Yarn Along

Linking up with Genny again for the Yarn Along over at small things.

No WIP pictures this time, but an "action shot!"  I got 3 mittens done this week - 3 because the first one was way too big, so I had to go down a size.  I'll finish a fourth in the larger size, and then she'll have some to grow into!

Now I need to figure out which knitting project to start next.  I'm thinking it needs to be something for me, but it will probably end up being something for E again.

What have I been reading?  Ummmm . . . aside from numerous children's picture books?  Not much.  I will have a post up on Friday about our books for this week, as part of the reading challenge.  Maybe by next week I will have gotten my act together and actually start a new book!  I even have a couple on my bookshelf calling my name, I just haven't had time to pull them out and say "hello!"

Easing Back into Things

I thought we were going to start school last week.  Hmmmm.  I have noticed that I tend to procrastinate more as I have gotten older.  I didn't get half of the things done that I wanted to over the weekend, and since it was E's birthday week, and we were still recouperating from illnesses, I decided to just wait until this week to start up again.

We did, however, do some activities for Epiphany!  I saw this neat and EASY art project, and thought we would do something similar.  I don't have step by step pictures, but here's what we did:

I only have large white paper, so I had E color the whole page with different blue, gray, and black crayons.  Since I wanted to do this project, too, I chose to paint my page with blue and black paint.  I had E use crayons so she could move directly to the next step without waiting for paint to dry.

I made a star stamp (like our fish stamp) and let her stamp all over the paper with white and yellow paint.  Then we let our paintings dry for a day and I put them under some weights to flatten out a bit.

The next day, I had cut triangles, circles and a star for each of us.  We glued our triangles onto the paper, and topped them with a circle.  Then it was time to decorate with glue, glitter, and sequins!  After decorating was done, we added our star for the wise men to follow.

I put my picture behind our nativity set,

E's went up on our new art display I created on the back of my kitchen cabinets.

Read to Me Challenge

I have a post about our Epiphany activities up my sleeve, but first a quick post about a neat challenge that we will be participating in this year!

We are excited to participate in the Read to Me Challenge over at There's a Book!  The challenge is to read picture books with your little one during the course of the year, and review them and share with others so we can find lots of neat books to read!

We are shooting for the "Harvesting" level: 200 picture books over the course of 2011.  Seeing as how we checked out 20 new books from the library this week alone, we should be able to complete that. 

Check it out and join up!  It should be loads of fun!

Yarn Along

I'm joining up again with Ginny at small things

Working on a small project to keep my hands busy when I am watching the little one play.  The begining of a pair of mittens for her, she desperately needs new ones!  And now that we finally have a little snow, it will be nice to have some warm wool mittens to keep those little fingers warm.  They will match the hat I knitted for her last year - it still fits and should for quite a while with the rate E grows!

Not really reading anything right now.  Between Christmas and birthday I've been at my sewing machine constantly.  I do a lot of knitted gifts, but sewn ones are much faster, and when you have a little girl who insists upon wearing skirts and dresses every day, you have to be able to whip up a few quickly.  I am, however, perusing several books: Basic Montessori by David Gettman, to refresh my braing as we get back into the swing of things, The Essential Montessori by Elizabeth Hainstock, and Mothering Like the Father by Dianne Daniels.  Mrs. Daniels came and spoke to my MOPS group not too long ago, I found her speaking to be pretty inspiring.

A Special Day

Happy Birthday to my little munchkin!!  I can't believe she's three already!  Where does the time go?!

We celebrated her birthday yesterday because I have to work tonight.  She requested a brownie birthday cake (she's never had a brownie before so I'm not sure where she got that from), so that's what we made.  It made me laugh a little because she insisted on making it herself.  Well, helping, at least.  If someone asked me to make my own birthday cake, I would have laughed at them and told them to get busy or go to King Soopers!  E did a great job making the brownies, she poured the water and oil all by herself without spilling, helped me crack the egg, and helped me count as we mixed everything together.  And they tasted really good, too!

Happy New Year!

Hello, 2011!

I'm ready to get back into the swing of things, I think.  Someone in our house turns 3 !!!! on Tuesday, and life can settle down back to normal after that.

I've been thinking of a few goals for the new year.  Do you make New Year's Resolutions?  I prefer to just think of it as long term goals for the year.  Things that I know it's going to take me more than a day or a week to accomplish.  I see a few bloggers writing about a word for the year, I like that idea.  I think I even used it last year, but I don't remember what my word was.  Things can change so much over a year!  Right now, the word that comes to my mind is simplify.  I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by stuff, responsibilities, activities, commitments.  I am hoping this year to simplify my life in general.

1. Simplify stuff!  I want to get rid of 2011 things in 2011.  I'll probably keep track of that here on the blog.  I don't think I'll track the things I throw away, only the things I donate, gift, or sell.

2. Simplify schedule.  Make sure we do preschool (Montessori time or otherwise) 2-3 times per week.  We started off great this school year, but have really started to slack!

3. Simplify health.  Eat breakfast and lunch every day!  I am horribly bad about snacking and never eating a real meal until dinner time.  And I wonder why I have no energy some days . . .

4. Simplify hobbies.  I joined a destash-along on craftster.org, I am really going to try to do my sewing and knitting from what I already have on hand.  I also joined a craftalong doing 50 projects in 2011 - I'm hoping this will help me to actually finish the projects that I start.  Unless they're a gift for someone, a lot of the time they don't get any further than planning and purchasing materials!  Hence the large fabric and yarn stash.

5. Simplify money.  This is the year we need to plan a budget for food/household expenses.  Hubby got a new job (yay!!!) but my hours keep getting cut at work when I need them the most.  So either it's budget and stick to it, or work more days out of the week.  Budget it is! 

I started cleaning out the house with my kitchen.  Today I boxed up 51 items for goodwill, mostly excess coffee mugs and sippy cups.  And I haven't even touched my pantry yet!  :)

Yarn Along

I am excited to participate in my first Yarn Along Wednesday at over at small things.  I LOVE this idea!  One picture: what you're knitting and what you're reading.

I am close to finishing a pair of socks for my husband (aka bigfoot) for Christmas.  They WILL get done!  And I am reading Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon.  Still reading it.  I've been reading it for months now.  It's just not as exciting for me as Outlander was.  Hopefully I'll be able to finish soon!