Latest Library Favorites

We've had a run of good books from the library as of late. A few favorites:

And the Good Brown Earth was well-timed with Earth Day coming up soon. Also, as the weather is warming, we are preparing the earth in our garden for planting. The book follows a boy and his grandmother through the seasons of the garden they planted together: the planning, the tending, and the reaping (all the while letting nature do its wonderful work). It's a good book to read if your little one helped you plant seeds and was then disappointed when they didn't turn into flowers or vegetables overnight! A lesson on patience and trust in "the good brown earth."

Hello, Robots was a fun, silly read. I found myself chuckling out loud during the second half of the book, which made Roo laugh too. She loves sharing the book with visitors (like Grandma and her aunt) and explaining to them what wackiness had transpired as a result of the robots getting caught in a rainstorm.

Forest Bright, Forest Night has gorgeous, detailed illustrations. The first half of the book highlights animals of the forest that come out and play during the day (and on each page you can see a night time animal hiding somewhere on the page, sleeping the day away). To read the second half of the book, you flip it over and now it's all about the animals that come out at night (and now a daytime animal is hiding somewhere on each page, asleep). Neat concept for a children's book. The book explains the difference between daytime animals and those that are nocturnal. It's fun to seek out the hiding animals, trying to get some shut-eye.

The Old House is enjoyable because you get an insider's view from the house's perspective. It is centered on an old, delapidated house that no one wants to call home. Until one family discovers its hidden charm and the old house finds his purpose. Even my husband didn't mind reading this one multiple times!

If You Were My Baby is a great introduction to animals and their habitat. It explains how mama and papa animals love, protect, and teach their babies just like human parents do. A really sweet and comforting read. Each animal gets a two-page spread that fills up the entire page, so it's quite engaging even to the youngest audience.

Simple Woman's Daybook

For today...April 13, 2009

Outside my window...the sun is just beginning to peep out from behind the haze. Water droplets are covering everything out there, as we had drizzly rain all day yesterday. But as a result of the wet weather we've had over the last week or two, everything is beginning to really "green up."

I am thinking...how much I'd like to go to bed earlier than I do. I think it would help me to be a better, happier Mama and wife and homemaker.

I am thankful for...my family and the opportunity to spend Easter with all of my loved ones. We hosted the holiday this year, and it was so wonderful to have those most dear and precious to me around our table.

From the kitchen...Easter dinner leftovers! All that extra cooking and baking paid off (plus the goodies brought by our guests), as we have quite the bounty stashed in the fridge. Yay! No cooking for me today. :)

I am wearing...black sweatpants (what else ?? It seems to be my standard "uniform"), navy blue sweatshirt, slippers.

I am creating...a new toy rotation schedule (sounds exciting, doesn't it?). I am going to clear out the excess and only keep what they truly love and use. But even without all the excess, the toys need to be rotated because I can't stand having more than half a dozen out at one time.

I am going...to the library for some fresh books to cuddle up and read with my littles.

I am hoping...for warm and sunny weather so we can plan some fun outings to do with our out-of-town family visiting this week.

I am hearing...Rascal taking apart his sister's train tracks. The clank of her spoon hitting the sides of the bowl as Roo is stirring her yogurt for the 100th time this morning--she says it is too lumpy (it's the kind with the cream layer on top). Nat King Cole is singing away on the radio.

I am praying...for more patience when it comes to interacting with my children and my husband after I've had a long night and no sleep (which seems to be the norm lately).

Around the house...finish changing out the closets (hang and fold Spring clothing and pack up winter stuff for the attic). Clear off some work space in the craft room so I can attempt to make a bit of progress on a few unfinished projects (since my husband's work schedule is super flexible this week, I might actually get some extra "me time").

One of my favorite things...how it takes my daughter quite a while to wake up in the morning or from a nap. In those sleepy, groggy moments before she fully awakens, she wraps her arms around my neck so tightly, asks me to hold her like a baby, and wants to be given "extra Mama loves."

A few plans for the rest of my week...pack away the Easter baskets and toss the artificial grass (Ugh! That stuff never really goes away, does it? Well, next year I am planning ahead and we are going to try growing our own real grass in the baskets). I also plan on dinner with my parents and coffee/grocery shopping with a friend. Yep, I said grocery shopping. It can be such a drudgery, why not "up" the pleasant factor and share it with a friend? ;)

A picture thought I am sharing...a daily scene in our home: waiting for the squirrels to arrive each morning and partake of the offering we leave on the porch.

Please swing by Peggy's place and take a peek at more daybook entries...

Easter Blessings!

If you're looking for a special prayer to say before dining on your Easter feast, join hands and choose one person to recite this one we've been saying for years on Easter:

Red is for the blood He gave,

Green is for the grass He made.

Yellow is for the sun so bright,

Orange is for the edge of night.

Black is for the sins we've made,

White is for the grace He gave.

Purple is for His hour of sorrow,

Pink is for our new tomorrow.

May you be filled with the richness of His love and the grace of His many blessings each and every day. Have a beautiful Easter!

A Peek at Our Batik...

We spent part of Good Friday dyeing Easter eggs. Every year I try to add a new twist to the traditional dye job. This year it was batik. I had scrawled the directions on a piece of paper and found it in one of my notebooks. I think I might have neglected to write down a step, because we had a couple of issues. But, we managed to turn them into our own version of batik.

First, I lit a candle and dripped the wax onto the hard boiled egg. Word to the wise: if you are going to try this, less is more. I repeat, less is more. (You'll see why in a bit).

After dripping the wax, dip egg into the dye. Once you remove it, you want to scrape the wax off. So I took a spoon and I scraped, and scraped, and scraped. And the egg cracked, and cracked, and cracked:

Here is where I realized that the less wax to scrape off, the better your chances of keeping the egg in one piece. My husband tried heating our second attempt in the microwave briefly, before I attempted scraping that one. Softening the wax just slightly helped immensely! Instead of gouging the egg with my spoon in vain, I was able to slide the edge of the spoon under the wax and it flaked off. We were left with a white design where the wax had been. You could either leave the egg as is at this point, or dip it again to color the white parts. We then chose to dip the egg in a secondary color:

And this was the result:

Frankly, this particular technique was a little too time-consuming for egg dyeing with a 3 year old and a 10 month old. So, with our last batik egg, we decided to leave the wax on the colored egg for a groovy, 3-dimensional look:

All in all, it was fun to try something new. Our batik eggs aren't going to win any beauty contests. The technique itself is not bad, it just needs some fine-tuning (or I just need to acquire the patience to scrape gently--a tedious task if you dripped as much wax onto the eggs as I did).

But as with most crafts with kids, if they enjoyed it, I'm happy. And they did enjoy it. Okay, the three year old in our life enjoyed it. What's not to love about colored dye, candle wax, and special egg dippers (like giant egg tweezers)? The 10 month old was clueless. Cute, but clueless. All he wanted to do was get his hands in that dye and eat the candle. :) A fun day.

Spring is (literally) in the air...

Spring makes me think of rebirth, new life, and ....... butterflies!

We did an Easter/Spring craft yesterday that was easy and took very little time (my kind of craft during a busy week like this one). The best part was that my daughter could do 90% of it all by herself. Which is very important with the 3 year old crowd, don't you know? :)

If you would like to fill the air in your home with butterflies, you'll need the following:

*paper coffee filters

*markers (use the real ones (you know, the ones usually reserved for grown-ups, not toddlers. But the washable kind won't "bleed" as nicely, so I don't recommend those for this project)

*spray bottle filled with water

*pipe cleaners

*string, yarn, or floral wire to suspend your butterflies in the air

Start by decorating your coffee filters: the more "blobs" of color used, the better.

Then, use the spray bottle and lightly spray all over the filter (don't worry if they get a little too saturated--my daughter loves water and was a little heavy-handed with the sprayer):

But it's all good, because they just need time to dry:

Once dry, fold each filter accordion-style. Bend the pipe cleaner in half and wrap it around the center of the filter a few times (I don't have a picture of this, but basically you are gathering the filter in the middle and splaying each side out like a fan). Don't forget to curl each end into "antennae." Tie string or wire around the base of the antennae and hang around the house for a festive Spring touch. They look especially nice hanging in front of a window!

Easter Traditions

Roo watching for Peter Cottontail hopping down the bunny trail...

Three years ago, my first child celebrated her first Easter. I took countless pictures. And anyone not related to her would probably say I took too much video footage. But there is something about celebrating holidays once children come along (and, especially, each child's "first" Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.), that puts more "oomph" into the spirit and mood of the season.

As it was done for me, so I want to do for my children: I want to steep the holidays with as much tradition as possible. While I was making plans this week for Easter, I realized that we do not have as many traditions for this holiday as we do for Christmas and birthdays.

I thought back to what I remember about Easter when I as young. The standouts for me are:

*Coloring eggs: this was a family affair. Even my dad got involved and he is the farthest thing from artsy/craftsy. I recall using the same white china cups to mix the vinegar and fizzy color tablets every single year. Why did we use my mom's fancy dishes to dye eggs? I didn't wonder back then, but as a mom, I do wonder now. White, fine bone china, for dyeing eggs? Seriously?

My parents moved from the East coast to the Midwest, both leaving their large families behind, to raise us. All holidays were spent with just us, our small family unit. Perhaps since my mom was no longer able to use her fine china to entertain her large family, she put it to use in a new way. The only time I can remember those beautiful white cups seeing the light of day was when it was time to dye eggs.

*Making Hot Cross Buns: I remember my sister and I getting to lick the icing bowl after helping my mom drizzle the cross on each bun. I also remember picking out the raisins because I didn't care for raisins in my food (I still don't).

*Hunting for our Easter baskets: they were never just out in the open, we always had to search for them on Easter morning.

*Countless rounds of hiding and searching for eggs: as we got older and became better "hiders," my parents started limiting the egg hunts to one room only. Otherwise, the hunt could go on all day. I remember one year, we had to encourage our dog to sniff out one lone egg, as my dad had forgotten where he hid it.

*Easter outfits: my mom can sew amazingly well and often made our Easter dresses. Prior to Easter, we went shopping for new white shoes or sandals and, some years, hats. I have seen pictures of my sister and me with little purses and white gloves too. I have always loved dressing up and I think it got its start with Easter.

So, those are my top 5 associations with Easter. I have proceeded to incorporate these traditions with my little ones, but I'm looking for more. I like having options! If any readers would care to share their ideas, I'd love to hear. What Easter tradition do you recall from your youth or what new traditions have you created with your family now that you're all grown up? :)

Pajama Lamb-a!

This little gal is Lambkins. I made her for my daughter two Easters ago. I followed this easy pattern. For the fabric, I chose to use my daughter's first sleeper PJ's (you know, the kind with the feet). She practically lived in that pajama sleeper all winter and I was so sad when she outgrew it. I couldn't bear to part with it, so I wanted to make the pj's into something "permanent." The soft muted colors and fuzziness (from being washed every other day for months!) looked just right for a little Spring lambkin.



It was my first attempt at making a stuffed animal, and I think that is evident by looking at the picture above! ;) Not quite sure what happened to the poor thing's nose, it seems to be non-existent. But, my daughter loves it anyway.


I was thinking about making a second Lambkins for my son this Easter. Goodness knows, he has a plethora of sleeper pj's to choose from (it seems to be my go-to outfit during winter with my little ones). But, so far he has not shown a fondness for cuddly objects. When he sees his sister's Lambkins, he tries to stuff (no pun intended) as much of the lamb's head into his mouth as possible. That seems to be the extent of his enjoyment for stuffed animals. So, rather than add one more thing to my To-Do list this week, I think I'll skip making Lambkins: the Sequel! I do have some ideas floating around in my head with regard to projects made with his clothes, though. Hopefully, something will come of my ideas and I'll have something to show here before long.