materials Needed:
Markers
Coffee Filters
Spray bottle of water
String

Color however you like, and make sure the filters are on top of something you don't mind getting ink on- it WILL go through. Be sure and get color at the edges, so it will show after you scrunch.

After they're colored, spray well with water (I do this over a sink) and hang to dry somewhere you don't mind getting drips. The ink will seep and spread. I taped a few lengths of string over a box, lined with some extra wrapping paper from a recent birthday (it's waterproof enough for this.)

When they're dry, scrunch, tie, and hang! It would also be cute to scrunch these with black pipe cleaners, bent at the ends to look like antennae.

Happy Easter, Everyone!

Saturday morning, after a neighborhood Easter Egg hunt/slip n' slide, we dropped Wonder Daddy off at his office and stopped in to chat with his co-workers and show off...err...re-introduce the kids to everyone. I think Wonder Daddy felt like a ROCK STAR, with every female in the office flocking to see his baby and toddler.

One co-worker in particular, I'll call her A, especially loved the girls. She spent at least 15 minutes on the floor, watching Mimi crawl, rubbing her fuzzy head, and gushing "I LOVE babies!" I believe her, too! I knew she was Jewish, so I asked about her Passover plans- they had their Seder last Wednesday (a little early?) and were planning a big Easter dinner for Sunday. Her family also celebrates Hannukah in the same room as a Christmas tree, which I love.

I have to think there's some real genius at work here: celebrate your heritage and beliefs, and celebrate them every way you can. When it comes down to it, Easter dinner isn't a religious affair- it's a wonderful occasion to gather family together and eat foods steeped in history and family-lore.

There's also a real genius in celebrating both the Easter and the Passover, I believe. The Passover is a celebration of remembrance and thanks of the night the destroying angel "passed over" the Israelites, when they were in bondage to the Egyptians. They were promised that if they killed a perfect and pure male lamb, marked their lintels with his blood, and ate his meat for their supper the destroying angel would pass over their house. They would live.

On Easter, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Christ. He was the Perfect Lamb of God. He was sacrificed that we might live. We take the sacrament in remembrance of his body and blood, and take His name upon us and witness to the world that we remember him.

The Israelite's covenants showed outwardly, and ours show inwardly. We are all celebrating a deep and abiding reverence and love, regardless of how we show that love and faith.

So, to all our Jewish friends: I wish you a wonderful Passover. I wish I knew the right words, but enjoy your Seder. Enjoy time with your family, steeped in thousands of years of tradition.

To all our Christian friends: Happy Easter. "Oh sweet the joy this sentence gives: I know that my Redeemer lives!"

Enjoy this 3-minute video as my Easter gift to you. I'm actually pretty nervous about this! The camera is pointed at a pretty picture, rather than showing me, at 11:30 at night, in my jammies in the basement :o)

Beautiful Life: Starting to Learn

Welcome to our friends from Melissa's Beautiful Life linky fest! So glad you could stop by today!

Along with some blessed and very welcome sunshine, we are making some changes in our house, and it's been a beautiful thing.

--Side note: We are seriously contemplating homeschooling our children and purchasing an RV so we can chase the sun. Wonder Daddy is favoring Southern California for January-March. OK, not seriously...but still...it's a pipe dream.--

We've always filled our days with whatever came along, whether it was alone time, play dates, walks, libraries, or whatever stumbled across our path but this last week I've tried to be a bit more deliberate in what we're doing. Starting Monday, we've spent each day focusing on a letter of the alphabet and working a little bit on math and music concepts. It's been a blast, and Ernie is so much calmer. I'm exhausted at the end of the day, with almost no down time, but it's an HONEST exhaustion. It feels nice to be working so hard. She has such a fantastic memory, it's fun to teach her to read new words every day.

Here are our lesson plans from this last week, so you can see what I mean.

A 4/6/09

• Find A words in books
• Scriptures: I Am A Child of God
• Practice drawing A's (Didn't do)
  
• I draw, she gives them faces.
• I write words, she adds A and we sound it out
• She makes shapes with chop sticks
• Make playdough
• make letters
  
• A lunch: strAwberries, grilled cheese sAndwich
• Nature walk: airplane, cAr, etc.
• Math: Manipulating chocolate chips (half, whole, addition, subtraction up to 10)
• A is for Apple accordian book- numbered pages, draw that many seeds on each page.

B 4/7/2009

• Find B words in books
• paper Balloons for Grandpa Don's birthday- we can tacky them to the windows and string them from the chandelier (she drew HAPPY BIRTHDAY on them, by herself! I just told her which letters to write.)
  
• Nature walk: look for bees, birds, boats
• Help me make Bread
  
• Boats in the bathtub?? (didn't do)
• Scripture: ABinadi
  

C 4/8/2009

• Cups: large tupperware of beans, she used her measuring cups
• Cake: Decorating paper cake with candles and blueberries
• playing with "cups" (mini cake tins) and play dough
  
• C books
• Scriptures: Jesus Christ's resurrection
• Movie: Cinderella

D 4/9/2009

• D books: NumberlanD (her choice)
• craft: drawing Dogs
• Activity: acting like a dog and duck
• Treat: donuts :)
• Cut a Daffodil for her room
• Scriptures: David and Goliath
  

E 4/10/2009 (we have a playdate, so the plans aren't as firm for today)

• Easter eggs
• dye Easter eggs
• paper easter eggs to hang from chandelier
• Make string eggs (glue, string, small balloon as form)

And finally, here's a project we started tonight that I hope will take up some of Saturday afternoon when the girls are bored and Daddy is still at work (we are SO excited for tax season to end!) I'll post more pictures, and an explanation, when I'm sure that it's going to work!


Do you have any favorite resources for homeschooling/preschool lesson plans or activities? After a week, play dough and markers start to lose their luster and I'm feeling like a one-trick pony :)

Liver Cancer Awareness Earrings

A friend of my dad's passed away suddenly last week- he died of liver cancer. It was so quick, just 10 days between diagnosis and the end. I made these earrings up for his wife- I've never met her, but I hope she'll understand what I'm trying to say: I'm sorry for your loss, even though we've never met.

Sometimes, you just need to DO something, you know? I've never met her, so I don't think knocking on her door and offering a hug is a probable proposition. But I can make earrings, and hopefully they'll help. (According to my google search, yellow is the color for liver cancer awareness.)



What do YOU do when you can't think of anything else to do?

Give Me the Dirt

Welcome to our friends from Melissa's Beautiful Life linky fest. Come and add your thoughts!




I'm going to be straight with you guys: this was a hard winter. It's been a hard Spring. Our area is famous for the widespread problem of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder...basically, we go a little crazy without sunshine.) and if you add that to Baby Blues/postpartum depression and chronic lack of sleep it gets a little dicey around here. To be honest, I haven't felt this low since my hormonal high school days.

So let's lay it out. Ladies, why do we do this? Why do we get so HARD on ourselves? It's as if we don't use the brains God gave us. Let me show you.

A few facts about me:
1) I have a Bachelor's Degree in accounting from a very good school, and a minor in music.
2) I am a talented musician- I can play piano and organ quite well, and have 9 years of classical vocal instruction under my belt.
3) I am a darn good cook. Most people really like what I make.
4) I have a fabulous husband and 2 beautiful daughters, who all love me very much.
5) I was raised in a happy, healthy home.
6) I can't think of a single person that has ever said "I don't like you."
7) I have been blessed with extraordinary health. The sickest I've ever been...umm...well, I had a 24-hour flu last Spring. Other than that, I get a cold or two every year.
8) I take good care of my family, creating a healthy home environment for learning and nurturing, and plenty of healthy food from scratch.

So why do I go to bed feeling like a failure every night? Why do I look at everything through a lens of

• "Oh, they don't really mean that."

• "They wouldn't compliment me if they knew that I faked a few notes/lost my temper yesterday/haven't cleaned my shower in 6 months/have been overweight since I was 10."

• "If I was REALLY ______, I wouldn't ______, so that compliment doesn't count."
  

Why can't I find the guts to just say "I'm a success" Why can't I look in the mirror and for once in my life say "Wow! I look great!"

Why don't we? Why WON'T we?

So let's try it. A new week is coming up. This is a safe forum. What is it that you can't forgive yourself for, and you won't let go of (even after the issue is solved.) Just say it, I promise you'll feel better (and yes, anonymous comments are allowed.)

And, back to those high school days for a point to ponder.

A little excerpt from Enos:
4 And my soul ^ahungered; and I ^bkneeled down before my Maker, and I ^ccried unto him in mighty ^dprayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens.

5 And there came a ^avoice unto me, saying: Enos, thy sins are ^bforgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed.

6 And I, Enos, knew that God ^acould not lie; wherefore, my guilt was swept away.

The part that completely arrested my attention, reading this after studying on a late and dark night, was "God could not lie." So if He says he loves me, I can trust Him. Even when I can't see a speck of good in myself, or find a way to believe that anyone should have a reason to love me, if He says I'm doing well, I am. And sometimes, a thought like that can be a life line in the dark.

Catch Up On Kindness

I feel like an absolute cad. There are so many fabulous folks out there, doing fabulous things, and I never thanked them publicly!

I've won TWO giveaways from the fabulous Simone over at Craftevolution. First, it was a bag of fabulous hand-poured glycerin soap in yuzu scent, which is absolutely divine, and then I won a sweet little cache of wooden eggs for crafting. I still haven't settled on what to do with them, but if I procrastinate much longer I'll need to wait till next Spring!

Su, over at Vively Online, awarded me with my FIRST EVER blog bling (way back in early March...oops). I have an award! Thank you so much, Su- that's really, really sweet of you!


(And LoLo, I haven't forgotten about your meme...)