kirstencan

Playroom update

A big deal in our house recently:

We finally got around to doing a project we've wanted to do since we moved in (isn't that a great feeling?): We replaced the ugly mauve* carpet in the playroom!

Goodbye and good riddance...

By the end of the first night we had a bare concrete floor.  Even concrete looked better than mauve*.

Thomas thought he was in charge.

 

Soon we were seeing progress:

And after 3 trips (and approximately $57 million spent - just kidding) at Ikea, several trips to Lowes, 1 tetanus shot, 1 kid's sleeping arrangements temporarily changed, discovering that Princess had a ton of books stashed under her bed, 5 rugs bought, and 1 loft bed built eventually everything was moved back in:

And I'm loving it!

The mobile was pulled down and tangled ... but I still have it and will fix it one of these days!

I like our playroom and had such fun decorating it - but that old carpet was holding it back, y'know?  And the kids are loving the new red shag rug - a great rug to read on.

Ahh, much better!

Our collection of Star Wars ships... which you know will be growing at Christmas.

*Well, most people would call the old carpet 'mauve', but Aaron declared it 'The color of a sick rat's eye'.

Yep, it was  lovely.

Thanks, Aaron for working so hard last weekend!

(Before photos here).

Little Halloween Party

Invitations:

I only had to make four of them.

Graphics from the My Paper Crane free Halloween printable - which I'm not able to find now for some reason...

I finally got to hang up some decorations:  bats, tissue paper bat garland and spooky garland from here.  We made paper bag owls when we studied owls earlier this month.

Bunting + two Cinderella Pumpkins from our garden (we're cooking them tonight). Photos of the kids in Halloween costumes when they were toddlers (one photo is on a table). The book basket in the living room holds fall and Halloween books.

Donuts on a string was a huge hit - and hilarious.

Coloring pages from here.

Foam stickers galore.

Little treat bags - my favorite part was the little mini-coloring book (folded from one sheet of paper from here (definitely my new fave site for printables).

Not shown:  Halloween memory (from last year), pumpkin bread, popcorn, candy corn, nine costumed guests and their moms, and a showing of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! which I think most kids don't watch as much as mine do, so they were surprisingly into it.  Also generally running around and playing. 

Also not shown is the super cool pumpkin bean bag toss I was going to make... yeah, that's not shown because it didn't happen.  And that's okay.

It was short, pretty low key, and just what I was going for. I had to keep the guest list super small for a couple of reasons:  space, fear of overwhelming Thomas, and my sanity (but there were a few of you out there that I really wanted to invite, too!).  Just a little Halloween themed playdate, really, for my kids - since they don't get a class party.  Hmm, I guess I'm room mom every year!

***

Oh, and one more Halloween themed project - one day I had the kids go 'Ghost Hunting" - I gave them a seemingly blank sheet of white paper and their watercolor paints and told them to paint.  They didn't know that I'd drawn ghosts on the paper already with white crayons, so as they painted they found some cute happy ghosties. 

They LOVED it.  Monkey even wanted me to make him another sheet to do later.

Easy, very little prep, and materials on hand - and what a fun thing to put in their school boxes this week!  Found the idea on The Crafty Crow (scroll down).

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Pumpkin Pillow

Something that's been in my sketchbook for a while:

 

A little holiday pillow.  Just a little textured black sale fabric, some orange flannel, and bits of a felted green sweater.

With a touch of embroidery - some of which isn't too visible here (it snowed all day, so the lighting hasn't been great) but I did some loopy green vines and pumpkin lines.

 

But, Oh, no!  Did we lose some features?

 

Never fear, little pumpkin!  We have a lovely assortment of eyes, noses, and mouths for you to choose from.

See, we keep them here - in an easy to access pocket.

Monkey will hook you up right.

Hmm...
 

Not your favorite face?  Don't worry, it'll be changed shortly, I'm sure!

Holiday decor + holiday activity rolled into one!  Woo!

....

So, yeah, this was my little crafting therapy this week.  It didn't take long to whip up at all.  The embroidery was done while waiting at dance.  Pillow covers go together fast.  I used velcro (scratchy side) on the pumpkin, but none on the felt - they didn't need it.  I was hoping to avoid velcro altogether, but it holds the felt pieces on better.  Also black velcro would have been better, but I used what I had on hand.

...

Oh, and thanks to Rachel of One Pretty Thing for featuring my book mobile as well!

Halloween Costumes - Harry Potter Style

Well, here are the kiddos 2009 costumes! We had to get all dressed up for the annual carnival at church on Saturday.

Here's Hermione:

Her fave accessory was her time-turner (although I think she liked having her hair crimped, too). It is pretty darn cool, I admit.  It's this that I ordered from Half.com to put away for Christmas - and when it arrived in a completely smashed box, I got refunded but got to keep it.  Which worked out pretty great for Halloween.

Ron -  he's even got the red hair for it.  He has Scabbers the rat (an IKEA toy we already had) sewn to the shoulder of his robe. Although we should probably have used the brown rat instead?

 

And a little blonde Harry, whose bangs usually cover up his lightning-bolt scar.  He kept being goofy and waving when I was trying to get a shot of him, so I ended up with one shot of him exactly blocking his face.

So here's the deal - after much deliberating they all chose these costumes independently!  I was pretty excited, because I loved the Star Wars theme year (and you know I was excited for a possible Lord of the Rings theme - but they nixed that eventually).  My mom made the Hogwarts robes - she made them up based on an angel costume pattern.  Yep, she amazes me, too, with her mad sewing skillz.  She bought the fabric with her Joann's coupon so they didn't cost much.  I think they turned out AWESOME.

I ironed on the Hogwarts logos and sewed the button + loop fasteners. I also made the scarves from fleece - which took no time at all.  We bought the ties and Harry's glasses (ironically the one kid who doesn't wear glasses needed them and the other two took their glasses off) - everything else we had around (white shirts, pants/skirts, sticks for wands - which we didn't bring to the carnival).

We even had Hedwig!  I found an official Hedwig owl at a yard sale this summer (it was free even!) and put it away for Halloween because I knew they were all considering Harry Potter characters.  We forgot to bring Crookshanks, but we had that planned, too

Thomas was less than excited about putting on a shirt and tie for the carnival.  Until he saw how awesome his sibs looked - then he didn't complain at all - and asked to put it all back on the next day!  I'd forgotten that 'church clothes' are not his fave and might cause a problem.The coolest part was just that we had all three characters, I think.  And the kids have new awesome dressups to add to their collection - and to wear whenever they watch a Harry Potter movie or read the books - so I think they'll be in use a lot!

2008 Costumes

2007 Costumes

(I got no good photos of them together in 2006!  But here's 1, 2, and 3)

I'm on Ohdeedoh today!

Hi to anyone coming over from Ohdeedoh today - they featured my vintage storybook mobile from the playroom.

If you would like to see the playroom that that mobile is in, check out this and this.  I also made a similar mobile recently for a swap.

And by the way, we just redid some of that room, so updates coming soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

Skipped a generation?

Well, the girl didn't inherit my yarn issues.  She seems to have taken to it quite well!

After making a couple of scarves for her dolls (the first one was a tad wobbly, the second surprisingly NOT) she started on a washcloth... which looks at least as good as the ones I make.

Yup, she definitely picked this up faster than I did.  I might be a teeny bit jealous.

I think she might need this book for Christmas:

We've checked it out from the library once - so I already know that it's great.  And just because I have no desire (or skills) to read a crochet pattern, doesn't mean she won't!

Oh, and Monkey?  Totally finger-crocheted this scarf for his teddy.  I did the wrapping around his fingers, and he did the looping.

So... me and Thomas will have to stick together.

Stickers

Do you ever peel off all of the sale stickers individually to see all the markdowns?  Am I the only one that does this?  Here's what this tag says:

.97

2.99

4.99

8.99

14.50

I bought this sweater for Monkey last spring on clearance at Old Navy and was happy to pull it out for him to wear now that it's fall.

97 cents rocks.

Bats and Pumpkins

Thomas always had a difficult time in the fall.  Well, the last couple of years anyway.  I blame adjusting to having to wear socks, long pants and jackets, and the last two years also having a hard time adjusting to frustrating school situations and schedules. 

But on top of that, he gets easily spooked about Halloween.

He has some anxiety issues about it I think (not surprising, really) and gets 'jumpy' for the rest of the day if he sees anything scary. 

Like, for example, me taking him into the Halloween Store.  As soon as we walked in I knew that that was a stupid idea.   Because we even have to skirt the Halloween area at Target.  Stupid - I totally wasn't thinking that day.

The hard/confusing thing is that Thomas actually loves Halloween.  He loves all the non-scary parts, like dressing up, the church carnival, the pumpkin patch, and watching Charlie Brown.  So he's excited about it, but... we have to be careful.

Anyway, I did want to up the Halloween decorations this year, since it's the first year that everyone is home full-time - usually we've had a preschool party at least to go to or something.  You know, just a little more festive.  And I'm planning a (VERY small!  laid-back! not-spooky!) party for the kids and a few friends.  And I do love party planning and decorating!

I made a Halloween bunting for the living room (close-up later maybe):

And I spent an hour or two cutting out bats on Sunday.  Various sizes, shapes, and papers.  I made a tissue paper bat garland (idea from here) and hung it over a window.  Then Thomas started getting jumpy again.

By 'jumpy', I mean that he literally jumps and sometimes yells if anyone talks even slightly loud, or sneezes in his general direction.  It's not a good thing.

So, the garland got rolled up, and the other bats got stuck in an envelope before they were hung up.  I'm thinking they might come out for the party - but that's it.

Aaron suggested skipping Halloween - but that's so hard to do.  And I LOVE Halloween!  And so do the kids.  Next year we might just get out the Halloween stuff a few days before the actual day, though.  None of this month-long decorating and celebrating (when did everyone start doing that anyway?).

Really, I don't even know if we'll do the Halloween Night at the botanical garden.  We were planning on it since it's been a couple of years since we did that and it was such fun last time!  We're sticking to Charlie Brown and Max and Ruby, too - probably no Ichabod this year.

At least the kid loved the pumpkin patch.

Loved it.  And is planning a Star Trek jack'o'lantern for his pumpkin.

And the bunting and quilt are still out, but that's it.  Darn it.

**********

p.s. if anyone out there is room mom for Halloween this year - I posted what I did in Thomas' kindergarten class last year HERE

Annual Train Ride

It's that time of year again - time for the annual ride on our historic railroad.  This year was a little chilly, but not as bad as two years ago - all in all it was a perfect afternoon.

 

There are few things cooler than that HUGE steam engine.  At least in our boys' book anyway.

I love how the passenger cars look - but riding in them makes me motion sick pretty quickly.

We stick to the open cars - and love the wind and the views.

Because really?  You definitely wouldn't see this view as well from inside.

 

Dinner at 'The Train Restaurant' afterwards with Kirk and Eva was a fun treat - and then we stopped by their studio to check it out (so cool!  And I forgot to take any pictures!).  BTW, they are offering a letterpress holiday card workshop next month - I am seriously considering it!

Anyway, it made for an excellent Saturday.  Even the long drive there was great because driving through the canyons filled with red and orange leaves was amazingly gorgeous.

Here's our 2008 and 2007 rides as well.

Field Trip Friday:: Bean Museum (+ wet felting)

So, I'm a little late here, but our September field trip was to a local University's (free) museum of Life Sciences.
This museum is filled with hundreds and hundreds of stuffed animals.  The real kind.

I did find it a little odd to be studying LIFE science with everything in the museum dead and stuffed.  On the other hand, how else could you get inches away from a standing polar bear, a HUGE elephant bull (that monkey liked to look at from above), or a snarling jaguar (panther?).  The kids had fun, so that was cool.

 

After we had seen pretty much everything, we were checking out these displays in a little alcove that also had a big-screen TV.  Near the TV a list was posted of videos you could watch.  Score!  You just had to ask to get it set up.  So we watched a Magic School Bus video before we left.  And soon the alcove was full of kids from another homeschool group.  It's good to take advantage of resources like these when you find them!

......

This week, we tried a project I've been wanting to do for a while:  wet-felting. 

I found some wool roving at Hancock Fabrics once (surprising).  I'm sure it's not the nicest/most natural stuff - but I hadn't gotten around to ordering some, so this was fine for a first try!

I meant to do this in the summer - which would have been smart seeing on how wet we got...

But it was still really fun.  The kids loved it and now we have a handful of felt beads in Autumn colors for our nature table plus most of the roving left over for other projects.

(The red bead with blue spiky hair is my punk rocker bead.  Because that blue would NOT lay down and felt with the rest of them!)

School has been really fun so far this year!