More flowers

L is loving the flowers, so I had to make more.

I made some smaller ones this time because her head is so tiny and her hair is so thin.

She sure is loving them!

Strawberry Shortcake Birthday

L turned 4 and loves Strawberry Shortcake. We decided to go crazy with Strawberry Shortcake for the party.

First, I got a little Strawberry Shortcake dress and I needed leggings to go with it. It was so hard finding the perfect stripes, but this is the fabric I got at M & L.

I used the little green striped for the pants, it looked better then the big stripe and the medium was not in a knit. The medium was what I wanted, but I was very limited on what I could do.

I think it turned out pretty cute even if it wasn't the exact stripes that the "Real" Strawberry Shortcake wears.

Then with the pink polk-a-dot and green medium stripe, we made purses for the girls. C and L now have their own fabric scissors so they can help whenever they want.

The purses were a little small, but turned out pretty cute. They were so simple to make too. That's the best part. It only took me a couple hours to make 7 purses.

We got some Strawberry hand sanitizer for the purses and...

the girls got to pick out some flowers we made for their hair.

For the party we painted nails and did hair. Here is L modeling a couple of the sample hair styles.

I still have way too many flower barrettes now.

Stay tuned for more on the actual party.

Gingerbread Houses

We love doing gingerbread houses around here. I love the candy and frosting the most. The only thing is those darn store bought ones are not very good and you have to put them together in a specific way. This year we decided to do graham cracker houses instead. Now everybody gets their own to build.

Getting Ready...

 L and Daddy got to work together.

Daddy didn't mind doing the hard part of shaping the roof.

This is serious work in our house.

Some ends up on the face instead of the house, but that's ok if its the good stuff.

Here are our 3 houses, Mommy's, C's and L and Daddy's. What is your vote?

Of course we have to display them till Christmas. L already snuck and ate some of her's a couple days after they were displayed, so now many the little gum drop lights at the bottom are missing.

Pallet Coat Rack

I saw this really cool coat rack made from an old pallet and I wanted to duplicate it. Here is how mine turned out.

I don't know where the original one came from because I only found it on google images and when I clicked on it, it was other bloggers putting it in their blog because they liked it too. I never found the owner. Anyway, I can't give proper credit. Mine is slightly different.

Anyway, here is what I started with. I only have a hand saw and a little box to saw with.

Here is the almost finished shelf. It doesn't actually look bad like that. It would be perfect with some words carved in the top piece of wood.

But, I liked the pictures on the original one. So, I did that. Besides, I only just thought of the words thing just now as I was typing.

L had to get in the picture with peanut butter on her face and all.

Kid Crafting

Ok, does anybody else's house ever look like this?

That's just a quarter of the living room. There is tons of fabric on the part not in the picture too. It's a little preview to my project that should be done tomorrow. :-) I'm very excited. Anyway, while I had that mess, C, L and I made this mess...

We decided to paint old egg cartons and toilet paper rolls.

They were very serious while working.

I couldn't even get them to talk.

When our critters dried we added pipe cleaners. C LOVES pipe cleaners. It's his favorite craft item.

Here are a couple of C's finished projects.

That little blue guy that you can hardly see, C & L spent almost an hour playing with it while I was making dinner. That was nice. They were using their little high voices to make it talk.

Now, back to sewing!

Kristen

Father's Day

I know, I know, it's way past Father's Day. But we were on vacation so we didn't do my husband's present until this week. Two years ago we started a little tradition for Father's Day. I got my husband those little stones that you can make and put hand prints in them. He loved them and I told him we can make the stones every year and eventually have stepping stones throughout our garden with the kids hand prints as they grow. At the time we didn't have a garden, but he loved the idea.

Here is the first one, yes I know, it's a horrible picture...

Here is our second one...

Now we are ready to do this years.

The kids love doing these. They were so excited.

It's so cool, each year we can see how much bigger C and L's little hands are. I love little baby/kid hands. They are so cute. I wish I can keep them little forever. At least I get to see how little they were each year as they grow.

What little artists I have.

Yes, my husband gets something special from me too. But this is something we look forward to every year.

Totally Creative

Sometimes little C amazes me with his creativity. This may sound silly, but I really don't think of myself as creative. I have to get my ideas from somewhere. I love sewing so much because I like to figure out how to make a pattern and fit the pieces together to make clothes. I love looking at clothes from the store and figuring out how I can make my own. So, you see, my type of sewing is more mechanical then creative. I've always had a mechanical mind and I have always wished I was more creative. When I had kids I wanted to make sure they had to use their brains to come up with ideas on their own, something I was horrible at. One of the ways I try to do that is by not allowing more then 1.5 hours of TV per week and no TV before 2 years old. The other thing we do is read books like crazy. Even chapter books. I'm not sure if this helps or if for some people it's just natural to be creative. Mr. C is pretty creative, maybe that's just where little C gets it. Anyhow, whatever the reason C seems to be pretty creative.

Here is why I'm writing about C's creativity. C got home from school to find a box lying on the ground. Immediately he went to get some toilet paper roles and other "supplies" then set out to make a race car. He spend most of his quiet time almost 2 hours on this little race car.

Here is the back with 2 exhaust pipes. Notice all the tape? We go through a LOT of tape around here. I am always finding it things taped together. Rope or string is something else I find a lot of. Right now we have pulleys all over the work out bench holding bears up. It looks pretty morbid, but C doesn't get why that would be.

Here is the side, you can see the wheels at the bottom.

The front with the yellow lines as the lights.

Now the inside, see the green bench seat?

Little C was very proud of this race car. It sat in the house for days just for him to look at, not play with.

Resurrection Eggs

I have not been doing any Easter crafts yet this year. Then today when I realized Spring Break is next week for C's preschool and Easter is in a little over a week, I decided I had to get the kids prepared for Easter. So, tonight when my meatloaf was in the oven, I had some time to kill. That's when I decided to make Resurrection Eggs with the kids.

This is C's cover to our eggs. He is learning to sound things out and writing his letters. The first letter is a backwards J. The top of the J is folder over so you can't see it.

Resurrection Eggs are basically plastic eggs filled with items to remind you of the story of Easter. You can open the eggs in order and tell the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. We had a list of items we needed to collect for our eggs so I sent the kids around the house and outside looking for those items.

Here is our list:

1. Bread (we used a real piece of bread) - Jesus had the passover meal with his disciples. He took a piece of bread, gave a prayer of thanks to God and shared the bread with his disciples saying, "This is my body which is given for you. Do this in memory of Me."

2. Coin - One of the disciples, Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus by telling the chief of priests where he was in exchange for 30 silver coins.

3. Purple Cloth (I cut a piece from my fabric stash) - Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified. They dressed him in purple.

4. Thorns (we broke a piece of the roses) - They made a crown of thorns and put it on his head mocking him.

5. Rope, leather strip or twine (all we had was pink rope) - Then they whipped him.

6. Cross (we got a little stick broke it and used thread to hold it together) - the soldiers gave him his cross to carry up the hill.

7. Nails: The soldiers nailed him to the cross to die. (C is looking for a nail in his work bench.)

8. Sign - (we wrote a little sign and put tape over it to kind-of laminate it): Then they mocked him by putting up a sign that said, "THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS"

9. Sponge - (I only have dobies, no sponge in the entire house. So, I sewed a square of white terry cloth): One of them soaked a sponge in vinegar and tried to make him drink it.

10. Spear - (C drew one, but I think I'm going to have to get Mr. C to carve one out of a stick with his knife): One of the soldiers stuck his spear into Jesus' side and just then blood and water poured out.

11. Rock: After Jesus died, Joseph took his body, wrapped it in new linen sheet and placed it in his own new tomb he dug out of solid rock. Then he rolled a large stone across the entrance to the tomb and went away.

12. Nothing: This is the best part! Jesus isn't there anymore. He is risen! Now we are saved, we are forgiven.

I have been wanting to make one of these each year and just never got to it. I am so glad we did it tonight. I hope it will hold up and last for years to come. 

My little tradition I do every Easter is buy the kids a new bible if they have outgrown the one they have if not, a book about God. We didn't buy a new bible last year, so I'm going to look for one with more detail then what we have this year. I do love the one we have though, it's, "The Lion Read & Know Bible." The stories have much more detail then the smaller ones like "The Beginners Bible." There are also more stories in it.

What are some of your traditions for Easter? How do you share the story with your children?

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