{yes...mess}

It was my birthday this weekend. Michael did a really good job at coming up with some good ideas to spend time together as a family doing things the I really like. We spent Saturday at the farmer's market then went out to eat. Sunday I sang at church, we had a lazy afternoon and then some friend's came over for dinner and cupcakes. Delicious chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter icing. Oh my. But I digress.

We had some time on Saturday afternoon and ended up playing in the garage. I don't know why we don't do it more often. It's just the right size - and flat - for bike riding & scooting scooters, it's enclosed, close the the bathroom and any other thing one might need.

After the kids had exhausted the fun of biking & scooting in the garage, they started going through the craft stuff in our craft cart. They noticed the big roll of builder's paper (I totally stole this idea from "9 Reasons Every Home Needs Butcher Paper" by Kelle at ETST). And the finger paint. Then they started to strip to their skivvies. (Don't you paint in your undies?) The fingerpainting body painting began. And by body painting, I mean they got as much on their bodies as they did on the paper.

Then Kalea looked at us with those big eyes and asked if they could paint the wall, "Just a itsy, teeny, little, tiny bit? pleeeeeease?" Who were we to say no! You should have seen the looks on their faces when we said YES! Priceless. 

 And that, my friends, is how the story of how we have the best looking garage wall in the neighborhood. 

{week 32}

What a week!!! Thanks to our friend Julie for loaning me her real camera (since I left mine in Macon!!!) for Cassidy's first week of kindergarten. But, of course, I snapped plenty of iPhone pictures too! We started the week lazily with a pajama day crafting & watching movies in anticipation of the long week ahead. And also, my girls love anything bead/glue/glitter/mess related, so it was a win. Tuesday was the practice bus ride, meet & greet and then the big girl & I had a mommy-daughter date shopping for a first day of school outfit, a couple books - we got "The Kissing Hand" & "Llama, Llama Misses Mama" among other {tearjerkers}, and went out for lunch. Wednesday was the first day of school. Cassidy had a wonderful day and was all smiles getting on & off of the bus. The early morning totally wore everyone in the family out though. Cade took a monster nap in the afternoon and Kalea was asleep in her bed by 6:30 that night!!! 

So, we're adjusting. I'm making bigger pots of coffee in the morning, bedtime is earlier and, thankfully, easier for the most part. Kalea and Cade are getting to spend some quality sibling time together. (And I laugh, because JUST as I typed this, they started fighting. Yep, quality.) It hasn't been without a couple bumps in the road. Cassidy, on the surface, is doing amazingly well with such a big transition. However she's had her moments of complete meltdowns that seem completely unrelated - I'm sure due to being over tired and not quite used to everything. We're back to packing lunches, meal planning (that yummy salmon is this recipe. one pot, super easy, 25 minutes from start to finish) and seeing the sun peak over the trees in the morning. And blessed through all of it. 

{homework}

Cassidy's teachers sent a note home saying it was family project time, aka homework! Our instructions were to make a small box into something else using our imaginations. Cassidy immediately decided on a butterfly, & b/c Kalea does what big sister does, so did she. I think our creations turned out pretty well!

{iPad}

"Mama, can I have some 'struction paper & scissors? I want to make an iPad!!"

Oh!! An eye patch!

{sew sweet}

- Posted from my iPhone

{noodling}

Thanks to a craft exchange at MOPS, we're keeping busy today with noodle necklaces.

It is interesting to see the difference in fine motor skills b/t the two & four year old. They're both having fun though!

- Posted from my iPhone

project 365 photo: 05.27.2011 {last day of preschool}

We love our preschool, Holladay Preschool, and are sad to be leaving it after this school year due to our move. It'll be hard to replace a place that cares so much for the students and families who attend the school. Friday was Cassidy's last day of school & I was lucky enough to be scheduled as the co-op parent, meaning that I got to stay to help out for the entire class, watch the kids interact one last time & experience the craziness of the last day of school. It was so much fun!

Cassidy & I had a fun time making a gardening kit as gifts for her teachers. We got the idea here.

fa la la la, la shutterfly

photo card from Shutterfly

The holidays are coming up on me fast. Can you believe that there are only 12 days until Thanksgiving, 13 days until Black Friday & 42 days until Christmas?!? I can't. Between now & 12/25 I have at least 6,000 things to do including our holiday cards.

Well, I love a good deal & am even more of a sucker for free stuff - especially products I would buy even if they weren't free. When I heard that Shutterfly was giving away 50 free holiday cards to bloggers who do a review & share their favorite holiday card product, I was all in. After all, we sent Shutterfly cards out last year & planned to the the same this year. One thing I really like about Shutterfly is that they'll address & send cards out for you if you're short on time. Not that this happened to me for Kalea's 1st birthday invitations or anything. I also like the feature where you can share any project (like Kalea or Cassidy's year in review books which I finally did to cross something else off my bucket list!) you've made on a blog, Facebook or MySpace.

They have tons of options this year - folded cards, flat photo cards & flat stationary cards with options for one, two, three or multiple photos. They have birthday cards, holiday cards, Christmas cards, Hanukkah cards, calendars, photo mugs & much more. Since I seem to take a zillion photos & I'm a bit indecisive, my favorite was a simple holiday design that has space for four different images. At least for now. We'll see what strikes my fancy when it comes time to order those free cards! Take a look for yourself & see if you find a fun card too...in fact right now there are two promos you can use to save a few bucks: 1 free 5x7 greeting card OR 1 free 5x7 stationery card (at checkout enter code: CARD4U) - &/or - free standard shipping on orders $30+ (at checkout enter code: SHIP30).

Happy Holidays!

art showcase.

Over the past year Cassidy started expressing her creativity with art projects here & there. She made projects at Sunday School, at home with me, Michael, Aunt Jenny or Grandma or at library story time. After a pile of "keepers" lived on our dresser for a few too many months, I decided that we needed a new display/storage solution. 

We have a wall in our back stairwell that was boring, white & empty. I figured that with a few adhesive mini-hooks, some picture hanging wire & cute little clothespins we could make our own gallery. Michael & Jenny were kind enough to put my plan into action one day when I was at work & it worked perfectly. Once Kalea starts adding to the display, it will be easy to add another line too!

The next task was to figure out what to do with all these masterpieces. I couldn't, in good mommy conscience, just recycle them when one got bumped from the gallery in order to replace it with a new one, but I also have little interest in keeping every single piece of construction paper with feathers & beads falling off of it. So, we went digital. Now, before a piece of art gets promoted from dining room table to art gallery I snap a picture & save it on our computer. I plan to include a page or two in each of the girls' yearly picture album of their artwork. Then we can keep a few of the favorites, but recycle the rest guilt free! 

I totally stole the idea from Pottery Barn Kids, but think it turned out pretty cute & about $30 cheaper! For more ideas on what to do with things your little Picasso makes, visit this great website where I found a few more great ideas. Happy Friday!

flash cards.

Recently Cassidy has been really interested in letters, "writing" her name & playing "homework" with some baby sign language flash cards we have. I thought it might be fun to make a flash card book with her with letters so that she can start to learn what they look like & the sounds each letter makes. (Believe me, I'm not pushing her to be reading yet, but since she's interested I thought we should capitalize on that!)

I let her choose an image for each letter of the alphabet from Google Images. Then while she was otherwise occupied I printed & cut them out. Afterward she chose a picture to glue while I wrote the word on one side of the card & the letter on the other where she helped stick down the picture. As we put each card together she told me the name of the letter & what the picture was. To keep them all together I hole punched each card's corner, put on one of those hole-saver-sticker-thingys & used a ring to keep them together. Cassidy is so excited about her new book...she even wanted to sleep with it! I liked that she was able to help make the book & can understand better what it is. My guess is that we'll be doing more fun flashcard books in the future for numbers, site words & all types of things!

carnival!

Last week the girls & I attended the pre-K carnival fundraiser at our church where Cassidy will attend pre-K in the fall. She'll go twice a week for two hours in a co-op class. She had an absolute blast playing. Her favorite part was the "spa" area where she created her own crown, got her nails painted, a princess painted on her face & got a gem ring. 

six degrees of blogging

It's been a while since I stopped by "Work, Wife, Mom...Life!" for her 6 Degrees of Blogging blog hop. Since I'm trying to get back in the swing of things here, I thought I'd participate today. If you don't know how it works, click here. My blog hop went like this:

1. Work, Wife, Mom...Life!
2. Farmgirl Paints 
3. Hooked on Houses
4. Thrifty Decor Chick
5. Be Different...Act Normal
6. Tatertots and Jello

Jen at Tatertots and Jello is tremendously creative. Her blog features great crafty ideas that seem pretty easy to replicate at home. She has an eye for beauty & shows how to re-purpose items you may already have. Stop by to get inspired!