Our "Under the Sea" Halloween

 Duh, I'm a jellyfish (and I light up, which was cooler in the dark)

 My little turtle boy (he insisted that the shell I made be able to carry his candy, which it did)

 My sassy little mermaid (she LOVES the colored wigs for some reason)


Our trunk-or-treat decorations.  Unfortunately it was about 4 degrees outside so she and I both froze!

The House that Boys Built

My little guy got a neat building set from the Diamond family for Christmas and he has been begging his daddy to construct it with him ever since he got it in the house. Finally today Daddy had time to build with him. Daddy played supervisor and let our little guy do most of the work. Not too shabby, eh?

What to Make

DON'T EAT THIS!!!!

THIS IS A CRAFT, NOT A FOOD!!!

But it's still fun to make. Who wouldn't love HOMEMADE SLIME?!?!?

Here's what you need:
2 Bowls
Part A:
3/4 c warm water
1 c white glue
green food coloring
Part B:
4t Borax
1 1/3 c warm water

Mix Part A ingredients in Bowl #1.
Mix Part B ingredients in Bowl #2.
Pour contents of Bowl #1 into Bowl #2 and let sit - DO NOT STIR - for 1 minute.

That's it, your slime is good to goo! We found this fun tip on the familyfun website and the kids had a blast playing with it. If it congeals just microwave it for a few seconds. Other than that, easy cheesy lemon squeezy. Both kids and their daddy loved making this. It was perfect for little hands and big ones too.

Easter Egg Playdate

We had such a fun time visiting with friends at Aiden & Ethan's house this week. The kids played on the trampoline, played in the sand box, played on the teeter totter, played in the yard, had treats, and oh yeah, decorated Easter eggs too. It was great to see lots of friends get together and spend time in the sunshine. Thank you to our hosts and all the friends who came to play.

Our New Buddy, Webster

Spider Craft

We made a cute little craft with the kiddos yesterday. First, we took a black paper plate and punched holes around the outside. Then we took white yarn and strung it through the holes back and forth to look like spider webs and to finish it off we glued on some puff ball and pipe cleaner spiders. Here's the finished product for each kid:

Snowflake Craft

We have a playdate today to make these fun snowflakes that are easy and pretty when done. All you need is paper, scizzors and a stapler (with staples of course).

1: take your paper and cut it into a square (size is irrelevant). You will ultimately need six of these squares so either do it all up front or as you go.

2: fold the square into half, making a triangle.

3: fold the triangle into half, making a smaller triangle.

4: cut the 5-6 slits into the triangle, starting from the single fold side, stopping the slit about 1" from the double fold side.
5: unfold the triangle and it should look something like this:
6: Take the outermost strips from both sides and fold them over, stapling them together at their outermost points.
7: Take the next outermost points and fold them over on the OTHER SIDE, stapling them together at their outermost points. Repeat alternating with remaining strips, leaving center diamond in tact.

8: Do steps #1-7 five more times then staple them together at the center and outermost strips to make your snowflake!Thanks Nana for the great idea!

Homemade Soaps

I recently reconnected with several old friends on Facebook. One of them, a lady who was a grade ahead of me in high school, introduced me to the amazing world of homemade soaps (Thanks Mary!). I'm not referring to the bar kind (which she does do but I'm not that devoted). What I have made for myself is dishwasher detergent, laundry soap, a soap to replace my 409 and soap to replace my Comet. Not only was it very easy but they work great and it saves loads on the cost of normal soaps. Here's how they're made:

1) Dishwashing Detergent : equal parts of Borax, Washing Soda & Cascade (additional hint: White vinegar works better than Jet Dry in your rinse cycle valve).
2) 409 : Mix 1t Borax + 2T white vinegar + 1c hot water then shake. Pour this into a 32 oz spray bottle and add water until it's about to the fill line. Add 1/8c Dawn dishwashing detergent and allow it to diffuse on it's own (don't shake).
3) Comet : Put 4 parts baking soda + 1 part borax into a shaker.
4) Laundry Soap: (This one's a little more involved) grate up a bar of Fels Naptha laundry soap, melt it into a pot with 4 cups boiling water. Fill a 5 gallon pail halfway with hot tap water, add melted soap, 1c washing soda, and 1/2c borax. Stir til dissolved. Fill bucket rest of the way with hot tap water. Cover with lid and allow to set overnight. In the morning, stir and fill a clean laundry container half full with soap- fill the rest of the way with water. This makes A LOT of soap - I'm talking 6 months worth!

I've also heard you can make a Windex replacement out of equal parts rubbing alcohol, white vinegar, and water but haven't tried that one yet. I hope you try at least one of these soaps out. The Comet replacement and dishwasher soap are the easiest so try those first if you're not sure whether it's for you. I LOVE THEM and may never use storebrand soaps again.

Why buy the ___ when the ___ is free?

No, not milk & cows....I'm talking about green onions! I'm sure you read my post from yesterday and know by now that I grow my own green onions (aka chives), but did you know that you can do it for super cheap and SUPER easy? Here's what you do:

Buy a bunch of green onions from your local grocery store (stay with me here), use what you want of the tops for potatoes or salads or whatever and then when all that is left is about an inch of green above the bulb, bury it somewhere so that the greens are all that stick up from the ground. Water regularly. As anyone who knows me already knows, I HATE to water things and in fact, am worthless without my sprinkler system (with the few exceptions of plants on my deck that stare at me every morning). So I just put my chive bulbs in a small planter and plopped it down in the middle of my vinca (which is already on sprinkler timers) and VOILA! I bought ONE bunch of chives last spring and have not had to buy another since. They grow back super fast so you always have a plentiful supply and we should know because we use them on everything. I just go out and harvest some with scizzors any time a recipe calls for them and it regrows itself for the next recipe. Why buy chives when the ones in your garden are free?

Shake it Baby!

We did an easy and fun craft today that I thought those of you with kids might like to try. All the supplies that you need are:
-empty, dry water bottle
-paper
-crayons
-tape
-glue
-rice or popcorn or beans or marbles (or any other pebbles)

1)Cut the paper into 4X11 (printer paper folded lengthwise)
2)Have your little darlings color the paper with crayons
3)Tape the paper around the outside of the water bottle
4)Fill the bottle with rice/popcorn/beans, etc.
5)Glue around the inside of the bottle cap and screw it on tightly to the bottle
6)Give it to your little one, turn on some music and watch your little one shake it!

Fun on the Cheap

We were visiting Nana and Grandpa the other day and as we drove up to their driveway I saw that they had put out the trash. Not that this is an unusual occurrence, but on this particular day they had included FIVE big cardboard boxes to be recycled. As most moms know, a good cardboard box is equal to about 10-20 minutes of occupied kid time. After some quick math in my head I was all aflutter with the idea that I could make the kids a fort out of the boxes and if there were five of them then that may add up to almost an hour of play for the little ones. Nana was happy to sacrifice the boxes to the mother's sanity fund and the very next day my kids spent not one but TWO hours puttering around their newly found fortress. The best part is that it cost me all of about 30 cents in masking tape. I made a maze with some windows and a hole to pop your head up out which both kids enjoyed. Ah - sweet harmony - it's enough to put smiles on everyone's faces, if only for a little while...

Twirling Sticks

After making my princess some petticoats (see previous craft post) I had lots of ribbon scraps and several fake flower stems left over. Basically it's a stiff wire with green plastic coating over it. I wasn't sure what to do with them but figured they had to be good for something. Here's what I did:
Trim the plastic off of one end of the fake flower stem. Take about a yard or so of ribbon and tie it to the exposed wire end of the stem. Fold the wire over the ribbon knot and then wind it around the top of the stem to hold the ribbon securely. That's it! For a couple of them I added extra different colors & sizes of ribbon for more flare. Simple, sure, but I'll tell you that both of my kids play with them constantly. Of course, she dances with them and he pretends it's a whip (don't worry, they're too soft to hurt) or a fishing pole, but play is play, right?

PS-I suppose this would also make a great cat chase toy but we don't own cats so you'll have to test that out on your own.

Tutu Cute

Every little girl loves a big twirly skirt and what better way to give her that than with a tutu? So while Grandma & Aunti were visiting, we made three of them (pink, lt green & orange) for my little ballerina. I still have the materials for 3 more but we'll see how long it takes to finish them. Not only are they fun on their own as skirts, but they also give lift to every dress she owns so now she wears them virtually every day. What follows here is how to make them - no pattern and minimal cutting necessary.Measure your child's waist (mine's was 20"). You will need some fake flower petals, thread and 1.5 times the waist length (so I used about a yard) of each of the following: - toole (double this) - sheer - ribbon - soft flannel - 1" non-roll elastic (only waist length necessary, not 1.5X, so I used 20")

1) put a finished edge on 3 sides of the flannel (I used my serger on a regular stitch).
2) put a finished edge on opposite sides of the sheer (I used my serger and did a rolled hem).
3) layer the salvage edges of the folded over toole on top of the flannel, leaving about 2" of flannel for the waist. You should now have 5 layers (4 toole + 1 flannel) of salvage edges together.
4) layer the sheer on top of the toole, again with one of the two salvage edges at the waist.
5) fold over the flannel to make a waistband including all 4 layers of toole and the layer of sheer.
NOTE: We didn't really use a yard of the flannel, it was a straight skirt (20") so we had to gather the sheer & toole separately. This does two things, makes the waistband less bulky but it also adds difficulty and time to the process.

6) pin & sew the flannel to the toole & sheer into the flannel waistband.
7) insert the elastic into the waistband (thus gathering the layers) and sew shut.
NOTE: if you sew shut the back seam then the skirt won't twirl out/up as well. Since you've roll hemmed the sheer it will still look finished. I sewed shut the flannel at this point so she could wear it on it's own without shorts under it, but you don't have to.

8) fold up the sheer and sew it to itself using the ribbon to hide the hem (mine were about 4").
NOTE: you want the sheer to be the longest of the layers.

9) fill the sheer hem with the fake flower petals, making sure the spread them out evenly then sew shut.
10) give it to your little ballerina and watch her test out it's twirl-ability.

Here's a diagram of the layers for your reference. Blue is flannel, red is sheer, black is toole, purple is ribbon, green is where to sew layers together and yellow is elastic.

Ribbon Trees

This year, I went to a craft fair-type-thing with a friend of mine and took home the cutest idea. It was the perfect craft for our little girl to help me with so we made three and gave them to our three local grandmas. Unfortunately for her two grandmas who are out of state, they don't travel far very well or we'd have made five of them.
You only need 4 things and you can get all of them from your local craft store:
1) ribbon - have your toddler pick out 5-6 rolls of coordinating spools
2) a foam cone
3) a terra cotta pot
4) a box of pins
Here's what you do: Wrap the ribbon around your 3 middle fingers and cut it by your thumb & pinky finger so that you wind up with lots of pieces that are 3-4" long. Give all of the pieces to your toddler and let him/her play with them long enough that they get really mixed up (it shouldn't take long). Ask your toddler to pick a piece of fabric. They'll come to you randomly, which is what you want. Wrap the fabric in a circle and use the pin to stick it to the cone. Repeat this until the entire cone is covered in ribbon circles. If you are so inclined, use a dowel to secure the cone to the pot or a hot glue gun to adhere it. I didn't do this because I wanted it to be able to be stored more easily. That's it! Easy cheesy and it's basically the toddler's creation since they picked the ribbon and order that they were attached. I think they turned out SO cute and my little sweetheart was excited all week about giving them to her grandmas. We signed & dated the bottom of the pot for a little personalization but I suppose you could have the toddler decorate it too.