Dollar Store Spring Projects

I ran into the Dollar Tree yesterday to grab a few things -- and ahem... walked away with a few MORE things!  But the children had a blast!  I bought 3 stacks of foam sheets (one circle, one rectangle, and one butterfly shape) and they decorated their eggs and butterfly.  Then MG and I made a chick popping out of an egg!

He was so happy he had "unsupervised" use of the glue!  (well, I supervised but just didn't dictate as much.  Because he's getting so big and wants to do everything, so I am letting him!  Why not?!)

He's making Humpty Dumpty!  Love those skinny chicken legs!

Oh, i also bought a bag of pom poms for them to use!

Her chick is so cute!!!

Welcome Spring!!!
(MG is still not herself.  She's still complaining of headaches.  She stayed home from school again today.)

Dry Hands?!

Most of you know me and have seen first hand how dry and cracked my hands are... I call them my "man hands."  Although I should be embarrassed because I bet most men have better looking and feeling hands than I do!  (Vince, for one, has better hands than I do!)  With the changing of the seasons, the wind blowing (spring is awful on my hands!), cleaning meat (I hate touching meat!), taking a shower (maybe the bar of soap I hold?), being near children (CONSTANT hand washing!), hot water (because I have this theory that hot water cleans everything?!)... etc, etc, etc.

Clare gave me this last year... it was from her friend Arlene.  I think Clare said Arlene bought it at a farmer's market.  I LOVE it!!!!  My hands have never felt better.  I use it once a day - as I am waiting at a red light on the way to school in the morning to drop MG off.  I lather it on and my hands stay pretty soft the rest of the day!  It's pretty amazing!

I will have to order my own once I use this all up -- maybe in a few more months.  So, it has lasted a whole year!  That my friend, is well worth the price!  And I saw that they have lip moisturizer too!  I could sure use that!

Natural products... why not?!  You should give it a try too!

I should email this company and thank them!

Easter's coming??!!

"Quick!!!!  I'd better write a letter to the Easter Bunny!"  (MD)  "Why?" (me)  "Because I really want a light saber and I can't wait until my birthday or Christmas!"  (MD)  "Well, you can try, but I can't guarantee anything." (Me)  "Okay... because I really can'tttttt wait!"  (MD)
In case you can't read upside down -- I've translated:

"Dear Easter Bunny, I like You.  May I please have a red light saber.  Thank you.  Love, Matthew Q."
(He really wanted to get right to the point and just say: "I want a light saber!"  But I insisted he be a bit polite and say something nice to the Easter Bunny.)

Later that afternoon MG was sent home from school with a fever.  What in the world?!  She was fine in the morning!  Anyway, after some rice soup, Tylenol, and a long nap with E, she was good to go.  REALLY!  I couldn't even tell anything was wrong with her!  So we proceeded to do a few things:

Bunnies:

Decorated with "fluff" and tissue paper:

E's version:  (don't you love those long whiskers?!  And don't let your imaginations run too wild.. they are all legs, yes, just 3!)

She's just perfect, isn't she?!  :)

And these flowers were our inspiration from the art faire -- oil pastels are so much fun to play with!

Pump it UP!

Happy 7th birthday Jenna!!!

(Here's Jenna and her mom, Lisa)

Astrid went too!!!  Go, Astrid!

They were all in Kindergarten together... seems so long ago!

The girls:

The birthday gang:

Inspired!

We went to see some artwork created by Santa Clara's schools on Saturday morning and then spent the afternoon with Rebecca and her girls:

The faire also provided children the opportunity to create their own artwork:

She's doing an oil pastel resist with watercolor here:

They are too!

Some oil pastel drawing:

They went outside and did a mono type piece using black tempera and some cut out cardstock pieces and Q-tips -- it was fun!

He had it all over him by the time we left!

Their masterpieces hanging up to dry!

Today (Sunday) we are going to create some Spring artwork... we are inspired!!!!  Spring is here!  Let the creativity flow!!!

Books are amazing!

Morgan's school hosted a Story Fun Night.  It's basically a night focused on encouraging families to read together.  At the end of each story the children were given an activity to do that was associated to the story.  She signed up for her top 2 choices and was given:

Cooking as the first theme:
The teacher (Mrs. Bernanrd?  She 's a 2nd grade teacher) read, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by a great author!  It was a really cute story -- Ethan loved it and kept saying, "Me, me," during the story.  For the record -- a 2 1/2 year old saying that is cute.  A student saying that in the classroom - not so cute!  So, I will nip that in the bud by the summer!  (hahaha!)

So, of course, they decorated a cupcake!

Can you tell he's ready to dig in???

She was very dainty - took a bite and was done!

Well... him, he's something else,isn't he?

And these are our friends, Theodore and Dorothea.  Dorothea is in M's 1st grade class.

Art was the second theme:
This teacher read a cute story called The Dot.  It was very inspiring!  This is the author.  Karen, my sis, bought me Someday before I had Matthew... very beautiful book about a mom and baby.

So off they went to create their masterpieces with tempera paint and a Q-tip!

Ta-da!!!!

Here she is a  few days later with the souvenir frame and the art she created!

He's just glad to be done -- no longer photogenic!

The activity was pretty much over when Mrs. Rosete (that's M's teacher) and Bella walked in! 

That event was Friday night...

By Sunday morning they were already inspired!
We read this:

And they immediately wanted to do this!

I just love books!!!!  We've been reading about penguins... more to come!