kids

A House Fit For a Fairy

Griff attended a summer program this month called “Enchanted Forest”. It is where my “garden gnome moment” came from a few weeks ago. He was taught all things of enchantment in the forest. The finale of this adventure was the making of a fairy house to put into practice all the knowledge (and items) they collected on a wilderness walk and from what they learned through out the two week program. Unfortunately, for them, the second week was very rainy. They were able to squeeze out enough sunshine to pick up all the items to make the houses, but didn’t get a dry enough spell to put them together. Lucky for us, that meant we got to make it at home!

His bag of natures best treasures also came with printed out instructions on how to make a fairy house. We wanted to be sure there was a solid foundation so started with a board broken from a past Tae Kwon Do testing. We found a spot under our Japanese Maple, next to a very protective rock to start our house. After gathering up some moss from my moss garden (I don’t mind sharing for a project as important as this one!) and covering the boards, Griff started adding sticks in a tee-pee arrangement. We then wove the large leaves he found on his nature walk in-between each stick making a very safe shelter for the Fairies.

A few additional adds, from Mommy’s sewing room, made for some great trinkets fit for the most fabulous of Fairies.

A thimble and spool of thread make the perfect place to sit and drink from an acorn top cup. No fairy shall go thirsty on our watch.

Under the protection of the shelter, a soft bed of leaves awaits to cradle her into a pleasant slumber.

Acorns accent the front of the home giving it (what Griff explains as) a “homey feel”.

An pine cone and leaf path line the way for the fairy to find her way into this beautiful place.

And one boy sits very proud of this accomplishment for his fairy. He has explained to me that sometimes fairies disguise themselves as Monarch Butterflies. So if we don’t see a fairy right away, she may just be scoping out her next real estate.

The next morning, there was a Monarch Butterfly flying through the back yard. :)

Fall Friends

This Fall, Griffin has been making lots of new friend discoveries.

Little Wooly Bear Caterpillars, like this one, have been hanging out in our yard.

Griffin was very excited to play with his new fuzzy friend.

Wooly Bears are best known for predicting weather with their stripes. They say, a brown stripe that is more than 1/3 of the body color predicts a mild to average winter.

Gosh, I hope this little fuzzy guy is right!

Happy Discoveries!

Strawberry Delights

You may remember Griff and I planting a strawberry pot. We’ve been waiting and watching as blossoms bloomed, as blooms became berries and berries became ripe.

Each day Griff would want to see his strawberries. He wanted to know why they were flower blossoms? When did a green thing become a red berry? Why and how did it become red? When was it ready to eat? It was a month before I could show him the beautifully perfect red berry the plant would produce.

We went outside, as we always did to look at his strawberry plant. We looked at the beautiful bright red berry that hung from the perfect green vine. Griff was so excited and jumped around with anticipation. “Can I pick it? Can I eat it? Is it ready?” “Yes. Griff, it’s ready,” I said to him. After a month, I was so excited to actually say the words. Griff reached down and in about two seconds…

What had taken weeks to grow, was in his belly.

Swim Class

Summer’s coming and Griffin had his first swim class at our local gym.

He was very excited to get in the water to play.

Once he was in the water, he was a bit nervous, but the noodle helped calm his nerves.

A toy distraction was a nice incentive to keep him swimming forward.

There was peace in watching them play in the waves.

And the light as glistening on the water.

They sang songs and swayed back and forth among the beautiful blue…

The instructor is fantastic. She was very good to give Griffin some one on one help.

She is slowly teaching him to push his legs behind him and swim for the boat.

It’s gonna be a fantastic class for our baby beluga.

Happy Swimming!

 

First Skate

Weekending found us at “open skate” at our local skating rink for Griff’s first skate! My husband is Canadian and hockey is a way of life. Griff has had “Calgary Flames” jerseys and small hockey sticks since he was born. It was time to see if his Canadian blood lines give him an innate talent for the sport.

We rented skates and got Griff ready to go. He was SO excited to skate like Daddy. Below is my favorite shot. The anticipation of getting on the ice. He was just amazed to watch the others skating around.

We started by walking him around a bit to get use to the blades.

He gladly walked around on his skates. Now it was time to hit the ice!

He was so excited and with Daddy’s help, he held onto the bar and kicked his feet under him to “skate”. I could hear him from the other side of the rink singing his song “I’m skating, I’m skaaatttinngg.”

He was having a blast and they did 4 laps or so. He kept asking for his hockey stick. We had to gently tell him, first things first.

It was darn cute. We thought he would be bored after about 10 mins, but to our surprise, he was out there for about 45.

Then it was time to come off. Daddy was SO proud of his little guy for being so excited about it.

When we left, Griff asked “When are we going to skate again?” That’s a good sign if you ask me.

Happy Thursday!

A Bit of Weekending

Spring sprung in New Hampshire this weekend.

We enjoyed every second of it.

A trip to the playground with family,

made many fond memories.

We found  how fun it is to run our bikes down the  hill.

We discovered some new friends at the  beach.

We played sand tic, tac, toe.

And had our first watermelon of the season. A fantastic weekend for sure. What did your weekending find you doing?

 

My Rockstar

A bit of weekending found us at Best Buy checking out the musical instrument section.

I think this kid is going to be a great musician.

He has great rhythm,

and concentration.

Rock on dude. Rock on.

My First Giveaway

My First Giveaway

To celebrate my new “look”, why  not have a giveaway? I want to thank you. Without you guys reading my blog, I would not be so motivated in all aspects of my life. I find that blogging makes me live in the present, I always need content. It’s a constant carrot for me to write something better, find a more clever project, and take more artistic pictures. I need to pay attention and record all the simple things I do everyday. I didn’t expect this blog to become such an inspiration for me in my creative life. I truly thank you for that.

Okay, okay, enough jibber jabber already…let’s get to the giveaway.

As part of a 2010 handmade holiday, I made custom star crayons with hand made bags. These are the perfect set of crayons to have in your purse to provide a few moments of entertainment for young ones. We find them especially useful at restaurants. I thought a set would be the perfect first give away prize.

The bag is about 3 1/2 inches wide and 4 inches deep. It comes with 5 custom multi-colored crayons. The bag has a thin green ribbon at the opening to secure the star crayons safely in the bag.

Here’s how to enter: simply leave a comment on this post with an email address (email will not be visible to the public).

To gain more entries:

- share the link on facebook or twitter, simply add another comment for each way you share, stating how you shared it.

- “follow me” with google connect at the right sidebar and add another comment for signing in.

* Deadline is Friday, March 11th at 5:00 pm Eastern Time

* Winner to be drawn by Random.Org and announced on March, 12th!

(This giveaway is available to U.S. and Canadian Residents only, prize will be mailed US Priority mail, please allow 2 weeks for delivery)

Thank you for following my blog and inspiring me everyday.

Picky Eater

Okay blog friends, I am calling for your help. I need some ideas. I have been trying to make my 3 year old’s lunches more appealing in hopes that he will EAT SOMETHING. I am really struggling with the balance of what he will eat and what is allowed at school.

I am taking the “bento box” approach, trying to incorporate colors and shapes into his meals. Mine are not as beautiful as say the ones at Parenting.com. Man, I’d love to make them look like that.

Today’s lunch was Naan bread cut into star shapes with almond butter and raspberry preserves, fresh fruit, a cheese stick, fig newtons and organic carrots. I feel like he never gets iron or protein. He doesn’t really eat meats/cold cuts. Any suggestions on what to do? Do you make bentos for your kids? How do you get them to eat balanced meals and stay within school guidelines?

Preparing Flower Boxes

We still have a good foot of snow on the ground and more on the way for tomorrow. That didn’t stop us from preparing Griff’s cardboard house for the Spring. I’m not sure what made me think to do it, but I remembered back to when I was about his age and we use to make bouquets of egg carton flowers. That made me think, well of course he needs some window boxes for his house!

So we got to cutting, painting and pasting.

 

This was a FUN project. Griffin really painted a lot of flowers and didn’t get sick of doing it. He did each flower a different color.

 

I poked holes in the bottom of the flowers and Griff put pipe cleaners through. Then I covered some old creamer cartons with yellow construction paper and poked holes in the top to insert the newly created flowers.

 

I added them to the side of his cardboard house with a hot glue gun. One to the front of his house, and one to the side window.

He loves this house and plays in it all the time. It’s nice to give it a cute touch of Spring!