Our annual Spring trip to Great Grandma's

Here are a few shots from our trip North to visit Great Grandma...

We had a lot of fun despite the cool snap (which is good for my ankles!).  The kids rode their bikes.  We saw some beautiful flowers, visited Great Grandpa's grave (and cleaned it), had dinner with my Aunt Karen, and baked a cherry pie, just to name a few.  Then my camera died and we headed south to visit my Aunt Donna and her family.  So glad to see everyone!

A Waldorf Inspired Craft: Getting Ready for School

Since we haven't worked on letters much around these parts and it looks like we'll be Waldorf "Afterschoolers" I figured it might be a good time to work on the alphabet.

Also, on our double Graduate Assistant Income, we've got to be as frugal as possible.  Here's what I started with:

The little treasure boxes were a facebook trade.  I traded some modeling clay for theses boxes and some fabric.  So cost involved was only shipping.  The little chalkboards are from a resale group called The Waldorf Tag Sale (also on Facebook).  Cost with shipping was about $12.  The two boxes of chalk were purchased from a co-operative called Cedar Ring Circle.  I think they came in at less than $2 a box.

The little treasure boxes were rough hewn wood and needed a good sanding.  After the sanding and a quick woodburned letter, I "stained" them with some instant decaf (my favorite wood stain) and topped off with a nice coat of my homemade beeswax polish.  S had a good time painting the coffee on and helping me seal with polish.  Perfect messy craft for a 3 year old.

Coffee stain and wood polish can make any cheap wood look richer!

Here's how they turned out:

And here's a shot of our "homeschool" complete with Stitch sitting there in the window:

More baking!

More baking!  Can you tell I'm pregnant?    :)

On one of the warm days we went for a walk and the children picked dandelions.  When we got home we decided to use 'em up.  So we made dandelion cookies (found the recipe in a free download from Herb Fairies - we do not use their program).  And they turned out alright.  They were super flat and needed something special.  Maybe cardamom next time.  Or fresh vanilla paste?  Worth experimenting for sure.

Happy Easter!

Have a very Happy Easter!  Here we are decorating eggs (and YES we are in our jammies):

Baking!

This spring has had chilly moments left over from winter.  On those days we bake!

Here S and I are making a cherry treat.  It's half coffee-cake and half cherry pie.  It turned out pretty good, but I nearly chipped a tooth on the pit I came across!

S has gotten quite silly with her "pictures face".

This blog works again!!!

So many things have happened since I've been unable to update the blog.

The biggest is: team Prelogar will be getting a new player this summer!  We have an unexpected bundle due August 28th-ish.  Stay tuned for updates!

We are all so very over winter.  Even for Kansas this has been a particularly hard and cold winter.  To say we have cabin fever is an understatement!

R is no longer in preschool.  We couldn't make it work (time wise and financially) with childcare for S, me teaching and working, and N working and going to school.  So we are working on things at home.  Since we are mostly inspired by Waldorf philosophies we haven't pushed letters or reading, but some of it is coming naturally, especially with the amount of books we read.

I'm still involved in swaps, but thinking about scaling back.  Currently I'm hosting a St. Patrick's Day Swap for BOG and a Tiptoes Lightly swap for a Facebook group.  (Tiptoes is a character in a series of books).  I was hesitant to stay in swaps with all the holiday dissappointment, but I want to have a stockpile of nature table goodies and more natural things for the sensory bins.  So I'm keeping up for a while longer.  I most certainly won't be doing anything for a while after the baby comes.  

Speaking of sensory bins... I put together my first one for Etsy.  And I already sold it!  It was for St. Patrick's Day.

Our own St. Patrick's Day bins look like this:

Since I'm trying not to spend money on "new" things for the bins, I'm forced to get creative.  It's especially hard to spread our goodies to two bins with the same theme, but I'm finding that helps with sibling contentment.  These bins are filled with green split peas and i think they still turned out fun despite the lack of "stuff".