More Easter Swap sneak peeks...

Bunny and carrots wall hanging:

Life cycle of a tulip on a sweet little egg:

Fine Art's Final Day

Art projects from home and school are beginning to pile up around here.  I'm not keeping them.  (Well, okay, N says I have to keep some of them).  So, I've decided to take a picture of our "Art Wall" on the last day of each month... I call it "Fine Art's Final Day".  Then they get recycled.  Sorry kids, gotta make way for the "new".

Here's February's Fine Art...

(Notice the "lovely" backyard 'o mud and Scirocco graveyard.)

We went looking for a dining set and ended up with a bedroom set...

When we have free time (not very often as you can imagine) we like to look for furniture for our little ranch-o-rito!

So we went searching for a table and chairs and ended up finding a set on Craig's List...

Welcome home little American by Martinsville set!

The set included two nightstands, a 70" dresser (second picture) and what I believe is called a "gentleman's wardrobe" which is a dresser with drawers behind doors (first picture). 

We have plans for tonight, but tomorrow I hope to get "before" and "after" pictures of our new "Master bedroom"!

Flower Child

Here's a prototype for an upcoming swap... she's from this story...

She's a violet (as in flower) root child.

Good enough to go to Autorama

Autorama is this weekend.  Despite the sickies, N had to take R to the funky car show.  Good thing that R's fever broke yesterday afternoon.  He seems a bit overtired to me, but overall well.  Hopefully, I'll have pictures soon and he'll take a good nap.

Sick little people

Well all it took was one trip to the mall play area.  Both have fevers and are super clingy & whiny.

Damn mall.  Damn Michigan winter for making me so "hard up" for activities that I got talked into a mall playdate.  I've learned my lesson.

Tree spirit swap

Here's my entry into the BOG "Tree Spirit Swap"...

Just to clarify, I participate in two regularly occuring swap groups.  One is called Bits of Goodness (BOG) and it's a Waldorf Inspired Group that ships and swaps internationally.  The items are usually for our kids and they must be made of 100% natural materials.  The other swap is through my local attachment parenting group.  The items are not always for our kids and do not have to be all natural (though they usually are).  Each group has a theme and a deadline.  I enjoy these swaps because they result in cool stuff for my kids and I love the creative challenges.  Okay, let me know if you have questions!

Sensory bin

Here's the Valentine's replacement...

I call it "On the Farm".

Snow day and the aftermath of V-day

V-day exploded here yesterday...

All that chocolate and red dye - not pretty!  So today we are laying low, recovering in our own little nest.

To use up some energy we spent some time outside...

Faces

What we do while N is gone...

Solo parenting has its challenges

We made it through 4 nights of solo parenting.  I know our sleep situation is odd, but going it alone was simply miserable at times.  Thank God N is back!

The kids and I just kept our selves busy, but I got virtually no quiet time and zero alone time... I'll try to play catch up this week. 

On to our Valentines goodies.  I received my BOG swap items Saturday.  Here they are!  We got a beautiful needle felted gnome doll, a little wooden gnome in a heart zipper pouch, a little heart bag, a heart mobile and a ponytail holder with a crochet heart. 

The kids will find sweet little goodies from us upon waking tomorrow.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

One year old stats

This is a couple of weeks late, but here are S's stats:
Weight: 18 lbs 13 oz (14th percentile)
Height: 28.5 inches (28th percentile)

So she's on the same track as R.  I even got another "talk" about giving them cow's milk and fattening foods.  I ran right out and bought whole milk and both kids liked it.  Problem is, they both got constipated.  I'm not doing that again.  I think we'll stick with our regimen of whole milk yogurt daily and cheese only on Pizza Friday. 

Lotions and Potions Swap

Two swaps two weekends in a row!  Too much! 

I'll be on a brief hiatus (sorta) and then I've got Easter/spring to prepare for...

Here's what I made... Tea and Massage Oil

Here's what I got:

Preschool work day

I love the days I work at our co-op preschool.  Here are a few shots from yesterday:

The little girl in the second picture is M.  She's one of his very favorite people.  Mrs. Frentz says that they hold hands and play together almost exclusively.  I saw it for myself yesterday.  It's incredibly sweet, though she is almost 6 inches taller than R. 

Sensory bin

Here is the V-day inspired sensory bin.  Complete with snakes and lizards.  We've been working on letters and he knows several of them.  But we also need to work on upper and lower case.  So on the hearts that spell out his name, uppercase is on one side and lowercase is on the other.  Hope this helps him learn!