Category: enjoying life

Mobile Project

I had an idea. While thinking through things that I’d like to get before Hannah comes, I thought about a crib mobile.

After looking around online I wasn’t impressed with the prices. THIRTY DOLLARS? Who pays THIRTY DOLLARS for a mobile?!

So I decided to do something better: make one.

So I gathered an arrangement of ideas in a pile:

And out popped the idea of making butterflies.

So I got to work and made this.

Each butterfly is made of an old clothes pin, painted in leftover pastels from the nursery paints. I used half a black pipe cleaner from our homeschool supplies for each antenna. After cutting out a simple pattern for the wings from an index card, I used some fabric scraps to sew the wings and pinch them into the paperclip. Superglue to keep the antennas on and reinforce the string’s knot. Voila!

I mixed and matched the colors for cute combos.

Then I grabbed two “charactered” sticks from the backyard, sanded them down (something about not wanting bark particles falling in the baby’s face) and washed them (don’t want dirt falling in the baby’s face either), and used some nearby twine-string to adjust out the balance and hang the butterflies. A lighter to cauterize the string’s edges and superglue for reinforcing the knots and attachments to the stick and I’d say this project costing me a total of $0 turned out well. =)

Rachael and Abi each blessed it with a little swing and we enjoyed watching it bobble about.

I hung it on the shelf’s hook coming out from under the shelf hung above Hannah’s crib.

Hope she likes it as much as I do. =) 

Plus, it looks great with our pastel nursery with the flower, bee and butterfly chair boarder around the room. 

Win, win!

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Straight to Bed

Yesterday I cleaned off the extra twin bed in the girls’ room. I had been using it as an “outgrown clothes” pile for a few months after setting it up in celebration of passing out of the first trimester of pregnancy with Hannah. Since Alivia never made it beyond the first trimester, I wanted to celebrate Hannah’s advancement and the Lord’s blessing us with a thriving pregnancy. The plan is for all three girls to share a room in the nursery (Rachael and Abi’s bed will eventually bunk together), and continue to leave our “new kid room” freed up for Respite care kids from foster care and, when the time comes, our new adopted child(ren).

With Hannah baking in the oven and Abi’s second birthday approaching, I set up the bed before I got too big and it would be highly uncomfortable to build a twin bed. Then it sat there… collecting outgrown clothes as a loading dock for storage in the file clothes boxes.

Life continued on as normal.

Looking at the calendar, I came to realize Abi will be two in a little less than 2 weeks. (Wow on many levels). See, 2 is the age Abi will be when Hannah arrives. This may not sound phenomenal to you all, but to me it makes September feel like tomorrow. And all the preparations and joys and anticipations that September holds right along with it.

So I started chipping away at the clothes on the bed yesterday: sorting, stacking, putting in boxes, and labeling some newly added boxes before shoving them under the bed until Abi grows into them, for Rachael’s outgrown clothes, or until Hannah will grow into them, for Abi’s outgrown clothes. Kinda crazy and fun the memories that flooded out of those little clothes as I enjoyed the folding and storing process.

Once the bed was cleaned off, Abi said, “Hannah’s bed” when becoming acutely aware of a new climbing structure in the nursery.

“No, Abi. That’s Abi’s bed…. this is Hannah’s bed,” I pointed to her crib.

She looked confused.

“Hannah’s bed?” She patted the new twin.

“No, that’s Abi’s new bed. Hannah will sleep in the crib.” I re-explained.

She carried on with life.

Today at nap time we followed the normal routine: new diaper, fan on, lights out, Rachael potties. And then Abi took a bold step of initiative.

“Abi’s bed” she said and began to climb up on the twin bed.

“Do you want to nap there?” I asked, a little startled.

A huge smile spread across her face.
“Abi’s bed.” She repeated.

So I let her pick out her sheets (she picked the striped hot-pink ones. hehe), dressed the bed, brought over the familiar loves (ducky, lambie and blankey). And my proud almost 2 year old had the biggest smile I’ve seen on her face as I tucked her in “just like Rachael.”

So proud of herself that it’s contagious.

She was still beaming as she fell asleep – no fuss, no need for verbal reminders of nap time. Just Abi – being huge… just like Rachael.

(shrugs shoulders) That was easy.

Abi’s private section of the nursery.
The nursery’s layout. 
Rachael’s close by for moral support. 😉

I was planning on having her try out napping in the “big girl bed” next week and then transition her to “night sleeps” at 2 years old. We’ll see if she doesn’t just transition herself.

Go, Abi, go!!!

– (Sigh) My growing girl.

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Stack ‘Em Up!

We took our Memorial day easy after having two packed days on the Saturday and Sunday before. Unfortunately, my “sleep in” dreams did not happen as I had a fantastic visit from Mr. Charlie Horse TWICE at 5am. I stayed up for 45 minutes of potassium and prenatal vitamin consumption, as well as water rehydration. Then I “napped” until 8am.

After doing the diaper laundry, I came to a realization while putting it away that we have virtually no room for Hannah’s cloth diapers. Being as how we had a lazy Memorial day ahead of us with plans of hot dogs in the backyard amid the girls playing in the swimming pool (will post those pics in a further post), my creative wheels started turning. I eyed my dwindling stack of receiving blankets, noting that 3 color coordinated.

Backstory: Saturday morning I got the privilege of discovering a woman selling her newborn cloth diaper stash (24 prefolds and 6 covers) for only $25 on craigslist. Since the prefolds themselves cost $2 a piece and the covers cost $8 a piece, I knew I wanted to jump on that deal before someone else did. We were in her area Sunday and were able to complete Hannah’s diaper stash until she gets into our current pocket diapers. I WAS (and still am) PUMPED!!!

So looking at the stack of 39 (I made 15 myself) newly washed and ready to be stored Hannah diapers/covers, while putting away Abi’s diaper stash, I decided to take advantage of our “lazy day” with a little sewing project.

I used this free diaper stacker pattern (though mildly vague).

And primarily this picture over the pattern words, which were a bit confusing to me. I read another pattern (“simple design” one) with pictures and figured I had the hang of it enough to improv.

I grabbed my three coordinating receiving blankets and, after reading reviews on other diaper stackers being too thin, grabbed some extra polyester to line the diaper stacker with reinforced durability. I laid out my fabric, measured twice, and cut once (though nearly twice. LOL).

This is my starting picture (minus my piece of cardboard to stiffen the bottom of the completed diaper stacker.) 

And this is the finished product:

 It is hung by a “child sized” hanger inserted into the stacker. I chose a metal skirt clip for two reasons: we have a plethera of these and I wanted the hanger head to be able to swivel and hold the weight of the cloth diapers.

** See Hannah’s cute cloth diapers in there? =D All 39 fit with extra room.

This hangs wonderfully on the end of our changing table in the nursery. YAY! And it’s also easily transported to the laundry room for refilling on laundry day. 

A close-up of the primarily hand-sewn part. I took the butterflies off an old and semi-useless burp cloth (it was really small and thin), then sewed it onto a few leftover pieces of the receiving blanket material I used in the diaper stacker. 

It took me about 4 hours (I hand-sewed a little of it so I could watch the girls “swim”) and cost me $1.59 (I ran out of thread. hehe).

I think it came out pretty cute! =)

P.S. For those of you concerned about Hannah potentially being a boy: 1. They got a really good “tell all” peek. 2. If Hannah turns out to be an Elijah, Elijah will get over the butterflies since “he’d” be sharing a room with his sisters for a good while. hehehe. But I’m pretty sure Hannah is 99% more likely. 😉

P.P.S. Matt was impressed that I created this in one day. His exact response: “You made that (smiling and surprised) just today?” =D YAY! I did!

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The Creek

This morning I got up and felt the desire to “go away” from our house. We’d settled back in since vacation and now it was time for a little cabin-fever driven play. Today not being a homeschooling day meant we were free until nap time, while I still hoped to spend the lunch time with Matt.

At first the idea was a local park that has farm animals, play equipment and not too much walking. I gave a few friends a call, discovered their full plans, and then rethought about our original plan. If we were not partnering with anyone else, we were free to do whatever. Then the idea popped into my head: muddy water play. The level of grease in Rachael’s hair this morning sealed the deal, clearly bath time was in order for today so why not get the most out of the dirt before returning to the world of clean.

Rachael was all-in, my previous “ew-dirt” toddler now turned into a “dirty can be fun” preschooler. But Abi had her own plans of lying in a pile of play jewelry (can we say uncomfortable?) and wrapping her stuffed duckie in a blanket. VETOED! Abi got over it with a few minutes of consoling and then happily got into a swim diaper and bathing suit. With T-shirts (for extra sun protection), water shoes, a few bath toys, some towels and my camera we were out the door to our adventure.

The girls, having never play in a creek before (dude, they’re small), learned all kinds of things about creeks through hands-on experience. And boy can I tell you, we experienced the creek TO THE FULL. Short of drinking the water intentionally (sorry Abi), we did just about every other little sensory experiment imaginable.

Rachael learned about water currants, floating and sinking objects,

 Boat floating down-currant. Then whale’s turn to float in a bucket.

depth of water, mossy rocks being slimy,

and all kinds of other personal experiments like how much water can be splashed by jumping furiously in the water.

Abi enjoyed many dump and fill pleasures with her self-declared recycled cottage cheese container which was a HUGE “no no” in the sharing category. That container was an emotional attachment, a beloved friend not just a selfish moment of “I don’t want you to have it”. No, cottage cheese container was NEEDED  (funny how they attach to things randomly). Rachael was content to play with everything but Abi’s cottage cheese container so no wars were waged creekside. Abi also highly enjoyed kicking and splashing – a must for my mud-inspired baby.

 Dump and fill.                             Kick, splash, kick!
 Catch the small waterfall.

While the girls were a little hesitant at first about the shiftiness of creek rocks, they soon kicked into their regular selves, sitting in the cold water with squeals and ‘do it again’s. In a few minutes their limbs had gone numb in the creek’s shade-covered arctic waters and their focused turned to exploring the water.

 Explore. Discover. Delight. 
           Joy.                                         Catch and release.
      Exploration.                                Watering her hair. =)

We stayed for 45 minutes of bliss, soon-to-be lunch grumbling encouraging our departure. I wondered what people thought as two young children emerged from the “no swimming” lakeside entrance (we walked a little ways back to the creek) fully wrapped in towels and soaking. We looked like rebels, but there were no signs posted in the creek area regarding swimming (probably since the water was um ankle-deep), but my children very nearly swam in that very ankle-deep currant.

A quick towel-drying, change of clothes for the ride back, peanut butter sandwich lunch, bath time and redressing has produced two wonderfully exhausted children and a quiet napping house.

I’d say our adventure was a success for all. =)

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Colored Play Rice

I was asked by my sister in law, Kat, if I’d share the recipe for the play rice I made with Rachael for homeschool back in November 2011. So I figured I could share it on here too to not only gawk at her cute pictures again, but also help anyone else out who is interested in making similar joy in their household.

Recipe for Colored Play Rice
1 cup regular rice. 
1 tsp rubbing alcohol 
food dye to your hearts content. 

Step 1: Stir rice, rubbing alcohol and food dye in a bowl until the color distributes, 

 She’s concentrating, not scowling, I promise. 😉

Step 2: Spread rice out flat on wax paper or whatever,

 Clearly the spreading was the most fun in the making part. =)

Step 3: Let dry for 1 hour.

 Start of drying process.                  End of drying process.
***No she did not stand there for an hour. ***
Then you’re good to go and ready to play! It’s really that easy!!!

***Warning: you will have fun and will need to vacuum.
***Second Warning: sometimes food dye slightly comes off on hands with prolonged play, but the dye washes off easily with soap/water and the rice still remains colored.  









Recycled medicine cups, funnels, old teaspoons, large straws, whatever make wonderful play tools. And I must say, playing with rice has such a calming and soothing affect while encouraging great creativity and manipulation of the rice. We enjoyed burying each others hands in the rice and also just letting her go to town making up communities and storylines in her rice play. We haven’t tried it yet, but another way to play in the rice could be to use toy buildings, people, animals or cars to add in more story play and less sheer manipulation of the rice. But Rachael has enjoyed sitting and playing with the rice for 45 minutes, in which I had to put an end to the play because it was lunch time. I’d suggest a plastic tub with high sides that are high enough to keep most rice in, but low enough to allow the child to play without having to stand or bend their arms awkwardly. Also, the larger the tub, the more the mess – so you’d be surprised what a medium sized (for the preschooler) tub of rice would do for creating clear boundaries and also allowing all play to be in view without requiring the child to turn their head (permitting more distraction opportunities). [Recalling how we used rice for play therapy in attending to one task.] Rachael has never complained about the size of the tub of not having enough room to play. We do use the lid to put extra play items on though, when she is not currently using them. The tub we use is about the size of a show box.

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Country Frog Huntin’

One last story about our mini-vacation that I wanted to share with you:

We had many opportunities to take life at a simpler pace. So if you could take life at a simpler pace what would you do?

Frog catching, of course!!!

Matt set aside his morning devotions Bible on our walk back from the wooden bench swing to return to his childhood.

Despite nearly catching one poor, slimy victim (he grazed through Matt’s hand), our frog-hunting experience did not produce “a big one for the camera.”-

I’m sure my one-hit-wonder theme song “Water Serpent” didn’t aid in Matt’s catching success.  Oh you haven’t heard that wonderful song? You poor, deprived people. Well I’ll share the lyrics with you…

“Water serpent… coming to bite your face off.
Water serpent… out of the mud.
Water serpent… coming to bite your face off.
Water serpent… he’ll drink your blood.” 

Now do you see why Matt’s concentration could have been slightly off?

He’s still my hero regardless. 😉

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