Thursday, April 29, 2010

Springtime in Utah

This is the view from my front door this morning.  You have to love springtime in Utah!  The weather changes by the minute.  It was snowing yesterday morning, but by 5:00 it was dry enough for Blake to have a baseball game.  Unfortunately, it was not warm!  My girls and I about froze sitting on the grass watching the game.  We came directly home and had hot chocolate with our dinner.

As you can see, the weather has not been conducive to riding bikes and doing sidewalk chalk, like Paige has wanted to be doing, so we have been spending some time with one of Blake's favorite toys, that has quickly become a favorite of Paige's.  Here's a picture:
It is a Lego set called Lego Mosaics.  I got them for Blake a few years ago and luckily I though to laminate the instructions.  They are so fun.  There is a clear base that you put over the picture and then put legos on to make you creation match the instructions.  If you wanted to make it harder you could just look at the picture and count to make sure the pieces ended up in the right place.  I believe I eventually bought 2 different sets and I think they were only about $10 each.  Back when I got them, they were available at Wal-Mart.  However, yesterday after realizing how much Paige liked them and since there are a few pieces missing I thought I might try and pick up another set, but it seems like they may not make them anymore.  I am having a lot of trouble finding them.  I found this at Amazon, but that price is crazy!  I am so sad that they don't seem to be making them anymore because seriously they are the best toy!  If anyone manages to find them anywhere else, let me know. 

Sunday, April 25, 2010

My Latest Craft Project

My cute sister-in-law got this quote by President Monson for me in vinyl.  She has a friend who makes vinyl stuff.  I used a blank cavas I bought like 2 years ago, that I had intended to do something with.  I thinned out some acrylic paint and dry brushed it on the canvas.  Then I used some scrapbook paper, ribbons and embellishments from my stash and some Modge Podge I had and put together this wall hanging.  Total cost was free.  I love the reminder it is right as we walk out our front door.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Homemade Bagels

I know this seems like a crazy thing to make from scratch, but they are seriously wonderful!  They are actually surprisingly easy to make.  The dough is one of the simplest I have ever made.  You have to have a little time to wait for the bread to rise between the steps, but nothing about it is difficult.  Honestly, I have the most trouble with making sure they don't burn because the recipe says to bake them for 30 minutes.  Mine start to get burnt if they go past 20 minutes.  Here is a link to the recipe.  Like I said before, I don't let mine cook past 20 minutes and the last time I made them I made sure to flip them over halfway through and it kept them from getting too dark on the bottom.  These really are so fresh and yummy you will stop wanting to buy them.  I was at Costco this week and saw the bagels and they are cheap enough that I went to grab some and then I thought, naw, I'd rather just make some of my own this week, they taste so good!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood

We just got back from vacation and since I have been doing nothing but laundry and cleaning bathrooms the last couple of days, I thought I would take a break and work on a project with Paige.  She has been loving the book Quick as a Cricket lately.  We decided that we would make our own version of the book.  We made a list of animals that we wanted to include and then we did a search for coloring pages for those animals.  We ended up finding all our animals here .  We printed out all the animals and we colored them together.  I grabbed some old cardstock and three hole punched it.  We cut out our animal pictures and glued them to the cardstock.  Then Paige dictated to me how she was like each animal, following the pattern in the story and I wrote it and the bottom of the page with a Sharpie.  For the last page, she drew a picture of herself and wanted her name at the top.  She wrote the "P" and I wrote the rest.  We used 3 binder rings to make it into a book.  She thinks it is fantastic and can't wait to read it to dad and Blake when they get home.  Dictated books like this are perfect for introducing kids to reading.  Since the child has come up with the words for the book they remember them more easily, so they can start to recognize words on the page.  If you can get them to, have them practice pointing out specific words.  They gradually begin to associate the words with the meaning of the story. 

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Paper Dolls

This may be the cutest and easiest craft project I have ever done.  I found this great fabric panel of old fashioned paper dolls at the Mormon Handicraft in Deseret Book the other day.  I think it cost around $5.  I think I have seen the same panel in a fabric catalog before, so it must be available quite a few places.  Anyway, I went to JoAnn's and bought some extra thick fusible Pellon.  I didn't buy quite enough Pellon, so I had to loosely pre-cut the paper dolls and clothes out of the panel to fit them all on the Pellon, then I ironed them down and during General Conference I cut out all the dolls and clothes.  They are now heavy duty enough for playing will and my daughter thinks they are great.  She picked out some fabric she likes, pink of course and we made a drawstring bag to put them in.  I would show it to you, but she is currently not home and the paper dolls are with her.  I love how it turned out. 

A few tips.  I think if I were doing it again, I would buy regular pellon and then use wonder under to iron it all together.  The fusible pellon doesn't seem to stick quite as well.  I actually had to iron each piece again after I did the final cutting and there was some slight fraying around the edges that I think you would avoid by using the wonder under.