Art / Craft Time – Leaf Guys

Last week our planned art project was a flop and I ended up deciding to not even post about it.  The very next day I saw the cutest little leaf people that my (real life) friend Jill made with her 2 oldest kids, and knew right away that we’d have to make these too. :)  I’ve seen this little project on blogs before but for some reason didn’t think M would be interested.

Turns out he’s interested.  After we made the first bunch, pictured in this post, he made more the next day, and the day after that!  This was definitely a big hit and if you’ve never done it with your kiddos, I highly recommend it!

Here’s how I had it set up: Sometimes I like to just set up a project and leave it until he notices it and asks, “What are we going to do?!” :)  It’s like a little surprise and makes him more eager to do it.  You’ll need colored paper, a marker for drawing in details, glue, and googley eyes.  M also wanted scissors once we started putting the leaves on the papers, so he could cut off stems or cut leaves in half.

Grab a basket and go outside to find some freshly fallen leaves.  You don’t want crunchy ones that will fall apart when you press them onto the paper.  Also pick dandelions if you see them – they make great earrings or eyes!Enjoy a little fall sunshine while you are at it:

The weather was just cool enough for him to need his new little mama-made hat with a pom-pom. :) 

Bring your leaves inside and start creating! 

       

This was so much fun!  I hope you try this with your kids!

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Please keep this in your thoughts and prayers - UPDATE

I published the post below a little over a week ago, and just wanted to give a quick update for those of you who have been praying for John.  His surgery went very well and they were able to remove the entire primary tumor (yay!).  However, the cancer was at one time in almost every single bone in his body (including face and skull), and he will be undergoing another round of chemo within the next week or so.  He'll have radiation at some point in the future also.  And, for the very hard part, the medical team will destroy his bone marrow and then transplant stem cells from his own body that they gathered earlier.  During this time they'll have to be in total isolation for 60 days... with a newborn too!  I can't imagine how difficult this will be on their family, so please continue to keep them in your prayers.

Many of you commented or emailed me asking if there is something you could do.  I'm waiting to hear back from John's mom about this.  There is a bank account set up for donations to help defray costs.  If you are interested in this, email me (tiredneedsleep(at)q(dot)com), and I'll give you the information if I *know* you (ie we've emailed each other before or have been following each others blogs for a while, etc.)

Thanks so much for your prayers, I know they are truly appreciated!

A highschool classmate of mine has a little boy named John, who is 3 years old.  He’s cute, funny, sweet… and he has cancer.  3 years old.  My eyes well up just thinking about it. 
I’ve been following along on their journey as they battle this horrible sickness.  They’ve had to leave their 2 girls in Montana with grandparents while they’ve been in Seattle with John for the past several months as he undergoes some pretty serious treatments.  He’s had 5 rounds (I think) of chemo so far, and has made some good progress, although the chemo itself has taken a toll on him, as you can imagine. 
When they found out he had cancer it was already in stage 4, not good.  Can you imagine your sweet baby this sick?  Or the stress of living apart from family, in a single room of a Ronald McDonald house for months?  Not only this, but his mama (my classmate) is almost 8 months pregnant.
John’s last scan showed some improvement after all the chemo.  And he is scheduled for surgery Monday morning.  The hope is that the tumor is now small enough for the surgeons to get all of it out.
So, if you are a pray-er, and I know many of you are, please keep this little boy in your prayers tonight and tomorrow morning.  I will post again once I have heard how everything went.  Thank you!

The Art Box – Oct. 18, 2010

No picture of the Art Box this week.  We all just need to just be ok with that, don’t you think?  ;)

But I do remember what M had in there:  regular tempera paints, watercolor paints, paper, glue, scissors, tape, stickers, markers, some empty ribbon spools, and red and gold glitter glue.  Also, some collage items: pom poms, buttons, googley eyes, confetti, beads, dyed macaroni.  These are the staples we usually go with (except for the glitter glue and ribbon spools), so nothing too exciting!

He is LOVING his new art strings.  All four of them are practically full at this point, and there’s still art taped to the walls in random areas.  Since the purpose of the art strings was to minimize the amount of art randomly taped to the walls throughout the house, I’d have to say they have been a huge failure.

However, did I mention that he LOVES the art strings?  So, my guess is he’s going to be asking for more art strings, and then our house will look like… I don’t know… like the reason why Mama is crazy, I guess.  Sigh.

Anyway – on to what he made this week…

Another birthday present for Daddy (in addition to the collage last week):

 

I sent M packing on his first guilt trip, and asked him why he never makes anything for Mommy, even though I had a birthday last week too.  I made him feel bad and got these two pieces of artwork out of it:

 Those are hearts!  Cute, no? 
I don’t see any hearts on Daddy’s artwork! Hee Hee.

And another heart with a very cute smiley face.  An M for M and an M for Mommy. :)  Now I’m happy.
Although, I’m not sure, but I think he just used scrap paper for mine – see the chunks cut out?

Some art string artwork:

Experimenting with white on red:

This is my favorite:

The next one is my least favorite.  Can you see the face with a frown on it in the lower left?  That was because Mommy was crabby that day (I asked him about it and that’s what he said!).  You can imagine how awful that made me feel.  However, it does go to prove that he’s able to work out his feelings with his art, and in my mind that’s one of the most important and beneficial things about art in early childhood.  And he was better able to talk about his feelings when referring to the art he’d made.  And of course, there was a big lesson for me there too:  I’M A BAD MOMMY.

Oh wait, maybe it’s more like I’LL TRY TO BE A BETTER MOMMY AND GET MORE SLEEP. ;)   

If you have a kid's art post, link it up below! Be sure to link back here somewhere in your post.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Review – Masquerade by Nancy Moser

This was a fun and fast read for me.  I really enjoyed the story of two friends switching places. 

Charlotte is the heiress of a once-wealthy English family, whose father has made some bad decisions in both business and morals.  Charlotte is offered marriage into one of New York’s wealthiest families and sets sail for America with Dora, who is her maid and confidante.

It is Charlotte’s idea for the two girls to trade positions, and Dora willingly goes along with it, thinking this is her chance to live the life of those she has always had to serve.


Both girls face serious dilemmas as they carry out their deceptive plan.  Charlotte has her money and jewels stolen and ends up living with an Italian family in some of the worst tenements in the city.  She learns about the needs of the poor and her eyes are opened to their plight in a way she’d never imagined.  Dora struggles with guilt as she learns to care for the man she (as Charlotte) is supposed to marry, and is pulled between him and another man she met aboard ship on their way to America.

This book gives a good account of how life was for many immigrants in the latter part of the 19th century.  It also helps one see the foolishness of trying to be anyone other than who one is, and the hurt that can be caused when deceiving others.

This was a good story, historically accurate, with many layers of wisdom in its pages.   I thoroughly enjoyed it and definitely recommend it!

Thank you to Bethany House for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book to review.   
 

What we are reading – Oct. 16, 2010

Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka series by Maj Lindman

 

Over the summer we began reading the Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka series of books, by Maj Lindman.  Although the three main characters are girls, M LOVES these books!  They are pretty cute girls, after all. ;)  The stories are in no way “girl” stories though, but really appeal to any child (or adult as the case may be and is in our home).

The three girls live in Sweden and they are triplets.  The illustrations are wonderfully detailed and fun to look at.  The really neat thing about these books is that each full-page illustration details a scene from the text on the opposite page.  So, for example, when Flicka is petting the dog, Dicka is holding the black kitten, or Ricka is pouring milk, the illustration lends itself nicely to a little comprehension game: Which girl is Flicka?  Which is Ricka? Which is Dicka?  They are triplets, remember, who like to dress alike by the way, and look alike, so you really have to be paying attention to the story to be able to tell who is who.

These are warm and charming stories of typical childhood, and are fun to read.  These have made their way onto M’s list of favorite books, and mine too!  Daddy is not 100% sold on them, simply because they are long (whatever), and the girls are Swedish, not Norwegian or German ;).   But he is the first to admit he is a bit biased. :)

Check out more children’s books over at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Birthday Reflections (a downer post, which gets better towards the end, if you make it that far) :)

My birthday was this week.  I’m 38 years old.  Ack!  38?!  How did that sneak up on me so quickly??  Ah well, 40 is the new 30 you know, so no worries.   You didn’t know that?  Well, now you do because I just said so! :)  Sometimes it really comes in handy to be a mom who can say, “because I said so”, doesn’t it? ;)

I had some time to myself the day before my birthday and I was thankful to have a little time to reflect.  Introverted me always gets super-introverted on the eve of a milestone.  Seriously, I used to LOVE spending New Year’s Eve alone in a room lit with candles, just thinking, or sometimes journaling about the past year and wondering about the year to come.  Can anyone be more nerdy/anti-social than that?

I began thinking about this past year, and other than the passing away of my grandmother, it felt like a relatively uneventful year.  I accomplished pretty much NOTHING. 

The thought struck me that there are quite a few things I regret about the past year – not being on top of tasks; not being a perfect, patient, gentle, loving mommy; not being the world’s best wife (not by a long shot, let me tell you); etc.  I could make a very long list, but I will spare you.  The point is, I was focusing on what I’m not, and seeing very little good in what I am or have done this past year.

As I thought about how I’ve spent my time, I kept returning to the fact that a disproportionate amount of time has been spent online – blogging, surfing, reading blogs, planning activities for M – you know, all the stuff we do with the internet at our fingertips.  It’s been disproportionate in the sense that there’s not much in real life to show for it.  There’s a little. But not enough to justify the amount of time spent on it.  Or so I thought.

As I began thinking about blogging and the role it plays in my life (you know this is not the first time I’ve thought this whole thing over – it seems like I’m always needing a “break”, doesn’t it?), I began to think that maybe I don’t really like having a blog.  Maybe I don’t like rehashing every little thing we do; maybe I don’t like the time spent wondering if anyone is going to comment and tell me they just love my ideas and are going to use them (because the first time I got a comment like that I was immediately addicted to it and wanted more).  Maybe I don’t really like spending so much time thinking about myself.  Maybe that leads to a lot of time wasted instead of a lot of time… not wasted.  Maybe, just maybe I could be a better mommy, a better wife, a better me if I just got over myself!

And then I started down the path of “has blogging had any impact for good in my life?”  I’m talking here about blogging in the early childhood, mama, homeschool community of bloggers. 

And of course, there’s a lot of truth in that paragraph above about spending too much time navel-gazing.  But thankfully there’s more to it than just that.  If I can sort through the bad, I see that there’s some good mixed in there too. 

And it comes down to this: my view of motherhood has changed simply by the fact that I’ve immersed myself into this community of bloggers.  My view of motherhood has changed because all of you have changed my heart.  I no longer think in terms of “when this phase of M being such a needy child ends, I will finally have my life back.”  I’ve come to view motherhood as being my life, my role in life in this season of my life. 

The purpose of my life at this point in time is to raise my child (and children, if we are blessed with more – ahem, are You listening, God? Time’s a-wasting!) and love my husband (who, thankfully, is pretty loveable).  There’s something very liberating about viewing my role as a mother this way.  Maybe it’s partly the sense of peace that comes from having a definite purpose in life that I can know and direct my efforts toward.  But it’s more than that.  It’s an end to the struggle of finding that elusive “balance” between meeting the needs of my family and meeting my own needs.  One doesn’t exclude the other.  If I never saw raising my child as the purpose of my life (at this time) it would be easy for me to put my attention on other things, never really letting it rest on him and his well-being, his education, his faith, his behavior. 

If I never had this realization (and I’m sure many of you are rolling your eyes, wondering why I’m only now getting it), I’d still be trying to make myself happy.  I’d still be searching “out there” for fulfillment.  You know – the way I spent all my time before having a baby – happily living for myself. 

Oh wait… was I really all that happy back then, living and working and doing everything for myself?  I distinctly remember years of unhappiness in the midst of all that self-centeredness, because I wanted a baby so badly and then lost babies through miscarriages and grieved and then went back to trying and then… well, you get the idea.  I wasn’t very happy, not really.  Not until a little blonde boy came along and made me Mama.

Now, I don’t want it to sound like M is my life (well, ok, I probably can’t fool you in regards to that); but let me make it clear that I don’t want this sense of his development being my “purpose” to create any pressure or stress for him.  That’s not what I’m talking about here.  I’m talking about a change that has occurred within myself,;, a change of perspective, I guess.  And I owe so much of it to you wonderful mama bloggers who take the time to write about your busy lives, and inspire the world simply by sharing your joy and love of being Mama.  Thank you for that.

It’s the same joy and love I felt when I was handed this on the morning of my birthday:

“Mommy happy birthday”

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Learning by Heart – week 2 (part 2, where we actually do school stuff)

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”
-Henry Ward Beecher

Thank you so much to everyone who had title suggestions for me last week.  You are all so creative and brilliant. :)  I’m going with the above for now (not sold on it 100%, but it’s definitely growing on me).

We’ve had another not-normal week, because Daddy has a lot of vacation time to use up and was home quite a bit (we celebrated both of our birthdays too).  It is wonderful to have him home, don’t get me wrong, but part of me would like to have a chance to settle into a normal routine for a week or two – to help figure out housework, outings, and “doing school”, as M says.  Since we are just doing preschool, it’s not that big of a deal, just something I have to be patient about (and obviously I need to work on just enjoying having our whole family together).  That said, I have a question for those of you homeschool mamas who are more experienced and have older children.  If your husband works odd hours or is home quite a bit, does it affect your homeschool routine?  And if so, is it affected in a good way, or is it something you struggle with?  What have you done to ensure school work gets done, as well as other responsibilities?  Maybe not everyone is a routine-and-schedule-lover like me, and I do need to learn some flexibility, but it’s something I can see becoming a stress factor for me if I were to homeschool M in the future.  Any thoughts about this are very much appreciated!

On to what we accomplished…

SHELF ACTIVITIES:

Tweezing felt autumn-themed stickers (Target, dollar spot!) into the slot of a little treasure box.

 

Our homemade build-a-letter set, lowercase version:

I used glitter foam for the pieces, which made it a bit more inviting for M, who does like him a little bling:

Uppercase version too, in gold glitter foam ;) :

Hit of the week – rubbing plates for B and b, and objects that begin with ‘b’:

He did this over and over.  He loved using the double stick tape to stick the card to the mini clipboard.  Then he used a brown or blue crayon to rub over the picture:

Here’s a sampling.  They really turned out great, and we had many of these little guys by the end of the week:Clockwise, from upper left – B, b, bumblebee, bus, bird with a balloon.  I made the ‘B’ and ‘b’ and bus from rough sandpaper, and the others were pictures found online; I simply went over the lines with hot glue.  I’m sure regular glue would work too.

Button board, to work those fine motor skills:

Stick puppets for the poems 5 Little Squirrels and 5 Little Owls:

Our puppet theater is simply a tension rod in a doorway with a blanket thrown over it:

Autumn-themed play dough number mats with autumn colored play dough, made with cinnamon, mmm:

These were a pretty big hit too!

Letter leaves to clip and spell M’s name* (with a “cheat sheet” for him to look at):*I know just about everyone knows M’s name is Matthew.  It’s not something I’ve tried to hide… I only use his initial because I am just too darn lazy to spell his name out all the time.  I’m wordy (in case you haven’t noticed!) and there’s enough typing going on here as it is…

 

M’s first weaving lesson, which was also a big hit now that I think of it.  I used a foam bowl that once held mushrooms, and threaded yarn through it to make the warp.  I looked for more “manly” ribbons, but what you see is all I had.  M didn’t seem to mind. ;)

M played with his KID K'NEX , making creations while actually looking at the “constructions” and figuring out how to make each one.  This is not an easy task because the pictures show the finished product, which means M had to use reasoning skills to figure out what to do first, second, and so on.  And sometimes he had to guess at what kind of connector was used.  He did great and was SO proud of himself!

 

Together Activities:

New ‘B’ objects for the phonics box – blue bird, brown button, bead, blue bear button, bear, bumblebee, boat, boy, bunny, bird:

We took out all the ‘A’ and ‘B’ objects and M sorted them into two groups by beginning sound:

 

More work with the bead bars.  This time we added in the number cards and introduced the golden bead bar for #10.  M is itching to really learn how the whole teen and twenties (and so on) thing works, I’m just waiting for him to become more familiar with the color of the beads for each number, since that plays such a big role in this method.  He’s playing around a lot with “twenty-teen” and “eighty-teen” and that kind of thing when he counts, so I know he’s curious and trying to figure it all out. :)

 

I’ve had these sand art color by number kits around for ages.  M doesn’t have the fine motor control to really do color or paint by number activities, but this was perfect!  I used old peanut butter lids to hold the sand and he peeled off the pieces for each number, then pinched a little sand in the correct color and sprinkled it on.  He LOVED this activity!  I got this at Michael’s for $1.00, I think.  I’ve linked the text above to some similar kits on Amazon.

Close up of him working.  If you haven’t seen these before, you peel off each section and the sand sticks to the sticky surface underneath.

In the end, you have these pretties, though not so blurry as my bad photo-taking skills make them out to be:It was a great activity for numeral review and fine motor skills.

 

And then one day when Mommy was awfully busy, he came up with his own little activity.  A car wash with soapy water and an old toothbrush.  He spent over an hour washing all of his little cars!                               

Just having fun…

The newest member of our family is this super cute scarecrow, who is supposed to keep the deer away from our garden, but isn’t quite living up to our expectations.  Ah well, he’s cute, and very loved by someone in particular:

 

AND LASTLY…

We’ve been having gorgeous weather here, exactly like October should be!  We are loving it.  I thought I’d share pics from our favorite walking trail along the creek near our home.

Sunlight hitting the tips of prairie grass.

my boys :)
  There’s a lot of yellow, red, and brown this time of year, but somehow my camera was attracted to the pretty greens that still remain. ;)

Playing “Pooh Sticks”

I love the cool blue of the autumn sky next
to the yellow tips of the tall trees.     

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up; be sure to check them out!

Have a beautiful day! :)