Indian Boyhood: The True Story of a Sioux Upbringing -- Book Review

Have you entered my current giveaway for a custom canvas print?

 Disclosure: Wisdom Tales Press gave me a copy of this product free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Wow, I'm way behind on my posts this week. I was planning on writing this one for Multicultural Monday, but with Hazel's last week of school my schedule has been crazy!! I don't remember my parents coming to lots of end of the school year events when I was little? For that matter I don't remember there being so many end of the school year events. Do you? Things sure have changed. Which is a perfect introduction to today's book, Indian Boyhood: The True Story of a Sioux Upbringing by Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa), edited and adapted by Michael Oren Fitzgerald and illustrated by Heidi M. Rasch. 

Audio Books for Crafters & DIY Teacher Gifts -- Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Have you entered my current giveaway for a custom canvas print?

Disclosure: I was given audio versions of these books free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation.  As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

What do you do when you craft? Do you craft in silence? Or are you like me and watch television (or at least listen to television) while you craft? With the summer reruns season starting I am finding television pretty boring. Penguin Random House Audio Publishing came to my rescue. They have a page dedicated to crafters with recommendations as well as free knitting patterns!! On this page there are links to articles, free coloring pages and patterns as well as some book suggestions. There is even a place to say how long you want to craft for book recommendations. All of the books have sample clips so you can get a taste for the story and the telling of it. I was lucky enough to be sent four audio books to check out. I will admit since I have not been crafting very much lately that I have not listened to them yet.

Sharing Saturday 16-22

Have you entered my current giveaway for a custom canvas print?

Reminder: This link party is for child-oriented crafts and activities and parenting/teaching posts!! 

It is time for Sharing Saturday!! This is a link party to share all of your child-oriented crafts,crafts made for kids, activities and lessons as well as your parenting and/or teaching posts. On Sunday night we also host Crafty Weekends for all your crafts (done by any age), patterns, and craft product reviews! It is the perfect place to share your creative side!! And for all of your cultural posts come share them at the monthly Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop.

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week! I always love seeing what everyone has been up to and your creative ideas!! Our features are just a sampling of them so if you haven't checked them all out, you should! I'm finally starting to feel a little better, but I still have the lingering cough and have had a rough week. This week's features are summer themed and the other ones.  (Does anyone else have summer on their minds?)

Two Fun New Picture Books

Have you entered my current giveaway for a custom canvas print?

Disclosure: Penguin Random House Books gave me a copy of this book free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation.  As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Are you looking for some fun books to read aloud or have your children read to themselves? Here are two new ones that are perfect!! Now I will say that you may not want to read them at bedtime, because they had us laughing so much I think it got Hazel a little restless and not really ready to fall asleep (Sorry, Steve). The first book is a reimagined version of Hansel and Gretel, it is Hensel and Gretel Ninja Chicks by Corey Rosen Schwartz and Rebecca J. Gomez and illustrated by Dan Santat. From the name you can tell this book involves chickens!!

Canvas Factory Review & Giveaway

Disclosure: Canvas Factory sent me a coupon to get this print free of charge for this review and are providing the winner of the giveaway with a coupon code. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As always I am providing links to the site for your convenience.

Do you have a favorite photograph that you have taken recently? Have you noticed the new thing is to have canvas prints done of your photographs? When I took Hazel and my nephew in to have their pictures taken I got one with our package. (Don't tell my parents since the pictures are their Christmas gift.) At many of the photo studios these canvases can cost over $100. Imagine my excitement to be offered a free 16 x 20" canvas to review and one to give away!! And right now they have a sale going on where it costs $38.70. You can even create canvas collages with various size prints and more!!

Easter Bunny Crafts & More from Oriental Trading Company -- Crafty Weekends Review & Link Party

Disclosure: I was sent these items to review free of charge from Oriental Trading. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to the products for your convenience but do not receive anything if you buy from them.

Easter is only three weeks away!! It is early this year. I have been seeing so many cute bunny things this year and I wanted to jump on the band wagon. I asked Oriental Trading Company to help me make some fun bunny crafts and a few other Easter things. I fell in love with the bunny tote bag at work, but didn't want to spend the money on it since it looked easy enough to do a DIY if I had the canvas bags. So I asked for the DIY White Bags and got to work.  On one of them I hand stitched the eyes, whiskers and mouth and sewed on a pink pom pom (from Hazel's collection) for the nose. On the other I used fabric paint and glued on the pink pom pom.

DIY Wild Kratts Themed Birthday Party -- Product Review

Disclosure: I was sent these items to review free of charge from Oriental Trading. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to the products for your convenience but do not receive anything if you buy from them.

I have been promising a post about our Wild Kratts themed birthday party and here it is. The rest of the week I will be doing posts on New Year Resolutions and products that are helping with mine. But with New Year's come Hazel's birthday party. It is always over Christmas vacation, but this year we decided to have her party with her school friends after the vacation and we discovered many more people come when it is not on vacation!! But first our invitation.

Sharing Saturday 15-3

A huge thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! It was the largest party we have had in awhile. I had a very hard time choosing features since there were so many amazing posts. Here are some of the ones I liked the best, but really there are many more to see if you have not checked them out yet. The topics for this week's features are Martin Luther King, Jr. (Monday is MLK Day in the US), Frozen, Valentine's Day and some lesson and polar bears ones.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Features

For everyone featured in this topic and ones not picked, please also link up at the Multicultural Kid Blogs Martin Luther King Day for Kids link party!!

Fruit Explorations-- Lemon

Have you entered my current giveaway? 

Ok, we did this exploration on Friday, but I did not get the post written, so you get it today. Hazel has been asking for more fruit explorations, and I thought about lemons and making lemonade. Summer officially started today and what is better on a hot day than a cool glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade? So Thursday Hazel and I went to the store and bought some lemons in two sizes--regular or jumbo.

She could not wait to get started, so we did our exploration in our pajamas. She used a new magnifying glass to examine the outside and then I cut one in half for her.

After examining the inside as a half she asked me to cut the half in half so she could see the center better. 

She had fun examining it. She tasted a lick of one piece, but did not like it. Then she started squeezing them for the juice.

When I researched lemon crafts I discovered this neat one at Teach Preschool: Lemon drop painting.The idea is to dissolve lemon drops in a little bit of warm water to make a paint. Since we did not have lemon drops, we tried lemon lifesavers and had no success. Then we found some lemon hard candies and added them, but again no luck. We decided to add some lemon peel, so I made some zest. Hazel of course asked to have some to examine as well.

After our failure with non-lemon drop painting, we pulled out the yellow paint and got creative. Hazel made lemon prints with the half rinds.

Hazel even managed to find one that had a bit of the inside structure left and got some interesting prints. Then she wanted to paint the lemon, so she had fun painting as well.

Now we stopped painting to make the syrup and the rest of the lemonade. She had squeezed about one cup of lemon juice, so we mixed one cup of water with one cup of sugar in a saucepan and Hazel stirred it until the sugar dissolved. Then we heated it to a boil to keep the sugar dissolved.

Then we let it cool for a bit. Finally we mixed the lemon juice, syrup and about three and a half cups of water in a pitcher.

We put it in the refrigerator for at least thirty minutes. We did a little more since we went back to painting. I pulled out a small square colored canvas and started painting a lemon on it. Hazel was suppose to paint the inside of it, but got upset since she thought my lemon looked better than hers. She started over and told me to paint the lemon's inside. 

Since my lemon did not fill the canvas enough, I made a lemon print and painted the inside of the lemon. then I added some strawberries to fill the canvas better. I started painting the strawberry seeds white, but was informed they are yellow. While finishing my painting we enjoyed the lemonade. Then while I cleaned up, Hazel drew in her fruit journal.

Since I had not planned ahead enough, I did not get any books on lemons yet, but will share some with you sometime soon. I also have the song Lemon Drops and Gum Drops in my head from searching the library database for lemon. Hazel learned the song and sang it at school in two concerts. I was singing it all Friday morning.  Hazel has also asked to explore all the fruits again. Stay tuned!!

For more fruit ideas check out: 

• My Fruit Pinterest Board
• Pineapple Exploration 
• Raspberry Exploration 
• Blueberry Exploration 
• Strawberry Exploration
• Needle Felted Strawberries with Acorn Tops

Relaxing Monday

Mondays have become a day of relaxing for me. We have started with a weekly playdate at 7:30 a.m. with a friend and her 9-month-old. He takes an early nap at 9, so they come here until around 9 and then he falls asleep on their way home. Once a month I have an appointment at 10:30 so my mother-in-law babysits. We got in the habit of having her babysit on Mondays (when my appointments were more frequent), so she often takes her now even if I don't have an appointment. Today was one of those days. I spent some time shopping at Joanns. And then I met a friend at Kohls to spend our Kohlscash from our purchases last week. I came home for lunch and realized I didn't go to Staples. I need ink cartridges so I can print out all the interesting things I found for celebrating Michaelmas which is Thursday. Since I need to pick Hazel up around 1:30 unless my mother-in-law calls to tell me she got her to nap there (which hardly ever happens) I think I'll run out to Staples right before then.

I am hoping to get a bit more time to sew. I need to finish the three pairs of pants I'm making for Hazel and finish piecing her quilt. I will share the quilt pictures with you on October 19th when I get to be a guest blogger at Sew Happy Geek. It only seems fitting to share the quilt I made from her pattern and with the fabric I won from her blog on her blog. So look for a link that day.

Meanwhile, I was reading my Better Homes and Garden Magazine during lunch. I didn't get too far, but found something I wanted to share with you. You can download FREE pumpkin stencils and for each person who downloads BHG donates $2 up to $5000 to one of five charities (so up to $25,000 total). To do this all you have to do is visit BHG.com/charitystencils and you will have to log in or start an account there. The charities are The Humane Society of the United States, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Rebuilding Together, and March of Dimes. You can download as many as you want once you do the initial one which chooses the charity your $2 click will go to. Again it is FREE to you, so go check it out (even if you don't want the stencil you can always delete it later!).

One other thing to check out is the competition Not Just a Housewife is hosting. She is giving away a $100 Pottery Barn gift card and if she gets enough entries she will get two to giveaway. Go check it out. She is introducing a new website called Hometalk, which looks pretty neat in itself. They have decorators, contractors, gardeners, experts to answer questions for you and lots of giveaways all free!! Go check them out!

Some other interesting Halloween/Autumn Decorations and Activities to check out:

My Computer is My Canvas this freebie

I Heart Crafty Things has an adorable handprint cardinal craft from Tippytoe Crafts.

Tippytoe Crafts has a beautiful fall wreath tutorial.

Tatertots and Jello has several lists and links to Halloween crafts and Pumpkin Projects and Fall Projects.

C.R.A.F.T. has a guest blogger with some adorable small printables for free autumn decorations.

Silly Eagle Books has a great apple tree art project to go with a book. I think I'll be trying this later when we do more with apples.

And Mrs. Happy Homemaker has delicious looking apple nachos. Yum!!
Gotta try these!








Ok, enough time on the internet. Gotta run to Staples and pick up Hazel. Have a great day!!