Crafty Kids Love London

Today we decided to take snack a bit early and have our art class while I read The London Eye Mystery to the kids. This book is absolutely wonderful and as we are huge London lovers, I decided the kids would work on a Christmas craft while I was reading.

My kids always love being read to and I find that during the course of a busy day when they get a bit too wild or cannot focus on the tasks at hand, then it's time for a book! They are eagers to listen and sometimes only 1 child will do the craft while the others lounge and listen and sometimes they all will listen or all will craft. There are no rules, you just do what feels best at that moment.

Today's craft requires peg style clothespins, black and red sharpie markers, glue and black pom poms in a medium size (not pictured). Have the 'legs' of the clothespins colored black and then the top will be red with black buttons, add on any type of facial expression and then glue the pom pom to the top of the peg...do you know what they are yet?

The pom pons should be a bit bigger than the top of the peg, so that they look big and fluffy. Do you know what they are yet?

How adorable are these little Palace Guards?! We love them and even after Christmas, they will have a place in our home! Standing alone in a tree makes them adorable ornaments and they can just slide on the branches.

Wooden stands fit their peg feet perfectly and now they can be used anywhere else! My kids want to paint a castle for them to guard and a Queen and so many other goodies. I love that they enjoy getting crafty! We were debating on what color to paint the stands.

We went with black to match the legs! We will need to use a thin paint brush and black paint to get in between the legs, since the sharpie did not fit.

Enjoy every minute my friends!!!

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Small Plates...Cutify Your Lunches!

With back to school in session, it's also time for back to school lunches! Break out of your lunchtime rut with small containers, tapas style! I like to use a variety of small containers and tuck them into 1 large container. This offers a plethora of lunch choices, while allowing only a sample of each. Yes, we are now homeschoolers, but we are always on the go!

Top 10 things to have in your lunch making drawer:
(in no particular order)

1. Mini Wood Skewers or Toothpicks

These are perfect for fruits, veggies, cheeses...anything! Putting them on a stick makes them not only look better, but also allows more room for other things in the container. Sometimes the longer skewers are cheaper, so I just soak them in water and cut them in half, still works perfectly!

2. A Variety of Cupcake Picks

Cupcake picks work just like the toothpicks or wood skewers, but allow you to theme your lunches by holidays or even just brighten them up. You can also print your own to send messages to your littles. I love adding a couple of these to each lunch, just to let them know that I put a little thought into it! You don't have to go online crazy buying these either (GUILTY!), you can just save them after parties, when you buy cupcakes at the store or when your kids bring them home and wash them up. The great part of using these, is that they are re-useable! Even those plastic ring cupcake toppers can work by holding carrot sticks or lunchmeat rolls, pepper strips...you name it!

3. Mini Cookie Cutters.

These are my favorite part of cute lunching! Use cookie cutters to shape cheeses, meats, fruits and anything else you can think of. This gives the lunches a fun look that shows your littles you are thinking of them and at the same time you can imagine their faces when they open them up. Perfect to theme your lunches and the letter or number cutters allow you to even spell out a message.

4. Silicone or Paper cupcake liners.

Not only do these allow your lunch to POP with color, but they serve a purpose too! They are perfect for packing multiple items in one container. Keeping everything separate, they allow the foods to keep their own flavor.

5. Corn on the Cob Holders.

I love popping these into the lunches for the kids to use as fun forks for their foods. If you have younger children, where these might be too pointy, they sell a variety of mini forks at the party stores or just send extra toothpicks.

6. A Mix of elastic headbands and rubberbands.

Sometimes I like to send ranch dressing or hummus or something that may have a type of liquid in it, I like to reassure myself by banding the lids shut. I use the larger elastics for the big container, not only to keep it shut, but then I can also slip in a note and a napkin and it all stays in one place!

7. Edible Markers

I love food markers, because they allow me to add a little smiley face to a boiled egg or an I LOVE YOU to a piece of cheese...anything you want can be made when you have these instruments at the ready!

8. Crinkle Cutter

These are awesome for when you don't have the time to use cookie cutters, they give a polished look to anything!

9. Fun and Colorful Notecards

I LOVE to use calendar pieces from teacher stores, because I can use the number of today's date and write a message on them with a dry erase crayon. Because they are laminated, I can use them over and over again and even buy holiday themed ones. Using the dry erase crayon, means the message will not rub off before lunch!

10. The right containers! I love doing it all up Bento style, with each item in its own container and these food storage containers from IKEA are less than 5.00 and have enough containers to send a lunch for 2 children, with plenty left over! The ones in the photo marked 'these' are the ones I use in the lunches, due to their size. The smaller ones all tuck neatly into the larger one as shown in the main photo above. Some have to be put in sideways, but it all works like a puzzle. The large ones that are not labeled are the ones I use for lunch items. When I first buy my groceries, I have always said that I wash and cut them right away, by doing this I am saving precious lunch making time. Storing them in the excess containers, means that nothing goes to waste or unused. The price of these containers means that if any are lost or broken or get too worn, it's no big deal to toss them and start again.

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Perfectly Pretty Pancakes

Did you know that you can have fun shaped pancakes that are easy to make without dirtying all your cookie cutters?Use a squeeze bottle! This one gives fine lines, reuse a ketchup bottle for thicker! This opens up the pancake to so many cool shapes and even better: Little hands can do it too!!

Sometimes we all need to be reminded of this very thing! Maybe some coloring time for all ages would help ease the stress in the world...Enjoy every minute my friends!

Delightful December day 2!

Our next day of crafting was so much fun! We are a big fan of sensory tubs in this house, but they usually end up with extra pieces added in from around the house or missing pieces! My children are older, so they often times like to change up the theme on their own and do it often! YIKES!

When I came in to a large supply of these at the thrift store the other day, I knew I would use many for snacks, but then I had another idea all together! A fun series of mini sensory containers!! This way they cana easily be changed and still be so much fun!

We decided to go with a Winter theme, as I had some left over snow from a previous project! We dumped it in and then my little guy selected some miniatures from my container of fun little treasures!

We popped on the lid and SHOOK IT UP! Then he was free to see what he could spy! I covered his eyes after he looked at everything then SHOOK IT UP again! This time I had him pick out 1 item at a time and guess what it was! When the big kids came home from school, he asked them to play and he covered their eyes.

Monday Madness!!

Week 2 of school has started and the kids are having an absolute blast, they come home smiling everyday and the entire weekend was full of questions about school and when they would go back! My daughter lost her first non-accidental tooth last night (she knocked one out doing some gymnastics moves last summer) and this morning was all a flurry about what the tooth fairy bought and the glitter that she left behind.

We had a blast at the apple orchard over the weekend, that left the kids so excited to bring in an apple to their teacher, so that they could tell her all about the orchard and picking it themselves.  This easily took up about 15 minutes, with them going through each and every apple, looking for the perfect ones!

Don't forget that tomorrow is tray tuesday!! Join us with your fun lunches and you will have a chance to link up too! Mama to 4 Blessings and I are so very excited and we can't wait to see what you have come up with!!

How was your weekend? I hope you all had a great time!

Up in a Minute!

 

With the end of the school year upon us, we are getting a lot of artwork coming home! I know I want to definitely keep some in their grade folders, but there are some that are just too bulky and such. I quickly grabbed some rope and baby clothespins and within 5 minutes had art lines in all of their rooms! I told the little ones straight away that in order to pin up new artwork, they had to take down something old. So far it's been working fabulously!

A Little About Life...

It's been a great summer so far and last week had my children interviewing for preschool for the second time with this one school. I was nervous for them and we were obviously the over-protective parents because once again we were the only 'set' of parents (both mom and dad) there! hahaha! We waited in the lobby with the baby while teachers took them away into separate rooms! (We wanted to badly to peek in on what was going on!!). This was our first school choice for them because our little boy is 3 and if he could get into the class, it would be perfect for them to start school together. If he didn't get in, our Princess (4yrs) would head over to the Catholic School that only has a 4yr old program with no exceptions. We had to fill out a heap of forms, which my husband then told me a lot of them were the SAME ONES we had to fill out at the first interview!! (Maybe they wanted to make sure we were telling the truth??? haha).

They brought out our 3yr old son first and YAAAAAY! He got it! He will start school in the fall with his big sister in the 4yr old program! We were thrilled! Then they brought out our Princess and WOOT WOOT! She got in too!!! Yaaaaaay! We were all thrilled.

Now that preschool was right around the corner, we wanted to start some way of having them accountable for what they do. My husband and I decided that the easiest way would be to start a chore chart. This way they would do the chores every single day and we would then give them a little money at the end of the day if all was complete. (.25 each day) They are just simple everyday tasks that they do anyways, but this way they make sure to do them on their own. We have been at it for a week and the kids love it. We printed them out and laminated them. (I keep the document on my computer so we can add things as the time goes by). I keep them on clipboards on each of their desks and I give them the wipe-board marker to check off things as they are finished. (Kids love markers, I find that my kids run to do something on the list just to get to use the marker!!). We made a tiny one for Nana and Grandpas house too, because they both give them money each time they visit, so this way they are doing something to earn the money.
I've also decided to go by way of the Bento Box Lunch! I love the cuteness and creativeness of it all, that I am researching the boxes and all that good stuff. I want the kids to have Bentos for preschool and I would love to start sending husband off with a Bento every day too! I will obviously need different sizes forthe kids and husband and I, so I am doing my research before diving right in! I want to be sure to have it all by the time school starts in the fall though! yay!

Something I Love!

Does anyone else know people that have everything? I mean seriously! They have the money to buy all they want and have all they need? Well I was browsing Etsy for such a person awhile back and fell in love with the PERFECT gift EVER! These glasses are made from ACTUAL bottles!?! How cool is that? I'm totally in love with the cleverness from YavaGlass's Shop! Stop in an have a look around!

I Had the Time of My Life...

Cheezy, I know, but I truly had a fabulous weekend!! I know you all want tips on business running and promoting, but today I had to steal a day to write about the awesome weekend I had! I finally got a hair cut that I love, I mean LOVE. My father insisted on taking me to his stylist, since I have been known to fall into the mommy look with my hair pulled back and out of the way of tiny hands! I hesitated to go, since my last hair cut was a disaster and I paid waaay too much for it, then I paid even more to have it 'fixed' and I still hated it! This is the first time I have ever had a stylist tell me what I needed and guess what? I needed it! haha! I never know what works for me, what looks good and what doesn't. I NEED that persons opinion, this is their career, their job, their life! They know what they are talking about. She topped it off with a headband by PinkPewter and it was glorious and perfect!

I walked into the hosue to see my husband and he smiled, he told me he loved my hair and it's his top style yet! Believe me in 10 years of being together, this is a huge compliment! I change my hair all the time!

Next was dinner at the Signature Room on the 95th of the Hancock Center in Chicago. It was absolutely fabulous if not magical! We had been there several times before kids, but somehow, now that we have kids, it seemed so much more elgant, fancy, dreamlike! It's great seeing a menu without chicken fingers on it! After a before dinner drink at the bar, we were seated along side a window the view was amazing. We had another drink while overlooking the menu and finally my husband decided on Lamb and I had the Filet. We ordered new drinks with dinner and it was decadent. Everything seemed to matieralize out of nowhere. Service was superb! Dessert followed and then it was time to keel over after settling the bill! Down we went in a super fast elevator and as if by magic a cab was down there ready to escort us to the Cadillac Palace, we were off to see Dirty Dancing! OMG! It was closing night and it was crowded! We were easily the most overdressed in the theatre, my husband in a suit and I was in an evening gown. (Remember, first big night out in 4 years, we wanted it to be perfect!) But it was still awesome! I bout too much merchandise, but I had to! It is my all time favorite movie!! Everything was SPECTACULAR, but I swear I fell in love with Tony Vincent. Was he in the lead as Johnny Castle? Nope, he was a singer and played Johnnys cousin, you know, the guy that takes baby to see the staff only quarters? WOW, he has a voice that makes women swoon! We had a truly fabulous weekend! I could go on, but I think I have said enough! haha!

A Readers Challenge

Tomorrow we will be looking into Myspace and how to work that, so go ahead and sign up for an account if you have one! Add Me and you will have at least 1 friend for now! Today, I wanted to challenge all of us and at the same time test out a still fairly new site! This place is called OWN THE HOUR, I did post about my test with this site earlier and it was still a fairly brand new site and all did not go too well, but it's gaining steam and it's still being chatted about. Everyone has .50 in their paypal accounts right? If so, take the challenge with me! Open up the site and look how pretty it is! It reminds me of the treasury pages and the Etsy front page.

Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and then click on Own The Hour (Sign-Up).

Here is where we choose an hour. I'm hoping all my readers will join me in owning the 6:00 pm(remember this is for TOMORROW and the time is EASTERN) time slot. Let's fill it with MCW Blog readers! Please remember to post a link to the item your are advertising here in my comments, so I know who took me up on the challenge! Also keep us posted here on how you did! When you post here with your item link, let us know how many views you have on that item and then when you post back with results let us know if the item sold, and if not how many views you have on it now. It's super easy to buy an hour!
Your Etsy Item ID Can be found when you open up a listing on the right hand side it says LISTING #. Just copy and paste that into the box! So readers, let's get out there and OWN THE HOUR!