Lady Winter and Sister Spring

So I have been trying to focus on Easter and other religious posts for my Sundays lately, however with the week we have had, I had to share this post instead. Late last spring we discovered what has become my favorite change of season book, How Robin Saved Spring by Debbie Ouellet. I needle felted Hazel the two main characters in the book at this time.

This story is about how two sisters, Lady Winter and Sister Spring, live. Sister Spring sleeps through winter and awakens to begin the spring weather and season. Lady Winter wants to stay in control with blankets of white snow everywhere, so she knits a magic blanket that will keep her younger sister sleeping while she is under it. The animals and trees want spring to begin, so they try to wake Sister Spring. Throughout the story the reader hears how certain characteristics of animals and the tree came to be. Finally the robin manages to wake Sister Spring with some sun rays, however he got burnt getting them and thus the red breast. For more information you can visit the author's site which is where I got the picture of the book since I cannot seem to find our copy. 

 

Now our weather this week the weather predictions have been a bit tough. The weather reports seemed to say that there was a chance of 3-6 inches of snow but near the coast it would be mostly rain. We live in a coastal town, but not near the coast, so we figured at most a few inches of snow. They did say the storm would last from Wednesday evening to Friday morning. My mother had been in the hospital and was suppose to be getting out between Wednesday through Friday. I was hoping it would be Friday since the storm was suppose to be over before they had to drive two hours home. However she got out on Thursday which now I am very happy about.

On Wednesday we began to have a few snow flurries, but not too much. Thursday the flurries continued but it was not sticking. When I went to bed Thursday night they were still saying 3-6 inches with the rain/snow line being close to the coast. On Friday, Hazel woke up around 5:30 a.m. and I went to get her snack so she would play in her room and listen to stories on CD while I continued to sleep. I turned the television on while getting her snack and there were barely any school cancellations. At 7 a.m. when I got up and we went to have breakfast, I turned the television on to see the weather report and almost every school was delayed. (Luckily Steve was able to work from home and did not have to deal with the horrific commute.) They were saying the snow would slow down by 10 a.m. and stop by noon. Well, at 10 a.m. it got worse. It was still snowing until about 3 p.m. Needless to say the weatherpeople were incorrect all over the place. As it slowed I took Hazel out to play. This is what we faced after our driveway was plowed (now mind you all the snow from the blizzard and other small storms had not melted completely yet).

Hazel has her sledding hill back! She also decided the part to the right looked like a throne. Needless to say she had a great time. I helped her go down the "hill" a few times.

Then I dug her a snow fort/igloo. The first one was too small so we moved to the hill and made a bigger one. She loved it.

She even painted it with her food coloring and water spray bottles. She tried to make purple and orange by spraying some colors. Also she made a doorbell and doorknob with the "paint."

Then she also wanted to have a snowball fight. This was the first snowfall this year that was good snowball snow.

 Then she played some more on her mountain while I tried to shovel out my car. Then Steve came out and finished the shoveling and I went in to take a nap. Hazel ended up playing with our next door neighbor who is eleven.

Mountain Climbing

Almost at the Top

Queen of the Mountain!

However our big discussion was that we would have much rather the robin we saw a few weeks ago had woken Sister Spring and we would have had the rain. Hazel of course enjoyed the snow though! We are hoping Sister Spring will awaken soon and get rid of all this cold and snow! Oh, and there have been mention that we need the other two sisters--Autumn and Summer. We are going to make our own stories up about them!

Dress-Up Dresses Resized--A Quick Fix

I only buy Hazel Disney costumes when they are on clearance or sale (post-Halloween). We have most of the princesses dresses now, but she has outgrown some. I should add that dress could also be a nightgown that looks like a dress. I figure if it looks like it we might as well use it as a dress up. (See the Ariel dress for an example.)

Last week Hazel wanted to put on her Snow White dress, but it was too small (especially over clothes). Now a month ago or so, I bought a pattern to make princess dress up aprons. I loved the idea since she wouldn't outgrow them  so fast. I of course have not had the time to start them yet. But taking that idea, I cut the back seam of her Snow White dress and added in ribbons at the waist and a piece of elastic for the top. I also finished the edges with my serger. I should have used less elastic, but wanted to make sure it would be comfortable on her with clothes underneath.

Then of course she didn't want to dress like Snow White anymore and brought me her Ariel "dress" which if I remember correctly is a 2T and she in now a 4 to 5T. This was a bit different since it has side seams and the back was very fancy. I cut the side seam up to the bottom of the sleeve on one side and put two ribbons in.

Again I finished the edges on my serger. Now she can still wear these two dresses that she has outgrown. 

And best of all I didn't have to spend money on new ones. I had all the supplies I used so it was very easy to do and cheap (much better than buying on clearance for $10-$20 in a bigger size).

And of course by the time I finished both dresses, she had moved onto playing something else. Here is a wonderful picture of her dressed up. She said she was the minister and was very excited to go to church every day. I sent the picture to our minister and let him know I wasn't sure what she is trying to say about his style.

He thought it was great and she should sell minister costumes.

Easter Flower Fairy Peg Dolls

So last week I shared with you a few of my animal peg dolls for Hazel's Easter basket. Today I'm going to share a few more. I made her a daffodil fairy and a tulip fairy.

I painted the two bodies green and then cut green leaf wings. For the tulip I cut two pieces of petal strips and glued them on as a crown after giving her a face and hair.

For the daffodil, I did her face and yellow hair and then cut out the petals and the inner strip. On the inner strip I added a little pink since I did not have orange paint marker. 

Now I want to do a sheep peg doll and a Jesus peg doll and I then I'll sew some felt animals for her as well.

Peg Doll Animals

I'm still being inspired by Margaret Bloom and her new book, Making Peg Dolls, well actually I guess her book blog tour. Last Friday, Anna Branford was the book tour stop and she shared some adorable animal peg dolls. Now of course there is more to the story. Last Thursday when I went to pick Hazel up from school, I saw a bluebird fly by in the long driveway to the school. Now a bluebird in the winter is very unusual here, but its brilliant blue wings and reddish pink breast made me certain it was. Now remember this is the day before the blizzard hit here. Poor bird. Anyway, I went inside and was talking to the teachers about the bluebird and one of them mentioned how seeing a bluebird always makes her and her husband happy. That night I told Hazel a story about Happy the bluebird at bedtime. Then I saw the bluebird that Margaret Bloom made at Anna Brandford's site and I was inspired. I decided to make a bluebird.

Now I was a bit lazy and glued instead of sewed the head and such. But I am happy with how it came out. Next I decided on a robin. Yes, with all this snow I am thinking about spring.

Plus Hazel got the book How Robin Saved Spring by Debbie Oullet for her birthday. This is a wonderful book that tells the tale of Lady Winter and Sister Spring and how the animals try to wake Sister Spring when Lady Winter uses her magic to keep Sister Spring sleeping so she can stay reigning the world. In the story you find out why some animals hibernate and why the maple tree gives sap for syrup and other wonders in nature (like why the robin is red breasted). Last year I needle felted her Lady Winter and Sister Spring dolls, but I don't think I ever shared them with you.

Then wanting to get away from birds, I decided to make a red fox. A fox has been in a few of our stories as of late, so I thought she would appreciate it. One of her favorite play things is to use her peg dolls or even Barbie dolls to make puppet shows and tell stories. I love her creativity!

She has asked me to make a seagull, pigeon, chickadee, gold finch, cow, horse, parrot, ... next. I guess I better get some more peg dolls.

For my previous Margaret Bloom inspired peg dolls visit here.

Let It Snow! Winter Wonderland Tea Party

Ducky and Princess Teddy got seats of honor

So Hazel had her well doctor visit and I wanted to make the whole day special so she would have a positive memory instead of just getting shots. We started today having a Winter Wonderland Tea Party. First we had to do some crafts to decorate and then we had to get all the dolls and animals. Then Hazel had to feed them all and get dressed herself (in costume). Then we had some tea and read lots of snow themed stories. Below are the ones I let her choose from and we have read at least 12 of them in the past two days.

I promised at yesterday's Sharing Saturday (which is still open!), that I would feature some snow-themed crafts today. I knew we did this, so I knew it would be a perfect fit here. Plus we used some of the ideas for our crafts. Here are those features:

1) From Life with Moore Babies: Colored Snowballs and More Ice and Snow Fun
2) From Making Boys Men: Frost Writing (For those without snow around but cold weather!)
3) From Gift of Curiosity: Snowman Craft for Preschoolers (see ours below)
4) From ArtClubBlog: Paper Snowflakes Tutorial (see ours below)
5) From Little Wonders' Days: Glittered Peppermint Winter Play Dough

And here are a few from past Sharing Saturdays:

1) From Gift of Curiosity: Winter Printable Pack
2) From Organic Aspirations: Sensory Play with Snow Indoors
3) From Like Mama ~ Like Daughter: Winter Themed Week in Preschool

Also check out the features from past Sharing Saturdays here and here. Some of these would have been great snacks for our tea party!

3-D Snowflake

So we decorated for our big winter wonderland.  I made a simple 3-d snowflake using some foam snowflakes I bought. I was inspired by Paper Source and just cut a slit in each and fit them together. Then punched a hole in one and put a string through it to hang.

Paper Snowflakes = Placemats

We made some paper snowflakes using the tutorial from ArtClubBlog (see feature above). We decided to use them as placemats. I also tried to make some out of felt using the same tutorial but my scissors were not quite sharp enough to make it beautiful. I am going to make them into pillows.

Felt Snowflake

We made several snow angel chains. Hazel had a go at cutting some but cut their heads off, so she used her smiley face stickers for heads and then added smiley faces to all of them. For hers we used the template at First Palette. For the ones I did I drew my own template to make them look more like snow angels. Here is my template.

I folded one of her large pieces of construction paper in half the long way and then folded into eighths in accordion style and cut this out. This is how they came out pre-smiley face.

Source

I wish we had the book The Snow Angel by Glenn Beck, but the library did not have it in, so we will have to read it another time. We loved it last year.

Hazel also made a cotton ball snowman similar to the one shared by Gift of Curiosity (see feature above). We used a pipe cleaner for a carrot nose and stick arms.

Then we laid out some fake snow that I had bought last year for my friend's Winter Onderland party but it wasn't used. And I had bought a package of snowballs post Christmas for this and we pulled out the wool ones I needle felted for her last year.

Then she gathered all of her dolls and animals. After getting them all around, she needed to feed them all. Ducky and Princess Teddy got seats of honor on the table. (See top picture) And of course Hazel needed to dress-up. She wanted to do the tea party before she took her bath and got dressed, so we are still in our pajamas, but she added on her tutu, ballerina top, wings, and crown and was carrying her wand part of the time.

Finally we were ready for our party. We sat on the snow covered floor and read books while we drank tea and Hazel finished her raisin bread toast from breakfast. Then we had a snowball fight.

Gathering all the snowballs and making a snowball pyramid

Then she wanted to play with her white balloon, but since we only had one white balloon, she gave it to me and used a red one. 

Now it was time to take her bath and for us to get dressed so we could have a special lunch out before her appointment. We had such a fun day. We still have our winter wonderland set up, but will have to pick it up tonight or tomorrow since the cleaning people come Monday morning.

Hazel's birthday is coming up fast!

Now that Christmas is over I need to focus on Hazel's fourth birthday! One of the major problems of having a birthday so close to Christmas is the change in focus so quickly. We decided to try having her birthday on Saturday instead of New Year's Day. I don't know what I was thinking in giving myself less time to prepare. Oh, well. Hazel asked for a princess theme. Here is the invitation that I emailed to family and friends who live further away. The wording on our homemade ones were the same, but we used glittery paper and decorated it with stickers and stamps.

Now I need to do all the preparation of our royal castle. More posts on that soon!

I made most of her gift. She has been so into her baby dolls lately so I decided to make her a changing station play set. I saw this idea somewhere (my guess is Little Wonders' Days), but I cannot seem to find it and for some reason did not pin it.

I made her some flannel wipes and used an old wipe case. I used fleece and PUL for the pad and made her three cloth diapers (more to come) from PUL and flannel. I made two different sizes for her dolls. Many are smaller than most of the clothes you can buy so I also made a few outfits for her dolls and on for Ducky.

I think she will love them! What do you think?