Happy Valentine's Day!!

Our mantle this morning

Happy Valentine's Day!! I hope you are finding a way to give and receive love today!! I have to say I am feeling well loved with the most entries EVER on Sharing Saturday. We have decided to end our Sharing Saturdays on Wednesday since people were not really looking at the entries added after that. So please feel free to link up today and tomorrow and go check out the amazing entries we have gotten!!

Today I want to share with you about our Kids' Valentine Swap.

We have six children participating including Hazel ranging in age from two to ten-years-old. One from England, one from Australia, and the rest from the United States. I know several parents have let me know that they have gotten them off late or have not mailed them, but we figured it wouldn't matter to the kids since getting mail is always exciting. All we asked was for each child to make a valentine and send it to each of the other's with a postcard from where you live. That way if parents want to do a geography lesson they have something more personal to use.

I gave Hazel several choices of cute valentines to make and this is the one she chose. She chose the one without candy (I was surprised) but made finger puppets.

Demonstrating how to use them

I cut out the hearts (using my scrapbook materials) and punched out the holes. Then we glued on eyes and added glitter glue mouths and stickers for cheeks, nose and ears.

On the back we stamped Happy Valentine's Day and signed her name. Then we attached a pipe cleaner for arms with a sticker.

We have only received one valentine thus far. It is the one from England. Hazel was so excited to get it.

Thank you, Annabel!!

We will share more pictures as they come in.

I also finally finished Hazel's owl last night and made her a quick valentine with it.

We have been doing some heart related crafts. Over the weekend, we made the marbleized hearts from Cheap Crafty Mommy that I featured on Saturday. Hazel's favorite part of the craft was mixing the paint into the shaving cream. After that she got bored (as she did with every craft we tried). I tried using card stock and foam hearts that we had. I discovered it didn't work well to scrap the paint and shaving cream off the foam, so I wouldn't recommend it.

Foam Heart

Oh, and we used pink, red and red glitter paint for colors.

I was happy with how they came out. Then I had to decide what to do with them. I made a mobile. For the two large ones I glued two of the hearts together and wrote God on them. Then on the small ones on the undecorated side I wrote words like: love, family, peace, hope, joy, faith. Then I strung them and hung it up.

We also tried the yarn hearts that I featured from Tot Treasures. Hazel's favorite part of this was cutting the yarn. She did not like getting her hands dirty with the homemade glue, so she quit pretty quickly on me with this one.

We also tried the bird seed ornaments that Verde Mama shared at a Sharing Saturday in January. We didn't have peanut butter since Hazel doesn't like it, but we used almond butter. It was a bit messy and liquidy at least more than I thought it should be, but that may be the almond butter. I'm not sure. Again Hazel didn't like get the mess on her hands and quit (but when I finished then asked to do another craft). We hung one outside already, but it doesn't look like it has been eaten at all yet, but our bird feeder is still more than half full (in the summer it empties in less than one day) and has been for weeks now.

I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day!!

Playing with Flowers

Well last Sunday, there were flowers left over from a funeral the previous day at church. I got to bring some home including a purple rose. Having been inspired by Happy Little Munchkins: Petal Play which was shared at Sharing Saturday #5. I decided to try it with our rose even though it wasn't white.

I put the rose petals in a bowl of water. I didn't have any rose water to add, but the scent of the petals was strong enough for us. Hazel played with the petals in the water, swirling them around and feeling them. Then we added drops of food coloring (this is Hazel's favorite part). We watched the food coloring swirl around on its own. It was pretty.

Hazel taking a picture since I was. This is her new kids' digital camera she got for Christmas!

Then we added even more food coloring this time purposely getting it on the petals. We were hoping for results like Happy Little Munchkins, but we did not have any luck. I guess we will have to wait until we have a white rose to try it again.

We just got dirty looking water around our rose petals. Oh, well. Our petals did not absorb the color at all. We were hoping for a result like this.

From Happy Little Munchkins: Petal Play

This week there were some white carnations and white snap dragons leftover from a funeral at church. So I brought them home to try coloring a different way. Yesterday when we got home from church we filled vases and jars with water and Hazel added food coloring to the water. I then cut the ends of the white flowers we brought home and stuck them in the different colored water. We made red, yellow, blue, green (directly from food coloring) and mixed purple and orange.

The start of our experiment

Then we just let them sit there. Last night when I got home from tutoring, I found they looked like this.

Blue Water

Red Water

Yellow water

Green Water

Purple Water

The snap dragons had not changed color at all, so I cut the stems much smaller and went to bed. We woke up to see this:

Our discoveries, the colors we mixed did not really give them much color and often just one of the two colors showed up (the purple looked blue and the orange looked yellow). The snap dragons took longer, but also needed to be cut much shorter than they were. We still have them in the water to see if more time will make a difference. However I moved the carnation that was in the purple water into the red water to see what will happen.

That is our flower experiments thus far. It feels good to be playing with nature again.

Have a great day!!

Adventures Outside--Winter Nature Hunts and Play

Climbing Up Our Swingset

So on Friday, we had another beautiful day here in New England. The weather predictions for Saturday was a possible snow storm with an arctic freeze coming Saturday sometime. Friday it was suppose to be near 50, so we went outside after our Move and Groove class at the local library. First we played on our swingset and then we moved to the one we are storing in our yard for friends who are inbetween houses (and living in a condo with no yard).

On Our Friends' Swingset

Hazel decided she was the captain of a big ship (the swingset) and was taking me to the big city and zoo to live. Apparently I'm now Curious George. My seat on the boat was the green swing. There is a steering wheel in the house and thus how she was steering the ship.

Lilac Tree

Now, February 2nd was Groundhog Day around here. Supposedly the televised groundhog did see his shadow (seems to me he always will since there are camera lights around), however around here it was awfully cloudy. Well apparently no one told the trees that we are suppose to have six more weeks of winter since I saw buds on our lilac tree.

And the rhododendron also had some buds on it. As well as whatever this bush is.

Then I got ordered back to my seat on the ship which apparently can drive on the street as well since she took me to the grocery store and parked it.

This is the brook that goes along the back and side of our backyard ( and then goes underground near the house). I love having it since it just adds a peacefulness to the yard (and doesn't flood).

After we were done with the ship, it was time to dig in the dirt. Hazel pulled out her gardening tools and set to work. Then we had the idea of making dirt castles since the sand in her sandbox is too dry right now. (She is digging in my garden, but we are planning on moving the garden this year so this is a great place for her to dig.)

Muffin anyone?

Then she got smart and took out her big shovel.

Then she wanted to go for a walk and see what nature we could gather. Before we went I found a very small baby pine cone. We put it on her nature table.

See how tiny it is?

On our walk with the wagon to collect nature

Hazel found a large branch on the ground. She thought it looked like a tree and wanted to bring it home. It is bigger than her! Oh, and she insisted on carrying it home herself.

Bringing It Home

Sorry, Don't know why this one isn't turned.

When we got home, we had many sticks, a few leaves (very dried old leaves), some evergreen pieces and more sticks. I guess we will be doing some crafts with sticks this week or soon. Maybe some fairy furniture?

Hazel of course wanted to bring the large branch in. Steve let her bring it in to the craft room but not upstairs. Of course she and I are planning on finding something to put it in and make decorations for it.

Oh, and apparently we now have an imaginary dog who likes to escape all the time. We ended our outside play on her swingset--the train--and her doggie kept escaping and we would have to chase it. This has continued in the house. I love her imagination!!

I'll share some of our nature crafts and experiments later this week or soon!! Hope you had a wonderful weekend! Oh, and please check out Sharing Saturday. It will be open until Wednesday this week, and we already have over 130 amazing entries!! Enjoy!!

Sharing Saturday #6

Thank you to all of you for participating in Sharing Saturday #5!! We had some amazing entries (143 of them)! Mia and I so enjoy seeing what everyone shares each week. If you would like to check them out please do so here.

Snowball Fight (Indoors) and weather related crafts

Well dear sweet Hazel has really been wanting to have a snowball fight and to make a snowman, but Father Winter has not been successful this year in letting it happen. (Though we may get some this weekend.) I decided to make her some indoor snowballs. This idea came to me when I made a needle felted wool ball to put in the dryer. Adding them to a load in the dryer decreases the amount of time needed in the dryer.  I used wool stuffing which happened to be white. Hazel saw them and called them snowballs. (I had made one for my mother since her dryer is horrible and takes forever to dry clothes.) She also told me she wanted one.

Since Hazel feel asleep on the way home from school, I had time to make these for her. When she woke up we had a snowball fight and we made a snowman. When Daddy came home, we repeated everything.

I also finished another owl this morning. I gave this one (and another one similar to the ones in this post) to Hazel's teacher for her classroom. Again I got the pattern at Natural Suburbia.

I made this one a snowy owl. The kids were fighting over them in school today.





Another craft we did this morning was one I saw on Pinterest, but the original came from Hands On: As We Grow. A fruity o's rainbow. I was thinking you could also do this with conversation hearts especially the Sweetheart ones since they have the nice blue ones.

I happened to have a box of Fruit Loops in the house because we strung them to make Hazel a necklace and bracelet last week. She enjoyed eating them while she glued them on.


We also finished up some valentines and this afternoon after her nap we got them mailed at the post office to my family. Since we add crafts, a picture frame with a picture, etc. we needed to go to the post office to see how much to put on them. Hopefully they will get there by Tuesday.

Anyway, that is how we spent our day. Tomorrow we are hoping to get outside for a bit since it is suppose to be close to 50 and Saturday we are suppose to get an arctic freeze and snow storm.

One final note, please go check out all the amazing Sharing Saturday entries this week. We have received a few in the past few days and I would love for you to see them. And of course come back to share with us again this weekend!!