A is for Apple....

Between the kids' nap last Sunday and their playing pretty peacefully together on the morning of a snow day (we've had a bunch this year), I was able to knock this out!

This same artwork was in the kids' playroom in the old house, of course.  It was inspired by a photo I saw in a Pottery Barn catalog that had the same concept on the wall of a nursery.  I didn't keep the catalog, and this is the only photo I could find online of the inspiration.  You can see the bird, but you'll have to trust me that the apple and caterpillar are up there, too.

It's funny to think back to making this for the old playroom before the kids were born.  We bought the frames with a gift card from the shower on the same shopping trip that I bought the pants I wore to the hospital.  I painted the chipboard letters and craft paper backing in our old basement with no distractions at all, aside from a big ol' belly.
 

 

I sketched the stencils with my feet up on the couch, the way I spent a lot of afternoons back then.  I thought I kept the cut-outs just as keepsakes. Turns out it was so I could do it all over again!

I don't have a very vivid memory of painting the design in the old house (pregnancy brain?), but I'm sure later on I'll remember the kids playing around me this time around as I tried not to mess up.  Mike pointed out before I began that we have no more yellow paint for the playroom, so touch-ups would not be an option.  The pressure made me feel all Michelangelo.

I believe I will also recall Sophie telling me I'm very good at painting and asking, "When I grow up to be a teacher, can I paint on the walls like you?"  That teacher thing came 100% from her, despite my suspicion that she has it in her.  I told her yes, by the way. 

Above is a photo I took from my painting perch on top of the toy shelves.  Later I discovered that I dripped paint in Sophie's hair.  Better there than on the walls!

While it was certainly easier to paint with two munchkins peacefully rolling around in my belly, this was admittedly more fun and rewarding, especially when Michael came down from his nap to see what I had started and declared it a "Great idea!" 

Sophie exclaimed that my work was "just beautiful" when it was done.  Best patrons ever.

 

Mike and the kids also added a shelf to the kitchen area this weekend.

 

I can't believe how much better this playroom feels to me now.  It's all warmed up with memories of preparing for these two, of infants crawling over my legs, and of a couple of toddlers stumbling around gumming teethers.  We're filling the space now with games of Candyland and Memory and all sorts of imaginative fun, of preschoolers making observations and playing contentedly by my side.
 

Buzz and Jessie

Way back in September I shared the plans for Michael and Sophie's Halloween costumes.  Since the forecast for tomorrow's trick-or-treating is not camera-friendly, I costumed up my buddies on this 50 degree afternoon and snapped some photos.

















These were all taken at our new house.  In most of the photos our property ends where the kids are standing.  More on that when we come up for air.  The whole packing-moving-unpacking ordeal has been kicking our butts!



Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Fruit Cups

To keep them busy and out of the way, I'll be taking the kids to a Halloween party on our moving day next weekend.  Since spending any amount of time cooking in the next week is unlikely (I also have a desperately-needed hair appointment and parent-teacher conferences in the middle of all of this), I opted to bring this make-way-ahead option.

I spent Friday evening following the directions at Crab and Fish and am pleased with the final product. These are a combination of Dole pears, peaches, and mandarin oranges in 100% juice.  I'm not sure if this always is the case, but the expiration date on the peaches in all three packages was notably easier to remove with rubbing alcohol than the dates on the other fruits.  Although this whole project turned out to be much more time-consuming and expensive than pretty much any other dish-to-pass, doodling while catching up on shows in my jammies was probably a better choice for my sanity than baking something in the midst of moving.

I linked up here:

Buzz and Jessie Costumes

With our move likely taking place just a couple of weeks before Halloween, I thought I'd better get thinking about costumes in this calm before the packing/unpacking storm.  I suggested dog and cat or Woody and Jessie from Toy Story 2 to Michael and Sophie.  Sophie was all about both ideas, but Michael insisted on Buzz Lightyear instead.  Sophie will be Jessie.

After some eBay, Etsy, Pinterest, and Google Images exploration, here's what I came up with.

Buzz Lightyear

Buzz PJ top - I bought jammies similar to these on eBay, but he'll wear just the top for Halloween.
White sweatpants - They'll be warmer and look more like a costume than the PJ pants.
Winter boots - In a few weeks I'll do the yearly winter gear stock-up, aiming for white or grey boots for Michael with the costume in mind.  Buzz's toes are green, but I think this will work fine.
Inflatable wings -  Michael tried the wings on this morning and was thrilled!  Luckily he was cool about taking them off to be stored safely for over a month until our first Halloween event.

The Buzz costume parts are all re-wearable aside from the wings, and the whole thing requires no DIY, assembly only.

Jessie 

Red hat - A cowgirl's gotta have a hat.

White shirt with a yellow bandana - It's not exactly Jessie's look, but it will be cute and more functional later.  The shirt was only $6 from Old Navy and the bandana was $2.

Red boots - I didn't intend to go for boots, especially since they'll hardly be seen under the jeans and chaps, but red cowgirl boots were staring right at me when I went on the Old Navy site to get that white shirt.  They were on sale and look like this:

I'll do my best get $15 worth of use out of them, perhaps swapping out the jeans for a denim skirt and white tights for one of our Halloween events.  Knowing how much my girl loved her brown suede boots last year, I suspect they'll get additional wear.  With all of that in mind, I just couldn't resist the splurge.

Jeans and cow print chaps - This is the only DIY-ish part of the pair of costumes.  Here's what I've done:

I bought 1/2 yard of "dalmatian" fabric from JoAnn Etc. (already 30% off) with a 40% off coupon.  It came to just a few dollars, and there's a lot left over, which is good in case Sophie outgrows those jeans this month.

I just traced around the legs of the jeans Soph will wear, from the crotch to the bottom, adding a little "tab" at the outer ankles for fringe.

I cut the non-fringed sides and bottom with pinking shears (seemed cowgirly to me) and the top and fringe with regular ones.

I traced the edge of a big plate and cut to get the rounded top edges.  The straight lines looked too severe when Sophie had them on.



I may or may not sew some ribbon onto the backs of these to tie them onto Sophie's legs with.  Pinning with safety pins in between the two layers worked fine but really isn't a ton easier than whipping out the sewing machine for a few minutes.  We'll see.

Those are all the ingredients and major steps.  You'll have to check in next month to see the costumes in action!

The color box game

Around mid-morning one day last week, I realized that the kids were on their third TV show (as I dealt with making an offer on another house...which was also not the accepted one).  There wasn't really time to get dressed and sunscreened and to play outside before lunch, but I wanted them to burn some energy.  We've been doing a lot of variations of "If You're Happy and You Know It" lately--jump up and down, wiggle your body--and I wanted something like that, lots of movement, silliness, and a quick pace but that would last a little while.  Here's what I came up with.  (I did it a second time to get pictures for the blog.)

Supplies:
3-5 pieces of different colored construction paper (I only did three the first time for time's sake)
scissors
marker
tape
glue (or just use the tape)
shoe box-sized container (optional)

Make a box out of each piece of paper by folding it into thirds the long way,



quarters the short way, (in half twice--pictured is just once, of course)





and cutting into a cross shape.



Use your first one as a template, and save one square scrap from each color.

Here's the fun part.

Each of the other colored boxes represents a kind of task.  This time around I made orange "animal noises," yellow "songs,"  red "dance moves,"  and blue was "trivia."  I had the kids help me choose the specific tasks, and they had fun naming animals, songs, dance moves.  For trivia I wrote things like "Sing the ABC's" and "Point to your      ."  I included a question mark on one side so I could ask them random but more specific stuff like Grammie's dog's name, what letter their names start with, and so on. Nothing Jeopardy-level just yet.

At this point it looks like the strangest Sunday school project ever.

I assembled my boxes by taping along the edges of the two side squares and the top edge of the top one (sticky side of the tape pieces all facing the same direction).  I folded all of those "up" and taped on the inside.  You can tape on the outside as well as that's a little easier.



I didn't worry about making these perfect.  We'll probably get a few games out of this before the boxes are destroyed, so I wasn't going to sweat it.






Cut those square scraps a little smaller and glue or tape each one to a side of the main box.  I went with the green one as the kids know that green means go, and this is the box that gets used for every turn. You can do this with just a total of three boxes if you choose (I did that the first time) and put two squares of each color on the main box instead.  On the remaining blank sides I put a smiley face and a sad face.  Smiley means you get to pick which box you'll roll next, sad face means you lose a turn.  Only do that if your kids will be cool with that, of course.  Don't torture yourself if they're not the best sports at the moment.  :)



We roll the boxes in a small basket--that just felt right to me.  After rolling the main box, the player rolls the box that matches the square that comes up.  If it's the song box, the player sings the song.  If it's a dance move, one must do the dance.  If it's an animal noise...you get it.

Can you tell I had cutting helpers?

Michael and Sophie love this activity from start to finish, from "helping" to make the boxes, to choosing the details, to playing.  I love that this game is adaptable to whatever phase the kids are in.  You could even make a box with simple math problems or sight words or pictures to describe in Mandarin Chinese...whatever is a fun challenge for your kids at that moment.

3rd Birthday Party

We invited some twin club friends and friends from school to the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum for a birthday party on Saturday.



I brought two of the pictures, the stars, and the "three" from the kitchen wall for decorations.  With the push-up pops (see the end of this post for details on those) and a few balloons, that was plenty to add a personal touch to the party room.





As always, the kids had a great time with the trains, rockets, water tables, blocks, balls, fire truck, giant bubble maker, floor piano, ambulance, and so on at the museum.





Fitting with the theme of the party, Michael, Mike, and some party friends launched rockets!

At busy events like this I always wish I just relied on my phone's camera and left my big ol' one at home since chasing after kids and trying to soak in the experience myself makes it even tougher to get good photos anyway.  But even out-of-focus moments are pretty special.





"Hey, fire fighter!  How old are you?"



For a little while I was on my own with Soph as she collected balls in her bucket from the giant machine.  While taking these pictures, I was really struck by what a little girl she is now, by how much my babies have grown in three years.



Back in the party room, the kids made slime, ate snacks, and we sang "Happy birthday."  We ran out of time toward the end for presents, but that time was probably better spent playing.  Three and four year old's prefer that anyway, right?




Below are some of my party planning details:

Rocket Party Inspiration

I scanned this fabric for the invitations, push-up wrappers, and some signs.

Rocket Push-Up Cakes Inspiration 

Our Rocket Pops!

I made the push-up wrappers in PowerPoint using the scanned fabric.  I printed them, cut them with a paper cutter, and glued them with glue dots.

The cones I cut out of scrapbook paper (love that stuff although I don't actually scrapbook) by cutting out circles, cutting them in half, rolling them into cones and taping.  I used a dot of that sticky putty stuff for hanging things on walls to hold the cones on the pops since it's easier to pull off than glue dots.  All of that was manageable while catching up on shows after the kids' bedtime.



Brownies, Strawberries, and Cream Recipe

Our Rocket Pops (naked)

I probably should have followed this full recipe rather than finding semi-homemade short-cuts.  I bought brownie bites from Costco hoping to avoid actually baking and cutting, but they were a tad too big for the containers.  I set aside time the night before the party to trim those down, which wasn't too bad.  I also just used a can of whipped cream, but the cream cheese mixture in the recipe probably would have held up better.  Even with waiting to assemble the pops until just a couple of hours before the party, the whipped cream lost its whippiness and the brownies got pretty soggy.  The kids thought they were good, though, so whatevs!

DIY Push-Up Pop Stand

Mike knocked the stands out over a few nights after work.  He had a 4 x 4 cut into four chunks at Home Depot, carefully measured out 12 spots on each, drilled, sanded, and painted them.

We intend to reuse the stands and push-up containers in the future.  They're pretty darn cute.


We're having family over today for the kids' actual birthday.  Stay tuned for pictures of the kids riding their 3rd birthday presents.  ;)