Recycled Snowman Craft

This was our crafty project yesterday. I have been saving caps thinking they must be useful for some kids crafty thing. I also saved a bunch of cardboard pieces from Christmas gifts.

Here's the how to.

Cover your table with paper and roll up everyone's sleeves!!

Start by painting the snow on the bottom of the cardboard with white paint.

Using a new brush, paint the blue on the top. These paints are from Michaels I think. They are about 4 years old and work fine.




Let the paint dry for a minute or two in the sun. Using the other end of the paintbrush, dip in the white paint and make snowflakes.


Let the kids pick 3 caps to use for their snowman - or, if you are Calvin, choose 4. Glue them down with Elmers. Cut shapes for the hat and arms from black card stock and glue. Some of the kids used a marker to draw eyes and buttons.


Done! So cute and easy!

I've Been MIA

Yes, I am still alive. My cold kicked my butt for a long time, but I am on the mend. The good news is, I can breathe through my nose! The bad news? My toothache is back.

It's back with a vengeance, keeping me up at night and causing me to take so much Advil that if I were to be in an accident, I would bleed to death in five minutes flat. It's going to take a case of diet coke to keep me awake today after another sleepless night last night. I am off to a new dentist this morning to find out why a tooth with a root canal and a crown is throbbing and sensitive to hot and cold. Let's all just take a moment to pray that it is fixable and not too expensive.

In happier news, this little nugget has been coming to play at our house. Don't you just love babies?

First Week of a New Year

This week was full of boogers. My kids are the only healthy ones in the house right now. Most of the daycare kids have cold/ear infections/whooping cough and I am still fighting off a head cold as well. It makes me feel fuzzy. We have gone through three boxes of tissue and all of the tylenol this week. I am ready for a fresh start.

Calvin is in Love

Calvin has fallen in love with Baby Lily. I have to physically restrain him from spending all day kissing her. She and her sister are coming to play at our house once a week these days - sometimes more. Calvin used to tell me he was going to marry Evi (Lily's sister) but he has since had a change of heart. Men. So fickle sometimes.

This guy is not sure what to think of the new baby in the house.


He knows he is really interested in that pacifier she keeps clipped to her collar.


Max thinks Lily always looks startled. I think she looks like a mirror image of her sister as a baby. She is a doll and it is fun to have a tiny one in the house again.

My New Home - Maybe

Have you entered the HGTV Dream Home 2010 Giveaway yet? Well don't. I've decided I am going to win and move my little family to New Mexico. Not because I particularity want to move to New Mexico, nor because I love the house (though the tile in the kitchen is beautiful and the recycling room made my heart skip a happy beat).

The place is enormous and has places like a Sunrise room (?) and a Casita (?) but no library, a great room with white couches outside (white! outside!) and a laundry room with no place to fold the laundry. No matter, I can fix all of that with my $500,000 winnings which should also take care of the taxes on the place.

No, I am winning this house because of this beauty. That my friends, is the pantry. It is a thing of glory and a wonder to behold.

Dear Anonymous St. Paul 55121

Thank you.
Thank you again.
You are very kind and Merry Christmas to you too!

This Girl is a Birthday Girl

On Monday, Sophie had a birthday. She turned that magical age of eight. Sophie is energetic, imaginative, funny, stubborn, sweet, bossy and girly. She loves bugs, reading, playing with girlfriends, having sleepovers, singing along with the Disney Wii (hysterically funny), watching movies, sleeping, cooking, is the founder of the dance club (which meets twice a week in our home), loves school and her teachers and is just a joy to have as a daughter. She still lets me pick out her clothes and do her hair which makes me happy and she cannot keep her room clean if her life depended on it.

She had a lovely birthday - her favorite pancakes for breakfast, recognition at school, a gift from her little girlfriend in her class and after school, cupcakes. Usually on the children's birthdays, their Dad would come home early and actually have dinner with the family. I would make a special cake and we'd open family gifts. I decided the best way to distract Sophie from the change in family birthday celebrations was to have a little party.

Instead of a family dinner and cake, I made pink cupcakes and we celebrated her birthday after school with all of the daycare kids. It was perfect as Sophie was thrilled to be the center of attention and be able to share her birthday with so many friends.


I did not have a lot of time to spend on the cupcakes as I had two babies under six months that day, so I used a mix and added lemon zest and then made cream-cheese icing. The letters were made by melting some chocolate wafers and pouring them into a ziploc bag. I then snipped off the edge and wrote the letters on a silpat and stuck them outside in the -16 weather to freeze for about 2 minutes. I made extra letter so each kid could have one.


It is always hard to think about buying gifts right after Christmas, but we found Sophie some shoes for her new Kit doll, a tween movie and a webkinz (which are on clearance at Walgreens for $5.00 if anyone is interested). Later in the afternoon, the UPS man brought Sophie a birthday package from her Grandma Erickson which had her jumping up and down for joy. I'll have to take a photo of her in her new finery so you can see. In the evening, her Dad picked her up and took her to Culvers for dinner. A pretty special day for my beautiful girl.


Not shown: Baby Lily (who was sleeping) and Alex who had just finished barfing. I have a truly glamorous job.

To Whom it May Concern

Dear makers of Word World Modeling Dough,

Exactly what genius thought it would be a good idea to make scented play dough? Do kids not eat enough of this stuff as it is? One of the daycare families brought over this basket full of modeling dough for the kids to use.

My review: The packaging is ridiculous. It took me a good 15 minutes to hack away at the hard plastic shell covering this plastic basket. The basket it comes in is useless because once you remove it from the packaging, all of the supplies will not longer fit. It went directly to Goodwill. The modeling dough really does smell like grapes, cherries - whatever. One of the kids ate almost the entire tub of orange - I kid you not. I could not make her stop. When wet, which will happen because the kids are going to try to lick something that SMELLS GOOD, this stuff becomes slimy and sticky and makes the most enormous mess you can imagine. Kid tested rating - D.


Dear makers of Play Foam,

Sophie received this for her birthday (a year ago) and I finally pulled it out. I thought it looked like a mess and sometime I have to psych myself up for messy projects.

My review: This stuff is actually pretty cool. It works along the same lines as playdough - it can be rolled and cut out and shaped into all sorts of things. It is held together with some sort of freakish material that makes it stick together but does not make your hands sticky and it never dries out. I find that to be slightly disturbing and yet, very convenient. The kids have played with it for several days and when they are done I just toss it into a ziplock bag.
Kid tested rating: A-





Planet Saturn by Calvin. I thought it was an egg because that's where my mind goes.

Baby Blues

I love these baby blues.

Recipe: Sunday Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Here is a new recipe I tried last week. It comes from The Debbie Macomber Cookbook my Mother-in-Law gave to me when we were in NY for Molly's wedding. The cake has a great texture and flavor. I thought the sides were a bit too hard and the topping got a little burnt from cooking so long. I would put a sheet of aluminum foil over the cake half way through baking and maybe lower the temp? Though I liked the topping, I did not love it. Next time, I would add cold butter and flour and make a more traditional coffee cake topping.

Ingredients

nocoupons

• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs at room temperature
• 1 T. pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups sour cream
• 4 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt

For the streusel:

nocoupons

• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 T. ground cinnamon
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan. I used a spring form pan.

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment for 4 to 5 minutes, until light. Add the eggs 1 at a time, then add the vanilla and sour cream. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture to the batter until just combined. Finish stirring with a spatula to be sure the batter is completely mixed.

Spoon half the batter into the pan and spread it out with a knife. Sprinkle with 3/4 cup streusel. Spoon the rest of the batter in the pan, spread it out, and scatter the remaining streusel on top. Bake for 1 hour 5 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.

Let cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes.

Christmas Castles

The kids have spent a couple of days putting together these castles Calvin received for Christmas from his Grandparents. I love this kind of toy - creative, fun, intelligent, good for a wide range of ages and reusable. There have been a lot of battles going on between the two castles this weekend.

Rosy Noses = Cold

Lots of rosy noses around here this week. The temperature has stayed well below zero for over a week. The kids are still walking to and from school every day bundled up with snow pants, down coats, scarves and two pair of mittens.

I had one of those weekends where I try to do too many things at once and end up not getting much of anything accomplished. I tried to put away Christmas, sort through the kids clothes they had outgrown, clean the whole house, catch up on paperwork and bills and locate and pack all of my maternity stuff to send to my sister. I managed to get some packages ready for my sister, but only managed to get about half of Christmas put away. There is a lot to do still - most of it is out in the garage and will have to wait until the weekend to be organized and stored.

I also managed to come down with a cold. Congestion, runny nose, headache and a cough have made me tired and feeling like I am slogging slowly along, incapable of tackling my long to-do list. I am going to try and get to bed early, drink lots of lemon zinger and hopefully get rid of the cold that is slowing me down. The good news? Sophie had a lovely birthday yesterday and Max got a haircut!

This Kid

This kid went on a sleepover to her friend's house last night. It has been a week of sleepovers for Sophie and she could not be more pleased.


This kid is spending the weekend with his Dad and hopefully getting a haircut.


This kid did not want to go with Max. Instead he has slept in my bed, beaten me at Candyland twice, watched a Star Wars movie and plucked ornaments off the trees as I try to take down Christmas. He told me I should not put away the decorations because there is still snow on the ground.

It's been kind of fun to have just Calvin around though he is the least helpful when it comes to chores. I'm sooooo tiiiired! I have a tornado in my heeeeeeeaaaad! I'm haaaaaving a heart attaaack!

Good thing I love him so much.


Taking down Christmas and cleaning the house is a monumental task. It is much more fun to put up the decorations than it is to take them down.

Welcome 2010

I cannot say I am sorry to let 2009 slip softly away. After being such an emotional, draining, heartbreaking year, it drifted away last night without anyone in our house being awake to wave goodbye.

I face 2010 knowing it will be a year filled with major decisions for my little family. I face 2010 knowing that I can do this. Whatever comes, whatever choices we are forced to make, my family is strong.

I face 2010 so very humbled by the prayers, care and service our little family was blessed with in 2009. We have held it together because of you. I will always look back at 2009 as a year of great sorrow and tears, but also a year of great blessings (often accompanied by more tears). Thank you.

Welcome 2010. I am not afraid of you.