Summer Fun

Here's my adaptation of a really cool idea from Craftzine's blog. We actually had a couple of things in the "done" pockets already. I just cut paper plates in two, printed and glued on our labels, and added magnets to the back so they would stay right on the fridge.
We used craft popsicle sticks and glued our summer plans on each one. The boys have fun moving them from one spot to the other.

Here's a toilet paper roll 'Lola' we made. We love Lauren Child's Charlie and Lola books!

Here's the birthday invites for DS8's party. I just printed them off on cardstock, ripped the edges and sponged the edges with brown ink.

I got the candy for the cake/treasure chest today from bulk barn. Yikes! My frugal side took a beating! The candy will go in goody bags so I'll make it do double duty!

Been a long time...

But I've got a couple of things done this week and I thought that I would share...

I made some cupcakes from the Familyfun website-so easy and cute!(Instead of good and plenty candies for the chalk, I used Popeye candy sticks, broken into thirds.)

These are the Sand bucket cakes I made for teacher's gifts. I got this idea from Real simple magazine a few years back .

This is the card design we chose for the teachers-The boys did a great job with them. We got the idea from papercrafts magazine. The inside says, "Have a sweet summer"

I was lucky enough to find an 'H' at the dollarama! I mod podged this summery paper on it for our porch. Love those stripes!! More simple stuff to come this summer...

Where have I been?!

Sorry I've neglected you my blog friends! It's March break! WEEEEEHOOOOO! We kicked it off with a free magic show at the library (magician-Al Bernard).Little Squdge took his own wand and had an opportunity to put it to use during the show! Great fun!

Mark, at our parent-child group told the story of the Gingerbread man (a much more humorous version than I remember-LOL!) so we had to go home and see how fast our gingerbread men could run! (Turns out not fast enough! YUM!)

The Master Chef at work!
Recipe from "The Gingerbread Man" retold by Jim Aylesworth

2 1/2c all purpose flour

1tsp baking powder

1/4 tps baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground allspice

beat together in another bowl:

1 egg

1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2/3 cup dark molasses

6Tbsp softened butter

Add dry ingredients to wet mixture until well blended. Cover and refridgerate for one hour. Preheat oven to 350 F.

Sift flour onto your board and your rolling pin as you work to keep the dough from sticking.Roll out a portion of dough 1/4 in. thick. Cut out your gingerbread man with a floured cookie cutter. Bake 8 min. or until slightly firm to the touch. Cool on rack.

Decorate and enjoy!

We decided to grow our own grass for spring! The plan is to tell three billy goats gruff again-maybe with some goats from the dollar store to munch on the grass! I'd also like to get

"A tiny seed" by eric carle, from the library.

NO KITTY! IT"S NOT LITTER!!

Hurray for Recycling!

Well, we NEVER win anything, but I think our luck is changing. Big Mister won a 42" TV! YAY! Anyway, The kids and I were excited by the possibilities the packaging held! I was able to use one of the boxes to make a felt board for the boy's room and they made charming 'bases' for their lego men out of the styrofoam! Very Cool! The large box may become something else, yet. (If we can salvage it from Dad and his lighter!)

Monday, March 2

Oh No.

What a lazy day here!! J-bird is home from school today and Big Mister is home from work. He has, as usual overworked himself and hit the wall. So I just can't seem to get anything done, but it's great to have everyone home.This is a picture of the freezing rain we got today. So it was a good day to stay in!

Gotta plan the meals for the week. I still haven't tried making pretzels but I want to give it a go!We are having ham tonight(leftovers)Tomorrow is chicken with M&M's chicken and rib sauce and I think I'll make up a three day salad to go with it. (recipe to follow)Wednesday will be spaghetti with garlic bread and three day salad. Thursday Chicken and rice and veggies. Friday friends are coming so I'm thinking Tacos. Oops-it's Lent so I better re-think that! Off to surf my favorite sites!

Lions and Lambs

Sunday is March 1st! Already! So hopefully our house will be back together after ripping our ceiling out last Friday and I can focus on some March activities with the boys. For little Squidge I found a cute letter 'L' coloring page here. I want to use the 'in like a lion, out like a lamb' phrase to do some weather graphing with him. DLTK has a simple printable. He also learned the poem 'the March wind doth blow and we shall have snow...' at our Music in Motion group, so maybe we'll do some thumbprint robins and a paper bag kite later in the month.

Of course we can't forget St. Patrick's Day and our usual visit from a tricky leprechaun. I hope he doesn't make too much of a mess this year!

J-Bird has been asking for a diary so I found this Journal calendar with great prompts for each day! Anything to get him to practicing his printing and cursive writing! Of couse the important thing to him is that it has a cool lock on it, so even if DH can rig up a journal box for him to keep it in he'll be happy!

301 Days until Christmas!

Wednesday I celebrated what we at Magical Holiday Home call Rudolph Day! A wonderful opportunity to keep a little Christmas with you on the 25th of each month. My accomplishment for February was to (finally) finish scrapping the Christmas pictures for 2007. This means that the Christmas baby books for my babies are full. Onward to more memories! Time to order the pictures from 2008! (I've always had great luck with snapfish)