Apples- the preschool kind

Here's a book we read at preschool this past week, and at home a dozen times. It's Ten Apples Up On Top by Theo LeSieg. One of my little guys was freaked out by the bears that chase the characters. He was acting just the same way Bee does when she gets nervous during a book. I assured him that everything was going to turn out ok. It's so funny that Bee (and this little guy) think that I would read them a book where the good characters were eaten by chasing bears. You never know with me.


After reading that, I read a class book that I had made up. I'm filling up a basket with class books. The kids love looking at pictures of their friends and picking out the familiar text.

If my little people had been a little older, or if I'd had more time in our day, I would have let them help choose how many apple stickers and help count and write the number in. I did all of this ahead of time.


Then, we danced and moved around the room (or yard- I make sure and test out everything with the neighborhood kids) with paper bag apples on our heads (then knees, tummy, shoulders, backs, etc). I painted paper bags on all four sides, filled them with scrunched up newspaper, twisted and tied them close. I put Hop Hop Hippity Hop by Five for Fighting/John Ondrasik/Jon Ondrasik. It's a fun song. (Can't find it anywhere online- sorry) Any song would work though.

We used the apples then to sing this song: (tune of twinkle twinkle)

Shiny Shiny apple red,
hanging high above my head. (reach apple high up)
On my tip toes reaching high, (on tip toes)
One last stretch, it's worth a try. (stretch!)
Shiny, Shiny apple red,
you were high above my head. (pick apple)
(then we can pretend to chomp and eat our apples)

We also played with apple scented playdough. It was scented with this:

There were some laminated apples in case the kids wanted to make worms for the apples. They of course were free to make whatever they wanted with the playdough.

The play dough was great when Lou and I tested it out... when I got it to school the next day is was mush. Wet smooshy mush. It was gross. A few boys were not bothered and dug right in. Lesson learned; always take extra flour, just in case.


I have this black glove with magnets on the finger tips. I mistakenly used way too strong magnets. The fingers stick together like crazy. It can be used with any little pieces with glued on paper clips. This one uses 5 red apple cutouts. This is the apple countdown rhyme that goes with my little apple pieces. (Mine sort of looks like this)

___ red apples hanging on a tree,
Apples always taste so good to me.
So, I shake the tree,
and one falls to the ground.
Now there are ___ red apples, juicy and round.

My glove looks like this, except it's black

I linked this at:
ABC123 show and tell #30

a night out and some yard sales and other news

Hubby and I celebrated 11 years of marriage on Saturday. We had a night out on Friday night including dinner at a wonderful new-to-us restaurant. It came highly recommended and we absolutely loved it. We will go back some day, but will never take the kids. It's one of those places. Then we went to a concert. It too was really good. It was at our church, but it was real people. Good people. Like, people on the radio. I wore the wrong shoes. We are clearly to old to be going to concerts.

Saturday, we did some garage sale (ing).

Hubby had the best buy of the day. He picked up these large bucket things for $2 a piece. He plans to organize the garage. More power to him. We have already sorted the recycling and garage toys in them.


I found two calendar tea towels (1979 and 1981) for 10 cents a piece. I'll be making coffee cozies out of them.


I picked up this 100% wool sweater which I planned to throw in the to-felt pile, but it's already been shrunk a little and fits well. I might wear it awhile first.


Lou is only wearing character shirts these days, much to my displeasure. We get such lovely hand me downs from a friend. He isn't as excited as me about those. He has two spiderman shirts and two toy story shirts that he will wear. That's all he will wear. I found two new t shirts at a sale and paid way too much at $1 each, but she wouldn't budge and I was a desperate mom. Now we have 6 shirts in the rotation.


Lou used his $1 wisely:
kick board- 50 cents and two cars and a bat man guy- 50 cents.


Bee didn't want her items photographed, but she got two things on her list (surprisingly!): pool flippers- 25 cents and water shoes- 50 cents.

In other news, Bee has learned to ride with no training wheels. She is really good!

Lou got a bike this weekend. Another good buy. We were at Goodwill looking for for parts for the Halloween costumes and saw this almost brand new bike for $10. A bike was going on his Christmas list, but we are all set now. He LOVES it. He's a crazy little biking man.

tags on coats

I don't know who designs children's coats, but they don't have kids. They've never picked up the same coat 47 times in one day and tried tirelessly to hang four jackets on top of each other. All kid's coats should have tags for hanging. I don't know why most don't. Kids have to hang their coats on hooks everywhere they go. If there is no tag, those coats just won't stay up.

So, we've been adding tags.

Simple cut a piece of ribbon a few inches long, touch the raw edges to a lit match and handstitch the ribbon to the coat.

Lou is the happy recipient on many hand me downs. The boy must have 17 jackets. They all have hangers now.



I bought the name labels last year here at this etsy shop. They have been great. Every sweater and jacket and coat that we wear and possibly take out of the house have been labeled.

I'm linking up to these fine blogs this week

fabric pumpkins

Here's a fall decor project that jumped in line ahead of other works in progress this weekend. I'm kinda like that. See it- have to make it.

It's these cute scrappy pumpkins from Gingercake.


I made them pretty much how she did, I changed up the bottom a little and didn't need to reinforce the stem like she did. I think I need to make a 3rd.

stack(s) of eye spy bean bags

Big order of eye spy bean bags went out this week (here's the tutorial I did last August). The girl I made them for collected all the trinkets for me. She also chose felt appliques for the backs.

She ordered one for each of her nieces and nephews and her own kids.


I think they turned out nice. I found a place online to order the trinkets, now I'll be able to list some in the shop! Here's the place I just ordered from on etsy. Out of the 50 trinkets that came, I'd say 95% were one I'd use... some were flat confetti/sequence things that would get lost in a eye spy bag.

Fall Sensory Box

We changed out the sensory box from the 'back to school' theme to fall. The beans have been replaced with acorns (this is the tip of the iceberg of our acorn collection!), the primary colored pom poms have been replaced with fall leaf colored ones. Some of the buckets and baskets and scooper have been replaced with different ones, just to change it up a bit.


I added a handful of buckeyes that I collected from my favorite spot on the Ball State campus. I threw them in a jar of fall stuff and have been moving them around from house to house for the last ten years. I'm glad they get a little use finally.

Lou helped me test it out at the nature center this week.

canned good cooking- italian beef hoagies

This week's "I Canned a whole LOTT, Now I'm Cooking In My Bistro" uses canned tomatoes.


Italian Beef Hoagies

1 pint canned tomatoes (Italian if you have them- If not using Italian tomatoes: add garlic, oregano, basil to taste)
1 small can tomato paste
1 roast (I used sirloin tip this time, but have used much cheaper roasts in the past and they've been great too)
Hoagie buns
mozzarella cheese

Place the tomatoes, paste and roast in crock pot.


Cook all day... like 8 hours give or take a few. The roast should just fall apart when you stir it. If it doesn't, you can shred it with a knife and fork.


Spoon onto bun and top with cheese. yum. There are always tons left for the next day or for friends.



Here are the others participating today:

a Latte' with Ott, A http://www.alattewithotta.blogspot.com

From Mess Hall to Bistro http://www.messhalltobistro.blogspot.com

me running the mini marathon

So, this is me running the mini marathon on Sunday morning. You may note that this picture does not include running shoes or appropriate running attire. There's no race number or other runners. Ok, so I'm not even in this picture. In fact, this photo was taken at my house and not along the 13.1 mile course. That's because that's where I was this morning... at home.


After the 10K I ran last month, I was really sick for the next two days. I've read it's called 'runners rot.' So I really slowed down on my mileage. It put me in a bad spot for the big race this weekend. About two weeks ago I knew that I either needed to really push myself for a few good long runs or... not. I decided that it just wasn't fun anymore... I have a few 5, 7, and 10K's on my list for the spring. As far as this Sunday morning: it was me and some homemade cinnamon rolls. I added some cream cheese in the icing. Good choice!