Angel Topper

Today we have been taking it pretty easy. I have gotten a cold that is kicking my butt lately. So we laid in bed for most of the morning and afternoon watching cartoons. Virginia wanted to do a craft and I hate saying no to crafts. So I found a super simple craft for today. A paper plate angel that I found on Mess For Less. 

I managed to find one paper plate left in our craft room. I hand drew the same angel shape from Mess for Less onto the top of the plate. Then I cut around the head and arms of the angel. I kept the plate flat for Virginia to be able to watercolor the angels dress. Of course she tired of watercoloring pretty quick. So she decided to cover the rest of the dress with glitter. Glitter has been her favorite craft supply lately. 

Next I let her draw the face onto the angel. Then we cut strings of yellow yarn for the hair of the angel. Once everything was dried I bent the plate around and taped the back. I think it would have been better to staple. Virginia has a small Christmas tree in her room that use to be Reiggins. We decided to put the angel on top of her Christmas tree. We still need to add a halo but we were missing a yellow pipe cleaner. I think I could have just painted our white pipe cleaner. But Virginia didn't like that idea. 

But best of all Virginia was able to do this craft pretty much all on her own. Giving me time to rest on the couch. 

Bell Angel

For Day 13 of Crafting to Christmas, ( yes we skipped a few days ), we decided to make a bell angel. This week we started to loosely use abc jesus loves me. This is a great free online homeschool curriculum for preschool ages. We are doing the two year curriculum week 15 and so far loving it.

I have been reading the baby jesus story from The Beginner's Bible for Toddlers. So the bell angel tied into the story. I reminded Virginia how the angel came and talked to Mary in the story telling her she was going to have a baby. 

I printed off the black and white version of the bell angel on card stock so Virginia could color in the angel. After she was finished coloring I cut out the angel. She helped me glue the pieces together. Next I took two loose bells that I had in my craft room. Using a hole punch and pipe cleaners I put the bells onto the bottom of the sleeves of the angel. I punched the hole and threaded the pipe cleaner though the bell. Then threaded the pipe cleaner though the hole of the bottom of the bell. I next just tied a knot on the back side of the angel keeping the bells some what in place. 

At the bottom of the bell is a space to write the child's name. I had created a dotted outline of Virginia's name on a scrap piece of card stock for her to practice writing her name. I loved the first try so I just cut it out and glued it to the bottom of the dress. 

After the angel was complete and all put together we used painters tape and taped it to Virginia's bedroom door. I really enjoyed this craft and it didn't take up to much time. 

Weekend Wrap Up!

This weekend was pretty much packed full of fun. Saturday Virginia and I went to our very first Lowe's Build and Grow Clinic. The project this week was to build a ginger bread house. For some reason I had it in my head that it was going to be more like a class with a instructor and everything. Boy was I wrong. We got there and signed in and there were tables set up down the back of the store. You picked your spot and then they laid down the project bag in front of you. Then everyone just went at it. The project bag had all the materials and instructions inside. Lowe's provided googles, hammer, and an apron for the kids. 

I assisted Virginia in hammering. Of course I helped her with reading the instructions which was a challenge in itself haha. It brought me back to the days of taking shop class in junior high and college. We had a blast and only had two oops on our project. The best part is she got a free apron and a badge for completing the project.

Sunday was the start of our hunt for a home church. I am super excited to find a church that is a good fit for my family. Virginia was so excited to go and loved the music. After church I got to go and enjoy a panther's game with my dad and two older sisters. Luckily the panthers decided to win for once.

Monday we spent the day out and about with good friends. It was a great start to our week. Tuesday was jammed packed. Virginia had speech in the morning. Then after speech we got ready to go see Santa. This was a big deal since last year she didn't want anything to do with Santa. She was so shy and scared of him. But this year she was ready and actually sat on his lap and told him what she wanted for Christmas. Afterwards she played on the play ground in the mall and then we were off to dance.

At dance we were able to try on the recital costume today. All I can say is she was so cute. The kids had a small Christmas party after class. We had one more stop and then we headed home. It was a busy weekend which seems to be the norm for us doing the holiday season.

Hopefully we will be back to doing some crafts this week and I will post pictures of our crafts.

Day 7 of Crafting to Christmas

On Day 7 of Crafting to Christmas we took it pretty easy. We spent most of the day out shopping with friends. Once we got home we ordered pizza for dinner and enjoyed watching Cinderella and Doc McStuffins Holiday special. After that we just pretty much laid around relaxing. Me surfing the internet between my favorite sites and Virginia playing on the Ipad. Before I knew it it was time for Virginia to head to bed.

About a few minutes before time for me to go to bed I thought of a great idea. Virginia has been really enjoying a few memory games on the Ipad. So I thought how much fun would it be to make her a Christmas memory game. So I did a quick search on Pinterest and found a perfect set from Modern Homemakers. I love the illustrations and how they are simple and images that Virginia can relate too. I printed the printables out real quick that were provided. I quickly realized my ink is low, BOO!

But they printed just not at the best quality. So I plan to still play with Virginia tomorrow morning. But I plan to print the sheets again once I replace the ink. Then run them though my laminating machine so they will hold up better and we can enjoy them again next year.

Update: So we played this morning and she loved the set. It only took me a few minutes to cut the cards out and I let her lay them face down in rows. Virginia was very excited that she beat me the first round. I believe she has inherited just a little bit of the Ford competitive side. 

Day 6 of Crafting to Christmas

For Day 6 of Crafting to Christmas I decided to pick a craft that would help kick off the Christmas decorating of our house. Yeah we are a little late on getting the Christmas decorating going around the house. Virginia has been asking every day when we are going to decorate. Our neighborhood this year has tons of houses that have fully decorated their houses on the outside for Christmas. Virginia says everyone is ready for Christmas mommy but us we need to get ready. I have to giggle a little every time she says this.

So as I was surfing Pinterest today for a craft to do I came across Centsational Girl's blog. It happened to be a two year old post of hers actually on December 6th about holiday crafting. She had a bunch of good ideas and I fell in love with her Merry sign she had her kids paint. She used craft letters she brought at a store. But I decided to try to use things I already had in the house. 

I pulled out the cardboard I have filling my craft closet and hand drawn each letter. Now if you want to have a little more neat letters I would suggest printing out a template. I didn't care to mess with a template so I just winged it. Once I got one letter cut out I gave it to Virginia to paint.

She used regular acrylic paint and painted both sides red. Once I had all the letters cut and painted, we let them dry for a bit. Once dry I brushed on glue and let Virginia go to town putting glitter on each letter. I use a dollar store cookie tray to try to contain the mess. It helps, but don't get me wrong you will end up with glitter on the floor and such but that is just part of the fun. The nice thing about the cookie tray also is it will catch the extra glitter. I just use a zip lock bag and go outside and put the excess glitter into the bag to use again on another project. 

Once every letter had glitter and was looking nice. I took some fabric I had laying around and cut strips out to hang the letters over the mantel in my house. I used my hot glue gun to attach the fabric to the letters. I used painters tape to tape the fabric to my mantel. 

The cutting the letters out was the most time consuming part of the whole project. After that everything went fairly quick. And in the end I had myself a nice decoration for the mantel. 

Day 5 of Crafting to Christmas

For Day 5 of Crafting to Christmas we took our crafting down to MawMaw's house.  Virginia picked out Jingle Bell Sticks as the craft to do today. So we gathered our supplies which thankfully was a small list.

Supplies needed:

• Paper towel roll or toilet paper roll
• christmas wrapping paper or some other pretty paper
• tape
• hole puncher
• jingle bells
• pipe cleaner

We used paper towel rolls for the tube. All you have to do is wrap the christmas wrapping paper around the tube and tape it down. Next use the hole puncher and punch holes along the top and bottom of the roll. Then use the pipe cleaner and thread the bells onto the cleaner and though the holes on the paper towel role. After that you got yourself a jingle bell stick. 

Virginia and Samantha loved them and quickly went upstairs with MawMaw to put on a jingle stick parade it was super cute. Even baby Zach got in on the action and grabbed the jingle bells bag and started shaking. 

Day 4 of Crafting to Christmas

For Day 4 of Crafting to Christmas we decided to make a few more ornaments. I came across this great recipe for the quickest salt dough recipe ever on Rainy Day Mum. The recipe we used last year I wasn't a fan of. The ornaments took forever to dry and become hard. But this recipe is awesome and only calls for three ingredients. 

Another plus is that the dough dries in the microwave in less then three minutes. But be WARNED: Watch the dough when its in the microwave because it will burn if your not careful. I found that smaller pieces can take like 30 seconds and the larger pieces take like three minutes. Just depends on how strong your microwave is. 

We used Christmas cookie cutters and some cutters from Virginia's play doh collection to cut out the shapes. I did forget to punch holes at the top to hang in the ornaments. But I figure I will just hot glue string to the back to hang them on our tree. I had Virginia paint the dough with acrylic paint and afterwards I covered them with Mod Podge. I love how quick the recipe was and how easy the dough was to roll out and work with. We definitely will be using this recipe again.

Day 3 of Crafting to Christmas

Sorry for the late blog post. But ran out of time last night before I had to go into work.  On Day 3 of Crafting for Christmas we made christmas ornaments out of popsicle sticks. My parent's Christmas tree is pretty much covered in ornaments that my mom painted when she was pregnant with my older sister Lisa and with ornaments that me and my sisters made growing up. I knew I wanted the same for our tree. 

So this Christmas we decided to make a few homemade Christmas ornaments. I found these popsicle ornaments over at Little Family Fun. I already had all the supplies in my craft collection. 

The supplies I used was:

• Popsicle sticks
• Paint
• hot glue gun
• buttons
• beads
• glitter
• paint brushes
• paper plates

I started off with Virginia coloring the popsicle sticks green for a Christmas tree. I realized very quickly that this would take awhile. So I changed my mind and just let her paint the sticks. I jumped in and helped her also. I laid the sticks on paper plates and we painted away. We used washable paint at first, but then I decided to grab the acrylic paint. We painted green for the christmas tree, blue for the snowflake, and yellow for a start.

We set them all off to the side to dry for a bit. Once they were dried I grabbed my glue gun and looked at the pictures on Little Family Fun on how to construct each shape. For the Christmas tree I used my scissors to cut the sticks down to the shape of a tree. Then just glued the sticks together. Some process for the snowflake and star. 

After the shapes were made I went and grabbed my collection of jewelry beads. I let Virginia pick out what to use to decorate the ornaments. For the Christmas tree she used beads and buttons. For the snowflake and star she decided on glitter. We actually used some old bracelets that I had made in the past for the hangers for the ornaments. They worked perfect, I just hot glued them to the back of the ornaments. 

Now we just need to go pick out our Christmas tree and we will be ready to add our ornaments. 

Day 2 of Crafting to Christmas

On day 2 of Crafting to Christmas Virginia decided to decorate the back of her christmas ball with tissue paper, construction paper, foam, and of course glitter. The girl is all about some glitter lately. I had planned to make ballerina snowflakes today, but Virginia decided to put that off for another day.

Today she wanted to make home made Christmas cards. I got the idea from Dily-Dali Art blog. We used plain printing paper and I let Virginia stamp her finger onto our rainbow stamp pad. Next she stamped the paper. We used glitter glue for the wire and made the card look like christmas lights. Then we wrote Merry Christmas in the middle. Next I pulled out my laminating machine and decided to test if it would laminate fabric. I cut out the card and laid it on the fabric and ran it though the laminating machine. 

The fabric went though the laminating machine just fine. But next time I believe I will use card stock for the paper. And the glitter glue was not the best idea to use for the wire of the christmas lights. Once though the laminating machine the glitter glue kind of disappeared or just got moved around the card. So next time we will just use a pen. Same for the Merry Christmas I believe I will write with a pen or color pencil for round two. 

We got a late start today on our cards so we only got half way though the start of the second Christmas card. We plan to finish the second card up in the morning. So watch for the final picture of card two tomorrow. And the second version of the christmas card will also be shown tomorrow as well. Virginia is loving the Crafting to Christmas. Each morning she is waking up and asking me what craft we are doing today. I believe this may be a nice tradition to add each year.

Countdown to Christmas

Every year I see all these amazing homemade advent calendars. And every year I tell myself I am going to pick one to make for next year. Well this year I finally got my butt into gear and made one. I have decided that each day leading up to Christmas Virginia and I are going to do one craft each day.

I meant to make the advent calendar on Friday but got busy and let it slip til Saturday. No big deal right, it got done just in time. What I love most is that everything I used I already had in my craft supply. 

The supplies I used was:

• Yarn
• construction paper
• scissors
• Glue
• watercolor paints
• scraps of foam
• tissue paper
• markers
• crayons
• glitter
• painters tape

I used a glass to trace the shapes of ball ornaments. I used different color construction paper for each ball. We cut out 25 balls to represent the days leading to Christmas. Between the balls we decided to have Christmas lights. I just free handed a Christmas light shape. Cut those out of construction paper and then applied Elmer's glue to the bottom part and let Virginia add the glitter.

So next up I grabbed my yarn and pulled a long piece of string out. I arranged it christmas light / ball ornament / christmas light all the way til day 25. I stapled the christmas lights to the string to begin with.  I went into our craft room / play room and picked out the perfect spot on the wall for our advent calendar. I used painters tape to hang the string on the wall. Painters tape is my new love.  I can put anything on the wall and not worry about damaging the wall. Virginia loves hanging out artwork where ever she wants in her room, the play room, and even the master bedroom. 

Once I had the yarn taped up to the wall. I realized I really didn't need to staple the christmas lights to the yarn. I should have just used the painters tape and taped the christmas lights to the yarn onto the wall. That is what I did with the ornament balls just used painters tape and stuck it to the yarn onto the wall. IT was alot quicker then trying to staple. 

I decided that each day I will take down a ball ornament and let Virginia decorate the back anyway she wishes and then I will tape it back onto the yarn onto the wall. Along with that I have a holiday craft list that I am going to pick from for us to have a craft to do each day leading up to christmas. I figured this would be a nice way to countdown Christmas. So keep an eye on our blog and I will share each day what craft Virginia and I decide to do.

Day 13 of Thanks!

On Day 13 of Thanks, I am thankful for Chocolate cake and Chinese food. We were suppose to have a big Sofia the First premiere party today at our house. Virginia had invited all of her friends over for a princess and knight party and then at 7pm we were going to watch Sofia the First on Disney Jr.

Well Friday she ended up getting sick so we had to cancel the party. I felt really bad for her and me. We both were super excited about having our friends come over. So to make it up to her I told her we would still make a special chocolate cake to celebrate Sofia the First. She helped me step by step bake the cake. She insisted on wearing her belle dress pretty much the whole day. I am thankful that simple things like chocolate cake still puts a smile on my babies face.

As for me I was thankful for Chinese food. The best thing to run out and get when you are just to lazy to run to the grocery store and cook dinner. 

***************************************************************************************************************Happy November! I am excited to be joining several other bloggers this month to celebrate gratitude through a 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge!! You can read more about this challenge started by Inspired by Family Magazine here. I hope you will join me in this challenge!

Building a City

Today I knew it was going to be a stay at home day. Virginia had gotten sick Friday and was pretty pitiful all friday night. So Saturday we spent most of the morning cuddled up in bed watching Peppa the Pig. Afterwards we baked some muffins and watched a few more cartoons.

I have been really enjoying In Lieu of Preschool's blog lately. I knew I wanted to try out the foam city in the shower with Virginia. Figured what better day then today. I had planned to set it all up and surprise her. But she knew something was up since I was staying in the bedroom while she watched cartoons in the living room. She came walking in as I was just starting to cut the foam. I told her what I was up too and she was ready to join the fun.

All I used was a big pack of foam sheets I picked up from AC Moore. Our shower has a small bench in the corner. There is where I cut out large black triangles to use as Mountains. Did a circle for the sun and cut white clouds out also. Down below we had to add snow to the mountains and the mountain tops.

Below on the shower floor we added houses. I asked Virginia what color she wanted each house, window, and door. This whole activity was a great lesson in shapes since I was only using triangles, circles, squares, and rectangles. I let Virginia tell me what to put in the city. We did sky scrapers, grocery store, car wash, and of course every city needs a Walgreens ( Daddies work as Virginia says). We also added a park in the city too with some small trees. 

After it was all set up I let her go pick out some of her plastic animals, people, and cars to play with in the shower too. All the foam sticks to the wall and other foam sheets with just water. The best part is the clean up is simple. Let the foam dry on the wall and then take down. And just spray down the snow ( shaving cream ) with your shower head or cup of water. Can't beat that!

Day 12 of Thanks!

Bear with me as I catch up with my day of thanks posts. I didn't realize how far behind I had gotten. But for Day 12 I am thankful for lazy Saturday afternoons. Yesterday poor Virginia was sick and pretty sure had caught Reiggin's cold. So she was up off and on last night in our bed dealing with a light fever and sore throat. Not fun for Mom or Virginia. But thankfully she woke up Saturday feeling much better and just has a little sore throat and funny voice left to get over. We spent most of the morning cuddled up in my bed watching Disney Jr. cartoons. Then made our way into the kitchen to bake some muffins. Virginia loves baking with me. She likes to dump all the ingredients into the bowl and help me stir. We even added an extra liner to one of the muffins. Growing up my mom would make muffins for breakfast and we would always say that the person that got a double liner muffin was lucky for the day. I am just thankful to have the whole weekend with Virginia to play and relax together. Who knows maybe I will even clean house :-)

***************************************************************************************************************Happy November! I am excited to be joining several other bloggers this month to celebrate gratitude through a 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge!! You can read more about this challenge started by Inspired by Family Magazine here. I hope you will join me in this challenge!

Bath Time Fun!

I follow a ton of great Kid Bloggers and recently have really been enjoying In Lieu of Preschool.  The other day she linked to a new blog called Bath Activities for Kids that is all about fun bath games. So tonight I decided I would surprise Virginia and give her some fun during bath time. 

While she was playing games on the Ipad. I went into the bathroom and started her bath. I added a few drops of purple food coloring. I was a little nervous the food coloring would stain her skin, but it didn't. I used foam squares and wrote numbers 1 - 10 on them. I also blew up balloons and wrote numbers 1 - 9 on them, I was short one balloon. We also have some great foam sticks that she plays with in the tub too that I tossed in, ( they look like foam popsicle sticks basically).

I called her in and her face was priceless. First she was a little unsure about the purple water. Then once I added the balloons and foam items she jumped right in and started playing. I didn't give her any instructions at first and just let her play. She hunted for numbers and started putting the numbers on the wall by herself in order. Then I started to ask her to put up number 5 and put 5 foam sticks up beside it.

On the Ipad she has been enjoying this addition game so I took this time to test her addition skills too. She picked two foam square numbers and then I asked her to add them together and tell me what she came up with. She did pretty good since we have just started to play with addition. 

Overall this bath game was a big hit with Virginia. She loved the balloons the best. She spent forever in the tub too. The best thing was I got all the supplies at the dollar store. 

Day 11 of Thanks!

For Day 11 of Thanks, I am thankful to have a beautiful and healthy daughter. Virginia had to go for her dentist cleaning today and thankfully checked out with flying colors. She was a champ and didn't cry or give the dentist problems. We have been so lucky to have few health issues with Virginia has she is growing. "Knock on Wood". But I am truly thankful for this because I see some of my friends struggling with health issues in their families and with their kids and it breaks my heart. It is never easy to see our kids hurting or struggling. And I just thank God each day that passes and I have my healthy, joyful, loving Virginia.

***************************************************************************************************************Happy November! I am excited to be joining several other bloggers this month to celebrate gratitude through a 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge!! You can read more about this challenge started by Inspired by Family Magazine here. I hope you will join me in this challenge!

Day 10 of Thanks

I am a little behind on my posts. But on Day 10 I am thankful for being a Stay at Home Mother. I am thankful for the chance to stay at home and watch my daughter grow and learn. I know that I am lucky and that not everyone gets this chance. I am thankful that my husband works so hard to provide for our family. I enjoy that my daughter and I can go on fun trips and really explore our town. It may be tough at times, but I am glad four years ago we made the decision for me to quit my job and stay at home. I wouldn't change a thing!

***************************************************************************************************************Happy November! I am excited to be joining several other bloggers this month to celebrate gratitude through a 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge!! You can read more about this challenge started by Inspired by Family Magazine here. I hope you will join me in this challenge!

Day 9 of Thanks!

Day Nine of Thanks I am thankful for sleep. Since adjusting to working part time now and just doing one over night shift a week and taking care of Virginia and the house. I have realized that sleep is a treasure. I made the mistake this week to not take a nap before my over night shift and man did I feel it Friday. I know now to sleep when I can and that I really need a cleaning routine. Because we all know I am not a national born domestic house wife. But I am trying and know I can rock this role in my life.

***************************************************************************************************************Happy November! I am excited to be joining several other bloggers this month to celebrate gratitude through a 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge!! You can read more about this challenge started by Inspired by Family Magazine here. I hope you will join me in this challenge!

Day 8 of Thanks

For Day 8 of Thanks, I am thankful for my friends. I thought I would start with my oldest and best friend Lisa. We have been friends since 8th grade. I am glad I decided back then to get over my thought of her trying to steal my good friend Heather and got to know her better. We have been close ever since that summer spent with Heather at her house. 

I am thankful that she answers all my phone calls and listens to me whine, complain, and celebrate things in my life. I love our weekly talks on the phone about our favorite CW shows. I still love her even if she did move all the way to California. She has been more like a sister to me over the years. She even flew all the way home to see me when I had my first daughter Virginia. 

We couldn't be more different in some ways yet we do balance each other out I think. So just want to say Thanks Lisa for putting up with me all these years!

***************************************************************************************************************Happy November! I am excited to be joining several other bloggers this month to celebrate gratitude through a 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge!! You can read more about this challenge started by Inspired by Family Magazine here. I hope you will join me in this challenge!

Day 7 of Thanks!

For Day Seven of Thanks I am thankful for Wednesday Nights. Every wednesday Virginia and I head down to Gastonia for dinner at my parent's house. My sister Susan, Samantha, and Zach meet us there too. I am thankful that I get to see my parents each week. I am glad I get to see my niece Samantha and nephew Zach each week. It is amazing how much Zach grows each week. It is super cute watching how much Samantha and Virginia play together. They are best buds and I Love It! And you can't beat a home cooked meal from my mom. 

***************************************************************************************************************Happy November! I am excited to be joining several other bloggers this month to celebrate gratitude through a 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge!! You can read more about this challenge started by Inspired by Family Magazine here. I hope you will join me in this challenge!

Day 6 of Thanks

For Day 6, I am thankful that I live in a country that I have the freedom to go vote no matter what sex I am.  I was thrilled to take Virginia with me today to let her see what voting was all about. Of course she  is still to young to fully understand what is going on. I tried to explain what the USA is and who the president is and what his job is. But I know most of it went right over her head. 

Tonight we printed out a coloring sheet of all the states and she is coloring in the states blue or red as the results come in. She is enjoying that part. The funniest thing today was when we went to vote she insisted on bringing her piggy bank. It is a new piggy bank that she is super attached too for some reason. But as we were leaving and the guy at the door handed me a I Voted sticker and then handed Virginia one. He asked her if Piggy needed a sticker and she shook her head with the biggest smile. 

***************************************************************************************************************Happy November! I am excited to be joining several other bloggers this month to celebrate gratitude through a 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge!! You can read more about this challenge started by Inspired by Family Magazine here. I hope you will join me in this challenge!

Day 5 of Thanks!

For Day Five I am thankful for my two older sisters. I may not have said this as much back when I was a kid. For good reasons, Susan tried dunking my head in the toilet. Susan also put a running vacuum cleaner on my head. Both Susan and Lisa locked me out of the house with just a t-shirt and undies on. Yeah they were loving older sisters. 

But we had some great times together playing softball and basketball growing up. Susan was always the protective big sister of me growing up since we were just two years apart. Most of the time we were in the same school and played on the same sports teams. 

Now that we are all older I feel like we have grown closer together. I couldn't ask for a better set of aunts for Virginia. Lisa is amazing with Virginia and Samantha. Lisa is always taking them fun places and keep track of what they are doing. Susan and I had the luck of both being pregnant with our first kids at the same time. So now our daughters are growing up together. It is great having them so close in age so far they are best buds.

What I love most about my sisters is that I know that they love and care about me. If I need anything I can call either one of them and they are there to help. Love you both, Susan and Lisa!

***************************************************************************************************************Happy November! I am excited to be joining several other bloggers this month to celebrate gratitude through a 21 Days of Gratitude Challenge!! You can read more about this challenge started by Inspired by Family Magazine here. I hope you will join me in this challenge!