Lionden Landing

We had three snow days this past week.  We used that time to start working on Froggy's valentines for her friends.  We got the design from here To start the adventure, we made homemade glitter glue.   It was super easy  and made tons as you can see. Then we added the glitter.  Froggy picked the colors from the wonderful stash Grandma gave her.  While the glue cooled, Froggy cut out all the hearts,  We used cardstock but construction paper would also work. Then she used one of our tiny cookie cutters to dip in the glue and stamp on the hearts

 For the first time, Froggy got to exchange Valentines like I did when I was in school. She worked very hard making 50 valentines to share with her friends.  We started with t hese printable bookmarks .    Froggy cut them all out.      Then  she made little thumbprint hearts on them.   We finished them off with a hole punched in the top and a ribbon tied through.  It took her about week of diligent working to get through them all.  She also made a mailbox to receive her valentines.

I had a great Mother's Day.  I was blessed not only to share it with Froggy but with Baby O as well.  There was one bittersweet moment when Froggy showed me how much she has grown up.  She made me a present all on her own from inspiration to presentation it was all her idea.  I was officially banished so it could be a surprise.  She enlisted the help of Daddy for the woodworking.  This is the first time she has ever taken the initiative in a present for anyone and I feel truly blessed that I got to be the recipient. The scrap of paper is not really part of the gift but added to hide her real name. Sometimes she is such a little girl still and then sometimes (particularly when she is getting changed) she seems so grown up like a kid rather than my little girl.

We are trying hard to engage Acorn in our books more.  We chose Red Light, Green Light because she loves drive the big dump truck.   First we read the version by Margaret Wise Brown (depicted to the right).  Right now the only books she will listen to are rhyming books so this worked out great. We then read a longer, non-rhyming story of the same title by Anastasia Suen.  Acorn listened to it as well or at least sat with us. We then made stop lights.  This is the first art project I have tried at home with Acorn.  She does art regularly at school but we have not done any at home mostly because Acorn needs hand over hand help the entire time the art supplies are out and for any but the most basic projects Froggy still needs help.  So I chose a very simple project I hoped Froggy would like and be able to master largely on her own. I had all the supplies for both girls ready and assembled before I presented it.  It was fun to break out the...

My only New Years Resolution is to make more of the gifts I give from now on. I am not going so far as to say all but I want to do many more. I did manage to make two different gifts for this holiday season. To set my daughter down this path, we made ornaments for all the relatives that decorate trees. I hope to make this a tradition, adding a new different kind of ornament each year so that the relatives have a memento of her growth. I made a pants outfit for the youngest cousin. The inspiration and directions came from Today's Housewife. It would have been much easier if I had made the pants but I used store bought and just added the ruffle. Next time the pants get made too. My daughter does not wear much pants so I am working on a similar idea for a dress. The template for the applique came from Skip to My Lou . It is my new favorite template. I have down sized the lowercase letters to write words and everything. So that is what works for me. Check out What works for...

With preschoolers, learning about the holidays is a very hands on process. Reading stories is all well and good and gives an introduction but doing makes it come alive. I am strong believer in allowing children to participate in preparations for any event as much as possible both to ease the parent's burden and to help the child prepare and learn. We are going to the grandparents for Thanksgiving which means there is no holiday shopping or cooking here with which a little one can help. We have also limited our decorating since we will be gone from before Thanksgiving until right before Hanukkah. So instead we are making place cards and decorations to take to Grandma's. We will be making Apple Turkeys. Ours are somewhere between this and this . I like the marshmallow face but I like the construction paper tail better. We are putting the names right on the tail. Eyes are raisins and the nose is a candy corn. For our first attempt I tried laminating real leaves which I ...