Summer Learning Fun

Most of you have probably forgotten who I am.  
I am sorry.  I really am.
I can tell you now that I have been working on starting an little ol' local event design business and a blog to go along with it.
It is all still very much in the works.
Feel free to check out my progress over at By J Rachelle, really not much to see yet.  She will be up and running at full speed in July {I am shooting for July 1, but that is creeping up on me real quick}.
But enough about that!
I am sitting here with my big kindergarten graduate working on a workbook I printed for her.
I joined education.com to have access to all of their worksheets and workbooks.

Source:  Education.com

I chose several of their 1st grade workbooks, 6 of them I think, and printed them out.  To give her a nice blend of different types of activities I broke up the workbooks and put several pages from each into our own worksheet bundles.  I then organized the bundles by level of difficulty.
We are about half way through the first bundle of worksheets.  So far the worksheets have been challenging, but not so difficult that she is getting frustrated.
I highly recommend checking out education.com.  You can pay for individual workbooks or worksheets or you can sign up for a membership to have unlimited access to all of their learning activities.  I think I paid around $30 for a 6 month membership and it has been well worth it!
What do you have planned to keep your child's brain from melting over the summer?

A Girl and Her Shoes

Funny how I can take 50 pictures {in 10 minutes} of my littles playing together outside and manage to fall in love with the shots of their shoes.

You can tell a lot about a girl by her shoes.

Enjoy the little things today {especially little feet}.

Happy Friday.

I remember when Friday used to mean the work week was over...

You know you need a break when ...

... you catch yourself giving your 18 month old the stink eye when her back is turned.

... you bribe your 5 year old with a late night movie if she rubs your feet.

... you stop thinking "STOP TALKING!" as you listen to your chatty husband go on and on about something which is LITERALLY a waste of time {even he knew it was dumb} and you actually tell him to shut it.

... you tell your husband to go to the match without you and the kids and {for once} he does precisely as you say and you find yourself imagining the soccer ball flying into the stands and hitting him square in the face.

... you throw together a hod podge dinner for your children and completely forget to feed yourself {until it is so late and you are so tired that starving is a risk you are willing to take}.

... you get in bed, realize you forgot to brush your teeth, take a deep breath and say "forget it."

... you look to the heavens and pray that you'll make it to 1 o'clock tomorrow when you can drop your kids off at your aunt's house and walk away for 24 hours.

**deep breath**

Ladies, I need a break.

Counting Down with Family Fun!

Some of you observant types might have noticed that I kind of *cough* disappeared the week before Christmas.  I was in over my head with projects and I caught a nasty cold and I was just miserable in general.  So I set the blog aside and gave up on my remaining Christmas decor plans and went straight to finishing Christmas gifts {I will share those another time - they were AWESOME}.  I have come up with some blog planning strategies that I believe will better prepare me for the 2012 blogging season.  But, enough of my excuses...

2011 was the first year that our family had an advent calendar which contained daily activities {see the project here}.  With all of the parties, decorating, crafting of gifts, baking, school activities, etc. {I know this isn't just our household}, I was a bit uncertain about being able to keep up with the advent day-to-day fun.  

Surprisingly, we did it!  

Each day's activity gave us the opportunity to take a break from the holiday madness and enjoy some time together.  It felt good taking some time from the constant go, go, go to sit down with Maia and watch a Christmas movie or help her with a holiday craft or go shopping to let her pick out gifts for Daddy and Sister or having a hot cocoa and popcorn party, etc.  

Sometimes amongst the day-to-day craze we live in, we forget to stop.  We think we don't have the time, but after seeing how well we did this month, I can see that I really do have the time.  Planning it all out and assigning an activity each day allowed me to mentally prepare and it eliminated the need for Maia to whine about not having something to do.  Maia knew what family fun to expect and Mommy was able to organize her day with the activity in mind.

So here is what I have decided to do:  I am going to do this every month!  Each month I will create a new {super creative and freakin' adorable} countdown and each day will be assigned an activity.  Maia will be better able to remember the date each day, we will look forward to a family activity and Maia will hopefully learn something from each activity {even if it is just enhancing her crafting skills - I am grooming her to be bigger than Martha Stewart}.

I think this is going to be PHENOMENAL!  I am super excited about it {if I hadn't conveyed that already}!

Ok, ok, ok... enough chatter.  Time to put my creativity where my mouth is.  JANUARY HERE WE COME!

I had a few helpers...

January Garland How To:

Step 1.  {I must have been a VERY good girl this year, because Santa brought me the Silhouette Cameo that I had been wishing for}!
I used my fancy new miracle machine to cut out all of the cardstock components of my garland - the people, the hearts and the sweet little envelopes {look at those adorable itty bitty hearts!}.

Step 2.  After the Cameo did it's job, Maia, Ariana {my niece} and I painted each of the little people to signify how different each person in the world is {the girls LOVED this}.

Step 3.  I glued on each itty bitty heart to show that despite how different we may look, we all have the same heart inside {tear}.

Step 4.  I then attached each completed person onto a strand of twine using miniature clothespins {from Joann's - left over from a Christmas gift project}.

Step 5.  I wrote the number of each day onto each envelope using Sharpies.

Step 6.  I glued the cutest envelopes ever onto the pretty peoples using glue dots {love those}.

Step 7.  I printed out the activities on regular printer paper.

Step 8.  I cut out activities with a circle punch and stuffed them into the envelopes.

Step 9.  I smiled.

What does this garland have to do with the month of January?

January holds a holiday which I believe to be very under-appreciated, but so important.  Martin Luther King, Jr is one of the most inspiring people of all time.  His message was, and continues to be, so strong, so inspiring and so important.  Just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes.

For the month of January I want to show my littles more about togetherness and equality.  

I am testing something out this month; I am going to focus my projects around a central theme.  This month's theme will be "I Have a Dream."  All of my posts will not focus on MLK's message, but the majority will.

I have my schedule all mapped out and boy am I excited about what we have in store in the coming month!

Linking up:

Monday: Crafts Keep Me Sane, Craftomaniac, Making the World Cuter, Skip to my Lou, Dittle Dattle, Mad in Crafts, DIY Home Sweet Home

Tuesday: Not Just a Housewife, Tip Junkie, Today's Creative Blog, My World Made By Hand

Wednesday: 733blog, Sweet Peas & Bumblebees, Someday Crafts, Southern Lovely, Gingersnap Crafts 

Thursday: The ArtsyGirl Connection

Friday: Tatertots and Jello, A Little Inspiration

Saturday: Six Sister's Stuff, Family Ever After, Be Different Act Normal, Too Much Time on my Hands

Felt Reward Board

Things have been a little rough at my house, so my current projects (along with laundry, dishes, and sleep) have been temporarily delayed.  We had Maia's school's auction last weekend and then my little Ella caught a stomach virus.  Bleh!  I had a dentist appointment this morning so I decided to arrange child care for Ella through this afternoon so I could have a chance to finish my pine cone wreath.  Well, it was a good idea, but I just got back from the dentist and my mouth has made conflicting plans.  I thought I could just waltz in here and craft away, I guess I forgot how uncomfortable dental work can be.  Woe is me!  So instead, I am going to cozy up on the couch and watch television before I am overtaken by the constant needs of my children.

But, do not despair!  I happen to have a back up project for an occasion such as this!

When Miss Maia was in her ferocious fours we ran into some issues with listening, whining, manners, etc (you name it, we probably had an issue with it).  I googled, I screamed I skimmed books, I visited blogs, I read magazine articles... a lot of great ideas out there, but of course, none of them are ever the perfect fit.  So like every parenting team, we took a few of the ideas and drank a lot of wine just tried our best.

One thing that I came up with on my own was a felt reward board.  Maia is an avid artist.  She creates beautifully detailed sketches and colors like a pro!  Every day she asks if I will "set her up" a craft (a girl after my own heart).  I wanted to come up with an artistic way to encourage her positive behavior; and so, the felt reward board came to be.

Ooooh!  Ahhhh!  Yes, it is amazing.  Ok, I know that probably didn't blow your mind.  I used a framed cork board that I had lying around and a sheet of blue felt for sky and green felt for grass.  THEN came the fun, but time-consuming, part.  I created a fall themed bag of felt shapes: red and yellow leaves, a bare tree trunk and branches, a turkey body with separate legs, feathers, beak, etc., a pumpkin with separate shapes to decorate the face and a stem, etc.

For an even more personal touch, I later added a few pictures of family members with felt glued to the back - my favorite part!  This photo in particular was taken the day our tiniest was born; Maia and Daddy are walking down the hospital corridor so that she can meet baby Ella for the first time.  Precious!

Each week we would decide on a few behaviors to focus on and each time she made a good choice in that area she got to put something on the board.  At the end she had a beautiful piece of art and she really enjoyed it!  I also created a spring/summer bag with butterflies, birds, a bird's nest, worms, green leaves, sunshine, etc.

Since parenting techniques are ever evolving as a child grows, we have since adopted other methods so this has fallen to the wayside.  I think I might work this back in, it really is fun and helpful!

What creative ways have you found to encourage the princess inside your child to stick around longer than the goblin?

**This post has been linked up at Tatertots & Jello and Today's Creative Blog.**