elliemoon

NEW FAVORITE

i got these coloring books for the girls for christmas and they are so much fun. endless entertainment. i think i like them even more than the kids do. the books are published by design originals. i found the dapper animals and the hipster books at michaels. i had to order the world traveler book on amazon. i very highly recommend them. next time you're snowed in, for seven days, with no school, and four children, they will come in handy and you will thank me. seriously, that was quite a week. we fluctuated between cozy cuddly snow time adventures and reenactments of the shining. you know how it is:: 

i'm sure this may be some kind of copyright infringement, but we recently started photocopying our favorite pages out of new coloring books. there are always a handful of pages that everyone loves and would like to color, and we have a printer that scans, so it just makes sense. we now have a big stuffed "coloring pages" folder and life is good. as we thumbed through these new ones to make our picks, i noticed that they are all by the same artist: thaneeya mcardle. on her site, she has additional pages that are sold as ebooks. you can find them here. once you've ordered an ebook you have it as a pdf and can print off pages endlessly! ocd moms rejoice!! we got groovy animals (our ultimate favorite by far), mandalas and folk art birds and we burned through a few ink cartridges the next morning. it was all very exciting. with so many little spaces to fill in, a nice set of fine tipped markers would be a good idea if you invest in the books or ebooks. happy coloring!

 

 

A FAMILY EVENT

maisy's first bath! so exciting. mostly because it's been a running joke that she would see her first birthday before her first bath. well, we finally made it happen::

and she was so well behaved! she stayed put for her mohawk and let everyone take a turn scrubbing. shake, shake::

all done::

as it turns out, wet, fresh-from-the tub dog, smells just as offensive as needs-to-be-bathed dog. i think her next bath will be in the ocean!

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014!!

we have been feasting and baking and feasting. and then came the storm::

 

no one seemed to mind the extended school vacation. and maisy is loving all of this beautiful snow. the same goes for the boys, as you can probably tell. hope your 2014 is off to a great start as well!

 

BACON AND EGGS TO THE RESCUE

thank you pinterest for a cute and simple, sweet treat. the perfect after school snack activity for my crew, half of whom are feeling the end-of-the-school-year blues::

they all left the kitchen feeling a bit more sunny side up!

 

 

FOR THE ELVES

because why should santa and the reindeer be the only ones to get treats? they're only the delivery crew after all. someone should be taking care of manufacturing. this was a pin i couldn't ignore, miniature donuts::

5 minutes of time and they were a bigger hit than the cupcakes. just grab the honey nut o's and dip them in some chocolate, powdered sugar and cinnamon. i wet the sugar and cinnamon ones with a bit of water first to help things stick. and there's your christmas eve platter::

no elf left behind.

 

HOMEMADE BUBBLE WANDS

i saw this idea somewhere, a while back, and mentally bookmarked it. never a good idea with me, as now i have no source to link to. but here it is nonetheless. so easy and so cute. all you need are some twigs from the yard, some copper, brass or silver jewelry wire from the craft store and bubble solution:: 

the words "stick hunt" were barely out of my mouth before owen was out the door and working on a pile. you can give the sticks a clean cut with a saw like we did, or just try to snap them up evenly by hand::

my gardening shears worked nicely as wire cutters, but scissors would do the job too. now just do a little twisting and that's that::

we tried a few recipes for bubble solution to accompany, the simplest of which was just non-organic dish soap (dawn) and water (about one cup of soap to 4 cups of water)::

we also tried the recipes that call for dawn and corn syrup. none of these proved to be fantastic. and with having to buy a bottle of dawn, and a bottle of corn syrup, i would think it would be just as cost effective and eco friendly to go out and buy some actual bubble solution. the bubbles would be a lot more satisfying i'm sure. there are a couple more tweaks we can try while our dawn lasts, so i'll let you know if anything ever works out. for now we'll grab a bottle of the good stuff next time we're out and about::

homemade bubble time, they loved it!

happy saturday and sunday!!

 

 

PIANO MAN

kai and his nightly lessons. we officially started last monday::

the kid is a natural. and i'm not just saying that because i'm his mom, i swear. i'm so thrilled to see him so thrilled. he's loving it.

on a related topic, someone pulled off the last of the remaining ivory key tops last week. i'm looking at you little lu. sigh. 

A PRODUCE TRICK

got a bunch of bananas and two seconds of free time? why not surprise the kids with this one? all you need are these two things::

bananas and a toothpick. that's it. another simple idea for simple minds, like my own. now just let your creativity take over. when you first scratch, nothing will appear to be happening::

don't worry about that, just continue on with your lettering and then leave the area for a couple of minutes. now turn around and come back into the kitchen, or wherever you store your bananas, et voila::

your options are limited only by your vocabulary and sense of humor.

ps - if you've got a kiddo that is opposed to fruit, a personalized banana might just do the trick!

NO HABLO ESP

over the weekend, i decided to make up a set of kid friendly zener cards and see what the little ones had in them. this may or may not have been influenced by the fact that i just finished reading the night circus. i found some simple images on the abc teach site and cut and pasted them onto black construction paper::

the idea was this; someone would pick a picture, concentrate and meditate on it, and then try to send the message to the rest of us. meanwhile, the rest of us cleared our minds and tried to receive the image. we would then draw what we were picking up::

here's the deal, we weren't picking up anything. the null hypothesis! although, when i was sending out my best 'owl picture' energy, owen and bella both drew birds and kai's pineapple bore a striking resemblance to the owl's feathered belly. perhaps some true zener cards would prove more successful. luckily for the kids, the morning snow squall lifted as quickly as it had blasted in and they escaped to the outdoors, where they were safe from their crazy mother and her clairvoyance exercises.

i'm still making those zener cards though!

WEIRD SCIENCE

or, acids and bases made interesting. interesting and stinky. first, cut up and boil a head of red cabbage, which, for obvious reasons, should really be called purple cabbage::

boil it for about ten minutes, then strain and reserve the liquid. cabbage juice is a great indicator. it turns blue when mixed with a base and pink when mixed with an acid. like so::

we used baking soda as our base and vinegar as our acid. bella was especially impressed, she made something turn pink! for the grand finale, you can dump both into a bowl at the same time::

nothing like a little chemical reaction to stir things up. CO2, its fun for everyone!