Skating with Santa

Today we had our annual Skating with Santa Party that our Dentist puts on.  Jarrett came with this year (or rather met us there and then went back to work.) These are pictures I took of the kids with Santa.  Our Dentist also takes pictures and then mails them to us.

Jarrett skating with Max.  While Max is busy chomping down his candy cane from Santa.

The kids brought their letters to Santa with them so they could give them to him personally.  

I wrote down exactly what Max  told me too.  Ha ha!  I had to laugh at some of things he wanted.  

10 pumpkins, but not real ones, just pretend ones!

I also took the picture before Max signed his name :( oh well.  He did sign it before we took it :)

THE END

Scarecrows

 Ever since we went to see a Halloween house at Halloween time that had a spooky scarecrow as part of it's decorations, Max has been obsessed with Scarecrows.
I draw about 10 a day for him to color and then he draws 20 or so himself. (I'm not exaggerating).
 Walmart finally had their scarecrows (above) marked down to $1 last week, so we bought one.  Max wanted to sit in the cart with it the rest of the time we were there.  He talks to it, plays with it, brings it food and water and kisses it goodnight.  HE LOVES IT!   He puts it in various windows during the day so he can "see out" and then he goes outside every hour or so to look at him from the outside. He wants the scarecrow (from Batman) for Christmas.  In addition to a pretend pumpkin and "Halloween stuff."
 Today he made a Scarecrow book. Here are a few pages:

Some kids have pretend friends........one of mine has a scarecrow friend.  I have strange children.  They must take after their strange mother.....No wait, I meant AWESOME, not strange.

Watercolor Wednesday Week 38

View my other work HERE.

Bean Bags

I've been meaning to make bean bags out of fabric scraps for a long long time.  This weekend I made some for some birthday gifts and so I whipped up a few more my kids.  I actually used rice in them instead of beans because that's what  I had available.

We've had some rousing games of toss the bean (rice) bags into the basket.

First Snow of the Season

Both the kids played outside but by the time I thought to get my camera, Lilly had already come in.  But I did get some cute pictures of Max.  He played outside by himself for probably 15 or 20 minutes after Lilly came inside.  He was so cute,  It was like he was discovering snow for the first time.  He was rolling around it, and just lying there in the snow looking around.  It was a nice surprise to wake up and see the beautiful white world.

And he did some spying on the neighbors through the knot holes in the fence.

Felt Feathers for Thanksgiving

Here is how I made the felt feather for Lilly's NATIVE AMERICAN HEADBAND.

You'll need need a pipe cleaner and 2 different colors of felt.  I cut my pipe cleaner in half.  My feather measures 6 inches.

1) First cut out 2 pieces of felt in any color in a feather shape.

2) Cut notches into the sides
3) Fold in half lengthwise and cut 4 small slits. (To thread the pipe cleaner through)

4)  Thread the pipe cleaner through, leaving enough at the bottom of the feather to tuck into the head band.  Start at the bottom from underneath the feather and go up, then down and then up and then down, ending on the underneath side.

5) Use a hot glue gun and glue the second smaller piece of felt on top of the pipe cleaner that is threaded through the bigger piece of felt.  You're all done!

Tuck it into a head band made from 3 scraps of fabric braided together.
I had to bribe Max with candy to get him to let me take pictures of him....and he still made a nasty face.  Oh well.

Thanksgiving Dinner Indian

Lilly has talked about her class Thanksgiving Dinner for  weeks now.  They've made decorations, sewn a tablecloth and the lunch ladies are providing some food and IT'S TODAY!
This morning, 15 minutes before school, Lilly informed me that she needed  (wanted) to dress up.  Half the class was being Pilgrims and half the class is being Indians. She chose to be an "Indian", Native American to be correct. I told her that since she IS Native American (half Navajo) that she should just wear her regular clothes and tell everyone that "this is how Natives dress."  As you could probably guess, that didn't go over well, so we scoured her closet looking for the most "Native American" looking clothes we could find.  (Too bad she doesn't have that velvet shirt anymore).  An embroidered shirt and vest was the best we could do.  We braided her hair and I used a necklace I made out of braided strips of fabric for the headband and whipped up a feather really quick with pipe cleaner woven in and out of felt and stuck down in the headband.

Watercolor Wednesday Week 37

View my other paintings HERE.

Thoughts for The Week

 November 5th-
*Why would you want a re-usable swiffer cloth?  Isn't that the point of the swiffer?  Just throw it away.
*OUR BEST BITES Pumpkin Pie Milk shakes are the bomb!
* Heard Pink Floyd's "Wish you were here" and it made me miss my Dad more than usual.
* We bought The Wizard of Oz and a bunch of Halloween costumes for super cheap for the kids to use for dress ups.  Also got a bunch of fabric at the D.I.  can't wait to make some fun stuff!
* Ate another Pumpkin pie shake.

November 6th
*Having an extra hour before church has been nice *****Daylight Savings*****!!!!  The kids didn't sleep in but having a little extra time has really been nice!

November 9th
* Had an emotional night and morning.  Couldn't sleep.  Too much on my mind.  I was crying most of the morning and sweet little Max came and sat on my lap and wrapped his little arms around me and said "I love you Mommy, be happy, I don't like it when you drip." ha ha! Then Lilly joined us and she was hugging me too.  I have been blessed with very sweet kids!
* I can't be, or feel responsible for anyone else's descisions or actions.  I may be affected by them, but I can't carry that weight around with me.
*  The quickest way to make a bunch of enemies is to get a leadership calling.

November 14th
*A lot has changed in a week.  Feeling much better about things. Today will be busy, busy, busy.  It's cleaning day!  p.s. What i really need to do is have a de-junking day. oh and those Pumpkin Milkshakes are still to die for.  We've eaten almost a gallon and a half of ice cream in the last week.

Outdoor Leaf Art

 I think it would be super fun to make a bunch of these leaf-kabobs and leave them at parks or other places where people could discover them!  The same for the swirled leaves!  I love it when I find nature "art" that someone purposely left behind!

Monday

I used to love this toy when I was little.  My grandma still has it, and my kids love to play with it now! The last time we were at their house we made this cute heart.
Here's to Monday and a a whole week ahead!  Let's hope I get half the stuff on my to do list, done.

Max's Bat Friend

For quite some time, Max has asked for a pet bat.  A real one....ummmmmmmmm no.  Sorry.  So I told him I would make him one.  Out of cloth.
I drew up a pattern, cut it out of an old t-shirt, sewed it up and added a string on the back ( for flying of course) and used embroidery floss for his mouth and googley eyes from a birthday card.

He also does this a lot with his "pet" bat and when he is dressed up like Batman.  Makes a "bat shadow"  

To say he loves it, is an understatement.  When I went down to check on him before I went to bed, I found him with his bat in his hands.

Ruffle top Skirt

In another life, the material for this skirt was a pillow sham on someones bed.  I found it at a thrift store for $1, unpicked the "sham" part and decided to make a skirt out of it.  I've had my eyes on PAPER BAG WAIST SKIRTS for a while now, but didn't want to worry about sewing pleats and zippers and belt loops, so I made this one with an elastic casing sewn in about 2 and half inches down from the top, giving it the ruffles at the top.  I have a tutorial HERE on making an elastic band skirt, or you could google it and find a bunch of other tutorials for it.
The only difference in this skirt, from the ones in the tutorial, is I folded down the top 3 inches  of fabric and then sewed 2 lines  down about 2 and half inches to make the casing, instead of making it at the top of skirt.  I used 1/2 inch elastic.

You could wear it with a belt, just as is or make a fabric belt and tie with a bow in the front.

I wish I had bought the matching pillow sham (I'm still kicking myself) so I could have made the tie out of the same fabric as the skirt.

Watercolor Wednesday Week 36....A day late

I did two different paintings from the same photograph of some grape vines.
For the first painting, I started out by painting some fall colors on my paper and letting it dry completely and then  painted a darker color over the top and then scraped out my vines and leaves with the side of an old credit card and blotted some areas with a tissue.  There was also some salt sprinkled on the first wash and left on the paper when I painted the dark color over the top so the salt affected both layers, but because the brush pushed the salt around during the second wash it affected the painting in a diffrent  spot.

 This is another version of the same technique:

Here is the other grape vine picture: