Monday in the City

We had a fun family trip to NYC yesterday. There were millions of people, and i am pretty sure that that is not a understatement. It was crowded! But we still enjoyed the lights and decorations everywhere.

These snowflakes on Saks 5th Ave lit to music! That was fun to watch.

Oh the tree! When we were talking about taking this trip that is one of the only things the kids wanted to do...see the BIG tree!

enjoying the tree and the skaters

And there was one other thing Mitchie really wanted...a hot dog. While we stood online to get into the American Girl store, i know....it was a long line too!! He just kept asking us to take him to get a hot dog. SO we soon found a vendor and there he sat and enjoyed it thoroughly!

Especially for Elijah!

One of our very favoritest little men, Eli, holds a special fondness in his heart for Elmo...so when we saw him on the city street yesterday we made sure to take a picture just for you Elijah. We love you!

The Christmas Mitchell Almost Missed!

I forgot this one the other day....now that we live so close to my parents we were able to drive over for Christmas dinner and gifts after we had our own christmas morning at our house. Nice right? We had a very nice time but just around dinner time we lost one! Mitchie informed us that he was going to go lay down...that is him under that blanket.

I did not think it was going to last long. I was sure that this little guy that we can not keep still for long would would be out from under that blanket and off that couch in no time. I was wrong!!!

He stayed there and stayed there and stayed there! I checked him out and sure enough he was out cold! We waited a little while thinking he would wake up but he slept for quite awhile. That did not stop the rest of us. There was much merry making and present opening that went on around him. He did eventually get to open his presents...kind of in a grinchy mood about it because he was tired and under the weather, but he opened them all the same.

This is him part way through the first gift. He tore a corner of paper off and then decided he needed to lay back down. Too much effort!

You Rocks Better Watch Out!!!

This turned out to be my favorite christmas craft ever!!! Why haven't i done this sooner!!! All the rocks Mitch brings home better watch out because they are going to get felted!!! I love everything about it. I first saw the project months ago...so long that i could not tell you where.

You wrap your rock of choice in whatever color wool roving you want...we had some lovely round cobble stones from our CSA farm...the rounder the better for the rolling part!

You get it wet in some very warm and soapy water. This helps the roving to shrink to the rock and allows the fibers to grab on to one another.

Once it is wet you squeeze it and work it in your hands...rolling almost like you were rolling balls of christmas cookie dough. Remembering to keep getting it warm and soapy in the water as you work it. When you are happy with it, squeeze out some of that extra water in a towel and set them down to dry.

These are some of the finished product. They make a great paper weight(christmas present) or would look nice in a bowl or in a jar. They look great and i am dying to make more. There is something therapeutic about standing there rolling and working the rock until the wool shrinks down. They feel so nice in your hand too!

Christmas Thrill!!

We laid out a plate of cookies for Santa... with a note carefully written by Avery. We even included a little cheese since we were snacking on it as we made the plate!!
This was a smaller and more simple christmas for us. I confess that it was a little more than i had intended. i really was trying to stick to the poem "something they want, something they need, some kind of toy and something to read"...it was my intention, along with doing lots of homemade gifts. But the move cramped my brain so severely that i did not remember to even buy gifts for my children until 3 days before christmas. yikes!! it was a close call.
But they were thrilled despite my personal efforts being thwarted. Everyone had a good time, you can see. I love the faces.

they were moving so fast i barely was able to get this picture.

I was pretty excited to be able to use my stash of christmas fabric to wrap their gifts this year. it was so nice and such a relief to me to only have half a brown bag of garbage instead of the usual giant plastic garbage bag. I will do that again...and again....i better go get me some more fabric, on sale of course!!

Aunt Colleen did have a homemade holiday and made these great superhero capes for the kids... thanks Aunt Colleen.

Who knew that a calendar could be that exciting, but they loved it!! Mitch loved his hammering toy....real nails and a hammer is a 4 year olds dream!! He has been playing with it constantly. I would gladly take the sound of hammering over the noise of obnoxious plastic noisy toys.

Catching up on Christmas Week

a lot has gone on around here....at the top of the kids list would be the snow we had last week. There was quite a lot and they could not wait to get out there.
This is them watching the snow and waiting for there to be enough to go out and play in...amidst all the boxes that are still unpacked in my kitchen.

Mitch was pretending to be santa. That was his santa serious face.

Since we were all snowed in, we decided it was high time we got the tree decorated and pretty for christmas for the kids. They had fun helping. See Mitchie's tongue hanging out...he was thinking hard about where to put that particular ornament.

Christmas Ornament Making

they look delicious don't they? But don't be fooled...these are our ornaments...our very salty ornaments. The kids and i spent a day or two working on salt dough ornaments. I think this is the first time i have made them since i was in preschool.

They were both great kitchen helpers...they both love to stir.

And they both love to pose!!! Cutting them out was lots of fun. They had a good time choosing and doing the work.

After they were dry we painted them all and let them dry. Some were gifts and some went right on our tree.

The recipe is super easy you just have to have a little time for the baking part since they need to be in there for a couple hours. You can check it out here. It is also a good project for valentines...my mom still has a heart shaped salt dough necklace i made her a good 25 years ago.

When Good Princesses go Bad

need i say more? oh, those are scissors in his hands.

Mitchell's Many Faces of Learning

Recently Mitchell has been interested in writing and his letters...what signs say, those kinds of things. i really thought that teaching him this year was going to be hard, but

the look on his face when he really gets it right is priceless...he is so proud of himself, it is going to make it worth it.

We go through many other emotions as you can see during the course of a short lesson, but he is really getting it. That is pretty good considering that right now i am not making a hard and fast attempt to teach him anything.

You can see that these are the numbers he was working on writing at the time. Some he did with help of mommy dots that he could trace and some he did on his own.

So, see, i have not been without things to blog....i just have not had the heart, but i think i am back! You can tell this one has been hanging around a little while since it is from the old house.