What an Honor!

Natalie at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns gave me two awards earlier this week!

I am so honored! :) I love her blog and make sure to read it every day. Her daughter and my son are very close in age and it seems we share a lot of the same parenting philosophies, which I love. I started blogging a little over a month ago and have already met so many great people.

First, this award:

The rules are I have to pass it on to 15 other blogs I have newly discovered and like to read. Well, I have a long list of blogs I enjoy reading, and I'll post the ones most newly discovered, but I'm afraid I can't come up with 15 right now. Most of the blogs I read are ones I've been reading for a long time. I'm not sure what the parameters are for "newly discovered", but I'm pretty sure it's not 2 years. :)

However, there are a few really great ones that are new (to me) that I will pass this award on to:

Learning Parade

Craft of the Day

Pink and Green Mama

The Bear Bunch

Superheroes and Princesses

My Two Happy Homeschoolers

All of these have great ideas and have been very inspiring to me as a mom of a toddler/almost preschooler. I love them!

The second award:

And the rules for this say I have to list 10 things about myself that you may or may not know. And THIS is the reason I haven't posted these awards yet. Sigh. I can not think of 10 things about myself that are even mildly interesting. However, I will give it a shot so I can mark this off my to do list. :)

1. I have been married to my husband for 10 years, and truly love him more now than I did on our wedding day (and I loved him a lot then!).

2. We suffered with infertility problems and several miscarriages for the first half of our marriage. It took us 6 1/2 years to finally have M, and even though he is almost 3 years old I still think about what a miracle it is to have him every. single. day. This is probably a little bit of "oversharing", but I'm mentioning it because I think sometimes I come across as bubbly and happy (and silly) and it can be a turn off to some people. I'm no stranger to suffering and grieving and I have grown in innumerable ways because of it. I just try to keep this blog as light as possible, but it's not the full "me".

3. I have an internet addiction. I can, and do, live without watching much TV, but I don't think I could manage if I didn't have my laptop.

4.I'm an avid reader, I'm always reading a book, usually 2 or 3 at the same time.

5. I drink a lot of Coke.

6. I left a very good, full time job to stay home with my son. And somehow I am much busier now than I've ever been before.

7. I love to play sudoku.

8. I love spicy, spicy, really spicy food!

9. I grew up in Montana, surrounded by mountains and sky. Now I live in Minnesota, where it's cold most of the year. We were cold in Montana, but somehow it wasn't so horrible to be cold there. (Can you tell I'm not a big MN fan?)

10. I'm double jointed. :)

I'm off to leave messages for the blogs I'm giving the award to. Have a good night!

How to Make a Great Sticker Book

I've made a smaller version of this (using a small photo album - the kind grandmas carry in their purses :) ) for M to take on car trips and it's been great. He loved this one even more!

You will need: 3-ring binder, peices of construction paper, patterned scrapbook paper, pictures from magazines or calendars, page protectors (not shown, sorry!):

Make a "title page" and insert it into the binder's cover. Or, if you don't have a binder with a clear pocket on the front, simply use permament markers to create a title:

Simply use a variety of papers and pictures and put them in sheet protectors. If you have some small pictures, use double-stick tape to stick them onto colored paper and then into the page protector. I used two pictures/papers for each page protector - they slide in a lot more easily if it's doubled, and you also get a different picture on each side. Next, stick the pages into your binder, and a few sheets of stickers into the front pocket. These pictures were taken after a little play because M insisted on having it right away:

Here's a picture of the inside pocket:

It really looked much neater before he got his hands on it, but I didn't straighten it up before taking pictures because I wanted you to see how much he really loved it. He played with it for a long time and carried it around with him for days. The stickers (mostly) peel right off of the page protectors so they can be used again and again.

Obviously M didn't really care about the pictures, the fun for him was simply putting the stickers on and off. But for an older child there's a lot they can do with creating sticker scenes with the various backgrounds.

A tip for young children who have a hard time getting the stickers off by themselves: remove the sticky part on the sticker page that goes around the stickers and then show them how to bend the paper and peel off a sticker. It makes it sooo much easier for them!

This was super simple to make, and actually a lot of fun for me too! And it's keeping him entertained, which is such a great thing for all of us!

Enjoy! And have a beautiful day! :)