It has been one of those mornings. It of course started much too early (pre-6am), after too little sleep (the kids have been passing around a fever bug this week) and during a brief phone call this morning I went into the toy room to find this…
‘L’ had given ‘B’ her first haircut! Her hair was just getting long enough to be that cute girlie hair. Do you think this symbolizes the whole big sister/little sister relationship? It is a good thing that ‘B’ can pull off a pretty cute pixie look.
I’ll post more photos once I get it cleaned up. AHHH!
UPDATE: Upon closer inspection… ‘L’ who went into hiding took a huge chunk of her curly locks off! ‘B’s cut was mildly annoying to me, ‘L’s is pretty heartbreaking.
Here is the poem we will be working on memorizing for the month of August.
BEND low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, summer stars,
So near, strumming, strumming,
So lazy and hum-strumming.
I hope you are enjoying your summer as much as we are enjoying ours! Images from the past week’s Sunny Summer Weekend.
For this week’s Unplugged Theme FLAT, we made Lemon Sugar Cookies. The kids got to help roll out the dough nice & flat. We tried to pick out more summery cookie shapes (stars, duck, airplane, butterful, tulip) but my cookie decorating supplies are obviously Christmasy – all red and green. LOL – I guess a little Christmas In July is ok.
Here is the recipe I used. These are yummy sugar cookies that don’t need icing. The Lemon adds a more light summery taste.
| LEMON SUGAR COOKIES | |
| INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 c sugar 1/2 c butter 1/2 c vegetable shortening 2 eggs 2 1/2 c sifted all-purpse flour 1 t baking powder 1 t salt 1 tbs lemon zest (grated lemon peel) 1 t lemon flavoring |
|
| DIRECTIONS
Blend butter, shortening and sugar. Add eggs and beat. Combine flour, baking powder and salt, adding a small amount at a time to the mixture, blending well. Add zest and flavoring. Chill dough. On a well floured board, roll out a small quantity at a time to about a 1/4″ thickness. Dough not in use should be kept refigerated. Cut into shapes and bake on a lightly greased cookies sheet, for about 10-12 minutes at 375. Bake until set, but not brown. Sprinkle with colored sugars, before baking, or frost after baking. Dough can be frozen to bake at a later date. |
We also did some Leaf Rubbings. I pulled out some leaves that we flattened in a book
last fall (great to have extra leaves on hand all year – I will fill some of my books again this year). The Recycled Crayons we made a few weeks ago worked great for the rubbings.
One of ‘A’s Rubbings.
One of ‘L’s rubbings.
One of ‘B’s rubbings.
These are one of our favorite toys around here. The kids love them and they are everything that I look for in a toy. Anamalz are beautifully crafted from eco-friendly, natural materials that encourage open ended, creative play. We can’t get enough of them! Target used to carry them but unfortunately no longer seem to… although this may be in part due to Anamalz new contract with Russ toys. I hope to see them on local shelves again soon.
Anyway, while checking out what’s new for ‘B’s upcoming 2nd birthday we found this fun video made to go along with a newly released Anamalz CD. The kids keep asking for it so I thought I would add it to the blog for easy linking… and to share. Enjoy! BTW – Our elephant (named Shrimp by ‘A’) seems to prefer the corn fields to the jungle.
And have you ever seen anything as cute as their NEW Echidnas critter? I want one! 🙂 Check them all out at Anamalz. If you are looking to shop online for them try Bright October or Oompa Toys. I also added them to my Amazon Bookstore.
Last week while ‘L’ was at Princess Camp the other kiddos and I did a mini Tree Study… at least that was our focus for art time. ‘A’ chose to work with pencils and ‘B’ of course wanted the messy paints out. Unfortunately my scanner bed isn’t quite big enough to scan the entire page but I think you can still get a pretty good idea of their work.
‘B’s Trees
‘A’s Apple Tree and Spider Web
‘A’ was looking at our blog and wondering where his Tae Kwon Do photos were… ummm… just hadn’t gotten to posting those yet. Unfortunately I don’t really have any good ones. So here is one for now and I will be working on getting some that are actually in focus. LOL… bad lighting, quick movements and holding a wiggly ‘B’ on my lap leads to some pretty sad shots.
He started TKD up again this June after a brief 5 week trial right around his 4th birthday. It was worth the wait! He loves it and is sooo on task. We are also using a different martial arts center and his Master is awesome with the young kids. It is everything I could hope for in an extracurricular. He keeps the kids on task, demands respect, offers tons of positive reinforcement, handles the problem kids with the patience of Job and keeps the activities totally appropriate and fun for the age he is working with (3-6).
For our Unplugged Project this week we made Glass Marble Magnets. This was fun for the older kiddos (3+)… choke hazard for the younger ones although I did let ‘B’ play with the marbles with me right there. She also enjoyed tearing up the magazines.
I basically followed the directions on Martha Stewart’s site.
Joann’s carries everything you need.
The flatted glass marbles were in the floral area. There are two general sizes. The larger size was better for the kids to work with.
The magnets were in the kids’ craft area.
We used Elmer’s Craft Bond Tacky Glue (get a glue that dries clear and does not bleed colors).
The kids cut out lots of fun colors and shapes from old magazines and catalog. Catalogs with a lot of bedding and rugs were the best because they had lots of fun, bold patterns. Think beach towel.
We traced the shaped of the glass bead over the picture area we liked then cut it out (I went through and trimmed them all up for the kids). We glued the picture to the flat part of the bead… upside down so you can see the picture through the marble when it dries. Then glue a magnet to the back. Very cute for holding the kids’ artwork to the fridge.
I plan to give away the smaller magnets in a tin as gifts (maybe to the grandparents with some of the kids’ artwork to display).
Playing with the glass marbles.
Cutting out pictures. LOL – you may not want the kids actually on the dinning room table 😉
Helping ‘A’ cutout a picture. Please ignore the t-shirt left over from college days. My mom and I were actually working in the kitchen Jamming Blueberries while this was going on and I was wearing an old ‘painting shirt.’
We finished the project at home while ‘B’ was napping.
The magnets drying.
Next week’s theme is FLAT.
It is so exhausting being a Princess!
‘L’ had Princess Camp last week at her dance school. Each day was focused on a different Princess, they got to wear dress up clothes, they did a craft, an outdoor activity, had a snack and learned a special ‘Princess Dance.’ She had a lot of fun but was exhausted by the end. The families got to come for the last 10 minutes to watch their dance of the day and many of the girls were yawning away. They were all sooo cute.
Dressed up for Mulan Day.
There is a blog I’ve been visiting (Unplug Your Kids) that does weekly craft challenges. This week’s theme was stone. Since we just brought home a beautiful collection of rocks and shells from the Lake I thought it was a good time to join in.
We didn’t do anything fancy but enjoyed sorting and playing with the rocks. We also used the rocks to build castles in our playdough. And another fun thing… my mom just got the kids a rock tumbler this week. We will be starting that up this weekend when we go to her house for Sunday Dinner.
Sorting the rocks.
Rock and playdough castles.
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‘A’ wanted to take some photos of rocks himself.
These are his photos…
Mama holding some rocks.
Rocks as a stone wall on our Waldorf Farm Mat.