Scarf- on the TO DO list

Well, recently we had some crazy Texas weather. We had ice out the wazoo for three days and and then it snowed like crazy the fourth day! Very strange for Texas indeed, but we had so much fun! :) So I have to share some pictures...and a link to a SUPER cute scarf tutorial!

This was Matthew's first time in the snow! It snowed one previous time since he was born but I was too worried about taking him out since he was so little. But we bundled him up all cute and he didn't seem to mind being cold! We used cardboard for a sled and I tell you what- I had SO MUCH fun being pulled around on that thing! John was more interested in throwing snow balls at us.













Anyways, I saw this tutorial for the CUTEST scarf from Living with Punks.



Her stuff is amazing and I am only slightly biased since lots of her creations are for boys. And sidenote: are her sons not THE BEST LOOKING boys ever?!?! {well, besides John and Matthew of course!} This scarf has been on my to do list but I am going to use some of my old A&M shirts and make it for myself since I am pretty sure you don't put 2 year olds in scarfs. It is going to be so cute! I had thought 'I won't need a scarf again this year, so I won't make it yet. It will be for next year'. Well, looks like I certainly could have used it two weeks ago when I was playing outside with my favorite boys! I had better get to sewing because for all I know it will snow again next month...

Seriously- go check out Living with Punks. It won't disappoint!

**I am linking this post up to Embrace the Camera today! I love that she encourages moms to be in more pictures and ever since I saw the Embrace the Camera posts several weeks ago, I made an effort to be in the pictures with the boys regardless of how I looked. I am so glad I did too!**

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Toddler Art Tuesday #4

Take a wild guess what our art activity was last week! hmmmm..... If you guessed 'make valentine's cards', then you guessed correctly!

Using a bunch of stickers and Valentine's kits from the Dollar Tree, John and Bella put together about 3 cards each before losing interest. Better than I thought they would do!





Now we have TONS of heart and lips stickers left over. I will have to figure out a way to use those things up!

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Valentine's Tot School {week one}

Last week we started our Valentine's Day activities for John's tot school. This consisted of working with the letter H, letter V, hearts, and hippos. Hippos is pretty random, but I was using Letter of the Week curriculum and there were some hippo activities already ready to go...and we got hippo books at the library since ALL the Valentine's day books were checked out! Note to self: check out the next holiday books several weeks early before they are gone! :) We were only able to work on school stuff for three days this week, so we tried to cram in as much as we could!



John sorted upper and lower case H from LOTW. He lost interest pretty quickly though! You can also kind of see in the picture below that I took a big picture of a hippo and cut it into four pieces to see if he could put together the puzzle. He is still in his new phase of wanting me to do everything for him, so he wasn't too into the puzzle! (he also wasn't into me taking pictures of him last week, which is why he isn't in a lot of the pics!)

We spelled hippo using LOTW.

Using heart stickers from the dollar store, we did our first graphing activity. I was excited because I am a big math nerd. Another 'Mommy do' activity, but he could tell me where to put each heart and helped me count them at the end. I used the heart graphing page from Musings of Me in her Valentine's unit.

I used a heart shaped cookie cutter for a lot of his food this week. Here is his eating banana hearts (while trying to escape the camera!). It is amazing how if I cut his food into a heart, he ate every bit...even foods he hadn't been eating lately! Kids are so funny sometimes!

Brad drilled holes in an old formula container so John could use heart picks (from the dollar store) to put in the holes. This activity was the first tray he went to last week!

I found these cute little wooden heart frames from the dollar spot at Target so John painted them for Valentine's presents for Grandma, Grandpa, and Nana. They turned out cute and he was entertained with it for quite a while! He was so cute using the paint brush and he did really well since the paint container was so small. He eventually stuck his fingers in the paint and finger painted. I thought it was well worth the $3- three frames, three brushes, three sets of paint and LOTS of entertainment!

I got more pom poms at the dollar store (our last package of pom poms have mysteriously disappeared and are lost around the house somewhere!). I thought John could put a pom pom on each heart on this page from Musings of Me . As you can see from the picture, he really just wanted to dump them out and play with them. I think he did about one of them 'correctly' but at least he had fun!

I got two packs of Valentine's themed erasers and thought John could sort them in his muffin tin. Again, he wasn't interested in sorting (maybe there were too many erasers and overwhelming to sort?) but he really enjoyed putting the erasers in the tin and then back into the bowl. Between this activity and the pom poms, I think it is a huge hint that John needs a sensory bin with our next theme. I have just been too lazy recently to put one together. :(

John practiced putting number cards in order. He is getting MUCH better at this! He can count aloud from 1-10 perfectly and almost all the way to 20, but putting actual numbered items in order is still a challenge for him. I can see a big improvement though as he is getting older and as we have been practicing each week! These cards are from here. Sorry for the sideways picture. Blogger is so odd sometimes!

Other things we did last week that didn't get photographed: playing with heart shaped cookie cutters, coloring hearts page from MooMoo's & Tutus 'H is for Heart' unit, and playing with the fridge phonics.

And that wraps up last week! We had a fun Valentine's party at our house on Saturday (look for a post on that soon!) and this week we will continue to do more Valentine's-ish activities. We are again on a shortened week so hopefully we get everything done. I may have gone a little overboard on my Valentine's activity planning... :)


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Burp Cloth Tutorial

My friend needed a little gift for a baby shower. The mom-to-be is having TRIPLETS!! Yowzas! Their names are Addison, Lillian, and Dylan. So cute! So I made a couple burp cloths for her. While I was at it, I figured I would take some pics and make a little tutorial for you!

I used some cute material and tried out using hand towels for the backing.



I usually use chenille (or faux cheapy chenille!) for burp cloths so I wanted to see what using terry cloth would be like. Well, let me just say I wasn't too impressed! I got some cheaper towels at Walmart and they were suprisingly too fluffy. I personally like the burp cloths a little flatter so they fit in my diaper bag, but maybe I am just weird!

So, back to the instructions!

Cut the 'pattern' ends of the hand towel so that you just have the terry cloth piece left over.






Then cut the terry cloth piece in half. (yes, I realize I didn't cut this in half! But I had extras so I was able to scrap the smaller piece!)



Cut your cute material pieces to size.



If you want to put an initial (or a full name), iron fusing material onto the back of your material. I used Heat and Bond. Then use a stencil (I print letters off my computer!) to trace the letter BACKWARDS on the Heat and Bond. Cut out the letters, peel off the backing, and then iron to your burp cloth. I ironed the letter on a couple inches above the edge.





I knew my material might start to pull and gather up as I sewed around the letters, so I also ironed on some light interfacing behind the letter. This help give a little backing and heft to the material.



Setting my stitch length short, I used a wide zig zag to sew around the edges of the letter.




Now pin cute material to a piece of terry cloth with right sides together. Sew around the edges, leaving an opening to turn the burp cloth inside out.



After trimming material as needed and clipping corners, turn burp cloth inside out, iron, pin opening, and top stitch around.

Here is the final product!






Pretty easy and a great way to give a special personalized gift. I think this is a wonderful project even for a beginner sewer. If I can do it, anyone can!

Here are all the burp cloths all done. I only added initials to three and left three plain.





This one is my favorite pattern! I have tons of this material left over and already have an idea for a project. So check back to see what I have in store for ya!





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