Wrappin'

Wrappin' - not the singing kind or the present kind, the knitting kind!

 I have contracted a virus.  This virus is called startitis.  Have you heard about it??  Oh, it's so contagious!!  But, oh so fun!  As usual now, Tux must be in the middle of everything.

 I found this fun and beautiful yarn one day while I was at Michaels.  I had just dropped off my youngest daughter at a girl scout meeting, I was feeling a little blue and had about 90 minutes of time all to myself.  So....I decided to have some retail therapy time.  This yarn and several others found their way into my basket.

 I had no idea what it would look like knitted up, but it looked kind of fun in the wrapper.  Now that I have knit a bit, I love, love, love it!

 This is the yarn unknitted - didn't it look fun?  Can you see why I just had to have it??

 We also celebrated a birthday - Our youngest daughter turned 11 and requested her favorite chocolate cake in my "fancy" bundt pan.

 I couldn't disappoint her!  And I filled the hearts with melted chocolate wafers of different colors.

Look at that face!  Did she like it or what!

Take a look over at Tami's, Kristine's, and Sara's.

Noon Art - Little Treasure Boxes

A new school year, a new noon art.  I organize (with the help of some amazing ladies!) noon art every other Thursday at our elementary school.

 We set up the tables - 9 of the 6 foot variety and lay out all the necessary supplies.  This year we made tablecloths to cover the tables and boy what an improvement that has been!!  Now when the glue gets all over the place, instead of having to scrub and scrub and scrub the tables, we just pull the tablecloths off, bring them home and throw them into the washing machine - easy, peasy!

 Lots of sequins, beads, markers - can't go wrong with sequins!

 Someone donated these little "specimen" containers for noon art.

 The kids loved this activity.

 Boys and girls alike - we had as many boys as girls in attendance.  That has been my goal the past two years since I started doing Noon Art -- to find projects that would appeal to both boys and girls equally and it has to be something that grades 1 through 5 can do in 20 minutes.  WHEW!!

 Lots of sparkle on this one :o)

 More than 100 kids came.  Many of them made several of the boxes - we went through about 350 of those little boxes.  It was fast and furious in Noon Art this day!

 This boy made about 12 of the boxes - he made one for all his siblings, parents and grandparents and of course the custodian - how sweet!

 If a little glue is good, more is better :o)

 We also put out left over Mardi Gras coins from a party my friend had thrown.  We absolutely did not anticipate how popular those were going to be.  One huge box of coins - GONE.

 So sweet.

 This girl thought she had "made a mistake" on hers and came to me in tears.  I asked her why she thought she made a mistake and she told me because she had glued things on the inside of the box.  I let her know that there are no mistakes in art - you can do whatever you want and it's perfect.  Then I asked her if she would like to make another and she nodded her head and got back to her art - glueing things on the insides of her boxes.

 This is one of my son's boxes.

 This is another - he loves to make 3-D stuff.

 I love the combo of pen and glue on this one.

This one is interesting - the student colored on the bottom of the box a solid color and then drew balloons on the top - you can't really tell here, but it does give a good shadow box appearance.  I tell you, these kids are fabulous!!  I love laying out supplies and seeing where their creativity will take them.

I can't wait for the next one!

Sharing at:  Fiber Arts Friday, Tami's, Creative Friday, and I've Made Friday

Enjoying Daily Life With Kids

Our oldest turned 17.  Can you believe it??!  17 years old!  Time flies when you don't want it to!

 She wanted a plain white cake with chocolate frosting.  This is what we came up with.  4 layers of cake.  She and her friends loved it.  We had 12 of her friends over for dinner and a sleepover - boy, they had so much fun!!  I truly can't believe that next year at this time, she will be away at college.  She is a bright, thoughtful, well rounded girl and we love her to bits.

 I will still have other little monkeys at home keeping me busy :o)  10 year old daughter wanted me to put her hair in "many" braids.  This is what she wound up with - the best I could do.

 Several braids braided together.  I thought it looked nice.

 Obviously she did too!!  We left it in for a couple of days and her hair was super wavy when we finally took it out. 

 Someone lost a tooth.......

Don't mess with this boy and his dust buster!  He's good with it too!

Sharing over at Mindful Mothering

Hexis and Homemade Candles with Kids

5 puffs this week.  I used the Candy Skein yarn that I purchased last week and love it!!  It's soft and doesn't split and those stripes are the best!

 Sometimes the kids come up with such fun things to do.  One of my kids had made candles on a field trip last year and wanted to make some again at home.

 We started by melting the just plain old white wax and added wax dye.  Blue was the color of the day.

 It was very hard to cut that wax in smaller pieces.  It took my big knife and that meat tenderizer (I used it like a hammer on the handle of the knife) to break off pieces.

 Cut strings for the wicks - they are too long, but the kids didn't seem to mind!

 Then we set up an assembly of sorts - several stops with a can of melted wax and a can of water.

 The kids then walked around the table stopping at each station to dip their wick first in wax and then in the water.  The had so much fun talking and walking!!

 Some of them made big ones and formed them into shapes...

 others just let the wax do whatever it wanted.

 The 7 year old meticulously made different forms.

 The 10 year old trying to get a skinny one to stand up.

 Still trying.  It never did stand up, but she didn't mind.

The candles of our labors :o)  Not perfect, but perfectly fun!  They want to make more as soon as we use these up.

I love these times with the kids where we can just stop all the crazy business and take a breath.  Do something fun together that they have initiated.  These are the times, I hope, that they will look back on and think how fun it was to grow up in our home with all their siblings.

Sharing at:  Carole's, Nicole's, and 5 Minutes for Mom, and Mindful Mothering.

Mothering Monday

Today I was reading a post by Lydia Will that made me sit back and think about things.

 Most of our summer days tend to look like those in this post.  We spend lots of time with family.  My father-in-law, cousins, brother and sister-in-laws. and I feel complete.

 There is no better feeling for me than to be surrounded by family.

I love that my husband and I can have this time right now to enjoy all of it!

However, there are some challenges when we all get together.  My niece and nephew usually come to visit for a good chunk of the summer.  They are fabulous and it is always so fun to see everyone pick up where they left off - no awkwardness - just back to the basics of having fun together.  EXCEPT.....that a couple of my kids argue over my niece.  Age wise she is right in between them so she looks up to my older daughter, but loves to play with the younger one.  My two girls have very different interests and are very strong minded - so when deciding what game to play or what scenario to play out in a pretend game, there is conflict and it usually ends in tears for one of them.  I am totally at a loss on how to handle this.....any ideas?

Berry Picking

Over the weekend we decided to go berry picking.  We haven't done this in ages and the kids LOVE picking berries!!

 The 4 younger kids decided to go on ahead - our 7 year old wanted to ride :o)  What are good big brothers to do?

 We spent several hours just picking Olallieberries and Black Berries.

 After eating, I am sure, pounds and pounds of berries, we left with 10 pounds of berries.  Lots and lots were consumed in the car on the way home.

 Some made it into this pie.  I am not a very good pie maker - it tasted good, but kind of fell apart when we cut into it.

 Some made it into these yummy muffins...

doesn't this look perfect! and some of the berries are still in the fridge.  Quick, I better make some more muffins before all the berries disappear!!