Beautiful Blogger Award

So, I was nominated for a sweet award by a fellow military spouse over at Educating Crumpet! Thank you so much for the nomination! This is my first award! Whoohoo...yay for another blog first!

The rules for this award are as follows:

Thank the person who kindly passed this to you, and link your award back to them.
List 7 things about yourself.
Pass it on to 15 blogs that deserve a Beautiful Blogger Award. (I think this might be too many, so I'll just do one...sorry!)
Let them know they earned this award.

1.  I never ever pictured myself as a happy stay at home homeschooling mom, and until I had my second...I wasn't.
2. I'm 23 and have my bachelors in Criminal Justice...I would love to work for the FBI one day, but right now I feel like it's most important to be here for my girls(and unknown baby) until we all adjust to this new deployment schedule.
3. I LOVE TO READ...anything except for most biographies. I'm a sucker for fantasy books, like Twilight, Harry Potter, JD Robb, Percy Jackson, and the classics!

4. I'm learning that contentment and happiness aren't the same, but being content leads to being happy.
5. I really want to go exploring with the girls this summer...maybe a road trip to Amish Country, or to the Capital!

6. I'm fluent in American Sign Language, and have started to encourage Kaelyn and Anna to use it more frequently.
7. I'm not very fashionable...I much prefer to have solid classic cut t-shirts with a few "edgey" ones and great accessories than anything else. It actually annoys Ryan. He says if I find a shirt that fits and I like it, I will buy every color...he's right!

I will nominate Leslie over at Peachy Keen.

stART: Snow

This is a really COOL concept of reading a book and creating an ART project/craft to extend the story. I have been seeing this done on a lot of the homeschooling blogs that also participate in the Weekly Preschool Corner and thought it sounded like fun. If your interested, jump on over to A Mommy's Adventures and join in stART.

Kaelyn picked the theme for her library books this week, and she was inspired by all the SNOW!

 

This was after the first "big" snow...we were hit by a second soon after.

I can't say I can blame her...that is A LOT of snow in our back yard...today we read
Snow by Manya Stojic at the suggestion of our librarian. It's a sweet story of how some animals prepare for winter and how spring is just around the corner!

For our art project, the girls each had black construction paper and were asked to draw snowflakes like a page in the book (it's really a striking illustration and popped out at me before I even picked this book for our first stART).

 

Here are the girls working on the pages...Anna was quickly tired of it and moved to sitting on the counter while I prepped for dinner. But Kaelyn continued (after she complained that she would really like to be using a marker and not chalk)....and here is her finished product!

(Warning, a very bad picture of my child follows, she refused to smile and choose to roar instead)

 

All of her snow and her snowman! Please excuse her face...she wasn't going to smile, so she roared...I don't bother asking why anymore.

other books that we are reading are:

 

By the way,  I am LOVING the Why is it cold? Just Ask Series...it's way more on Kaelyn's level than the Magic School Bus books although those are favorites as well!

Kaelyn's First Interview

What is your name: Kaelyn

When is your birthday: 4 (that's how old she'll be) "But when is it?" After Daddy's Birthday

Who is your Mama: Your  my mommy

Who is your Daddy: Daddy's my Dad, he's at work (Very logical this one!)

What does your Daddy do: He goes and flies in airplanes and goes to work

What is your favorite color: PINK

What is your favorite song: The new clean up song (from our new CD)

What do you want to do when your grow up: Be a Princess

Where do you want to live when you grow up: live in Sam's house

What is your favorite food: Salad, Meat, Proccuito(sp? It's the dried Italian ham), hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly and something to drink

What is your least favorite food :tomatos,

What is your favorite animal:  Horse

What do Mom and Dad do after you go to bed:working and watch movies

What is your favorite movie: Camelot (Quest for Camelot),

What is your favorite Ice Cream Flavor: Chocolate and vanilla

Where do you like to eat: at ChicFila

Who is your favorite person: Rory and Catherine and my pretend friend

Who is your best friend? The boy who had a puppy dog in his hand, the pink one and a blue one (he played with her at chicfila)

What is your favorite book? The princess book we just got at the library

What is your favorite thing to do? read books and look at my favorite dragon (a puppet at the library)

Out of the mouth of babes!

DIY Beach Towel Bag with it's own mat

Martha Stewart has these great tutorials for making a Beach Towel Tote Bag with a Mat out of a bath towel and a 2 hand towels. Here is the link for her instructions.

Now, I followed her instructions to the best of my ability, but they sure are confusing. So here is her instructions plus my pictures to make it a little bit more accessible. I also cheated and added an additional hand towel because it made it easier for me although I did find the end result to be very thick for using on my sewing machine. I also altered her design slightly by adding two seams on the half finished bag to create three pockets so that the bag wouldn't be as cavernous. Here goes my first DIY Tutorial.

To do this craft you will need
2 hand towels (the length should equal the width of your bath towel)
1 bath towel
a sewing machine
I used 1 yard of Twill Tape instead of her suggested webbing, but will be using longer amounts for future bags to get a tote bag length.

First lay out your hand towel and decide which side will be the "inside of the bag".  I choose to put all the tags "inside" the bag. Opposed to cutting them off, I kept them to make it easier to determine which side was the inside of the bag and which side would be the exterior. I eyeballed the appropriate placement for the handles and placed the twill tape on the tagged side of the towel. I pinned them down and used this as a guide for my other hand towel so that the handles would "meet up".

 

I sewed on the twill tape and back-stitched  over the twill tape to reinforce them. Don't sew the two hand towels together, just put the handles on each one.

 Now this next part took me a lot of thinking, because you are now adding the towel to the handtowels. For the first hand towel addition, take the hand towel and lay it face up (tagged side down on the towel) onto the bath towel. Sew the two sides and bottom seams...Also, if you'd like to add the two vertical pockets now is the time to do it! Just pick the size of pocket you would like and sew the appropriate number of seams to create your pocket(s). I choose to create three pockets.

As you can see here is the three pocket side. The towel is fully extended and acts as your mat.

To add the final hand towel, lay it face down tag side up on top of the pocketed hand towel.

 You can see both handles at the top of the bag...the non-pocketed hand-towel is laying on top of the larger towel. The bath towel is at the end.

Now the tote was so thick that I couldn't keep thin seam allowances, I had to move above the previous seams to be able to sew with the foot down. If you choose to follow Martha's instructions, you probably won't have this issue, but I didn't follow Martha hear because, we'll she lost me and I liked the idea of pockets. So, once again sew along the two sides and bottom.

You will now flip the bag so that the tags and handle seams are inside the bag. Now, the mat can be tucked into the larger pocket formed by the LAST hand towel.

 
I don't have my finished picture because, well, I lost it. But you can see the semi finished project with the mat extended. When the mat is folded up inside the bag it looks just like Martha's.

This would make a great Mother's day gift or a welcome to warm weather present!

My next project from Martha will be this canvas bag turned baby bag for a friend who is expecting her third and needs LOTS of room!

It's a beautiful thing

    From the beginning, we knew that these two were going to be close. It all started the day I walked out of the kitchen and saw Kaelyn holding Anna's tiny two weeks old hand and tucking her very special Blankey around her in front of the TV. Kaelyn had accepted Anna, shared with her, and embraced her completely.

    We love watching this bond develop, deepen and grow. These two girls are as different as night and day. Kaelyn is very calm, patient almost to a fault, bright, non-confrontational, questioning and aims to please. Anna is curious, analytical, rebellious but learning obedience, aggressive(lets her opinion be known) and rambunctious. 

    What amazes me is that we have been talking to Kaelyn about her responsibility to stand up for those who are smaller than her or those without the ability to do so. This is asking a lot out of my timid child, the one who wouldn't voice a complaint until it was absolutely necessary. I love seeing Kaelyn start to embrace this responsibility, especially when it comes to her sister. Mostly, because I know it is so against her nature and is the complete reflection of her love for her sister.

        Recently, a young boy knocked Anna over at the aquarium...Kaelyn responded by first helping her sister up and assuring her that it was okay, then turned on the boy and said "EXCUSE ME, you DON'T knock my sister over, now tell her you are sorry."

Now, Anna does just as good a job at sticking up for her sister although it comes in a different manner. Generally, she checks on her sister and gives the other person what I like to call "the stink eye".  The other thing that I absolutely love about Anna is that if she can't help her sister feel better, or "fix" it by saying she's "sorry", she'll  walk over to where her sister is crying and sit beside her...rub her back or just cry with her. 

Talk about a bond that doesn't need words...the bond of a sister, a friend, a confidant who will not just try and fix your problem, but will go so far as to apologize for life, and when nothing works, will sit beside you in your moment of distress and rub your back or cry with you, beside you, and for you.

It truly is a beautiful thing.

Valentine's Traditions

I don't know what kind of traditions other couples have, but ours revolve around "doing" or "making" something for each other.

   This started back with our first year of marriage, when we had one car, a tiny one room apartment with no furniture(all in storage) due to Ryan's training (did I mention that I was hugely pregnant sleeping on a blow up mattress that folded in half everytime I sat/lay down...talk about making me feel good about my ever changing body...and no I'm not bitter!) and little money. What money we did have we cycled into savings or getting rid of debt while it was just the two of us. So, when faced with Valentine's Day, we choose to do something simple, to give each other gifts that cost little money but require time and thought for the giver. Knowing my husband, and what a foodie he is, I decided to make a four course meal (this was HUGE for me because I had just started cooking for my sweet husband the month prior) all from scratch. We ate a very memorable first Valentine's day meal picnic style on our patio with dollar tree "crystal" candle holders...that one night sparked the tradition of me going above and beyond a normal meal each Valentine's Day.

This years menu (pictures to be posted later) is....

Shrimp and Churiso tapas
Sweet Balsamic Vinegar Asparagus Salad
Black Cherry and Cracked Pepper Lamb Chops with Split Pea Rissotto
and two desserts...Chocolate Covered Strawberries and a Five Layered Cream tart with fresh berries

Now that we have two small children, we have to "plan" our evening more carefully. The girls are starting their own tradition of Homemade Heart Pizza's(with heart pepperoni!) with Strawberry Ice Cream.

The girls will start eating around 530, Anna goes to bed around 630
Ryan will tuck Anna in while Kaelyn finishes eating and gets to fix her popcorn with M&M's so that she can watch her movie.
Ryan tucks Kaelyn in with her movie, snack, drink and books, and joins me for the Appetizers. What he doesn't know is that the Basement will be turned into  a similar picnic scene as our first Valentine's day!
Once the appetizers are done, the lamb will have rested and I can bring it down!
Desserts will be made ahead and can be ate upstairs! ;)

Kool Aid Playdough

I have always wanted to try and make my own dough, but have never had a reason since Kaelyn was always so responsible and tucked her play dough away after each use. Now, after YEARS of use, the dough is drying out and I decided since Anna doesn't "get" that you can't eat dough, I should try my hand at a food based dough that would be "safer" for her to ingest! This dough is just the ticket. Did I mention that the consistency, smell and texture are to die for, not to mention that it makes a TON of play dough for minimal money!

2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup salt
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cups boiling water
2 packages unsweetened Kool-Aid  (we used cherry!)

I mixed all the dry ingredients in a bowl while my water was heated for about three minutes in the microwave. We added them all together and Anna mixed while I measured out   eyeballed three tablespoons of oil.

Let it cool before you try kneading it. I ended up having to knead in about a 1/4 cup of extra flour to get a dough consistency that allowed you to play with it w/o getting your hands covered in gunk! Anna enjoyed helping!

This recipe makes enough to fill a large sour cream container...so I hope you like the smell!

 

And if you get tired of it, you can always use it to make beads! Just cut out shapes with a cookie cutter, use a skewer to make holes and let it dry over night. The color does "fade" or turn "ashy", but it's a fun craft for the kids!

A 1 yr old, 2 yr old, 3 yr old and 23 yr old all approve!