Teacher Appreciation 2012

Teacher appreciation week starts Monday.  Did it sneak up on you too?  Actually I knew it was coming as I've seen lots of fun ideas popping up on Pinterest :)  I just put off throwing everything together until this week.  Which is actually fine, as our PTO isn't the best at getting notifications out ahead of time and we only received the note requesting participation this week.  Luckily they did the same thing last year, so I knew what I was in for.  The PTO requested that the kids bring in a card for their teachers on Monday.  I decided to use this printable (found here) as I love anything that seems a little bit more personal.

Tuesday's assignment was chocolate so I grabbed chocolate bars that looked pretty decadent and added a tag.

Wednesday the PTO will provide breakfast.  Thursday we are supposed to send in a flower.  I found that a hard one last year as our town isn't big on cut flowers and I didn't have any in my yard.  So this year I grabbed some flower seed packets and prettied them up a bit.  The tag reads "If teachers were flowers, I'd pick you!"

The PTO's plan is to give the teachers a larger gift on Friday, one that doesn't require contribution from the parents.  So I figured that's my chance to go out on my own a bit and send in something that wasn't "assigned."  I picked up a bunch of yummy smelling anti-bacterial (in pocket sizes) and holders at one of Bath and Body Works big sales knowing it would come in handy for something like this.  The tag says "you are scent-sational."  The printables for this one and the chocolate came from the Eighteen25 blog and can be found here.

And while I was on a roll (and because the italian ices looked interesting when I was at the dollar store), I duplicated the "stay cool this summer" idea I used for end of the year gifts last year.

I have to say, it's a relief to have all of that put together and ready to go so I don't have to rush around at the last minute.

31 Days of Photos

I love photos.  Always have.  I love looking at them, taking them, admiring other's work.  I take a lot of photos and I end up with quite a few good ones.  But it frustrates me (and has for quite a while) that I don't have the skills to take the quality of photo I'd really love to be taking.  So this month I decided to stop saying things like "I need to practice" or "that photo session turned out okay but I could do better if I knew more."  No more procrastination, or waiting for a calmer month or more time or better photo subjects.  I decided I was going to take the 31 days in May and use it to follow along with the 31 Days to Better Photos (which I discovered at least a year ago!) at My3boybarians.  And since I always do better at following through if someone else knows about my goals, I thought I'd share what I've done so far.
Day 1 has a really great motivational message and is all about simply Taking the Photo.  So that's what I did.  I read that blog post then I grabbed the camera and found the closest subject - my 5 year old, who happened to be doing somersaults in the living room :) 

He would stand up tall. Do the roll.  Then lay sprawled on the floor for a second before getting up to try it again.

This one (below) is my favorite as I think it's a fun, unique perspective.

Day 2 told me to get out the camera manual, make sure I know some basic functions/symbols (I did - phew!), then find something I didn't know/hadn't tried before.  I had a bit of a panic when I couldn't find my camera manual in not one but two places it could have been stored, but eventually tracked it down in my scrap/craft cupboard.  As I was paging through it, I was struck by the section on shooting close-ups as I'm usually drawn to most close-ups and detail photographs.  One of the tips was "if you have a zoom lens, using the telephoto end will make the subject look larger."  So out the door I went to try out this theory.

The picture above is with the lens at it furthest setting, the one below is from the same location but zoomed in as close as I could get.

It totally works!  I need a little sharper focus on some of the photos, but I'm pretty happy with the results of my 5 minute experiment.  I think this little project is going to be fun.  I wonder what today's lesson will be...

Monogram Wreath

Currently I'm procrastinating.  Potatoes are baking in the oven but the rest of dinner hasn't been prepared.  There are a couple loads of laundry waiting to be folded.  And I really should work on a menu and grocery list for the week so that I can pick up anything we need while I'm in town taking Kaitlyn to dance class tonight.  But I'm really happy with the wreath I finished a few days ago and since I got some decent photos thanks to the great weather today I'm anxious to share it with you.  (and I don't have a clue what to make for dinners this week so I'm hoping inspiration hits while I'm typing)

I had this wreath in the entry of the old house, but since we've moved it's just been sitting on a shelf in the garage.  And a few months ago I saw the cutest monogram wreath idea on pinterest.  Eventually the idea hit to reuse the wreath and turn it into something fun I can use during the times of the year when I don't need/want to put out something holiday/seasonal on the front door.

My front door is black and I'm in love with red so the first thing I did was spray paint the wreath red.

Then I scavenged the house for fun things to add to the wreath - like old Christmas ornaments that I painted then added some vinyl design to and covered with Poly to make them shiny.  It worked surprisingly well, except for the larger diamond shape, which didn't want to conform to the round ornament so that one was discarded.  I had already picked up a wooden letter C, which I painted with stripes on the sides then covered the front with patterned paper.  It got a coat of poly on top of the modge podge as well, as it would be hanging outside and modge podge goes all sticky again when it gets wet (how did I discover that?  silly me left some blocks outside drying overnight a few months back and it rained on them!)

Add a little hot glue and some fun ribbon, flowers, and feathers and - Ta Da!  More than anything I have created lately, this wreath is very "me" and I'm very happy with it.

 As I said, original inspiration was this photo from pinterest.  (link here)

Linking to:
Saturday Seven Party @ Positively Splendid

Picky Eating Chronicles #2

Success!  If you remember from my earlier post (here), we have been diligently working on getting the kids to try new foods.  Part of the deal we made with them, was that if both tried 30 new things we would take them on a trip to Great Wolf Lodge (I know that's a huge reward and normally not something I would offer, but we were planning the trip anyway ;)  ).  And they did it!  Sometimes it was a struggle and we were a little concerned that Tyler wouldn't hit 30 before we left, but all in all the kids were actually a whole lot more willing to try new things than we had expected.  In fact, once Kaitlyn got on a roll there were days when she would try 2-3 new things in one meal!

So, last week found us on vacation at Great Wolf Lodge - yay yay yay!  It was a great trip and we all had so much fun, not just at the water park (though that was great and took up most of our time) but with all the activities offered there as well.  I absolutely recommend taking a trip there, if you've been thinking about one.  It's a great way to break up the winter blahs.  (And don't forget to ask about the military discount!)

Even better, family meal times have gotten easier.  Tyler has expanded the list of items he will eat, which gives us a little more freedom.  Kaitlyn is doing even better, and will eat (or try) almost everything I make for dinner every night - such a huge improvement!  And as we discovered while on vacation - eating out with the kids is now a pleasant experience again  :)  Both of the kids are now willing to keep trying new things so it's time to sit down again with the husband and start plotting a new motivational technique...

Love Day

Ahhh Valentines Day.  Another one of those days that just screams "Celebrate Me!"  And I never pass up the opportunity for one of those, right? ;)

I don't know about you, but today I seem to be moving in slow motion and accomplishing not much of anything.  Thus the reason it's taken me two whole days to upload all the photos for this particular blog post!  But better late than never.  Here is what our Valentines Day looks like so far.

The Valentines cards I worked on last week include little valentines for the kiddos

with fun pop up hearts inside

and one for the hubby (inspiration found here)

As well as a couple of crafting sessions for the kids to work on cards to send out in the mail to all the granparents and other special people in our lives, including their teachers.

 I really liked the idea of some of the fingerprint cards I was seeing on Pinterest so I googled a whole bunch of fingerprint doodle ideas and let the kids pick their favorites.
Tyler's fingerprints, my "artwork":

Kaitlyn everything herself, design, fingerprints, doodling, writing - all of it.  It's so nice when the kids are big enough to just let them loose and watch them create.

Oh, and I printed out a pop up robot template (from Martha Stewart here) and let them each make one of those.

 And with that, we were all set for Vday - yay!

This morning was great. The kids are always so excited for special days and I do my best to make them extra fun. Kaitlyn was the first to bring out the cards she had made - she's such a sweetie when it comes to that kind of thing.
Breakfast was heart-shaped orange rolls and a "chocolate shake" (carnation instant breakfast fortified with a banana and an egg)

which the kids happily ate while I rushed around throwing together lunches. Can you believe I hadn't given them any thought at all? I ended up going with heart shaped Nutella sandwiches, red juice, red jello, applesauce, and some candy hearts. Luckily I had Valentines napkins left over from last year. And had remembered to print of Valentines lunchbox jokes (Kristen Duke comes up with great one for all the big events lately. Love them. You can find them here) and stuck a couple in Kaitlyn's bag (Tyler got another valentine picture since he can't read yet)

Oh and let's not forget the heart hair! I changed it up this year and went with a different technique than I've used the last few years. (instructions can be found here)

Then I happily took photos and got the kids off to school - still in my pjs I might add! The morning routine on holidays is a little crazy. It took me until 10:00 to get in a workout and manage a shower. And I've been in slow motion ever since. I'm going to do a big 'ole happy dance when I get this post posted, as that will be my biggest accomplishment of the day since then lol. That and going through all of Tyler's Valentines from school and helping him eat some of them - his suggestion, by the way. Who am I to refuse such a cutie?

Plans for the rest of the day are pretty low key. Neither Sam or I wanted to fight the crowds at a restaurant tonight so we are staying in. In fact, I offered to babysit for a friend, who took me up on the offer but they decided to go to the shooting range Saturday (some girls really know romance, right? haha) instead of out on the town tonight. So I repeat, we are staying in and keeping it low key. I printed off a Valentines maze (found here) to keep the kids busy while we cook dinner. Kaitlyn requested steak (heart shaped if possible hehe) so Sam will be in charge of that, and I will be trying my hand at making heart shaped french fries. We have a yummy dessert waiting for us in the freezer. And I might send Sam out to get a movie from Redbox. Sounds like a good night, right?

Happy Valentines Day everyone! I hope you all have a lovely day!

My First Crochet Pattern! Ruffled Baby Legwarmers

Good morning!  I'm feeling all productive today because for the second morning in a row I manged to work out and shower (woohoo) before having to get the kids ready for school. It's amazing what you can cram into a couple of hours when the motivation and energy are flowing.

I thought I would share a crochet pattern today - my very first attempt at writing one!  I made up a set of these baby legwarmers with a matching hat a couple months ago and when I got a custom order (you can visit my etsy shop here) for them this past week I decided I'd take the time to actually sit down and write up the pattern (as opposed to my chicken scratch notes I kinda sorta remembered to take when making the originals) and let you be my ginuea pigs pattern testers, ok?  Please, please try them out for me and let me know what you think, share photos, etc.  Thanks! 


Ruffled Baby Legwarmers – **Pattern  was available for free for limited time only, and will shortly be posted for sale.  (I'll add the link for that when available)  Enjoy the photos!

Linking to:
Making Monday Marvelous at CRAFT