Family Visiting = Little Break

My parents came to visit us this weekend. They came early on Saturday and went with Hazel and I to a Holiday Fair Craft Making Get-Together at Hazel's school. My mother and I attempted to help knit small gnomes while my father played with Hazel (and some other kids and her teacher) in our classroom. Hazel was so excited to show my parents her school. I have to finish knitting my gnome and then bring them back for the hand works teacher to help me finish them. We didn't completely understand her "pattern" that she wrote down off of seeing one done.  My mother got the body put together but wasn't sure of the size of the head and couldn't figure out how to put the hat together (it is knitted though).

For those interested in Waldorf Education or wanting to know more about it, check out this NY Times article.I love that so many high tech experts do not think their children need technology in the elementary grades.

Well for the most part I have been working on our Halloween costumes. Hazel's is almost done. I just need to add the velcro to close the hat and the dress. Mine on the other hand is still needing much work. I will be working on it today hopefully, though I'm hoping to go to a talk at Hazel's school on the Waldorf Math Curriculum and tomorrow I tutor, so if not, hopefully I can finish it Thursday. I will post pictures once I get Hazel to keep it on.

Today Hazel wanted a hot dog for lunch so we had the mummy dogs that Beth from Living Life Intentionally posted on our first Sharing Saturday Link Party. Our Second Sharing Saturday is still open. Please link up any activities, crafts, etc. for children or to do with children. My goal for this blog is to make it a place for parents to share ideas and get help when needed.

Finally, I don't know about you, but I'm getting sick of all the Halloween decorations and crafts being thrown around. I'm not sure when Halloween became a holiday where we decorated so much. Nor do I want to store so many decorations for it, so I started thinking about Christmas. My preview for our next craft are the following pictures. I did some prep work on it by painting the pasta. If Hazel wakes up with enough time to do the crafts and we finish them, I'll post some pictures later and if not, hopefully it will be tomorrow's post.

To paint them, I used the plastic bag method. Put the pasta in a ziploc bag.

Add paint. Shake and rub gently until covered. Then pour out onto wax paper. Let dry. You get your hands a little dirty trying to make sure the pieces are not sticking together on the wax paper, but besides that it is relatively a clean method. The next steps will be posted soon with pictures.

Have a great day!!

Sharing Saturday #2

Thank you to everyone who participated in our first ever Sharing Saturday last week. It was so exciting to see everyone's ideas and have a place to share. Our Book Sharing Thursday is still open if you have children's books or adult books to share.

Pumpkins, Leaves, and Halloween

Today has been one of those days. I knew Hazel would crash and it was just a matter of when. She woke up at 3 a.m. and would not go back to sleep for anything no matter what we tried. It threw us all off for the day. Sure enough I finally convince her to get dressed and go run errands around noon and she falls asleep about five minutes away from home. Needless to say the errands did not get done. So far she has been sleeping for two and a half hours and I slept for about an hour as well. But before she slept we did some crafts.

First we finished up a craft we had started the other day. Hazel wanted to do a craft when I was leaving so I suggested to Steve to paint coffee filters with her watercolor paints. Then we cut them into leaves. I saw the idea at Frugal Family Fun Blog.Then taking the idea from 1+1+1=1, we glued them onto a spiral to look like falling leaves. We also hung some of the leaves on the window to look like stained glass leaves. I love how the light shines through them.

Trick-or-Treat, Smell My Feet!

Hazel as Delia

Next we did some foam activities I had found in the discount bins. Frames and magnets for Halloween. Nothing too exciting. Then we did a cutting activity I saw on Mer Mag.  We started with pumpkins and then did ghosts and witches. We decided the two witches were the witch twins from Trick-or-Treat Smell My Feet! by Lisa Desimini.

Then we cut open our sugar pumpkin. Well we tried to cut open two, but one was not ripe and wouldn't cut. Hazel wanted to see if it had a star inside like the apple. She didn't want to touch all the strings, but loved putting her hands in the bowl of seeds.

We have been reading books about pumpkins. I posted about some from the library previously. We also bought two at a library book sale. The Pumpkin Book by Gail Gibbons which goes into the biology behind growing pumpkins as well as the significance of them in Thanksgiving and Halloween. This book is written so a young child can understand it but also so an older child can get more from it. It includes how to plant pumpkin seeds and how to dry them from your pumpkin to plant them next spring, which we plan to do. We also bought Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington. This is about a young boy planting seeds and caring for the plant until he can harvest his pumpkin and have his parents help him carve it to be a jack-o'-lantern.

The Pumpkin Book

Finally another book to check out is All Hallows Eve: The Story of the Halloween Fairy by Lisa Sterlazza Johnson. It is another version of the pumpkin fairy. Although I like my version better, it is nice to have a story to read to Hazel at this age.

Book Sharing Thursday

So, today I'm hoping to start a new tradition of sharing favorite books on Thursdays. Thursdays are busy days for us, so this will be a good day to do this. I will have two categories, Children's books and Adult books about parenting or crafting with kids, or crafts. Please enter as many as you would like.

Children's Books:
What are your child's or yours favorite books to read right now?






Adult Books:
What books do you found helpful as a crafting parent or as a parent?



Thanks for joining us!!

Exciting day

Today I am honored to guest blog at SewHappyGeek. You may remember I was the winner of Jenna's blogiversary giveaway which was her Square It Up! pattern and fabric to make it. Well after I made it, I decided I wanted it bigger so it could go on our bed. Her pattern was so easy I had to make more. I made one for Hazel out of various nursery fabrics including her favorite nursery rhymes and story characters and I had leftovers from that so I made a baby quilt.  Here are a few pictures to check out and then you can head over and visit my guest blog.

Our Queen Size

Baby Quilt

Hazel's Quilt

As for our day, I messed up on a doctor's appointment which I thought I had this morning, but apparently I missed it on Monday. Oops!! So Hazel is with my mother-in-law, and I have to go get her to bring her back to the doctor since her cold has moved into her chest and her cough does not sound pretty. After that hopefully she will nap and then we can do some crafts to post tomorrow. I've also been working on my angels for the angel swap at we bloom here. I'm also thinking of what Hazel can do for hers. She is also participating. Want to join us?

And of course I'm working on our Halloween costumes! I have most of Hazel's body part done, now I need to figure out her head gear which will be the bowl of the spoon. I am working on the decorations on the front of the plate right now for mine, but mine is much easier. Don't worry I will share pictures. Have a great day!!