Bird watching

I have mentioned before that I am not a fan of birds, however, I do not want my kids to have my unnecessary fear of birds (I don't want them to get their faces pecked either- so perhaps a small level of fear is healthy!) so I try to be cool about it around them.

We have a mama mourning bird bird nesting on our porch eves. This week her babies were born. The kids have been so interested in watching her behavior and trying to sneak peaks of the babies. We also added a humming bird feeder and had our first humming bird within the hour. Bee has been pointing out every bird in the yard and asking questions about it.

Yesterday, we put together a little bird watching book so they can identify the birds they see in our yard. I need to add a ring in the corner, but I can't remember where I put them. Bee is wondering where the Herrings and Ibis are. I didn't need to include the flamingos either. We had a lovely flock of flamingos we would sometimes see at the bay.

The pages are just images I found on google and the kids glued them to card stock. I covered them in contact paper. I added a few details to the cover by stitching on some ribbon using the zig zag stitch on my sewing machine. Then I hot glued on the bow. Add some binoculars and hang them near a good bird watching spot and you are ready to go!

Here are some fun bird crafts we did a few month ago at our co-op preschool.

Welcome new readers

You can find me two other places this week on other's blogs. ABC and 123 did a great post on tea party activities and shared the tea party birthday party Bee's friend had, the Fancy Nancy Party we went to and our felt tea party snacks.

Floral Showers posted a picture of her table tent a while back. I found her through One sweet thing. I commented on her site about our table tent and she decided to share our table tent play house with her readers too.

So if you are here via Floral Showers or ABC 123, welcome! If you are new here via some other path, welcome to you too. If you are here because you are related to me... which may be most of my readers- hi and thanks for checking in with us!

Stay posted, I will be doing a giveaway in a few days... not sure what yet, but I did say I would once we were unpacked and settled. The last box was unpacked yesterday!

Unrelated photo, but, kitty does have a new name. We are calling her Chloe. She has the sweetest temperament and lets the kids carry her all over. She didn't mind being in Bee's baby sling at all! This picture almost makes me forget about the large vet bill from yesterday's trip- of course we adopted the one kitten with an upper respiratory infection and a scratched cornea (not to mention her dislike for the litter box)!

bee's new nightstand

again, not new... but newly cutened. We started with Bee's old nightstand, which used to by my sister's night stand. I like this little stand because on the back you can see when it was painted. My sister painted in a rainbow of primary colors in 1997. I painted it sage green to match the guest room in 2003, then repainted it the blue we have now in 2004 to match the baby nursery.





I slathered on some modge podge and topped it with some scrapbook paper.

The bubbles had me worried, but they fell overnight and really weren't a big deal. Also, we used it for the bottoms of the shelves so stuff sits on it anyway. Here it is in Bee's room. I really didn't spend much time arranging the items on it, she moves them around all the time anyway. She can't sleep without that ugly fan... wish we could find a more actractive one. Here's how we made that lamp.

my new stools

They aren't new, but they look a lot newer now. Two of these old bar stools were left in our new place. I had then sitting on the curb and then pulled them back in for a little makeover.

This is fabric from IKEA. I used some Christmas ribbon I got on clearance to finish the edges. I rather like how they turned out. I had a bit of fabric left over and made a new curtain for the kid's basement playroom.

Old curtain (this is in the one in the storage room hence the block walls- it was full of spiders!).

New curtain:

from the orchard to the table

Hubby's parents were in town for a few days to help us fix a few (of the many) things on 'the list.' We all got so many things done! I am amazed at how handy the boys are. We decided to pack up a picnic and go to the orchard for some apple picking. When we got there we discovered that the actual 'open season' is not until next weekend. The owner took pity and let us go down and have a picnic and play in the orchard anyway. We ate and picked more apples than we knew what to do with.

(We used our stamped apple napkins)

When you have that many apples, I think a pie is in order. I found a random recipe online at Joy of Baking and tried it. It was a lot of work and took hours to make, but it was delicious. We even had a little vanilla ice cream on hand to add to the top of our pie. yummy.

(My bowl overfloweth... I bought this really fun bowl from a guy at our old church (five houses ago). He travels out west every winter and collects wood. When he gets home, he spends all summer spinning them into hand turned bowls. I chose this one because of all of its character. He told me that he almost scrapped this one because of all of the 'character'. I have enjoyed it so much.)

(getting ready to go into the oven, I wanted to make sure that had a picture, just in case it burned or something. You can see our yummy dinner just came out of the oven, Stromboli sandwiches)

Dinosaur Art for Lou's room

Lou wanted a dinosaur bedroom. I used to teach an awesome unit on dinosaurs so I had lots of posters, books, toys, models, etc. I thought it would be fun to incorporate these into his room. One of the cool things I had in a model of a t-rex tooth and one of a claw. I found a cool way to display them on the wall. I also used the same method to display the dinosaur fossils that we made during our dinosaur day a few months ago.



























First, I dug through the box of frames that haven't found their new home yet. Then I went to the stand by, modge podge and gave the cardboard a thin layer.

















I laid some fabric (an old cloth shower curtain) right on top and smoothed it out.




Then I trimmed it up and slid it into the frame. I didn't even wait for it to dry.


I think the wet spot from the modge podge should dry out fine.




I used the other old stand by, hot glue, and attached the models and two little labels.

Bee's new lamp

It's not really new, in fact, Bee has had this lamp since her baby nursery days. Bee had a moon and stars nursery and this little lamp fit right in. It really puts out the right amount of light for her to read before she goes to bed. I thought it needed a little update.



I pulled out the moon and little bear, which came out pretty easily. I looked for lampshades at two stores, but didn't find anything I liked, so I painted it. Bee's room has flowers, so I cut out fabric flowers (I ironed on some wonder under, cut, then removed the paper backing). Finally, I modge podged the fabric flowers onto the lamp shade.

I added the little wooden flower that we picked up at JoAnns. It's attached with hot glue.

Bee was waiting up for me to finish her lamp this evening, but when I went to take it to her room, she was sound asleep. I can't wait for her to see it in the morning.

Letterbox in the woods

There are so many letterboxes in our new town, which is exciting because it's a great way to learn our way around and find all the good parks and fun spots. Our first find here took us to a nature preserve not far away.



They had an amazing nature center totally geared for the kids. Bee and Lou spent an hour there and I had to drag them away when it was time.




They have 6 miles of trails. Hidden on one of them is a fun letterbox which we found in a hallow of a tree several paces off the trail.

They host a toddler program with stories, games, songs, and a craft. It was really a quality program. I have seen some average kids story times, but this was great.