baby booties

I found this blog, All for this Penny awhile back and have really been enjoying it. She's a sew(er) and a crafter in general. She is really into re purposing clothes. We're practically BFFs, she just doesn't know me yet. She shared some baby slipper that she made recently from a pattern she purchased from etsy.

I don't have any little people who need slippers these days, but when she shared them a second time, I went right on over to Mon Petit Violon and bought a pattern for these two button moccasins, the one strap baby booties, and the baby boy hat. Baby gifts, they're for baby gifts. Not intended for personal use. They're almost cute enough to justify night wakings though. Almost.

My slipper are not the same size. I think for each successful pair, I'll probably have to make 3-4 slippers and find the two that best match! I did pick up a smaller crochet hook and some thinner yarn. It's darn near impossible to work with... but I have a long car ride to work on it this week.

Sushi- third try is the charm

Last weekend my sister came over and we made sushi. It was try number three for me, and the best try yet. I'm getting there.

We cooked the rice using this method. We seasoned the rice by adding some sugar dissolved in rice wine vinegar. It's based on this recipe from the pioneer woman. We did roll this one longways, but the rest were rolled starting at the short side (like seen here on Sew Cute) and we liked it better that way.

It turns out my sister has some sushi rollin skills. That new rolling mat made a world of difference (thanks again Amanda!).

We included salmon this time, it was good although next time I'll use a better cut of it.

Alright, that's it. I have thoroughly discussed it and don't plan to write about it any more. Plus, it takes me hungry.

1st of the season

Too bad I'm not saying this about something picked from my garden, but it's still the first of the season. It's garage sale season. Bee and I stumbled upon this great garage sale this past weekend.

The one specific item I'm looking for right now are items for Bee's tea party birthday party (that is not until July). I lucked out and found three pretty little table clothes/table runners for her guest's little tables. One prized find was the little beaded purse that had a pair of little girl gloves inside. The saleslady said that she got these when she was a flower girl in a wedding. I'm not sure how old she was, but she said she had just retired. She said it was time for this treasure to be passed on.

Now, I'm clearly not in love with cat hoop decoration, but I did love getting a wooden hoop for 50 cents. I have already ripped out the cat quote and have a wooden hoop waiting for a project. The biscuit cutters are going to be better than the top of a glass, which is what I usually use for making biscuits or round rolled out about cookies. Another 50 cents well spent. The little bitty containers were just too cute to put back. I am not sure what will fit in them and I think I've already lost one lid, but they are fun.

Bee has almost worked her way through the stationary box I made her for Christmas. We found this tremendous box of stationary and cards for $5. I didn't want to pay that much, but the lady kept throwing in more stationary. There were several gems in there which I rescued for myself. Bee of course thought they were all great.

Ahhh- and the season is just beginning. Are you a garage sale shopper?

3 Bunny Crafts

We had our meeting at the nature center to plan out the crafts for the next quarters toddler sessions. The kids and I made up some sample crafts for each theme. Here are the three we made for rabbits. It's animal themed, not holiday related... even though it's this week's crafts. That's totally different.

This one involves a t-p roll. We like projects that involve t-p tubes... This cutie even has a little puff ball tail. I cut out all the pieces for 60 kids and my hands are sore. 

This one is the kids hands traced and cut for the grass. The bunny could be made from paper like this one of from a small white paper plate.

This last one is a kid's hand traced with the pinky and ring finger together and then the middle finger and pointer to one side. the thumb is forgotten in this bunny head. We decided that this one was too fast and our kids are too little to draw on faces that would be recognizable.

 
I haven't been sharing much about the nature center this year. It mostly because I take the camera, but I actually have kids that come each week now. We started with 3-5 kids each week. Last week I had 20! I forget the camera is even there!

just a short

Just leaving you with this today. I have more Easter orders than I know what to do with right now and there are actual events on our calendar this weekend. A welcome change for sure. I forgot that Indiana pretty much shuts down for the winter. This is finally a busy weekend for us. Just leaving you with this short video today.

Wish I had gotten more of the swim- she's just too fast and she only promised me one good swim for the video. She is finally getting it all together. Using both arms, body out, face in. I'm a proud mama. On a side note- we found most friends in FL had kids that swam well very early, but here in IN, Bee is one of the youngest kids we see actually swimming at our pool. 

Bird painting and other Easter ish things

This is sort of a randomness of spring post.

First, let me say that this warm weather and playing outside is wearing us out! Both kids said they wanted to lay on the couch instead of eating dinner. For once, hubby and I didn't fight the kids not wanting to be at the table. Instead we enjoyed our alone dinner like it was a date. Things were very quiet in the other room...and then we found two kids OUT! They both peed on the couch shortly later.


This was out first spring in this house and were hoping for some surprises in the yard. We were delighted to have several patches of daffodils. These guys are of some miniature variety.

We have picked hundreds. There are still many out there to be picked.

I had to include this picture. I returned from the store to find the camera out one day. Hubby (still home recovering from back surgery) had been taking pictures of the squirrels. These silly guys were using their tails as umbrellas.

There has been so much tree climbing. I've been doing some climbing too! I have a scrapped up elbow to show for it too! This is currently Lou's favorite shirt. He has worn it for the past three days. I have told hubby that he needs to stop doing so much laundry. This seems to have become a hobby since being home with us.

Bee likes to show off her mad climbing skills.

We've been doing some spring decorating. That poor St. Patrick's stuff only gets a few days out, then it's time for Easter decorations.

The dollar store had these little birds. I had an idea to give them a light blue washing of paint. When the kids saw me get out the supplies though and they jumped all over it and took over my project. Lou painted his bright blue and Bee painted hers bright yellow.

We sort of have a Easter/spring/bird theme going on on our mantel right now. Look closely and you'll see my light blue bird, Bee's yellow bird, but no Lou's blue bird. He's squirreled it away in his room. I'll have to post a picture of his night stand drawer some time. That's where he hides away 'his' treasures. I'm pretty sure the missing coaster is somewhere in there.

The kids and I did some planting in the garden about two weeks ago now but nothing has come up. We are baffled. The neighbors might suspect us of having buried a body in the backyard. Our small garden plot is amusing and slightly suspicious.

Breakfast pizza

The other night I made rolls and ended up with some extra dough. I could have made them into more rolls of course, but everything else was ready and our people were in their seats ready to eat. You don't mess with that. So I threw the extra dough in a bowl and in the fridge.

The next morning I kept thinking about it. It was a gym day, so I set the dough out on the counter before I left and let it come to room temp. When I got back the peeps were just waking. I rolled out the dough and baked it for about 10 minutes. I scrambled a few eggs and kinda chopped them in little bitty pieces while cooking them. I added some cheddar cheese on top and stuck it back in the oven until the cheese was melted.

If we weren't stick in the mud, I think I would have added salsa under the eggs and maybe some onions and bacon to the egg mix. But- we are sticks in the mud. Either way, it was super yummy. Next time, I'll use our pizza crust recipe, but the roll dough made a good crust too.

Palm Sunday plans

Last year, my church did something special with the adults for Palm Sunday. I can't remember now how it all worked out, but I had a group 3-5 year olds for about 1 hour and 45 minutes. I came up with loads of activities and games to work on for the time.

We read the story Jesus Enters Jerusalem. This is an Arch book that I picked up for less than $3 at the Christian book store. We talked about the main events in the story and broke it down into 5 events. There are activities that go with each event and then a book to complete at the end.

1. Disciples untied the donkey

- We made donkey paper bag puppets. We pretended to untie the donkey and lead them down a path.

2. Clothes were put on the donkey

-I had a large donkey drawn on poster board and pretty good sized clothing items drawn on and cut out of construction paper. We played pin the clothes on the donkey.

3. wave palm branches, shout hosanna

-I drew large palm branches on large sheets of paper. The let the kids sponge paint on the branches and then we cut them out and waved them around.

4. palm branches on the ground

-We took real palm branches (cut fresh from my FL backyard!) and walk around the hall and laid them out.

5. sing praises

-worked on memory verse sheet (water colored it) -sang the song 'Off we go to Jerusalem' (I can't find the words right now, but I'm looking) This was not the memory verse I would have chosen for this week, but I went with the verse from the classes regular curriculum for that week.

Then we worked on the books I made up (there was the opportunity on the pages for more coloring, but this was Bee's pre-enjoying coloring in the lines - she doesn't like to be told where to color.)

Here are the pages to the book- I just found coloring sheets and clip art online. Some from here and here (sorry this was pre-blogging and didn't save my sites) and combined them with some simple text. I don't have it in a word doc or I'd be happy to send it out. If you're local and want a copy, I do have a blank one you could make photo copies of.

1. Jesus sent two disciples to untie a certain baby donkey. (We glued little yellow strips of paper down as straw)


2. They put clothes and robes over the donkey. (Glued paper clothes on the donkeys back- apparently Bee's donkey is well dressed)

3. Jesus rode the baby donkey into Jerusalem. The crowd put clothes and palm branches on the ground. (glued green tissue paper over the palm branches)

4. The crowd of people cheered and shouted 'Hosanna.' (glued on speech bubbles that said Hosanna)

5. Jesus loves to hear our praise. (drew pictures of ourselves and glued on speech bubbles that said "Glory to God," "praise God" and "Hosanna.")

I have to do things like this to get my teaching fix in. I plan to make a series of other bible story book for my kids. I've been planning that for some time now though. Here's the Christmas one we made this year.

we're ready for the humingbirds

This may seem like an odd timed post (another one is coming this week) but it's not (unlike the other). I didn't realize that the humming birds are coming through the country right now on their northern migration. I usually only think to put the humming bird feeder out in mid summer to early fall for the birds as they slowly migrate to Mexico. I guess it makes sense that they come back through at some point!

I stumbled upon a great website that shows ruby throated hummingbird spottings as they head north. Using this map, we located the approximate time for the first northern migrating hummingbirds. The kids found this map and the past several years maps really interesting. They could be coming to our area this next week.

 
The feeder is out and we are waiting! These pictures are from last summer.

On a side note, we finally spotted a golden finch. They were supposedly in our area all winter, but we didn't see a single one. We saw him twice today. Oh- forgot again that I hated birds.

 
Here are our other finches that we have enjoyed all winter. We have two pairs that visit together. I thought the red was a different kind than the brown ones, but the boys are the red ones and the plain ones are the girls. 

April donation item

I'm torn on whether to post about the items I make for donations. I think that if I do, it might help keep me accountable. I decided that this year I would make and donate at least 1 item a month. So far, it's been easy finding something that needed donations. In fact, I haven't had to seek anything out, the opportunities have just come to me. I have already finished April's. I'm thinking it's OK to count this as Aprils item since it's for a charity auction in April and March's item is done and delivered. This lovely little apron will be part of a silent auction for a school in town.

Want to go to the park?

We're going to the park- it's the Audubon State Park.
Eat a good breakfast, you'll want to have lots of energy.

There will be dancing at the boat dock.
Sliding on things that are not slides. Ouch.

If you're lucky, there will be a little cuddling.

Plenty of exploring.

If there's a playground, we'll find it.

Swinging of course.

We could bring our fishing poles, or maybe save that for next time.

There's even a 'castle.'

Lou will be our tour guide.

There will be lots of bird watching.

We'll even go inside the turret part of the building.

If all the lady bugs bother you, just smash them? No, Lou!

There's a lot inside the building that you can't photograph, like the art museum and the largest collection of Audubon paintings, artifacts, and prints. When daddy's back is better, we are headed out on their trails. Hopefully no one will afraid of spiders or bears. My scaredy cats have ruined many a hike worrying about spiders and bears. Oh my.