Valentine's Day Gingerbread House

So today, we had school then we went and ran some errands including buying Valentine's Day themed candy for our next gingerbread house. We also picked up a jar of strawberry frosting so it would be pink.

I think Hazel liked taking the wrappers off the chocolate hearts because she kept using them.

She really likes just sticking the candy on. She asked me all morning before school to do it and then couldn't wait to do it when we got home.

Ok, I did this side. Hazel looked at it and noticed my wreath. Then she wanted to make one.

So the line on the side of M & M's is her wreath. She didn't quite get how to do it, but who cares. She had fun!

So what do you think of our Valentine's Day Gingerbread House?

Now Hazel is at my mother-in-law's house for the afternoon so I get to go work on (and hopefully finish) my quilt!! I will post pictures of it finished--I promise.

Tomorrow we have a tour (without Hazel) of the nursery room and kindergartens at Hazel's school and then our interview with the nursery teacher (with Hazel) in the afternoon. Such excitement. Hazel is beginning to get excited for it as well. She is talking about going to school without Mommy and needing to be potty-trained before then, which I'm happy to report she is doing pretty well except the setback from the pediatrician wanting a sterile urine sample. We had many accidents for a few days to avoid giving it, but after we got it, she has been doing well. :o)

So something to share: We were asked to view this video before the tour tomorrow. I think you might find it interesting. http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/prescriptionforplay Let me know what you think.

Midweek Crafts and things

This week seems to be flying by. I feel like I have had no time to get things done. I have been working on visiting all the amazing posts shared on Saturday. Have you checked out our current Sharing Saturday? There are 81 posts so far!! They are all so wonderful. You should really go check them out. So many fabulous ideas of things to do.

We have been a bit busy here. Hazel had her 3-year-old well visit on Monday. And I feel like I have been running around all week. In fact we have to leave soon for my doctor's appointment--a follow-up--nothing too major.

One quick craft we did was make a Valentine's Day frame. I bought a bunch of the wooden frames at Micahels for $1. These have the heart cut out for Valentine's Day gifts. Our first one, we glued on Conversation Hearts. I need to seal them still, but it came out cute.

Since I don't have a picture to put in it yet, I decided to do some word art. Last week I read about this great site--Tagxedo. It allows you to enter a website or words and choose a shape, color themes, etc. and makes these beautiful word arts. Here are a few I did using my blog.

I also did some playing around with love, and bible quotes about love.

Ok, I think you get the point. I highly recommend you check out Tagxedo.

What was in the box

The other thing we did today was to make another gingerbread house. A friend gave us two kits that her aunt gave her (and then realized she couldn't use them since they contain tree nuts and her son is very allergic). Hazel of course was excited to do it. It came with everything, but we didn't use most of what came with it. We used the leftover frosting we had from our other gingerbread house and some candy we had floating around.

First Hazel gave it a face. These are the eyes, nose and cheeks. I'm not sure about the mouth.

I gave it a graham cracker door and some heart windows. Then we had fun decorating the roof. We'll see what we do with the other one.

Conversation hearts worked well as decorations!

Pattern Blocks

Several years ago, I found some pattern blocks at a discount store for around $1. Being a math teacher (at least back then), I was amazed since I knew how expensive they could be. I bought a set for my nephew and one for myself. I recently have been seeing some various sets for toddlers, so I decided to pull mine out and find some of the templates on line. I did a google search and discovered many. I think my favorite place was PreKinders. They have many animals and flower designs. Then I showed them to Steve and left them for him to do with Hazel while I was at work.

I took a few pictures of what was left out when I got home. Hazel also told me before she went to sleep that she wanted to do the "shapes" with me tomorrow. So I'm guessing she liked them.

Pattern blocks are usually wooden or plastic blocks of various shapes: squares, equilateral triangles, regular hexagons, two different types of rhombus, and an isosceles trapezoid. The side lengths are all equal to one another except for the longer base of the trapezoid. You can use them to teach about shapes, colors, patterns or for making shapes and creatively. I have also used them in algebra classes to introduce variables and in geometry classes to discuss the angles of shapes.

There are many lessons using pattern blocks on line. Since we have decided to go with a Waldorf education, we are not pushing the academic learning but more discovery and creativity at this age so my idea is for her. However there are so many sites you can check out including this one that you can play on-line with pattern blocks. Or Math Playground that also lets you play with them on line without the grid. You can also print your own from sites like this one (by page) or at Utah Education Network you can get them on one sheet (they also have some great activities for all age children).

Confessions of a Homeschooler also has some great pattern activities. Making Learning Fun has pattern templates of letters and numbers as well as Valentines. There are so many things you can do with these. Plus they can just be used to make designs and be very open ended.

This Weekend--Winter Onederland Party

So on Friday, I was given a gift from my mother-in-law of almost an entire day off from parenting duties. My plans run the few quick errands that I had planned to do with Hazel and then come home and finish my quilt. However, I came home from running my errands and called a friend to check in with her. Her son's first birthday party is today, and I knew they were having an awful week of doctor's appointments due to his food allergies. (He is allergic to just about everything but now needs to avoid touching all wheat and dairy.)When I spoke with her my day changed to helping her with the party. The only things she had for it so far were the decorations I made for her, the napkins I bought for her and the cake her mother-in-law was making (which her son cannot touch or eat). You may remember I showed you the invitation and pieces of the banner I designed for her when I reviewed My Memories Software. Well, using that same software I made her a few more posters to hang around for decorations.

Sharing Saturday Remake!

Today is the day I have been hinting at for a few weeks. MiaB over at Mama Mia's Heart2Heart is joining me in hosting Sharing Saturday!! So now your entries will appear on two blogs so hopefully they will be seen by more people. Since we are changing this we have new buttons and a few new rules.

I still want to feature some of the wonderful ideas from last week. The four most popular ones are:

Winter Candles

As they suggest in the Waldorf school, we like to have candles on our table. In the fall we made some tissue paper candle holders with Mod Podge and fall colored tissue paper pieces on old baby food jars. They are perfect for tea light candles. I found some beeswax ones at the Holiday Fair at school.

For the winter I saw some beautiful ones on Pinterest. We finally got around to making them yesterday. I followed the Pinterest posting to here. I bought some Epsom salts at the drug store for less than $2 and had the Mod Podge glue and jars and some food coloring. I also had some votives already in glass leftover from favors for a baby shower I threw. One thing I discovered, the smallest baby food jars are not big enough to get the tea light with its container into. I removed the plastic/metal container and just put the candle in the one we made, but I would suggest not using them for candle holders. Hazel had a blast painting on the glue and I did the rolling. She also had fun mixing the colors.

Now we have candles that remind us of a snow storm. Since we haven't had much snow yet, that is a good thing. Some winters I wouldn't want to be reminded of snow, but this one is ok. Aren't they beautiful lit up?

The other thing I would like to share is our breakfast table today. Apparently many of Hazel's dolls and animals wanted to eat waffles with us. Of course her new doll high chair is not big enough for all of them at the same time, so she had to pull up a chair as well for one Baby.

And Barney is in there too!

Come back tonight or tomorrow for the new Sharing Saturday. There will be some changes announced tonight!!

Exciting day here...small craft to share

Well we went back to school today. We also made a step forward in potting training again (finally!!). She was almost completely trained this summer and then decided she didn't want to be a big girl and wanted to wear diapers. I appeased her thinking it would last a week at most. Four months later, we finally have taken a step forward. She used the toilet by force and had success and wanted her big girl panties back on. We'll see how it goes. We made a huge deal out of it, so hopefully it will stick this time.

Play Kitchen

So about a year and a half ago, Hazel and I were taking a walk when it happened to be trash day in our neighborhood. Three houses down out with the trash was a play kitchen. It was dirty and didn't have any of the drawers, etc., but otherwise was in good shape. And it was large. I called my girlfriend to see if she could come watch Hazel so I could get it into my car and then while waiting for my friend I happened to mention it to the general contractors who were doing our addition at the time. They of course said they would take a coffee break and go get it for me. Then the next day, one of them brought me a cleaner that works great on plastic and helped me clean it up. So here is the kitchen we got for free if it was new:

Source: http://www.kaplantoys.com/

I went to the Dollar Tree and Target and bought various baskets, etc. to fill in the holes and bought the accessories: pots, pans, dishes, food, etc. We have been slowly replacing the plastic food with nice wooden food and have even made some ourselves. Hazel loves playing in her kitchen.

This Christmas Season we seemed to get every toy catalog possible. I would give them to Hazel (as well as any other catalog that came that we didn't want) and she would pretend they were magazines. Well she fell in love with a pink and white wooden kitchen with curtains. I believe it was this one.

Source: http://www.cptoy.com/

Which of course is almost $400. Needless to say she isn't getting her dream kitchen. However she began asking me to make curtains for her kitchen. Well I went to Joann's and picked out some pink and white fabric and then bought more recently when it was on sale--enough to make a table cloth, napkins, curtains for all the openings that shouldn't be there and probably I will make some potholders and an apron to match and possibly some seat covers and cushions. While I was at it, I also printed out new stickers for her kitchen and personalized it. My dear babysitter put them up for me today while Hazel was napping and I was tutoring. So her almost finished kitchen now looks like this:

Yes, these curtains open so you can still see the lovely view they printed on the window!

I added a Command hook for potholders, but since her glove potholder was the one I found in her mess and it didn't have a loop, I hung her pink frying pans instead. Well, actually I hung one of them. When I got home she asked for another hook for the other one. I haven't put it up yet.

Needless to say she is pretty excited over the makeover of her kitchen. It is not her dream kitchen, but it certainly cost less than $400. Oh, and I mentioned to the neighbors who were getting rid of the kitchen that we had taken it (we don't really know them), and they were very happy someone took it since they couldn't find anyone who would. They also gave us their daughter's tricycle when they bought her a bicycle, so Hazel now gets her hand-me-down toys and we are not complaining.

Now if I can just get her to clean her kitchen up. Every time I organize it for her it stays that way until the next day (I do it after she is in bed), but it certainly does not last long. Oh, well she has fun with it! (As you can see we have discovered Starbucks kid size hot chocolate recently, so we washed  the cups so she could pretend to go. I also gave her my empty gift card so she could pay when she goes. I found a cute tutorial to make their coffee cups from felt and will try to adapt it to her hot chocolate and my chai latte.)

She also found a new place for her Caillou figures (and her treehouse family and many other things) to live. While cleaning off the top of the kitchen I took an old broken toy down. Unfortunately I haven't gotten around to fixing it, but she didn't care. My father and I made it this summer for her, but one of the supports gave way. Oh, well, now she has a home for her new toys. I moved the plastic furniture my mother-in-law gave her into it as well.

Quick Craft

Today we headed to my doctor's for routine blood work and to see someone about my feeling yucky since Saturday afternoon. Then we came home and did some crafts. Well, started some crafts. We painted some objects for crafts for tomorrow and we did one complete craft.

I was trying to figure out what crafts to do for January. Christmas is over, Valentine's Day seems so far away, what is a crafty mom to do...then it hit me...snow. Since we haven't really had snow except that storm in October, I'm not sick of it yet and Hazel keeps wanting to make a snowman, snow fort, etc. So today we made a snow picture. I got the idea from Pinterest with the original idea coming from Playing House. There are some great snow crafts there. Luckily Hazel didn't figure out she could eat the marshmallows so we used them on the craft. She did figure out she could mush them though as you can see in the lower left corner.  Oh, well glitter glue and marshmallows, what more could she want.

Hope you are having a great day!

Quick post...after birthday celebration

Ok, I may have over done it for Hazel's birthday party because I haven't been feeling so good the past couple of days. So this will be a quick post. A reminder that Sharing Saturday is open please come share all your fun activities you have been doing with or for your kids and check out everyone else's!

I thought I would share a few of our favorite gifts that Hazel received.

My favorite: A Waldorf Doll that was my grandmother, Hazel's. My parents bought this for her after my mother made my nephew one and she decided she really wanted one. They saved it for Hazel and gave it to her for her birthday.

From my sister and her husband, The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pickney. A great book with no words (a few sounds, but that is it) and gorgeous pictures. They also gave her a savings bond, but I'm more excited about the book.

From Hazel's Australian penpal, Master D and his mom, Kelly over at Happy Whimsical Hearts, a beautiful gnome in a sleeping bag. Ok, this was actually her Christmas gift from them, but it is so wonderful, I had to share it. They sent her a great book for her birthday, Around the Year by Elsa Beskow.

From us, Melissa and Doug's cupcake set. I was so upset when Steve's mother bought this for Hazel to use at her house a few months ago since I had bought it on sale and put it away knowing she would love it. But she loved it so much she kept asking for one at our house as well. So now she has one. Highly recommend it for anyone whose child loves to pretend to cook.

From her godparents, a toy mixer that spins. It came with measuring spoons and cookie cutters as well. She loves it!

You can also see pieces of her new tea set from Steve's mother. We sent it over to her house since we already have two here plus the one I needle felted for her.

From a neighbor and friend of Steve's mother, a furry hippo backpack with a nap blanket rolled in it. Needless to say she was wearing all day.

Another one of Hazel's favorites: Caillou figurines. She loves Caillou and Rosie. In fact she named her favorite duck Caillou and its twin (though she can tell them apart) Rosie. This was from good friends. Although they are plastic they are the only Caillou things I have ever seen besides the books and dvd's. She put them in her tree house.

Also from Steve's mother, a doll carrier. Right now it has Elmo, Ducky/Caillou, and a naked baby in it. Something for her to carry her babies around is always good.

We also received many good books and some clothes. And of course some donations for the charity which is what we requested.

Our favorite wrapping was this wonderful gift bag/backpack.

Isn't it adorable?

The final thing to share, Hazel's birthday countdown wheel. She loved this. We started on the first (it works nicely having the last day be your birthday) with the number 31 and by your birthday you get: "Happy Birthday".

Well those seem to be the favorites right now! Hope you are having a great day!

Happy New Year!! And now onto the birthday party pictures

Happy New Year to you and your family!! I hope 2012 is your best year yet in every way!

I promised to share pictures from Hazel's third birthday party, so this is the post. You may remember I shared the invitation, the favors and some decorations, decorations done with My Memories, and birthday hats and more decorations previously. So I won't repeat those at least not too much.