Summer Plans

Summer is my favorite season and I just love living in the south as we get so many hot summer months down here. I thought I would share some of our summer plans and share links of those who have summer plans that have inspired me. We are planning on keeping things low key and simple, and most activities revolve around being at home.

1. Read. Both boys love being read to, listening to audio books or looking at picture books themselves and so we are going to be doing more of that this summer. We are currently working on reading Dr. Doolittle and recently finished reading The Little Prince. It takes us awhile to read through chapter books, but both those books have been a lot of fun to read out loud to the boys. We read a lot of picture books too - Bill Peet and Where's Waldo books being current favorites. I was inspired by Jennifer's plan to spend 2 hours a day 3 days a week reading - how fun!

2. Play at home. At the end of last summer I picked up a small kiddie pool for a ridiculously cheap price (somewhere in the 95% off range) and we have been enjoying the fun it has provided. The boys have been out in it almost daily. I picked up some water guns for them and given them smaller containers to use out there too and I don't think I could pay money for them to have more fun! Emily has a great list of frugal summer fun to do at home, complete with really cute pictures.

 

3. Head to the beach. We are 3 hours from the ocean which is a reasonable distance for a day trip and the boys are such a fun age for this! We have made it out there 2 or 3 times each summer for the last couple years, so hopefully we'll be able to do a couple trips this summer. 

4. Have grown up friends over a bit more often. For dinner or just desserts. And games. Always for games.  I would like to spend a bit more time investing in the lives of others and building friendships. And I dearly love the interaction between our friends and our boys.

5. Inspire the imagination. I love toys like this marble run where you can create to your hearts content - legos and building blocks are also favorites here as they all inspire creativity. On top of playing I want to encourage the imagination with experiences and letter writing. We made a recent trip to the Fire station and Judah talks about it all the time and uses facts he learned there in his imaginative play. I love that! 

The boys also sit with me and "write" a letter with me once a week - I hope to do this more frequently with them through the summer.

6. Go camping. Our recent planned camping trip got rained out and the boys are as excited as anything to go camping. Depending on Paul's work schedule we may do this a couple times this summer. We recently found all the camping supplies we could imagine needing at a yard sale for an excellent deal and so are all set and ready to go as soon as he gets some time off!

Easy Craft for Kids

 

Blue Beard. Literally.

Sometimes the greatest craft activities are the easy ones.

The crafts that require a box of crayons, a 5 minute attention span long enough to color and then a hearty "Arrr" to chase them out the door for them to lose themselves in a world of imagination.

I picked these masks up at Joannes for $1 each but I know I have seen similar masks at other stores (Dollar Tree? Target? Don't remember.) They would be simple enough to make yourself out of thicker cardboard in a pinch but part of the appeal is how easy these are all ready made up! If you're looking for an easy craft that requires minimal expense, effort or supplies I highly recommend looking for these next time you're out!

 

I just love how Wesley really has no idea how to hold it! 

My Africa

I read a quote on a friends blog regarding David Livingston's calling to Africa and the amount of time he devoted to that country and I haven't been able to get the thought off my mind all day.

This is the quote I read;

"People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa...Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink, but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in, and for, us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which HE [Jesus] made who left His Father's throne on high to give Himself for us."

I think it is beautiful.

And then I think of my calling. 

To be his mother.

And his mother.

And then suddenly the quote is no longer simply beautiful but entirely challenging. 

I will never face dangers like David Livingston faced - but my calling - my "Africa" - is my home. My husband. My boys. 

 

And I wonder - am I cultivating an attitude of joy in my service to God that at the end of my life I can say with all honesty "It was never a sacrifice, it was a privilege." 

Linking to Tuesdays Unwrapped

Spoon People

 

I couldn't like these quirky spoon people any more! 

They were so much fun to make with Judah (age 3) and somewhat of a pain to make with Wesley (1.5) but we did have a fun time sitting around the table together even if Wesley kept stealing all the googly eyes.

These really are easy and inexpensive to make and I would recommend it for age 3 and up - obviously the older the child the less hands on the parent has to be.

I picked up a couple packs of wooden spoons at the Dollar Tree. Each pack comes with three wooden spoons in three different sizes. Have kids that will squabble over who gets the tallest spoon? Buy two packs and then give them each the shortest tallest one from each pack. Problem solved!

The other supplies we used were:

Googly eyes

Permanent marker

Sea shells

Yarn

Twine

Ribbon

Beads

Glue

These spoon people are rather easy going and would be grateful to be dressed in whatever you have laying around your home.

I started out by drawing faces on the front side of the spoon - Judah didn't want to draw his own and Wesley lacks certain coordination skills to draw his own. 

Wesley wanted two different size eyes on his person and Judah wanted his frowning.

(I actually didn't glue the eyes on until the end as it made it easier to work with the spoons without worrying about drying glue!)

The boys picked out the color pipe cleaner they wanted and worked on wrapping the pipe cleaner around the handle of the spoon. Arms were easily formed using a second same color pipe cleaner. For the pants they picked a different color and then wrapped it around the spoon too. 

Judah chose to use this sea shell as a hat for his spoon person. I copied the idea and did the same for Wesley.

 

Judah's spoon person.

 

Wesley's spoon person.

My sister Esther's spoon person.

 

My spoon person.

Welcome to our lives spoon people! I will do all that is in my power to ensure you are never eaten off of.

Dress Up - Indian Warrior

 

Over the last couple years I have noticed a serious lack of affordable, manly men dress up clothes for boys. Now that my little manly men are entering the world of imaginative play I have been on the lookout for ideas I can replicate on the cheap.

I love how these Indian headbands (or hippie band as it tends to look on Wesley's head!) turned out. It cost under $5 for the two of them with enough supplies left for 2 or 3 more.

 

I picked up a bag of leather scraps at Hobby Lobby for $2.50. I also got a bag of long feathers for $2. 

Being that these were scraps the wider pieces of leather were uneven and some had markings on them. The markings add to the 'wild' look and I easily straightened the edges - it won't matter if it is perfectly straight or not.

 

I held the wider piece of leather around their heads to measure the how long it should be and cut it a bit shy of that. Using sharp scissors I made a hole on either end of the leather large enough for an eyelet - I'm not sure which size they were, but I made the hole large enough for what I had on hand. 

This was hard work to get the perfect size hole in the leather and I was quite thankful that my sister helped me out with it!

I used an eyelet tool kit to set the eyelets and then used the smaller pieces of leather to tie the two ends together.

 

 I stuck a feather in the back of the headband and called it an Indian Warrior Headdress. 

 

He sharpened his stick so he could pierce the (imaginary) bad guys.

I kid. 

The stick was found sharp.

 

 Giving his fierce warrior face. 

Still looks kissable to me. 

 

I am left wondering - is there a way to secure the feather to the back of this? Would hot glue or super glue bond the feather and the leather together forever?

I have been listening to entirely too many rhyming songs lately.

The next costume I want to work on is a knights helmet and shield - I saw an incredible idea for the helmet in a high end kids catalog (I think it was about $60!!) and then happened to find a wooden shield at the thrift store. Have you seen or made any great boy dress up costumes? I'd love to see!

Painting the Clean Way!

I was given these Crafty Dab Kids Paint Markers before Christmas and wanted to recommend them to moms for stocking gifts but never got around to it. With all the activities surrounding Christmas and then the traveling and times we've been sick since then I am just now getting around to writing about them. But the good thing about that is that I have had plenty of time to use these (3+ months) and so when I tell you these paints are amazing, they truly are amazing! They smell good, dry quickly, encourage creativity and sparkle!

 

Judah (age 3) loves using these for his arts and crafts. They are simple enough for him to use with minimal supervision, but really, these are so fun to play with that I usually paint along side him. 

I have shared these with moms with older children, grandmas and teens and this product has been a hit with all those age groups. These paint markers really are a great indoor activity! 

I am going to give away 3 of the (non sparkle) Paint Markers to one winner - I will mail to anywhere in the world. Just tell me which 3 of the following 6 colors you would like to win:

Yellow, Purple, Orange, Green, Blue or Red.

Giveaway will end of Friday and winner will be announced by the end of the day.

You can order these for yourself at the Crafty Dab online store.

Snow in the South

 

The snow fell. And it fell and it fell and it fell.

It covered everything.

We got 5-7 inches of snow, which, according to the local news, is the second largest snow storm since 1950. 

I feel quite honored to have been here for such an event!

We postponed our Friday night date and spent the evening playing outside with the boys. Paul and Judah made an enormous snowman - it ended up being taller than Paul.

Wesley stood and watched while his lips turned blue.

This was taken the next morning in our backyard. The snow has since melted - a wimpy looking snowman and a few shaded areas of snow remain.

  

Home is a shelter from storms - all sorts of storms.  ~William J. Bennett

Playing along at the Sunday Citar  

Valentine

 

Happy Valentines Day! 

 

  

There's a few more pictures from our impromptu photo shoot here.

Play Doggy

Judah dropped his bowl of grapes and, like any good older brother, called to Wesley and said;

"Wezzy, I dropped my grapes. Play doggy and clean them up for me."

And like any good, younger brother would do Wesley got on his hands and knees, barked, and ate up the grapes.

And that is why I vacuum my floors.

On a Dreary Day

 

Dirty pennies + White vinegar + Baking Soda =

Happy giggly, thoroughly entertained boys and clean pennies.

I let the boys play in the kitchen sink and they were in fits of giggles over the "explosive" baking soda and they enjoyed scrubbing down the pennies to make them shine. I had thought of letting them use old toothbrushes to scrub the pennies, but I know Wesley would have stuck the toothbrush in his mouth, so I just gave them dish cloths to scrub with. 

It would have been a fairly hands off activity for myself except for the fact that I enjoyed watching their response to the baking soda and vinegar so I spent the entire time watching them play instead of working on other things in the kitchen.