giveaway sharing

Homeschooling mamas, Check out this sweet giveaway at Delightful Learning!
http://delightfullearning.com/2010/01/lacing-buttons-review-and-giveaway/comment-page-4/#comment-3229
I'm not sure how, but I've only recently learned about Learning Resources. They have some really cute things that would be fun to incorporate into our learning play.

Toddler art and OCD don't play well together -or- Oh No!! They are mixing the colors!!!

 

I'm pretty good about letting the kids explore a new material on their on own terms, but I did bristle when the dough colors started mixing. I know it's my own hang up. They would happily smash all the colors together and make brown. I also know that I'll eventually get over it and give them more than two colors at a time and let them have at it. But, for the time being, they each choose a color and shred it to bits with the dough scissors, and then mash it back together and make snakes cadapidders. There was a lot of kneading and pinching and flattening too. This is only their 2nd time with play dough (I was nervous about the wheat, and the w/f dough that we tried to make was terrible) , and we'll have many more chances to experiment with it. I'm guessing that right now, it's more about playing with motor skills anyway. I'm wondering what other parents do with dough. What happens to the dough that is all mixed together? Do you just pick the dominant color and store it in that container? Do you have a separate container just for it? What's really interesting to me is that I have no problem with paint being mixed in the paint pots.

Ornaments and smiles

Our mostly-handmade holidays were a success. The majority of the ornaments were made by me (with help from the kids, of course), our pj's were made by Marisa of Funky Giraffe (who also stocks with me at K&F Shops), and I made all the cloth gift bags. This was the first year that we have put up a tree, and it really makes the house look bright and festive.

A Long Year

I can't believe it's been a whole year since I've last updated this blog. Now that Blogger has updated the way that photos can be loaded, I'm hoping that it's a little easier to integrate pics into posts. The old way was really frustrating and contributed a ton to my lack of posting.

As can be expected, the kids have changed a ton in this last year. They are really creative, and have such cute and funny ideas. We have started doing some homeschooling/unschooling, and lots of crafts. Lately, we are working on winter crafts and holiday decorating, and I hope to soon have a bunch of photos of all of our projects.
 

Buy Handmade

It was a good day. I made some pants for the kids. Reversible flannel ones with penguins on one side and owls on the other. They are a big hit, and after every diaper change, the kids demand that they are put back on immediately. In fact, they must hold the pants during the diaper change, presumably so they don't get away.  After finishing the pants, we all went to COSI and finally got a membership. I've been meaning to for a while, but our friends kept inviting us as guests so we didn't need to. We can have a guest on our membership too, so I'll be able to do the same for someone else now. At COSI, we went to the Sesame Street Presents: The Body exhibit and the kids had a blast running around pushing buttons and exploring. They particularly liked the little grocery store setup. I was pretty impressed with their food selections. 

Almost everything that the kids are wearing is WAHM-made. Their new penguin pants are somewhat visable in the photos, then they have on long-sleeved onesies dyed by Janessa of Maple Leaf Designs who is a local dyer and good friend. On top of that they are wearing advocacy saying shirts made by SaySumthing. One of the shirts says Tree Hugger, and the other says Think Green. Both shirts were also dyed by Janessa. We are waiting for a couple more SaySumthing shirts to arrive in the next week or so and I'm excited to be able to have the kids wear them. They say Buy Handmade, and I think I'm going to try to make that our theme for the coming year, regardless of the proposed CPSIA regs.