....and Craft On!

A while back, I stumbled upon a great blog called: Frontier Dreams

I have been snooping on this blog for quite a while and only recently brought myself to comment. (why is it so hard to leave comments some times?  maybe its just me!?)

Anyway...she has a lovely weekly link up called Keep Calm Craft On.  It is a wonderful place for crafty people to share their current projects.  But, beyond the cute crafts and the great pictures, there is much more beneath this post.  As she writes,  "The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life.". I find myself quite agreeing with her.  Whenever I sit down to sew, or knit I do find it quite calming.

In fact I have found myself recently, as I am getting frustrated or upset, repeating in my head "keep calm, craft on...keep calm, craft on" as if it is some sort of mantra.  But it reminds me to not get so worked up over things, and to focus back on the little things that make me happy.  Like for instance....

Making a new gift for my daughter. 

  This will eventually become a princess.  You can find the pattern from Red Heart, here.  The white was from a bag of random bits bought at a Good Will and the purple was salvaged from a sweater that did not fit any more.  It should not take me much longer to finish and I promise to share a picture.  But until then, check out Nicole's Blog and remember to Keep calm....

Tot School

This is my first post to Tot School. I've been doing it for a while now, but it took a little bit for me to figure out how to write a blog. My daughter "Star" is now 26 months old, and here was our week.... We started out doing a lot of imaginary play but unfortunately I didn't have my camera so I don't have many pictures. We played doctor and fixed up several of her dolls. We also played with her paper doll set as well as her snake and her lizard(see previous posts). I was able to get a picture of her exploring a "cave" a.k.a. the dining room table.

I introduced several new Tot Tools. My father made this one out of a scrap of wood and some nails. Star loves to stretch rubber bands over the nails

My father also made this tool. I got the idea from here. The hardware didn't cost much at all and I think she loves to use it because she's using real equipment she has seen me and her father use.
I finally was able to make her a set of Bottle Top Names. Basically I had to wait until I had enough bottle tops. I plan on adding more names as I get more bottle tops to keep Star interested in it. And Yes she is wearing a Christmas dress over her pajamas. She insisted.

We also did several crafts. Here is a monkey for the letter M
We also did spaghetti art. Basically you overcook spaghetti, let it cool, then lay it on a piece of paper in different designs. We also worked on a few of our letters with the spaghetti.
And then we ate the spaghetti. Star really enjoyed it, and so did I since there was very little mess.
For our other project I drew a simple picture of a tree with a sun, clouds, and flowers. We ripped up pieces of tissue paper, crushed them into a ball, dipped it into glue and put it on the picture.Some of our other activities included stringing foam beads from the dollar store,


Playing Alphabet Land I got from the GoodwillWe sorted shapes on her felt board

I also made a relay race where Star had to carry homemade pompoms, bean bags and various other balls on a spoon and drop them into a laundry basket.

And finally I gave her a tub with smaller tubs of water, eyedroppers, sponges, spoons, etc. Basically anything I could find in the house that can be used to move water from place to place. Then I just sat back and let her explore. Thanks to The Four Little Penguins Blog for the idea.
All in all, another great week. Now its time for a nap.
To see what other Tot Schoolers have been up to check out the website for 1+1+1=1

Things I Love

There are many things in the world I love, licorice, beautiful sunsets, a quiet walk in the woods. Since having two kids, my list of things I love has slightly changed. Now I find things like an uninterrupted shower, eating dinner in a nice restaurant (anything other than McDonalds) and the ability to read a book in its entirety are creating the same warm and exciting feeling that the things listed above used to. This week my new favorite thing to "love" is the Goodwill. I've always enjoyed a good bargain, but now the amazing treasures I am able to find brings such excitement to my life, that I'm sure my husband has been looking very strangely at me. Yesterday I went to our "local" (ha, ha a 20 minute drive, we live in the country) Goodwill and came out with a small pile of games and puzzles for my kids. The best part is that if they get destroyed in the next week or pieces go missing, I won't fret because I only spent $7 on the whole lot.

Here is Star playing with a foam alphabet puzzle from the Goodwill


I also got Hi Ho Cherrio which we played for our first official Friday Family Fun Night


Here are some pictures from our "Tot School" time for the rest of the week. This is a picture of Star practicing her handwriting skills. I slipped some pages from various workbooks into page protectors and Star uses a white board marker to write on them. She is able to practice drawing straight lines, shapes and we've started doing a few letters. When she's done I just wipe the pages off.

She insisted that we do an art project. I didn't have one ready, so I just looked around to see what I had around me. I found packing peanuts, markers, glue and paper. She had fun sticking the colored peanuts to the paper.


We've been learning about the parts of our body this week. Here we are doing the Hokey Pokey.

I also found these great cards online for ABC Exercises. She LOVES them. Here she is jumping over a Pillow.


Overall its been a great week, though I'm exhausted. I've really enjoyed sharing what we've been doing and can't wait for next week.