Crayola Fun!!!

It's a winter Sunday afternoon and we were outside for a while and now I was just checking my email. I have a crayola account and was checking out their ideas. (Which crayola.com does have great project ideas and coloring pages for free, but for those of you who love crayons (like me - KELLIE) check out this link. http://www.crayola.com/creative-fun/color-quizzer/ It is a test of your ability to name the crayons correctly. Just for fun or to kill time give it a try.

Snow Day - plows

Okay the boys are both home again today thanks to yet again another SNOW day. They wanted to be able to pretend that they were moving snow but their toy trucks didn't come with snowplows and they don't use loaders to plow snow. So we needed to make snowplows! After thinking for a little bit I came up with using a toilet paper tube. Cut it in half. Make 2 small holes in the center of the "plow" and feed a rubberband through the holes. We needed to tie a knot in the rubberband or I used a half hitch in the rubberband on the back to hold it in place. We were then able to stretch the rubberbands around the cabs of the trucks and temporarily have snowplows attached. The only problem was that they couldn't push things that were very close to the ground (the plows don't truly touch the ground) so I pulled out the styrofoam packing peanuts and told them that there was their snow. Both boys had fun with "moving" snow today!

Indoor Hopscotch

With the up coming winter storm, I was trying to think of ways that I could keep the boys moving and having fun inside. I saw this idea in a quilt book a couple of weeks ago. It is indoor hopscotch. I just took felt and cut out ovals/circles on brown to make it look like stones. We are rolling a hacky sack towards a stone and then jumping around the hacky sack. The book I saw the idea in had different ideas for blocks. Fun foam squares, flowers, lilly pads (then the kids could be frogs)whatever would work. I used felt because I knew that it wouldn't slide on carpet and I was unsure if fun foam would slide or not. We added the numbers with a permenate marker. I think I can also use these as ways for Garrett to learn his numbers. I can call out number "3" and he will have to go jump on it. I could also use these as a hide and seek game where the numbers are hiding and the boys have to find them , in order, or the number that I call out. Oh the possibilities! If you think of any fun things to do with this please let me know! Have fun!

Robert this week

Robert is now asking for things to be put on the blog so first is a picture of his most recent Knex creation, a hang glider! He finally had another soccer game after snow delays for the past couple of weeks, we had a nice weekend and they got to play!

Mardi Gras Masks

Took the picture but took time to get them up on here!

Recharge your Batteries - Children's Sermon

For today's children's sermon I took my camera along and had batteries that were about dead and a set that were charged. I had the dead batteries in my camera. I had them set a pose for me and went to take it, only to find that the batteries were dead. Have you ever had a low or dead battery? When my personal battery is low or dead, I get very grumpy, with people, especially with my family. At Christmas time this year I was very tired and worn out and my battery was very low!!! But with normal batteries we throw them out, but with rechargeable batteries we are able to recharge them. Thankfully God has made us with rechargeable batteries and he doesn't throw us out, when we are working for him. I then put in the charged batteries and showed that with charged batteries they are able to do work, just like us. Since Christmas, I have taken time to "hibernate" and I have found a way to recharge my batteries. God says " Be still and know that I am God" I have found that when I am not quite so busy that I have time to listen to God. NOt only have I been recharged but I have had creative ideas about showing God's love again and I am once again excited about God's work through me. Michele Higgins and I have been working on selecting VBS material. Once again we had each looked and found 2 different ones that we thought would be great for VBS. When Michele emailed me the ones that she thought would be our options, I found VBS materials that I hadn't seen, but I was so excited about that not only did I run upstairs at 10:30 (after Gary had been in bed for at least 2 hours) and jump on the bed saying "listen to this" but I was also up until 2 AM because I was SOOOOO excited over the possibilities of what VBS could be this year and how VERY VERY COOL it could be.
SO having taken the time to "Be still" and slow down just a little bit has been very rewarding because God has recharged my battery through time with him, studying his word and through not being distracted by too many other things. So when you are not excited about doing something that you use to be excited about, or when you are just tired take time to "be still" sometimes that can mean just a simple nap and rest other times it means so much more.
Have a great week!

Free Busy Moms Bible

They just announced on the radio that if you go to the website www.busymomsbible.com that you can request a Busy Mom's Bible for the first 5000 requests. It is on the website - this is a Zondervan publishing Bible, I don't know what version but it was decribed as having devotionals included in the Bible itself.
Thought you might like to check it out!

Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras is tomorrow, also known as Fat Tuesday. So we have let the kids make masks for the party. We have taken posterboard, or funfoam and cut a simple mask shape and eye holes. Then I have let the kids use feathers, glitter glue, beads in the bright colors of Mardi Gras and glue them on. We sometimes have donuts for breakfast because in some religions during Lent they did not have sugar and items made with yeast. So yes we eat poorly on Fat Tuesday. But it is a treat around here and Robert usually wears his brightly colored fleece hat that has 2 points on it, just to be silly!

Chinese New Year's

Yesterday was the first day of the Chinese New Year's celebration. This is the year of the Tiger and not that I believe in every thing involved with Chinese New Year's but it is a good way to show the kids a diversity in people and traditions. We have started, thanks to my mom :), celebrating Chinese New Year's because it is something different for the kids to experience. If you get a chance in the next 12 days - maybe grab some chopsticks, chinese food and have a little fun with it. I tried making Fortune Cookies, but they were too thick, so we will try again sometime. But here is a Fortune Cookie Recipe if you would like to try it sometime.

Fortune Cookies
Make up your sheet of fortunes and cut them apart.

Ingredients:
8 egg whites, 1 cup melted butter, 1 teaspoon, vanilla, 4 tablespoons water, 2 cups sugar, 1 cup flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
Directions:
Seperate the egg whites and beat until they form stiff peaks. Blend in the sugar and butter. (Save the yolks for scrambled eggs some other day.)Add the flour, vanilla, salt, and water to the mixture and mix until it is smooth. Grease a cookie sheet and spoon the batter into 3 inch circle (takes about 1 Tablespoon). Bake at 375 for about 3 minutes.
When the cookies are done, remove them with a pancake flipper onto waxed paper. Take a fortune and put it in the center of the cookie. Fold the cookie in half and then gently bend the ends of the cookie back towards each other towards the straight edge of the fold. If they get stiff, just put the cookies back into the oven for about 1 minute to soften in order to fold. Enjoy!

Library Mouse

Some have let me know that they liked "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" idea that I shared a couple of week's ago. So today Robert, Garrett and I had a chance to read another book and add an activity. Today's book was "Library Mouse" by Daniel Kirk. We read this cute book about finding the author in you. So following reading the book, I had paper cut and stapled together for the boys to write their own books. Robert went to a friends so we didn't get to finish our books, but for Garrett a simple story using stickers as the pictures for numbers or colors. I will write the color on the page and have him finish with pictures that are that color. Also another one that we are going to work on is the Counting - each page will have a number and the correct number of similar stickers for him to Count. I have done this before and Robert loved reading his books to mom & dad and even his stuffed animals. We still have some of his first books just for the fun of it.

My QUILT is DONE!!!!!

I just needed to share that I finally finished my first queen size quilt. I have made 2 other quilts, but they were very simple quilts and had very little piecing involved. But this is a new quilt for on my bed. I have been working on it for the last year and I an very excited with how it turned out. I just wanted to share a picture of how it turned out.

Another SNOW Day!!!!

Well today is just starting and it will be another SNOW DAY with both boys here at home. It's too cold and windy to send them outside, so I am planning while they watch a movie. Grab the sheets, they each get their own tent in a corner for the day. This will keep them busy for a while. Paper, scissors and glue - they can make Valentine's Cards for special people (the ones for school are already done). Robert does have a Cookie 4-H project, maybe we will make some cookies and give them to the snowplow drivers (they might need them today). Oh and maybe we will make our own snow pictures. This can be a lot of fun. Take shaving cream and make a pile on a piece of cardboard or paper, then add about 1 tbsp of school glue to the shaving cream and mix together. Then let the kids make pictures with their hands or paint brushes. The glue keeps the shaving cream puffy, So it is like painting with puffy paint, only cheaper!!!
Have a great SNOW DAY!!!

National Marriage Week & upcoming Valentine's Day

This is National Marriage Week! Have you celebrated your marriage? With Valentine's Day at the end of this week, try to find small ways to surprise your spouse with little things that they will appreciate. With tight times, the things that are well thought out, but cost nothing, are sometimes the best way of showing your love to your spouse. If you are not married take time to identify a couple who has been an example to you and let them know that you apprecaite them in your life.

Some helpful ideas:
leave post-its around the house or car or office with little love notes on them
-send a loving text or email message
-offer a back rub or full body massage
-have dinner ready for the kids early and put them in bed and have a romatic candle lit dinner for just the 2 of you

For Valentine's Day maybe have your children adopt a widow or widower that they could shower with love. Let those people know that they are still loved as part of this world and that someone stills cares! Random Acts of Kindness usually catch people off guard and they truely appreciate the kindness. Something as simple as homemade cards (remember the heart shaped people?)which is s great activity for the kids and can be used for someone special!

individual servings

The kids love things that come in individual servings, jello and puddings for school especially. Well when Garrett was a baby we had baby food in the plastic rectangle containers with lids. I found that those worked great for a lot of things from Cherrios at church to reusing them for jello made in a large batch and put in the refrigerator and then sent to school to pudding cups. We also found that we like them for putting carmel in when dipping apples or peanutbutter for apples or bananas. But they also have a limited time of use, or sometimes got thrown away because it was easier. I would love to have 25 or 50 more of those litle containers. If anyone has a little one eating baby food and would be able to save some for me, I would appreciate it, unless you are going to use them. But if you plan on throwing them away, please hold on to them for me!

playdough !?!?!

Playdough is a love-hate childhood item. I love the smell of play dough and the feel in my hands. The boys will spend hours wih play dough but those hours also equal bigger clean up time, on the floor, on their clothes, maybe drug to the carpet. Why do the fun things in life have to make such a mess?
Garrett had playdough out today and enjoyed every minute of it. He has a farm set and the farmer grew hair and then he would cut it off. "He needed a haircut, Mom" But all those pieces ended up on the floor (just like a real haircut I guess) but then Garrett ended up stepping in it with socks on. That can be difficult to get out of clothes. Oh the joys!

cool kids craft site

The website www.freekidscrafts.com is a very good website with fun crafts to do with kids. Each day there is a new craft available on their calendar. There are printable activities and at the beginning of each month there is a calendar page to print off. I have found this website has be a good go to at the lasst minute when the boys want to make something and I'm brain dead!

free quilt patterns and directions

Hey I stumbled upon a cool quilting website. Yes I am getting into quilting and it is a lot of fun. If you like to sew or would like to try a project take a look at the website, www.allpeoplequilt.com
There are free pattern and directions, ideas and informational classes on quilting!
Have fun

Working Together - Children's Sermon

I usually do not have 2 weeks back to back of children's sermon's but I was filling in for a friend, so I will post this week's children's sermon. I hope that you at least are enjoying reading them.
1 Corinthians 12:27 (The Living Bible Translation)
"Now here is what I am trying to say: All of you together are the one body of Christ and each one of you is a seperate and necessary part of it."

Now once I had the children at the front with me, we read the verse above and I asked if anyone played on a team - soccer? football? baseball? One little girl told me that she had gone to see "Magical Kingdom Live" at Clarion University over the weekend and I had the opportunity to see it too. So we talked a minute about the show choir and that they worked as a team, that they didn't just get up there and start dancing. And how did they learn all those dances or how do you learn the plays for a sport and get good? PRACTICE! Did you know that we need to practice being part of God's team? Sometimes when we are on a team, we know what the goal is, but we don't talk about how we are going to get there. Sometimes we decide that we know how to get there. Then I had the kids help me with an activity. First let me explain that our church has 2 main aisles, not a single center aisle. I had the kids all stand facing the congregation and had them hold hands. They had become "One" but they were still individuals. Now the goal is to get the whole line to the back of the church (where I had put a treat for them) the only rule was that they had to hold hands the whole time. If they broke hands, they had to go back to the front and try again. I asked if there were any questions, seeing none, I took a hold of a wee little guys hand at one end and said go. Of course, one side of the line went up 1 aisle while I led one end up the other. Oops, we broke apart, back to the front, lets try again. Once again we went in different directions, but going for the same goal. Then I had the kids stop and think about the goal, it was the same for all of them, but we had a problem we were going in our own directions. We then tried it 1 more time, with all of us working together, and we all walked back 1 aisle and made it to the treat. It's it amzing if we work together but do our part under God's direction what can be accomplished!

Groundhog Day idea's

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, and I try to have a fun craft for little kids for Groundhog Day. Garrett has started his, but today didn't go according to plan or I might have had a picture. Take a paper cup or I took a cardboard cone (from inside yarn that my mother-in-law crochets from) make a small hole in the bottom of the cup, big enough for a straw to fit through. Now take 2 large brown pom poms and glue them together, find small googley eyes and add them to your pompoms (Your groundhog) Now glue your pompoms to the end of the straw. Place the other end of the straw through the hole in the bottom of the cup so he will be able to go in and out of the cup. I have found if you are on a time limit or have an impatient child, hot glue works great for speeding up the process, just becareful if they want to help! The kids can go around all day pushing their groundhog out of the cup and checking for shadows in different lighting in your house, or take it out side and make their own prediction!** If you don't have pompoms at your house, take a piece of brown paper and draw a little brown creature and add eyes. The kids like the action I think more than the art work of the groundhog.