I saw “The Piano Guys” on the Katie Couric show and thought they were so much fun.
My kids loved watching them as well so I thought you might too.
Here they are playing, “What Makes You Beautiful,” by One Direction.
Check out more of their videos on You Tube…they’ve songs from Coldplay, Star Wars, and plenty more.
Several months ago Caroline had a Mary Poppins birthday party.
So for a Mary Poppins party we had to have the proper hat...
play a bean bag M.P. toss game…
ride wooden “carousel” horses…
play pin the bow tie on the penguin…
play in the cardboard chimneys…
and have a Mary Poppins cake.
I started out this cake as I do all cakes – from a box mix.
Frost the cake and set aside.
To create the carousel, I used cake dividers (not sure of their official name but they are placed in between cakes with multiple layers) and ribbon.
First, I attached the bottom of a piece of ribbon with hot glue.
I continued to do this until I had gone completely around the circle.
I then glued another cake divider onto the bottom in order to cover up with glued bottoms.
I then glued a piece of ribbon along the side in order to cover up the opening between the circles.
Next, I glued a candy stick wrapped in ribbon to the center of the top circle.
I then took each ribbon individually and glued it to the center post (candy stick).
I topped the whole thing off with a little white pom pom.
I then attached the “legs” to the structure.
The legs are candy sticks wrapped in ribbon.
For the horses I found a picture online that I liked and printed it out on card stock.
I then cut out the horse and glued it to yet another candy stick.
Three horses late and the cake was done.
Caroline seemed to like it although it’s honestly not one of my better cakes.
Now that she is about to be three and half I’ve finally shared everything from her party.
And if you had any doubt about next years party, Caroline started talking about it roughly 10 seconds after her last guest left.
I’ve been looking at tons of desks for kids on pinterest and have found some beautiful work spaces.
My helpful crafting hint for the day is that you simply do a google search for “pinterest + kids desks” and you will find tons of examples. Or type in, “pinterest + printables,” and you will get loads of boards with printables.
Here are several kid desks that caught my eye.
How fun would that wallpaper/doodle art be in a room?
Ummm…YES PLEASE! Love the bright colors!
Love the art wall and the organized art desk
The wall reminds me of the art wall in our house
The empty frames here just invite creativity but I would have to move this wallpaper to an area where the kids wouldn’t have to climb on the desk to use it.
This desk is brilliant for a small space – it folds up!
Nice use of an odd space
IKEA to the rescue again!
Looking at these inspiring work spaces makes me think I might be painting some walls white in the boys room.
Shhhh!
Don’t tell my husband because he would freak out if he knew.
For my sister’s baby shower I created 2 felt garlands to help spread the colors around the room. It was my first time to create these but it certainly won’t be my last.
Since turquoise and hot pink were the colors of the shower I used those but also added a bit of yellow and white to make it more interesting. All of the felt (except for the turquoise) was the hard felt that is not floppy.
I grabbed 3 spice jars from the pantry and traced their tops in order to create circles. I used 3 different size circles for this garland.
I then cut out my circles and sewed them together with my machine. Sewing them together was by far the easiest part of this project.
Here’s one of the garlands at the shower (my sister is preparing for major renovations so hence the paint samples everywhere).
I really loved these and think they would be so fun across a nursery, a play room, or even a classroom. I’ll definitely be making a few more for different occasions.
For the shower’s food flags, go here.
For additional photos of the shower, go here.
I have blogged before about my love of Katie Moon’s art and today is the same but with a fun twist.
While Katie offers free downloads each week on her blog, she also has a business illustrating families.
Back in March I entered our family into a contest for her to draw our family. I had to give a little bio about each of us and hoped she would choose our entry.
Well, the good news was that Katie chose our family to illustrate!
I requested that we be drawn as superheros since that’s what the kids are often dressed up as and here’s the drawing…
Click here to see the post Katie did about us and our bios.
I especially love the way she was spot on in her depiction of my thighs 🙂
Thanks Katie, we love the illustration!
The end of the school year always means tons of paperwork.
Notebooks. Folders. Projects.
All of which contain paper and lots of it.
And while everything my children make is precious and dear to me, cough, I needed a way to get some of it out of the house.
Instead of doing what I normally do – stand at the recycling bin and chuck the papers – I had the boys go through their papers and choose some of their must keeps.
It was a large pile.
I then brought out 4 envelopes and told them we were going to send some of the work to family. (My family members are now shaking their head).
The boys divvied up the papers among the grandparents while deciding to keep a few.
Tomorrow will be a trip to the post office where they can send their school work off.
And don’t worry Mom, I won’t mind if these papers end up in your recycling bucket.
But your grandchildren might.
🙂
One of my Januaray goals was to hang the “I love you because” signs which I bought from Kiki Creates when she was having an “oops sale.”
The defect in the prints turned out to be the white rim around them. Eventually I will add a little black border to cover that up, but hey, they went up in January and it’s still not done so don’t hold your breath.
I bought cheap IKEA frames to display them on the wall (I think the frames were $3 for a pair).
the view coming down our stairs – everyone sits on the stairs to put their shoes on so I thought this would be the perfect spot.
Current and previous entries…
“you love to dress up”
“you love to have stories read to you”
“you love your brothers”
“your laugh is contagious”
“you have a passion for animals”
“you have found a love of reading”
“Your smile makes me smile”
“You love to listen to NPR with me”
“You are a wonderful big brother”
The kids immediately notice when a new reason has been posted so it’s fun to listen and watch them discuss it. Which reminds me, I need to go write something new right now.
*Here’s Kiki’s original post which inspired me to put these prints up in our house*
So I have shared most of the room my boys shared but I left out one key ingredient – the large wall art.
The boys found images of their favorite Star Wars vehicles in a book and I copied them onto paper. I then used the tracer to trace the image onto the painted canvas. I then took navy blue paint and painted inside the image. Relatively easy – good thing since they wanted me to make eight of them.
Here’s my favorite – an AT-AT – that’s All Terrain Armored Transport for you Star Wars novices.
The other side of the room…
To visit previous Star Wars Bedroom posts…
Go here for the Jedi Name Art
Go here for our Minifigure Storage
Go here for our Red Frame Chicken Wire Display Boards
So that’s it.
The Star Was Bedroom for two little Star Wars fans.
Let’s hope this little obsession last for several more years.
Wanted to let everyone know about an amazing free download going on right now over at q.a.design.
Jenna is sharing her state/country prints which she normally sells on etsy.
Kentucky
Michigan
Illinois
I have actually not so secretly coveted these prints for a long time.
I made some copy cat ones (since she didn’t have Ontario) using canvas and paints for our office/playroom over a year ago and still love them.
From left to right the pictures are 1) of Ontario, CAN where my husband was born 2) where we live now and (3) the state I was born in.
Click here to go to the free downloadable prints from q.a. designs
Do you see any prints for your house or to give as gifts?
So it’s that time again.
Time to review which goals I have officially accomplished in February and which ones I needed about 5 more days to complete.
*Get Yearly Photos Framed – Check! These will be ready to pick up in a week and I will share them with you.
*Pay Library Fine – Check! We haven’t gone to the library in six months because I was convinced I had a large fine to pay. Turns out it was only $10.
*Make Birthday Skirt or Dress for My Daughter – Check! She wore the skirt to school on Monday and I’ll be sharing those pictures soon.
*Play more Music in the House– Check! – I played some music but not as much as I would have liked, though going from no music to some still counts as a check in my book.
*Figure out How to Keep My Car Clean– Check! I think! So far so good in the clean department. I shared with you here how I started the process and next week I’m hoping to share with you some storage holders I made for the car.
*Do the Art Project with Andrew he’s been asking to do– Check! Go here to see the process
*Hang “I Love You” Signs – Check!
*Make Jeopardy Game for etsy – Fail! It’s about 20% complete – will bring this goal over to March
*Paint Bedroom Lamps and Buy New Shades – Check! But not 100% sold on them yet. Will share soon.
*Read a Parenting Book – Check! I read How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Farber & Elaine Mazlish. I have to admit, I am not a big nonfiction reader so for me to read this is a big deal. I am so glad I decided to read it. The authors provide tons of scenarios and cartoons that show positive and negative ways parents and children interact. The book is meant to be used as a workbook but I chose to read it front to back since I wanted to make sure I completed it. Now that I’ve read the book through I’m going to go back and read each chapter more thoroughly and use it as a workbook.
One point the authors try and guide parents toward is not making all of the decisions and solving all of their children’s problems. One day Alex had a friend over and this was turning out to be a little difficult for Andrew. He wanted to be involved in all of their games and was feeling left out.
He came downstairs and said, “Alex and *** won’t let me play their game.”
I took my moment and seized it, “How does that make you feel?”
“It makes me angry and frustrated.”
Here was my biog move, “Ummmm.”
“I’m going to tell them I’m frustrated with them.”
AND HE DIDN’T COME BACK DOWNSTAIRS TO COMPLAIN AGAIN!
I’m hoping for more of these moments when I read the book again.
*Host a Mardi Gras Party – Check! Go here for the door wreath and here for the decorations.
*Do not accumulate one single bag while shopping – Check! I will admit I probably stretched out my purse a bit when I forgot my bags. Other times, I simply didn’t have enough bags so I would have the bagger just stick those remaining 8 items into the cart. I found myself saying several times, “I know it’s weird, it’s just a resolution I’m trying to keep. My friend emailed me about a great bag to use when out shopping for clothes so I have gone ahead and ordered one since placing new shirts in the bags that previously held onions is really not a smart choice.
*Scrapbook 10 pages in Andrew’s scrapbook – Check! Barely. 10 pages done.
***As a side note, last month I had the goal to drop $100 from our food budget. I failed miserably since I didn’t keep an ongoing written list of spending. This month I redeemed us by spending $300 less than what we normally spend on groceries… so we are back on track.
Overall, I feel like I accomplished a lot this month so I know the list is helping me. But. And it’s a big but… I feel like the list is constantly looming over me. When I was sick for a week this month I worried about all the wasted time. I may shorten my list for March since there’s birthday parties to plan and a whole week of spring break – and we all know that nothing off the list will get done that week.
Have you accomplished anything this month your excited about?
