Creative Weekend

Joseph has now learned how to climb up in the dining room chair and up on the table. He was searching for some of his sisters left-overs. He was successful. I'm just glad he's been eating wheat with no problems, because she leaves the ends to her toast, and he usually finds them. Also we are almost sure that he's NOT allergic to peanuts, as he's eaten her peanut butter sandwiches and toast before with no problems!

This past Saturday, we did something that needed to be done...painting!!! Our bathroom ceiling and our laundry room needed some touching up. We painted an extra wall in our kitchen too because I loved the milk chocolate color SO much. The bathroom we only painted the ceiling white.

Of course I couldn't post without updates on the butterfly party. Here are a few of the candy suckers we've made.

These two photos are of the cake stand...I just can't decide which way I like it. Below are the cake pans I'm using, a dome, where I'll have butterflies all on it. I love the look of the top one but am afraid it's a little to tall. But it just flows better...obviously it's unfinished on the top. I'll glue more ribbon around all the edges. If you have any suggestions I'd really love to hear them. Hope to get all my small details finished by this weekend, so all I have to focus on it cake and cooking next week.
Oh these are one of the little things to go in the goodie bags. If I hadn't done SO much butterfly already I'd decorate the clothes pin, but I'm a little pooped out, and since it's going to be hiding in their goodie bags, and all the kids are going to do it trash the clothes pin and dive into the M&M's I figured I could let it slide this time :)

Dog Days of Summer

Well we are in the dog days of summer NO doubt. August is ALWAYS the hottest month of the year to me. BUT all the stores are calling it "fall" because school has started back. So all the summer stuff is on clearance. Glenn and Emily found this sprinkler ball at walmart half price, so you know my husband he bought it. Last Saturday we had to try it out. Since it's been in the 100's this week we've enjoyed it more than once. You can tell both the kids enjoyed it but Joseph did the most I think. Emily likes more control, and enjoys just spraying things with the hose than having a pool or sprinkler out.


We had to all get popsicles afterward (and during) our playtime. This is what they all did while I worked on those butterfly wings in the garage. Joseph LOVES our fresh apple juice popsicles.
Now I know my moma will have a fit with the picture below, but we have our own little Davy Crockett. He didn't get to hold the gun long, but he was so funny walking around with his hat on with it.

Our 2nd week of homeschooling went fairly well. Joseph enjoys sitting in his little chair just like sister, while we do our morning pledge to the flags and calendar count and songs.
You can tell from below that I have to keep a close eye on him...he crawls up on everything. Yesterday we found him sitting on top of the dining room table banging the salt shaker!!! Yes he is a climber! I'm just waiting for him to walk out of his room one day after nap. Hopefully that won't happen too soon.

Emily's favorite activity this week was our counting exercise with chocolate chips. She cut out her own "cookies" out of brown paper, and I wrote a number on the back of each of them. She then had to look at the number and place the correct number of chips on the other side of the "cookie". Afterward she ate them of course! I hope you all have a great week.

Butterflies on the Brain

So with Emily's party just 2 weeks away, I've totally got butterflies on the brain!!! I think I dream butterflies!!! This year I've tried to focus on some minor details, like decorating and goodies for the kids. As you read earlier I made my own pinata (because I wasn't going to pay $30 for one). I used cardboard from the garage and paint I already had. The only thing I had to buy was one pack of tissue paper. Looking online I really liked the idea of having every girl a pair of butterfly wings. The only problem was the cheapest I could find them was $5-$10 a pair!!! With 10 or more kids coming you know I wasn't going to pay up to $50 on wings!!!!! SO I pulled out the coat hangers and created my own. Of course they aren't perfect but they turned out pretty cute.
Getting them to the above look took ALOT of effort. I started on Saturday attaching 2 hangers together. Sunday I put on the panty hose...which I got a pair of knee highs in the little round plastic balls for $0.33!!! YES 33 cents each!!! So far my wings cost only 33 cents a piece. I added some color with some acrylic paint.
Then I bought a huge spool of fuzzy thread and attached it with a hot glue gun. This was by far the hardest part (I didn't burn myself too many times at least).
OH the below are the wings drying outside after I sprayed them with glitter, so yes they sparkle now...a nice touch. One can of spray glitter was around $2 and it did all 10 of these wings.

The final product with elastic arm holes in the back!!! I use elastic I already had, plus two small packs I bought $2 each. Again, they aren't perfect BUT they are WAY cheaper than bought ones, and probably will hold up better too!!! You can't see it in this picture but covering the center is cute pink polka dot felt I found on sale at Hancocks. It took only 3 sheets and they are really cheap! On top of that is probably the most expensive thing, and little sticky felt butterfly I stuck in the middle. Totally CUTE and I'm super excited that now all the girls will have butterfly wings (which I will use to decorate the back of all the chairs when they come in).

Okay, so this is a yogurt drink bottle. Doesn't it just scream BUTTERFLY to you??? It sure did to me!!! We go through TONS of these in our house, since Joseph has discovered them. When I started looking around the house for things to recycle for the party (like the old cardboard and clothes hangers) I immediately had a plan for these babies!!! Butterfly name places for the table.
You can see below where I'm going with this. I painted a base coat with pink paint. After it dried I actually painted another coat, then after it dried completely I added a layer of glitter paint. It gave it the rose look, they were bright pink before, but I love the rose color. The wings were made from scrap book paper (I found on the clearance rack at Michael's), and I cut them at church on our die cut machine (I think I've punched over 100 butterflies so far for this party). I then glued a round wooden ball for the head.

I've painted eyes since this picture and will include their names on a flower at the bottom. Aren't they just the cutest, all from a yogurt drink bottle. The one problem I've found is I should've filled the bottom with a little rice or something to weigh them down. they are very light and the wooden top makes them top heavy so that tip over kind of easy but not THAT bad...just a thought if you decide to use something like this. They are so cute though!!!

For the goodie bags, which will be filled with butterfly candy bags and other goodies I looked no further than the Martha Stewart page, because I got this straight from her website. I just changed it for my own party. I used the die cut butterflies and flowers, and cut grass out of green scrapbook paper. I glued the butterfly to a clothes pin, so as I fill the bags, and they put their other goodies in it (like their name place butterflies) they can just clip it closed!
Below is the butterfly garland I've made to hang behind the food table. I haven't gotten a picture of the finished product but I added pink toole to each strand of butterflies, and it looks SO super cute now, that picture will be made when I actually hang it up.

This little project is a dessert stand, and I SO didn't have to make this, and it cost the MOST money of EVERYTHING, but I had to try and make on for myself. I is just styrofoam pieces (round of course) in 3 different sizes. I took 2 soup cans and covered them in white cardstock, and hot glued them together. I had to cut 3 round pieces of my bakers cardboard to go on top of the styrofoam. I hot glued fancy ribbon around the edges, and while doing so got a TERRIBLE glue gun burn. A big glob of glue got on my finger and I didn't pull it off immediately (which is what you're suppose to do...just leave it). I learned from a previous burn that I just ripped it off and it pulled 3 layers of skin with it. This time I gradually pulled it off with ice on it, and it left the biggest blister I've ever seen. Since then it's healed, but it has left a nasty scar. SO I'm very careful with my glue gun now.
There's alot more to come, but these are the major and main things I've been working on for the past 3 weeks!!!

1st Week of Homeschooling

We completed our first week of homeschooling and I can honestly say I'm glad it's Friday!!! I never knew it was going to be this hard, but it is definitely worth it. We have made our little schedule and we start the morning with the date, and sing the days of the week song. Then we count the numbers on the calendar, and then after that we do the pledge to the American flag.
After those things in the "school area", we move to the living room for music and our Bible verse and lesson. Joseph loves this part the most. He usually doesn't want me to turn off the CD to read the books in story time. Every day we learn something new, but we've had the same songs this week, all relating to our lesson. As you read we learned about creation this week. I got some neat ideas online from a homeschool website, and I think she had a lot of fun doing them




Yesterday we learned about birds and fish, and we talked about how the birds use their senses (esp. eyes, touch and taste). So because of this we had a little lesson on our 5 senses. We sat in the garage (because Joseph was asleep), and did some taste testing. We also looked, listened, smelled and touched objects. She obviously did NOT like the lemon juice, but she did drink it. After we went through each group she wrote on the chart what she had experienced.


Last night Glenn was gone, and we kind of got crazy at bed time. Joseph wanted to wear Emily's robe. I just had to put this picture up here because it was so cute.

I also took the most beautiful photos of a butterfly last night too. As we told Glenn bye a monarch flew up to my zinnias. Of course I made these before Glenn left because I couldn't have gotten this many good ones while watching Joseph. But I am really impressed at how well they turned out. My moma said I need to send them in to Country magazine or Birds and Blooms magazine...we'll see. If you'd like one in print (if you love butterflies or something) just let me know. I sent them to family through Walmart.com already.



Hope you all have a great weekend!!!!