Father’s Day printables are flying around blogland but I decided to create my own.
Alex and Andrew filled out their “All About My Dad” forms and will give them to Derek on Father’s Day along with a story they are writing.
I wrote down Andrew’s answers for him.
If you’d like a copy of the Father’s Day printable please visit my etsy shop.
Thank you.
How are you celebrating those special dads in your life?
For Andrew’s 6th birthday party we had wonderful plans…
Early May is typically hot in Texas so we planned on taking the kids to the park to use water balloons and play.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? Except…that it turned out to be forty degrees outside and raining.
Therefore, the night before the party, Derek and I scrambled for new inside activities.
One of the activities we decided on was Lego Bingo. Derek created the board template and I inserted the Lego mini figures.
The game was actually a huge hit with the kids. The winner of each game received 2 silly bands while everyone else received one.
The Game includes: 9 different bingo boards & 42 call cards (Cuts these cards apart and use to call out mini figures)
If you would like a copy of the Lego bingo here it is – Lego-Bingo.
If you decide to print, please consider becoming a follower of Big D & Me.
I’ll share more of the party soon – check back for more Lego party ideas!
Since we have 5 people in our family we naturally have 673 things going on at any one time. While I have my personal calendar and Derek has his own, somehow we would still each miss recording events. This miscommunication often lead to frustration by both of us so I decided the solution was a master schedule.
We determined the master schedule needed to be in the kitchen so everyone could glance at it or add to it when needed. We placed it above the chalkboard and next to a magnet board we brought from our old house. The magnet board is a great place for the dry erase markers since they have magnets on the back of them.
We used a 38 x 26 frame we had sitting around. Besides the cost of the dry erase markers this was going to be a completely free project. That is…until we broke the glass. Off to the home improvement store Derek went to buy new glass and we were back in business.
I printed off some days of the week labels while Derek stuck two large pieces of paper together. After I glued the days of the week at the top of the blank pages. Derek divided it into appropriate sections. Each day is roughly 5 inches x 4 3/4 inches big.
Here’s an example of a light day: 6:00 soccer for Andrew & 6:00 lacrosse for Alex.It also reminded me of what I needed to bring to Caroline’s school for a teacher luncheon.
A busy, yet typical Saturday
My favorite part is that it’s easy to wipe on and wipe off with a cloth.
Anyone else have a Karate Kid moment there? Wipe on, wipe off, Daniel-san!
Do you have any fun organizing tips? I’d love to hear them.
I’m sharing my schedule here:
When looking around blog world I noticed many handmade Valentine’s. I especially liked the idea I found on Cupcakes Kisses n ‘Crumbs and thought my boys would too.
Steps we took to make Valentine Moustaches:
1) Alex found a mustache shape he liked on the Silhouette machine. We played with the size until he was satisfied with “the look.” The machine then cut out 50 moustaches from black card stock.
2) Next I took paint pens and wrote “Happy (Heart) Day!” Alex then wrote his name.
3) Buy a ridiculously huge bag of Dum Dum lollipops since it’s the only bag at Walmart. I’m talking 300 Dum Dums people. I’ll have these for the next two Halloweens. Well, at least till the beginning of March.
4) The tricky part was getting just the right size hold to place our lollipop in. We made the hole by using an awl.
5) We then simply slid the lollipop on.
Here’s a look at the finished project. Not the best photo. It was bedtime and I thought this was good enough at the time. Probably should have been patient for another photo.
The boys were thrilled with the lollipop moustaches and can’t wait to give them to their friends.
Do you have any Valentine’s Day creations or plans?
I’m sure you have all seen the subway art that has been floating around. I have wanted to attempt this for the past year but never did. I decided that my dream present for Christmas would be a Silhouette machine which would help me make the subway art. My wonderful husband took my ever so subtle hint of leaving the website up and mentioning there was a sale going on and surprised me with one for Christmas. I was thrilled but a little nervous at the same time. I have the habit of really wanting something but once I get it I wait and wait to open it. I thought about it, studied it, pondered it some more, and eventually was ready to try the machine last week.
I decided my first project would be a birthday present for my sister Kelly, who’s birthday is today. Not sure if subway art correlates with Kelly’s taste or not but I’m pretty sure I’ll never know since she lives 800 miles away.
I asked Kelly to email me her top places, foods, holidays she thinks about when she thinks of New Orleans. It’s our hometown so I knew she would have some special places she associates with it.
Here’s her list: Commander’s Palace, street car, beignets, Jazz Fest, City Park, Mardi Gras, & 5 Happiness. I took Kelly’s ideas and added to them.
I first started by painting an 11 x 14 canvas gray.
Next I chose some of the words I wanted to use. I typed them into the Silhouette program for sizing and then printed them out on vinyl. After a few more steps I carefully peeled away the paper and attached the vinyl words to the canvas. Here’s the I don’t think I’ll ever finish shot halfway point.
The work in the beginning was tedious but I eventually got the hang of it and moved at a quicker pace. Once I finished putting on all the words I modged podged it so it would have a protective covering.
Here’s the final product:
Kelly, this is going into the mail today for you. Hope you enjoy it. Happy Birthday!
I think this would be so much fun to do with other cities, places you’ve visited, holiday themes, etc. I would like to do one which lists every street my husband and I have ever lived on since we were kids.
If you could have a piece of subway art, what would be on yours?
I thought the best way to celebrate my first guest posting was to have my first giveaway. When I told my husband he said, “Wait a minute…shouldn’t we think about this.” I told him to relax and not to worry. It’s not like I was planning on giving away our car or even his flannel pj’s…although on second thought. No, no I’ll stick with the plan.
What I am giving away is one completed coupon box of activity cards.
The winner will receive 48 activity cards, 3 pencils, 1 pencil sharpener, and 1 eraser.
In case you are not familiar with my activity coupon box, go here to read about my idea.
Here are the ways you can enter:
1 entry if you make a comment on this post
1 additional entry if you are a follower (leave a comment to let me know)
*You have until Sunday Jan 16 to enter*
Thanks and good luck to everyone!
My favorite room in the house also happens to be the smallest room in our house. I think the 2 reasons it’s my favorite room is because I made everything in the room and it’s finished. Can we hear an “Oh Yeah – it’s finished!”
The first thing I found for the room was the shower curtain fabric. I bought it all the way back in June but finally got around to making the curtain in September.
The animal fabric and matching dot fabric are from City Craft. It is one of my favorite places to find unique fabrics. I think I’ve bought more fabric from there than actually made projects.
This is as close up of a picture you are going to get since my sewing skills are horrible. I hate to read through tutorials or read directions. I prefer instead to look at the pictures and figure out how to make something. Perhaps that accounts for never having enough fabric in the end.
I decided the curtain wasn’t long enough so I needed to make loops at the top to extend its length. I was shopping in IKEA one day when I found a black pillow case in the clearance section for $0.99. Bingo. I found my material for black loops.
For artwork in the room I bought a few pieces of scrapbook paper in the same colors and made some art. I used the tracer (the best art tool ever) to make the animal shape from the fabric larger so I could trace it onto some paper. I already had all the frames from some previous kitchen art.
I also painted the walls white since I thought it would look better than the builder’s tan we have everywhere else.
I had seen the quote below on other blogs and just made in a font and some colors that coordinated.
Just one more peek since I love it so.
What room of your house are you most proud of?
I decided at the last minute to make some treats for the boys to take to school for their friends. Usually they come home from every holiday celebration at school with bags of goodies. There have been cellophane bags filled with miniature puzzles, themed pencils, candy, and even a stuffed animal one year. I never make these goodie bags because I kind of thought they were a waste of money and unnecessary. But I thought…new schools…new traditions.
Since I thought this would be a wonderful project to take on at 9:00 the night before the parties, I went to the pantry a little doubtful. I looked up into our dessert box and found marshmallows and chocolate chips – perfect!
I had seen something in blog world about using marshmallows as ghost poop during Halloween so I thought I would do something along those lines.
I scooped little handfuls of marshmallows and chocolate chips into plastic bags and tied them off. I attached a note that said,”Enjoy your Texas snow and snowman buttons.”
Alex wanted to put “Enjoy your Texas snow and reindeer poop.”
Clever, but I was afraid that wouldn’t go over so well at Andrew’s religious school so we went with the other version.
Now I say I implemented this plan at 9:00 at night but the thought about doing a treat had occurred earlier in the day. When driving through the car pool line I asked Andrew’s teacher if he could bring something for all of the kids in his classroom. She said sure, “As long as it doesn’t have too many sweets.”
Could she possibly be referring to the large box of Christmas candy I gave her the day before? I choose to think not. But I’m not too sure.
So far Andrew has allowed one piece of artwork to replace another each time a new one comes home. If he ever resists I know what I’m going to do.
I’m going to walk straight to the recycling bucket in the garage all the way to the garage and place the art in there myself. It is 4 ft high and out of his line of sight.
After you read this post today you may think I only do craft projects that involve paper bags. Not so. But I can’t prove that today. Usually my paper bag crafts are my spur of the moment ideas and the bags are the only materials around.
Last year the kids and I made a paper bag Christmas tree which they partially decorated using markers. Here’s the way our advent tree works. On December 1 they receive a paper ornament which states something we will be doing, watching, or making that deals with Christmas. One of the boys gets to glue it onto our tree. The next day the other one gets to glue it on. On certain days they receive their ornament before school while other days they receive their ornament after school (it depends if I have my act together or not). Here’s a picture of the finished project.
Here’s a close up of some of the ornaments. Some days they would receive one ornament while on other days they would receive a bonus one.
There is a small part of me that cringes when these are glued onto the tree every which way. I do have to tell myself that having symmetry in this craft is not the purpose. But oh how I sometimes try to make suggestions of where the ornament could be placed.
This year I’ve made a tentative list of activities for our family. Some will change based on schedules and weather but it’s a start:
Do you have any unique ways your family celebrates the holidays?
