Happy Turkey Day!

Here are the turkey hats the boys made! M really put all the pieces into the glue. And out of the glue. And back on. And...well, you get the idea, but he did his own hat!

God sends our little family so many beautiful moments - hope you stop to count your blessings, and have a

Happy Thanksgiving!

L's Pajama Kitty

When L woke up this morning his pajama kitty was finished and waiting for him, all curled up in Mama's rocker. Here he is checking it out. Right after thanking me for the kitty he went and stuffed it with pajamas! Several pairs. Then he read it a story, prayed with kitty (and told Jesus thank you for his kitty), and tucked it into bed.

I might let him put his clothes in the kitty, if he wants to take it to Uncle Doug's house, but not sure how unstuffing it will go over. We'll see - he might not even ask!

Waiting for Mama...

Mama's in the shower, so I'll just wait right here...

Oh... are you going to take my picture?

I'm ready....


I can be like Chewie...

"MAMA!"

Happy baby, happy Mama!

And for sharing... here are my favorite activitiy books!

And here I am, filling extra socks with rice, to heat and put in my pockets. I need to take the boys outside, and maybe this will help?

Our Little Family

I just love our little family. The other night both the boys climbed up into Mama's rocker - it was so special. We were looking at my favorite screen saver - the one that scrolls through all our family photos.

See? I am quite giddy with happiness!

And here I caught a shot of L cuddled up with his daddy...




And isn't M just so handsome? He is almost past his sniffles.

We had a nice weekend too - we had our family movie night for the home premier of WALL-E, and Sunday Daddy took us out to lunch after church. Both boys were well behaved (and hungry), and the food was good! Hope you had a great weekend!

Bonanza

Preschool Fun - Paper Bag Turkey

To make your own turkey you will need:

-2 paper bags

-construction paper

-old newspaper

-glue

-2 pieces of string (about 12" each)

-scissors

-paper towel tube

-"feathers" (leaves, paper cut-outs, etc)

Directions:

1. Cut out features (your child can do this if capable). You will need 2 eyes, 2 pupils, 1 beak (cut out a diamond and fold in half), 2 large wings, 1 red gobble (I forgot mine!) and 2 feet (they don't have to be perfect - you just need some bird toes sticking out from under the turkey!)
2. Crumple newspaper and use to stuff both paper bags. One bag will be the body and one the head.
3. Stick the paper towel roll into the "body" bag. Gather the edge of the bag around the roll, and use a piece of string to tie it shut. The paper towel roll will support the head, but will not show when you are finished
4. Invert the open "head" bag and set it down over the body and paper towel roll. Be careful not to lose all your stuffing! Gather the edges around the "neck," and use your other piece of string to tie it closed. He's starting to look like a turkey now!
5. Now you can glue on the turkey's features. You may need to lay him down while the glue dries. We save the feathers for last, and your kids can put on as many or as few feathers as they like. I once cut out their handprints for the feathers. It looked really cool, but took a lot of time. This year we used fall leaves.
   
   

Give your turkey a name and a nice place to sit! Promise not to eat him for thanksgiving!!!

Catching Up

So, to catch us up to date (we've had so many fun pictures to post from the other weekend!), here's some of the fun moments we've been up to lately... Here's M riding on Daddy's shoulders - classic toddler-puts-his-finger-in-your-eye moment!

And here's L hanging on tight, without my help! Great for his strength building... We were (well, mostly I was,) roaming around in circles singing the old theme tune from Bonanza.

M started singing too! "Bum, bum, bum!"


And here's a bit of the projects I've been working on lately: some mei tai baby carriers. Our friend Jenny had her shower this last weekend, and I knew she wanted one. Figured while I was at it I'd make a few extras and see if they sell on Etsy. Will let you know when I post them at my little shop there.

And here's M, looking slouchy and feeling sniffly. Even feeling less than perfect, he is sooooo cute. They've been watching movies all morning so that Sniffles will sit still and get some rest. I've been reading The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper. She received both a Newbery Honor and the full Newbery Medal for two out of the five books (impressive, at least to me).

Well, that's all for today!

Merry Chriscas!

Well, it's that time of year. Retailers are starting to put up their trees and churches are lighting the 50 footers on their properties. So L built his own tree (out of our soft fishing poles), and started wishing everyone a merry Christmas...

L - "Merry Chriscas Mommy! I made a Chriscas tree!"

Mama - "Merry Christmas L."

L - "Merry Christmas M! Merry Chriscas Chewie!" and looking at the ceiling, "Merry Chriscas God!"

I love my boys.

The Prince and the Pea

So we sat down to a great, daddy-made dinner. The boys had peas, corn, rice and shrimp. L looked at the peas like "there's no way I'm eating those..." so I asked if he'd like to hear a story about a pea. Of course he said yes, so I started rattling off a quick version of The Princess and the Pea (emphasizing the Prince trying to find a worthy princess to marry). He listened intently, and when I reached the end, I popped the pea I'd been holding into my mouth. And here's the response I got:

"Mommy, do the shrimp!"

Let's Go Fishing!

L and his friends...

And here's L de-nuding the couch. It is now a ship. M loves it, because he can get up without any help!

Going fishing on our ship! I tied a string and clothespin to the end of these soft poles! L was so excited, and loves putting "fish" on and off. Wheel-fish, flying wheel-fish, bird-fish, dog-fish, you name it, we caught it!

Our First Freezer Paper Artwork

Nana also brought some fabric paint and canvas bags for some fun crafting time. We got some freezer paper and tried SouleMama's approach, which I read about in The Creative Family. It was awesome! The kids can actually do their own painting, and it comes out looking really great (which is a plus if you're investing in fabric paint and canvas bags)! I cut their patterns while they took their rests, ironed them onto the bags, and then taped the whole thing down to the table. Here I am working on mine (a little one-floor school house, which L declared, "That's our house!")...

When the boys got up they were eager to get to painting! M used a variety of colors, and needed a bit of help!

Here's L carefully removing the paint from his hands. He is always so cautious when we first start a messy project. After that he chose to paint with blue, blue, and blue (no surprise there!)!



We put them somewhere safe to dry, and then chilled out for the night!

Here we are the next morning checking out M's dry project.

We peeled off the freezer paper together....

And this is what we got! It turned out so great!

Here we are with L's bag...

I'd say he's proud of himself, what do you think?

And here's our finished bags, all lined up. We are going to use them for library books and road-trips! Thanks for the materials Nana!

VeggieTales - Live!

Nana took us to see Bob & Larry live! It was so much fun! I got a couple shots of us waiting for the show to start, and some the boys in the shirts Nana got them.

Bob went missing in the show. When he retuned, M shouted, "Bub! Bub!" He is really starting to say a bunch of words!