We love glue!

One of the kids' favorite activities is gluing.  I stocked up when school supplies were on sale, and Little Man has definitely made a dent in the stash.  Here's an example of his work:

Truthfully, many of his projects get thrown away because the giant mound of glue makes the paper quite soggy (I've since learned to use cardboard whenever possible).

 C, on the other hand, is more methodical.  Googly eyes always add to the fun.

One day, I cut paper into several small shapes and we made collages.  I even made two (top left and bottom right).  I like how C stacked the triangles from largest to smallest so made a flower in a similar manner.

Meanwhile, S practiced his cutting skills and made a million bits of paper.  Sorry, no photo to share.  He loves scissors, though.  It took quite awhile for him to learn how to use them (6 months???) but now he is so good that the other day he cut his hair. I can't even say that he was stealth about it--I was sitting right next to him!  I leaned down to pick up paper from the floor, sat back up and he had a giant pile of white hair on his shoulder.  As one of my mom friends said (after her daughter and C both went through similar hair cutting episodes last winter) "I guess you just aren't living life without a messed up hair cut". I know I've had a few at the hands of my sister! :)

Walking to School

Since I'm not computer savvy, all I have is a link, but check out this photo from Walk to School Day.

I can see the future

My little man and his closest cousin are a year apart.  She loves giving him kisses and hugs and he loves receiving them.  I am so looking forward to watching their friendship develop.  Their personalities seems to be a perfect yin and yang.  I could watch them for hours.  What are they thinking right here?

Q-Tip Pointillism

My kids love doing art and craft projects.  I've found that if I have a few projects ready to go, next time they say "let's paint" I can say "OK!" rather than "in a few minutes".  In fact, I found a nice little list here and now have it taped to the inside of my kitchen cabinet.  The list is also a great place for me to write down lots of other "quickie" projects.  I hope to post some of those eventually...

Anyway, here's the results of Q-tip pointillism.  I LOVE pointillism and always think of my high school art teacher saying "George Seurat invented the dot" and have now taught my kids this little tidbit of art history.    (I do know the proper French pronunciation, but saying "Sir-Ott" rhymes so much better with "dot".)

C got the idea with the flower and had fun doing some of her own techniques as well.

S didn't quite grasp the concept of pointillism (hey, they are kids!), but he LOVED making lines and completed several paintings, proudly saying "ee" (his pronunciation of "See") then asking for it to be hung on the art wire.

Quiet Book

I've contemplated making a "quiet"or "busy" book for the kids for ages, but it seemed like so much work.  Well, less than one week before our big road trip to Ohio, I decided to make one anyway.  Nothing like a deadline to get me motivated!  No matter that there is no fabric shop around here, I was determined to use what I had to make it work.  Oh, did I mention that I was also completing my niece's birthday outfit at the same time?

I only managed to eek out seven pages for the trip, and I'll share a few here.  Most of my inspiration was from the blog How to Make a Quiet Book.  Genius!  Homemade by Jill also had a really inspiring book, from which I used her barn and puppet templates and very cute mailbox.  There are lots more blog posts out there and it can consume a person looking at all of them.  To make myself stay focused, I looked at what I had on hand and made a list of the pages I knew I could complete before the trip.  I made another list of pages for my "second round" (probably two nights before our next road trip!) and a third list for "someday" pages.

This page was S's favorite (and the easiest to make).  He loved mixing up the colors and saying "no, no, yes" and practicing "red means stop, green means go".

This was another favorite, for both kids.  C obviously has it mastered, but she loved joking around and mixing up the numbers.  I eventually will add another page for 5-10 and yet another page to practice math problems.  

These pages were fun for me, but the kids weren't too interested in dressing her up.  I thought S would like to practice the zipper, but I guess that was old news to him.  I'm glad I didn't bother making a "boy" figure to dress as well.

You can see that I ran out of grommets so just make marker points of where to add them eventually.  I used a binder ring to hold all the pages together then easily take apart to give the kids separate pages to work on.

This kind of project would be great to do with friends, dividing up the work of each page then swapping finished pieces.  It was also a nice project that I could kind of tote around, cutting out little pieces of felt as I had time.

On another note, I took these pages outside to photograph, and it was so humid my camera lens kept fogging up.  Crazy!!!

Doodling

C loves drawing and coloring, something I also loved as a child.  I recently introduced her to the concept of "doodling".  Here's an example of a doodle around some names.

Recently, Daddy bought C a new book, Drawing, Doodling and Colouring and we've been having lots of fun with it.  Seriously, I want my own copy!  The Usborne website has free printable pages as well, here.  I also read that Costco will be selling some doodling books, too.  I like these books because it helps provide a little spark to her imagination, such as drawing monsters.

Or adding facial features (you can see I like to get in on the fun, too!).

One of my favorites:

Incidentally, I remember reading an article that sited some research that the most innovative scientists, whom people generally consider to be very analytical, are actually quite creative.  Their creativity helps them solve problems in ways never considered.  The article went on to describe ways to encourage this creative problem solving in children, and doodling was one such suggestion.  Personally, I just like sitting next to C and sharing markers while we complete pages from her book. :)

Happy 1st Birthday!

My sweet niece turned one last friday and C and I were happy to help her celebrate. What a blow-out 1st birthday party she had!  My sister and her hubby are excellent party-throwers, and the cuteness of the birthday girl was the icing on the cake! (Ha ha, some birthday humor.)

Just look at this face!

I made her crown my usual way with velcro for the "1"so that we can make her a special "2" for next year.

I must say she totally rocked the ruffled skirt and birthday shirt I made for her...

Check out this super-cute handmade tutu!  This thing was ADORABLE!!!

My sister also made some really cute flower vases and Happy Birthday bunting.  I regret not taking photos--such fun decorations!

OK, I think I've used the word "cute" enough already!  Happy Birthday, W!  We love you and are so happy to be only 5 hours away!!!