Play Group and a Peanut Butter Sandwich

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Elise

Last spring the girls and I started hosting a neighborhood playgroup at our house for moms and preschoolers. We met every other week for a story, craft and snack time, followed by some unstructured play. We picked it up again this fall, are now meeting every Tuesday, and I even got organized enough to create a schedule of themes and field trips. (My homeschooling roots are showing through.)

Here’s what we’ve done so far:

Week 1: ZOO THEME DAY – read Two at the Zoo book, sang ‘Old MacDonald had a Zoo’, did a Giraffe craft and ate an animal cracker snack

I didn’t take any pictures during group, but here are Lydia and Alethea admiring their giraffes afterwards:

Alethea’s doesn’t have any dots because she refused to put her finger in the brown paint, which is totally fine, but does amuse me, because apparently Peter also refused to finger paint as a child. Like father, like daughter.

Week 2: Field Trip – Naturally, we followed up Zoo Theme Day with a field trip to the zoo the next week, where we did see real live animals, but the statues were thoroughly enjoyed as well. In fact, Alethea liked the tortoise statue so well, she gave it a hug.

Somewhere there is a picture of me as a child sitting on this same gorilla statue:

Week 3: Favorite Foods Day – read Bread and Jam for Frances, sang the “Peanut Butter and Jelly” song, made pasta necklaces, and had a very special snack.

Did you know you can dye pasta really cool colors? I was sitting on my couch Monday night, cutting lengths of yarn for our necklaces when I decided that I had to find a way to make it more fun than just plain pasta yellow. A quick google search revealed that a simple recipe of alcohol and food coloring is all that is necessary to achieve really gorgeous bright colors. Here are the full directions if you care to check them out.

All the kids seemed to really like this craft. I haven’t ever done bead stringing with Alethea, so I wasn’t sure how she’d do, but she was able to do it all by herself and thought it was enjoyable enough that today she sat down and used the leftover pasta to make more necklaces for her friends.

The last activity of Favorite Foods Day was to eat our very special snack. Can you guess what it was?

If you said, “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” you’d almost be right. It was in fact, a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Cake!

My friend Pearl sent me this great recipe and I knew it would be perfect for our Favorite Foods Day. Alethea helped me make the cake and Lydia taste tested the peanut butter frosting. When she was done, she held out her spoon and said, “More frosting!” which I think roughly translates to “Two thumbs up!” Of course, Alethea (Dee and Lullaby too) were anxious for our friends to arrive so that the eating could begin.

So that concludes our September playgroup adventures. On the docket for October are Castles, Monkeys, Autumn and a trip to the Children’s Museum. Good times!

(Into and) Out of the Mouths of Babes

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Elise

Kids say and do the funniest things. Mine are no exception. I started thinking a couple months back that it was really sad that I haven’t been recording more of the moments that crack me up. Nearly every day one of my children does or says something worth remembering, but as you all know, I don’t always get them posted here.

I am sure that if I don’t write it down somewhere, in a few months I’ll have totally forgotten that this summer Lydia excitedly pointed to a couple of butterflies fluttering through our garden and shouted out, “Butts! Butts!” Or the fact that for the longest time Alethea was calling bubblegum “BungleBum”.

Feeling that those precious moments were slipping away from me, but knowing how inconsistent I have been in the past at all my attempts in daily journal keeping, I searched Amazon.com for a line-a-day journal. Just one line each day. That I might possibly be able to do.

I ended up buying this journal which I loved not just for the gorgeous color of the cover (I’m such a sucker for robin’s egg blue), but also because it was a five-year book. Here’s what it looks like inside:

I love the idea that not only will I be able to keep track of the cute things happening each day, I’ll also be able to easily look back and see what my kids were doing one or two (or three or four) years before.

That way I will get to laugh all over again at the day when I was so proud of Lydia, on her hands and knees, closely examining an ant hill on the driveway. Just as the thought, “Wow, she’s really watching them so intently. Maybe she’ll be a scientist someday!” floated through my head, Lydia suddenly bent her head down and licked that ant hill right off the driveway. Yup, she is suspicious of cotton candy from the hand of her mother, but ants on the driveway she eats without hesitation… that’s my girl.

Speaking of things going into mouths, I chuckle each time I think about the day Alethea was in the bathroom washing her hands by herself. I had recently changed the handsoap to a new citrus scent and from the kitchen I heard the following. “Mommy got new soap.” Pause… “I like it, it smells good.” Longer pause… “But it doesn’t taste good!” Who’d want to forget a moment like that?!

So far I’ve been pretty good at getting something written down every day. Sometimes I have to play a little catch-up, and some days are less amusing than others. But even the small details of my children’s lives are something I know I will treasure in the years to come.

I’m really glad I’m doing this.

Tree Removal as a Spectator Sport

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Elise

They are building a new house on the lot next to ours. I’m a little sad to see it filled with a house, but not at all sad that today they removed a bunch of the messy, overgrown, half-dead pine trees that bordered our lot. Hurray!
As an added bonus, watching the tree felling process kept Alethea and Lydia busy all morning. It just might be the next olympic sport.

A Four-Day Vacation

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Elise

We took a little four day vacation together as a family this past Saturday-Tuesday. It was actually two mini vacations rolled into one slightly larger one. We spent two days at a lake with friends and two days camping on the North Shore (Lake Superior) with my family. Here are my favorite pictures from the trip:

As you can tell, the girls were a little out of their element, and from time to time it showed, but we really did have a good trip. They were troopers and apart from Lydia’s bedtime melt-down on our first camping night and some serious whining from the back seat during the car ride home, we all stayed happy and well-occupied. Alethea was more daring in trying new thing than I expected her to be and both girls were surprisingly careful about keeping a safe distance from the fire, which I was happy about. Alethea says her favorite part was roasting marshmallows and I’d say both girls also enjoyed the wild raspberry picking/eating along the trail we hiked.

I’ll admit that I am extremely glad to be home to my own bed, hot water and indoor plumbing, but it was totally worth the sore back and showerless days to see Alethea and Lydia having fun exploring the great outdoors. In fact, we’re already planning for next years trip. Can’t wait!

Ingredients for a Fine Summer Day

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Elise

A Swing at the Park:Followed by a Dish of Ice Cream:

Rounded Out with a Trip Through the Garden Hose:

That was our lovely morning.

What are your favorite ingredients to make a perfect summer day?

Forever and Always

Posted on June 9, 2012 by Elise

they will be sisters…

She Does Have a Bed

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Elise

Anyone want to guess where Alethea fell asleep tonight?

I’ll give you a hint….

It wasn’t in her bed.

But it was in something.

Something that was in the hallway…

… with laundry in it…

*sigh*

I just don’t get it. That can’t be comfortable.

Another Busy Weekend

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Elise

Memorial Day Weekend 2012

My baby sister graduated from college. Where does the time go?

Long pants in 90 degree weather? Check. Shirt on backwards? Check. Wearing Mom’s flip flops just because they have polka dots, even though she can’t walk in them? Check. Backpack on back that contains a toy baby bottle, a hair brush and a pair of bedroom slippers? Check. Let Mom or Dad talk her out of any of that? Absolutely-completely-utterly-unthinkable.

Walked into Lowe’s to find concrete stain for our front porch facelift. Found the exact product in the exact color we needed on the mistint shelf for $4. Uh-huh. That’s right. Score one for the home team.

How do you know when it’s time to harvest your rhubarb? Not really sure, but figured if it was twice as tall as my 16 month old, it was big enough. Looks like I’ll be whipping up some cherry rhubarb jam this week.

Spent a lot of time outdoors this weekend communing with nature and working on the yard. Saw lots of birds, a fat brown toad, some fairly large spiders, way too many mosquitoes, and this cute little guy who had found a crevice in one of our boulders to hide in. Alethea wanted to pet him, but insisted that she put on her gardening gloves first.

Hope you all had a great weekend too!

Running a Marathon

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Elise

Our weekend was sort of insane, but so much fun. I feel a bit like I’ve just completed a marathon. I mean, not that I’ve ever come close to running that far. I know, I know, my runner’s physique had you all fooled, but I really am tired. In the 48 hours between Friday and Sunday evening we squeezed in: a bonfire 30th birthday party for Peter, my piano studio student recital, shopping for Mother’s Day gifts, a little work on our front porch sprucing up project, a second bonfire (this time with some neighbors), a Sunday morning church service, hosting Mother’s Day brunch/Peter’s family birthday party, some much needed Sunday afternoon naps and finally, a trip to the playground with the girls.

Since I was busy running around like a chicken with her head cut off, I didn’t get too many pictures from the weekend, but here are the best of the few that I did take:

They are building a new house just a few lots down from ours. Lots of dust around here lately, so Saturday afternoon I moved the porch furniture to the front lawn to spray it with the hose and give it a good wipe down. It looked so inviting sitting there in front of The Bean that I just had to take a picture. I’d like to tell you that I then proceeded to grab a glass of lemonade and a good book and sit for a nice long while, but alas, that did not happen. Instead, my photo shoot was pleasantly interrupted by this little lady who wanted some attention…

I just love taking pictures of my girls. Can you believe Lydia climbed up into the chair all by herself? She totally surprised me with that one. I know it’s such a cliche thing to say, but they really do grow up too fast.

Friday afternoon I was contemplating the best way to serve s’mores at Peter’s party, when the most brilliant plan occurred to me. (Okay, so it’s not like I managed to invade Troy in a large wooden horse, but I think this idea is a pretty good one too.) I’ve had this old 7up bottle crate from my grandmother’s basement sitting in my garage for a while now and it turns out it makes the perfect s’more tray. Toss the marshmallows into clear cups, cut the top couple inches off the plastic graham cracker sleeve, throw them each into a square along with assorted chocolate bars and you’ve got yourself a cute, organized and easy to carry to the fire s’more buffet!