Stringing beads

Emma wanted to make a necklace for her cousin, and that prompted Claire saying "I too, I too" My gut instinct said no, no she will make a mess, she is too little, but then I told myself why not. Why should she not be able to try? What mess can she make that the vacuum can't handle? Let her grow. Do not stifle her. This is a tough lesson for me to handle to let them discover on their own to be less of the helicopter. So I got Claire a little container of beads and a pipe cleaner, because I figured it would be easier than string. I was amazed at her focus and determination.






I think she even surprised herself.

Friday Wanderings

Hurray for nice weather, we walked to the library and to the pretzel store. It is so nice to be able to travel on foot. At the library we met a lady that lives one street over, a very sweet and like minded mama. It was very nice to have someone to talk to while the children are visiting with the fish and the puzzles at the library.






If you are local and haven't tried A Taste of Philly they are amazing and you should. If you travel through and want to support local they are a fun little spot to hit.

We're Melting

Ahhh, we are melting. Thank goodness! Unfortunately I do think it might be a tease, but I can pretend and hope that it is not. We went to the park and it was so nice to get the fresh air into us and burn some cabin fever off. There were also many icey puddles to splash in. It felt so strange to have ice and snow on the ground while sweating in a fleece jacket.

Game Geeks

We splurged and bough Kirby's Yarn for the Wii. I am not a gamer, I don't like to watch brain cells being depleted by a video game. However, this game has won me over. I admit I even play it. It is yarn after all, and there are cut scenes of knitting, and the embroidered backgrounds. Needless to say it had me at "Hello."






It is such a family oriented game and has parts for everyone. I mean that is some true Pappa & Sprout bonding time.

Valentine's Day!

Hurray it is Valentine's Day!
We made a cute window decoration by cutting our construction paper hearts, with another heart cut out of the middle. And then we layered tissue paper with white glue on inside of the heart. It is super simple and very pretty. I foresee shamrocks, and easter eggs in the future!



I then made some valentine cards for the girls to hand out to the people they saw that day. Blatantly stole this idea from a few other mom bloggers, I can not take credit. It is so cute I think we will have to do this again for school next year!

Hallelujah

Hallelujah happens to pop up on my Pandora station quite a bit. It has become Claire's FAVORITE song. She sings it with true soul. This past weekend she was standing on a chair giving her best performance, it was so sweet and yet so funny to see such gusto by such a small lass.

Emma's Art Opening

An art opening of her very own. Emma has been to numerous art openings, some of Pappa's some just to go. After completing a preschool Picasso day camp at the Indianapolis Art Center, we had some work that qualified to enter. Emma wasn't thrilled with the work we entered it was a bit dated, and not her favorite. She said she felt it lacked in color, and needed something else. Already her own worst critic, silly girl. This is her piece entitled "A princess."



She was also very thrilled with the fact I was trying to take her picture, as you can see.

Happy Birthday Claire!

Claire is now 2! Although she thinks she might be 4 or maybe 25. It is easy to forget she is so little sometimes, because she is trying to rush through these toddler years. Who could blame her, being a toddler sucks.





Yum cake, or is it yum frosting. I went with a box mix and homemade cream cheese frosting. It really is all about the frosting, especially with my girls. And you can not go wrong with rainbow sprinkles, they make up for the cake being a box mix. Which by the way was not any easier than making a cake from scratch, at least in my opinion.

Ice More Ice

The ice is everywhere you can not escape it! I am ready for the thaw. I am ready for spring. It is time for the frost fairies to go back north. King Winter you have done a fabulous job with making the ice castles, but enough is enough! The poor little ground hog could not even come out because his home has a hard crystal shell upon it.

Ice ice baby

Ice ice baby, originally uploaded by bsuvalz.

I can not bear to use the cheesy tag lines for this winter storm. It is crazy outside with so much ice. You walk with out leaving footprints, we are literally trapped in the house. It has been a nice change to have to stay home with out plans, with out tasks looming, and just have family time. We built legos, we did crafts, I worked on a quilt and Emma cut my scraps into bandages for her toys. Some days I feel like I am rushing for bedtime, but today was so perfect that it didn't even matter if it was just one more round of games.
I hope everyone is staying safe, and enjoying mother nature's forced time to rekindle and warm the house from the inside out.

Valentine's Garland

How to:
First you will need to gather your supplies. Old crayons, and a sharp shredding object (here we have a grater in the picture but we found the pencil sharpener to work much better,) and you will need wax paper.

You will need to take all the wrappers off the crayons.

Then lay out a sheet of wax paper and start shredding.

Much better with the sharpener.


Layer with another piece of wax paper

Melt!! I used the polyester setting and that seemed just right. Also you WILL want to put a pressing cloth or towel over and under your project you don't want any leaky wax escaping.

Trace and cut

Connect. I stapled mine together but you could punch holes for lacing string, or you could sew them together. I opted for quick as we were near nap time. Hang and admire, I love the way the light catches the wax it is so pretty.