Sun Craft

Supplies: glue, small paper plate, markers, stapler, tissue paper

Give each child two small paper plates turned upside down. Have the children color them to look like the sun. I set out yellow, orange and red markers.


Cut small squares of tissue paper in red, orange and yellow. We tried to use paper scraps, but they really do not stick well. Have the children squish the tissue paper, dip it in glue and then stick it to their plates. Repeat until plates are covered.


While the kids are gluing, cut out sun shapes from craft paper. I found a sun template online but it was too small (you want it to be larger than your plates by at least 2 inches on each side) so I used the template, but cut far away from the lines. Each child will need two.


When your plates are dry, you should have two covered plates and two craft paper suns.


Layer the paper suns and place one plate on top. Pick up the pile, line up the other plate on the back and then staple them together.


A two sided little sun! If we were to make these again, I would add some string or yarn to hang them in the window.

Less is More

Yesterday I made cinnamon bread french toast for breakfast. I have been serving the kids fake syrup for a couple of years since real maple syrup jumped in price. I hate fake syrup. My kids don't seem to care, but I can't stand the taste and the fact that I cannot pronounce most of the ingredients.

So yesterday I made buttermilk syrup. Healthy? Nope. Delicious? Yep. Recognizable ingredients? Yep again.

I like to serve french toast and pancakes with vanilla yogurt or homemade applesauce, but when I do not have those on hand, this is a wonderful alternative. The kids LOVED it.

1 1/2 cups white sugar 3/4 cup buttermilk 1/2 cup butter

2 tablespoons corn syrup 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In a saucepan, stir together the sugar, buttermilk, butter, corn syrup, and baking soda. Bring to a boil, and cook for 7 minutes. Remove from the heat, and stir in the vanilla. Will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Yard Sale Madness

The yard sale on Saturday sucked all of the remaining energy out of my body. I stayed up until 3:00am on Thursday pricing clothes and until 4:00am on Friday baking treats. Since I had to be up by 6:00 to open the daycare, that did not leave me with a whole lot of sleep! We had perfect weather for the sale and lot of traffic and really fun friends to hang out with all day long.


The sale was at Tiffany's house (their neighborhood was having their annual sale), Kelly brought her two little girls and Deb came and acted as our Yard Sale CFO (she handled to money since the rest of us were so sleep deprived we could not add two and two together) and brought her daughter to play with Sophie. Sophie was with me as the boys were on a camp out with their Dad and she helped (and I use that term very, very loosely) sell some of the snacks and drinks. We sold a ton of stuff and I made almost $500 which I am thinking of spending on new toilets because I'm glamorous like that. Notice the kids eating the profits in the photo below.


At about 1:00 we all started wilting with fatigue and by the time we closed up at 3:00 I could barely stay on my feet. Yard Sales are a lot of work - the setting up and taking down takes forever! I drove home at about 4:30, left everything in the van, staggered upstairs for a shower and then fell into bed at 5:00. I woke up the next morning at 7:30. I cannot remember the last time I slept for that long, but clearly my body needed the rest!


There were some beautiful clothes not sold that I packed into bins to take over to Once Upon a Child - I've never tried selling to them before so we'll see how that goes.

Finger painting

The kids went from finger painting to washing their hands in the water table outside to playing in the sandbox. So, so very messy.

I'm the Kind of Girl

I'm the kind of girl who puts her shoes on Sunday morning and then paints the parts of her toenails that are showing.

Daisy Crown Craft and Baby Clothes

So I've been making pretty simple crafts lately because I have been so busy. On this day, we were talking about the letter "D" (right around May Day) and after coloring some worksheets, we made daisy crowns.

Punch out piles of flowers with a large flower punch (I got mine at Archiver's). Give each child a bottle of glue and two strips of construction paper stapled together (about 4 inches wide).


Glue the flowers on making sure to cover the staples.


Once dry, measure the crown to on the kid's head and staple together at the back.


I have spent hours tonight going through ten years worth of kids clothing in the basement. My friend is having a yard sale on Saturday and I am trying to get rid of the majority of stuff that is currently filling my storage room. For years I refused to part with my baby girl clothes because I kept hoping that I would have another baby. When that dream didn't pan out, I kept holding on to them hoping one of my sisters would have a baby girl. No such luck. So, off to the yard sale they go. We could use the money and I could use the storage space.

Sophie and Calvin were helping me down there tonight and it was kind of emotional to pull out Sophie's little outfits and to tell her when she wore them. I have hundreds of photos of my only little girl, so I can show her what she looked like in most of those clothes. I did save my favorite little dresses - someday Heather or Koo will pop out a girl (get married first Koo). I am now looking at several hours worth of pricing. Ugh.

The daycare is really helping with the baby cravings. I still love babies, but right now I really love sending them home every night.

Rain Craft

If you are local, you may be able to do this craft today as we are expecting more rain.

Give each child a paper plate and a whole bunch of markers. Let the kids go to town coloring their plate, just encourage them to cover the whole plate with color.


Let the kids go outside in the rain for about 30 seconds holding their plates up to catch the raindrops. Check out the cool designs the water makes - tilt plates to see raindrops of color slide around.


Come back inside and let the plates dry. Done.

This Weeked

I baked and cleaned and cleaned and baked. I made a huge mess, ate too much frosting and did not get enough sleep. I managed to clean the kitchen 436 times, but never managed to clean the bathrooms - oops. I made five cakes and all five made me happy. The last cake was delivered on Monday for Ken's birthday party. It was a cake and a half - six layers of chocolate goodness and I held my breathe the entire drive to their house. Max was holding the cake on his lap and at every turn and stop sign I pictured the whole thing falling onto the floor. We made it with the cake still upright and carried it in while Sophie held an umbrella over my head. It is still raining today.

My kitchen was cleaned yet again this morning and I think I managed to find all of the powdered sugar and the frosting that somehow made it way onto my walls. This afternoon I am going to mop the floor - twice.

Some of my favorite things:

Seeing the little vanilla bean specks and the tiny pieces of lemon peel in this cream cheese icing.


The pretty chocolate-dipped orange slices that surrounded this chocolate cake which was filled with chocolate orange ganache.


Watching a few episode of Glee on my computer while chopping and frosting and mixing and sifting. I only saw a couple of episodes that are available on line right now, but I already love that show. Spontaneous singing and dancing?! Witty, funny dialog, an adorable guidance counselor and Kristen Chenowith?! Count me a fan.

Gratitude

1. I am grateful for the little surprise package in the mail this week from my sweet High-School friend Maria. She sent me a bottle of real maple syrup because she heard that I can no longer afford the real thing. I am hoarding it for myself and maybe a recipe here and there.

2. I am grateful for thoughtful families in our ward. The McKinneys stopped by on Thursday with lunch for my entire crew. Not only did they bring and make lunch for me, they played with kids outside, got the hula hoop down from the tree where it has been for the past three years and they also held babies while I cleaned up kids and got them down for naps. It was perhaps the perfect day to stop by as I had a baby with an ear infection who was very, very sad and would not let me put him down. Have I mentioned how much I love the people in my ward?

3. I am grateful for a new calling. About a month ago I was talking with a friend about the most intimidating callings at church. I mentioned that I thought Gospel Doctirne teacher would be really hard as you are teaching the Bishops and former Bishops and the seminary teachers and the Relief Society Presidents - yikes! I just do not feel like I know enough to have that kind of calling. I was lobbying hard to be the Relief Society pianist. Guess which calling I received on Sunday?

After a few days of reflection, I am grateful for the calling. It will require me to take time to sit down and study every week. It will require me to stretch myself and go beyond my comfort level and I think sometimes we need that push. Wish me luck on teaching the Old Testament!

4. I am grateful for Mother's Day. Max and Sophie made little crafts at school and were so proud when I opened them in bed on Sunday morning. They wanted to make me breakfast in bed, but I had two cakes being picked up that morning and had to get right to work. I am grateful for my children singing with the primary on Sunday. Max had a huge smile on his face and pointed to me when he sang "I love you". We were able to catch my Mother and my Mother-in -law on the phone today and enjoyed catching up with them and hearing about their celebrations. I am grateful for dinner with friends with steak off the grill that I did not have to cook (thank you Ken and Kelly!).

5. I am grateful for my anonymous friend who I failed to thank for their Easter letter - thank you!

I Am A Mother

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful Mothers in my life. Thank you.

I am a Mother.
I love these three - my sweet boys and my darling girl.
I am their Mother and I am a very lucky lady.

Today I Baked

Tomorrow I Clean.