a gift for a friend

I hate it when the kids are invited to birthday parties. Is that bad? I hate it because then they want birthday parties of their own, and I hate putting together birthday parties. And I also hate buying presents for kids that the last thing they need is another toy. That is the story of American kids these days---mine included---they have everything, and the toys drive the parents crazy!! So, I tell the kids they have to make the presents for their friends. This forces them to be creative and to work on developing a skill. Luckily, this particular friend was a girl---they tend to be easier to make gifts for--- and she likes to play with dolls. So, Amelia and I put together a little doll quilt. She was much more proud of this present than one she would have bought at a store. We made a gift bag out of newspaper and the kids decorated it. Gift plus wrapping = $0. You can't beat that.

Winter Solstice

Today is Winter Solstice, and normally we would be busy making paper snowflakes and other activities, but today we are busy packing for our trip to Virginia instead. Christmas is only a few days away, and it has come so quickly! I didn't even get half the stuff done that I planned.

And yes, if you look close enough you can still see the big white Christmas tree tag still on the tree! We have been busy, busy, busy. The kids have taken a little slower pace than myself though, and have spent many hours during these colder days playing games of chess.

We've also been busy making stuff for the holidays. I'll have more on that after Christmas. But one thing Malachi was able to work on was a constellation board. This is a great project for any kid that likes to use hammers and nails.

He picked out his favorite constellations, I drew them on the board with a pencil after he painted it blue, and then he nailed all the stars. After that, I strung it together.

Amelia plans to make one next, and they are also pretty neat gifts to make. You can purchase them on etsy for $65!! or you can make it yourself!

big boy

Someone very important in our home turned three a few weeks ago.

His turning three was talked up by his brother and sister for weeks. He knew that for some reason it was a BIG deal to have a birthday. He began to inform, and still reminds me, that he is not the baby anymore.

I tried hard to get a decent birthday picture of this little boy but failed. He enjoys being silly too much.

stone soup and pilgrims

Have you heard the story of the stone soup at the first thanksgiving? It's about the Native Americans and Pilgrims sharing ingredients with each other so that they don't have to flavor their soup with just stones. Well this is a little play set that we made to go along with that story. The idea came from the last issue of Rhythm of the Home. The kids have a ton of fun playing with it and acting out that first Thanksgiving. These little peg dolls might not be historically accurate but that's okay. It's always nice when the kids love the toys we make together, especially ones that are so cheap to make. Next is actually making stone soup to eat.

Another Thanksgiving activity we ventured on was making corn husk dolls. Not just any corn husk dolls, but fancy ones. We wanted to make pilgrims for the holiday to decorate with. It's nearly impossible to find instructions on how to make these. You can find tons of instructions on the very primitive corn husk dolls, but that's not what we were looking for. Finally I found a YouTube video of a lady that filmed some ladies in Mexico that make them. So, we just adapted the Mexican version to a pilgrim version.

I think it would be fun to make a tradition of making this every year to give out to neighbors along with a basket of pumpkin butter and scones, or a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.

These are a few of the autumn activities that I did with the kids. October was an extremely full month. Corn maze fun

Hay ride

The streets of NYC

Pumpkin patch

Lots of apple picking!

And with all those apples I used a mandolin slicer to slice those apples really thin. You put them in the oven and they crisp up real fast. They're like eating really tasty, thin, potato chips. They were really really good.

And, oh yeah, the freak snow storm at Halloween

A visit to Sleepy Hollow

In early October we took the kids to visit Sleepy Hollow. I couldn't live so close and not go around Halloween. We first went to visit the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. It was such a beautiful place. ,/div>

We went into the Old Dutch Church, which is where Ichabod Crane was trying to get to when the Headless Horseman was chasing him. They still use it for the Christmas season.

We walked around the cemetery which is where Washington Irving got many of the names used in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. And we had to visit Mr. Irving's grave as well!

And the famous Sleepy Hollow bridge which is a reconstruction of the real one.

Most of the Halloween activities there are said to be too scary for children. But, one thing we could go to was the Blaze. It is a tour of 4,000 carved pumpkins at an old Manor.

Mock farmhouse table

So I always have these fantastical (that's a fun word to say) ideas. I've always wanted an antique farmhouse table but I've never wanted to pay the price for one. So my fantastical idea ( as Justin rolls his eyes) was to build one. I thought to myself, 'hey we already have a table, lets just pull the top off, and put a new top on!' Lucky for me I have a husband that goes along with these ideas even though he's muttering under his breath the whole time. So off to Lowe's we went and we purchased four 2x10 boards. Plus supporting beams for underneath. What helped a lot, because my way of putting things together isn't always the sturdiest way, Justin was able to find a post about another lady that had the same idea, and so we were able to follow her instructions. See, I'm not the only one with fantastical ideas!

I think it turned out wonderfully well, even though it is one heavy sucker. I hope to one day have my own farm house kitchen that is big enough to put the table right in the middle for extra cooking space. So, now I can enjoy my own farmhouse table, one that we put together ourselves (well mostly Justin put together!) and was waaaaaay cheaper.