cough cough sniff sniff

T2 is under the weather today and home from preschool. All she wants to do is snuggle under a blanket on the couch and watch TV - therefore - not much going on around here today!

Warms my heart

T2 has recently taken to calling me "my sweet lov-eh-lyyyyyyy". I have no idea where she got it from. The other evening she called me "sweet lovely delight" I think it's super cute but I think 'de-heavy' might be more appropriate for me right now!!

Snow painting

Another must for this winter. Here's T2 and her friends painting and 'glittering' the snow last Winter

Valentine's Day of old

I was browsing through old pictures and found this Valentine's Day shirt I made with a much younger T2 (I used to have a home based daycare so I did one with each of my little daycare girls).

I painted the shirts to look like a package with a bow on, using fabric paint. I printed onto transfer paper a label which said "Happy Valentine's Day from name" to look like a gift tag. Then each child did red finger painting on the shirt for the wrapping paper. I made these with them ahead of time and put them on under their coats when it was time to go home on valentine's day so their parents would get an extra special gift when they got them home!

After dinner fun

Last night I picked up some natural modeling clay. Tonight after dinner, I divided it into 4 and we set about trying to create something with it. T2 chose not to join in but happily watched.







T1's 'T'



G's bowl



A paw print from Huds



My heart bowl and braid.





It's pretty clear there's no future in pottery/sculpture for me!!



We'll paint and clear coat them when they are dry.

*~*Post 100*~*

Woah - my 100th post!

Yesterday was a write off after a 2 for 1 at ER on Sunday. G fell on Saturday night while holding T2 and badly sprained his ankle and T1 has a weird toe infection which flared up and seems unresponsive to meds. There's no wound on the outside so we have no idea what's wrong with it. Anyway, yesterday both my guys were home. Today T2 went back to school but G remains at home for the remainder of the week to heal. T2 had preschool but was sent home because pink eye suddenly appeared after I dropped her off. I arrived less than an hour later to be greeted by a very sad little girl with one eye almost shut with redness and watering. She wasn't sad about her eye but about having to leave school without her best friend K.

We did a couple of errands and finished up at Blockbuster so she could rent a DVD for later.

At home we decided to try florist foam prints. An idea I saw in one of my craft books but can't quite remember which one (I will keep looking so I can credit the author). I bought the florist foam at the dollar store so it was not exactly best quality and therefore extra fragile and crumbly but T2 and I had fun carving patterns in the foam pieces (I sliced it with a sharp knife into small blocks before we carved patterns in them). We tried dipping the blocks into paint but decided we preferred painting the paint on with a foam paint 'brush'. The results were not exactly great but it was fun to try!

: )

Hey, why not introduce yourself ?!?!?! I'd love to know who you are!

Never too old for finger painting...

K came for a playdate today. She usually only comes after preschool but was coming for the whole day so we had lots of extra playtime. I decided we would do some good old finger painting - sometimes as kids get older and more able to control a paintbrush or sponge or stamp, things like finger painting and being able to feel the paint squish between their fingers become a thing of the past. I realized we hadn't done any in a while so we set to work. I like to squirt the paint directly on the surface and then gently press a piece of paper over the masterpiece to get prints so that is what we did......

Yesterday.....

It was just T2 and I at home yesterday and I was stuck for ideas. I though of painted feet penguin pictures but then realized I had no black paint so that will have to wait for another day. T2 wanted to play with her chicks which she rediscovered in the cupboard. I realized that she has been enjoying these chicks for 3 years now. She used to shake them and drool on them, then she would put the shell tops on and has since learned how to put each egg in it's correct place (the bottoms are shaped differently) and to match the shells correctly (each chick has a different pair of eyes and they are also on it's shell top.) I think they have been one of our most played with toys.

We did a little pencil control practice - she can do a good job tracing over the letters of her name which takes a while because there are 8 letters.





Then we had a snowball fight. An indoor snowball fight. I made these snowballs (still a few more to make but I ran out of yarn) using a small circular loom. I loomed using a craft store styrofoam ball as a filler. I basically loomed a tube and threaded yarn through the open ends and pulled them tight enclosing the ball. The fuzzy yarn has a nice feel to it and they are light and pretty fun to toss around. We mostly just aimed them into a basket.



Today is a school day so I should be working my way through a list of chores - or I could enjoy the tranquility of an empty house and work on a project.......

Today T2 figured out how to (kind of) draw around something to use it as a stencil. She was so pleased with herself! The little hand mirror was her chosen object.

Sugar sugar

After dinner this evening we tried to build Igloos from sugar cubes. It was fun balancing the cubes. T2 built a tower, G manages an Igloo with a roof and no door, I managed an entrance but no roof and T1 decided to replicate the Colosseum. It was fun and a nice quiet activity to spend a few extra minutes at the kitchen table before beginning the evening routine of baths and showers.

Sugar, glorious sugar!




Here's T2 working on hers





G's doorless Igloo



My roofless Igloo




T1s Colosseum



Down it came



Debris



We're recycling the sugar cubes by passing them onto a friend to build Igloos with her kids : )

Wanting....wishing......waiting.....

We have seen a house we like with this view. I want it so badly that I can't think about anything else. I can't settle. I am totally consumed with thoughts of us living there.....

Afternoon 'doings'

Nap time is drawing to a close in our house. T1 stopped napping the same week he turned 3, T2 is 3.5 and still needs to nap - not everyday but about every third day. Today was not one of those days but she did have 'quiet' time in her room for a while with her books, doll house and stuffed animals.

After nap time, she chose to colour a couple of fish pictures, prompted by her ice fishing this morning! Her colouring is becoming more controlled and expressive.

Then we spent some time working with our Fun Thinkers which T2 loves. T1 does too - he has the grade 3 book. I just noticed we put the 16 round the wrong way ::blush::

Afterwards we played Zingo . T2 had never played this before and loved it, so we'll play this often from now on!

From one extreme to another....

Today we went ice fishing! It's even colder today so perfect for some ice fishing. It's easy - all you need are: a container to hold the water, packing tape/clear wrap/contact paper, toy fishing rod and fish.

Fill container about 2/3 full with water, add a couple drops blue food colouring or paint (optional)
Add fish.
Tape across the top of container.
Cut hole in tape - reinforce opening with more tape if necessary.
Go fish!

I added snow to the top but only because we have plenty to spare!!