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Snowy, Tea Party Kind of Day


Wednesdays are typically our day without many plans since it is the day between her two school days. I find it nice to have a day to play at home and spend time together. This morning was one of those days I was glad we did not have plans as it was snowing harder than they predicted. Our big plans for today was to have a tea party after breakfast and getting dressed. I made the tea during breakfast so it would be cool enough for Hazel by the time we got to the party.

Our next step was to get dressed and accessorized and then we had to dress all of our guests. Hazel wore her favorite pink dress and then piled on the jewelry. I told her she looked like she was from the 80's with all the bracelets (think Madonna or Cyndi Lauper). She basically put on every bracelet she could find and every ring. You cannot see it, but she did pick out a tiara which I am wearing in the picture above.

Then we poured the tea for our guests and got ours and our real snack (corn muffin top) ready. She loved this part. We even got a special guest who we gave a plastic cup to since she probably would have broken one of the porcelain ones.
I think she was a bit more interested in the pom poms and wands Hazel insisted we carry to the tea party. We had put them on the floor by the table and Fluffy was definitely keeping an eye on them. Of course her favorite part was that we would choose one of the dolls or Ducky to need more tea. Then after the corn muffin was gone she wanted me to cut up some apple. Needless to say it was a very fun morning.

After lunch we changed and put on our layers to go outside. Now the snow had turned to rain and it was wet and very heavy outside. However she really wanted to go play in it, so we did. After all, she has been wanting to make a big snowman for a couple of years now and we have not had a good snow for it. Well we did some shoveling and made a snowman and she made many snow angels. I think this might have been her biggest snowman yet. We used almost all of the snow that was on the driveway next to our garage. It made shoveling much easier after rolling it all into the snowman.
She also loved making footprints and dropping her shovel to make its footprint and handprints too in the snow. Afterward we came in for hot chocolate (well I had tea) and warmed up. By then the roads were clear so we went out to run some errands as well. We spent some time doing some crafts together, but I will share those another time. Have you done anything fun this week with your kids?

A Post Christmas Gingerbread House

You may remember my post earlier this month about our gingerbread play date. Well before it I had picked up on clearance a gingerbread house kit. After talking to the other mother and realizing both children would want to keep the house, I decided to save it for just me and Hazel. Now this was the special Rudolph house kit so it came with a candy Santa, Rudolph and Abominable Snow Monster. We also used some of our extra lollipops as trees, though we had trouble getting them to stay up. Oh, and Hazel decided our gummy penguins are really elves.
I also pulled out some green frosting I bought on clearance post Christmas and all the extras we had from her party and play date for decorating. Hazel loves playing with the frosting and candy.
We put star sprinkles on the roof. We decided it was a magic star roof. I'm not sure what magic it can do, but we liked it.
So now we have a gingerbread house on display in our dining room and our kitchen. Hazel is very excited to show everyone our new gingerbread house. She did ask to keep it forever, but I think I explained well enough that it would not be good to do that. Hopefully it won't cause a tantrum when the time comes to throw both away.
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Last year we used candy hearts on our roof on our post Christmas gingerbread house. Now is the best time to get the kits for practically nothing and she still enjoys it so much. Do you do any Christmas things in non-Christmas time?



A Princess Sort of Day

Today we finished a few store provided (one bought and one was a gift) of princess crafts and I made Hazel her Snow White pajamas. It was a very princess craft day here.

This morning we woke up and finished coloring our Princess Shrinky Dinks. The kit came with some to be stickers and some to be charms. (Yet the chain bracelets it came with for the charms does not have a clasp, so until I get one, we cannot finish it.)
While we finished up the coloring I preheated the oven and then we put them in on the parchment paper above. Hazel watched them in the oven and this is what they came out as.

We put the sticker backs on the ones that were stickers and the s-hooks on the charms.
The other day we started painting the suncatchers Hazel received as a birthday gift. They needed to dry over night, so today, we hung them up on Hazel's windows. 
Painting the suncatchers
The box told you what colors to mix to get the appropriate colors for each part, but we just did it however we wanted. I actually did touch up some of them afterwards, but that was more to see the color so she would like them.

Then this afternoon, I made Hazel's Snow White pajamas. She has been waiting for them for a long time. I bought the flannel at Joann Fabrics (with a 50% off coupon back in November or December). I used McCall's Pattern Number M5965, which is the easiest pajamas ever. They literally only took me a couple of hours and that included tracing the pattern onto freezer paper so I could use the larger sizes when she grows. She loves them though she was unhappy in the picture because she found her pink toothbrush in the garbage and I told her she could not take it out. Oh, well. At least they are done. Now I just need to make her bathrobe and a few more pairs of pajamas.

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The Golden Slipper--Vietnamese Cinderella


This year I am going to do my Multicultural Mondays a bit different by exploring some fairy tales that are in different cultures. We are first going to focus on Cinderella. I did an introduction to Cinderella with the most common version of the story by Charles Perrault. Today we are going to look at the Vietnamese version of the story called The Golden Slipper or The Brocade Slipper.

Sewing Lesson--A Snowman Head

Sharing Saturday is still open! Please stop by to share your child-oriented crafts and activities and be inspired by the amazing ideas already shared!

So before Christmas Amy at One Artsy Mama shared some adorable felt tree ornaments her Little Crafter made by sewing. I had really wanted to do these with Hazel. I have the supplies sitting on my bookshelf, but we never got around to them this year. Then I saw these cute ornaments on Amazon. I thought that is what we could try to make with a sewing lesson. 

Today we had our sewing lesson. Now it was not her first, but it was the first time she stuck with it long enough and was successful. We sewed two white felt circles together.
With some help she made it most of the way around. We put a little stuffing and some lavender into them and closed them up. By this time she was sick of sewing so we decided to glue on the faces. I then sewed strings on them so she could hang them on her seasonal tree.
Not bad for a first successful lesson. We had a very busy morning crafting, so I will share some more of our crafts later in the week.