Happy Halloween!!

Costume Fun!!

My mom made our costumes each Halloween and when Emily was born I wanted to do the same. I find it so exciting to create a costume from things you have around or find in the store.

Emily the Tree Frog

This year Emily decided she wanted to be a frog so here is my cute little tree frog!

Her costume was super easy, we got a green sweat suit with a hood sewed on felt hands and feet and glued a Styrofoam ball cut in half and painted to look like eyes to the hood. I put green women's socks over her shoes to hide her bright pink sneakers!

Juliette the Octopus

For Juliette's first Halloween I wanted a fun costume and this one was perfect!!
Her costume was really easy and cheep too, only 5 dollars!! I found a purple shirt and 4 pairs of purple women's socks at the dollar tree. My mom and I stuffed 6 of the socks with stuffing and then sewed them to the bottom front of the shirt. The other 2 socks we partially stuffed for Juliette to wear. I glued felt suckers onto each of the legs.

Happy Halloween!!

stART ~ I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat!

A Story + Art = A Great stART!
Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our book and art project and maybe even share your own too! For an explanation of stART click here.

This week we read I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat!, by Lucille Colandro. This is a fun repetitive Halloween version of I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, which is one of Emily's favorite books!

I found this great project idea and new that I had to try it this week with Emily. All I needed was a Ziploc sandwich bag, printout of "The Old Lady" and some crayons.

I cut the Old Lady in half and Emily colored in her top and bottom.

Emily glued the Old Lady's head to the top of the bag and the feet to the bottom.

I printed out cards with the different things she swallowed to go into the bag.

Emily LOVED this project. It will be great for helping us retell the story!!

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Our First Art Group Meeting

My friend Sarah started a Music Class over a year ago and Emily and I have really enjoyed all of the fun things she has done with the group. I love art and Sarah's Music Class motivated me to start an Art Group for the kids too.

Here is how our first Art Group went

1. We started with 15 minutes of play dough free play. I made a cinnamon scented play dough and I think all the Mommy's really enjoyed the scent. I plan on making a new batch of play dough to go with the seasons. To finish we sang "On Top of Spaghetti" while the kids practiced rolling a ball of play dough and smooshing it.

2. Next we did an open ended art project. This lasted about 10 - 15 minutes. This week we painted with feathers using fall colors. This activity is all about the process and not the product. Although I think they all looked amazing :0)

3. After we cleaned up we had a short interactive poem to introduce the craft that we would do next. We did this song about pumpkins. Each child got to hold one of the pumpkins and we sang about how their pumpkin was acting and feeling.

4. Finally we made a craft. This is a project that is supposed to look like something when it is finished. We made cute paper bag pumpkins. I found the idea for these here.

After we cleaned up the children had a snack and some play time.

We all had a great time and I am looking forward to planning more art activities for the kids!!

Music Fun for Juliette

Were going to shake and shake and shake and shake!!

While we were in the hospital I had to come up with some things to entertain Juliette with what I had in a hospital room. Every morning I ordered Cheerios for breakfast and they came in an individual serving bowl. I happened to have one left over that I was saving for a snack later in the day. Instead I used it as a shaker to sing a song and rhythm activity with Juliette that we often do at music. Juliette had so much fun watching and listening to the song she was actually giggling and smiling the whole time I was doing it.

Were Going to Shake and Shake

Were going to shake and shake and shake and shake
Were going to shake and shake until we STOP!
Shhhhhhhhh
Were going to shake and shake and shake and shake.
Were going to shake and shake until we STOP!
Shhhhhhhhh
Were going to shake and shake and shake and shake.
Were going to shake and shake until we STOP!
Shhhhhhhh

Soon Juliette will be able to join in and shake her own rattle, for now we are enjoying the Cheerio container :0)

stART ~ Clifford's First Autumn

A Story + Art = A Great stART!

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our book and art project and maybe even share your own too! For an explanation of stART click here.

This week we read Clifford's First Autumn, by Normand Bridwell. This is a cute book that talks about some of the changes that autumn's cool weather brings, such as pumpkins, leaves changing colors and falling from the trees and kids playing football.

After Emily, Juliette and I read this book we talked about how the leaves on our trees were changing color and falling to the ground. I thought it would be fun to make our own fall leaf collage to go along with this book. Emily was very excited to go on a leaf hunt in the yard to find leaves for our project!

Emily picking up a leaf to put in her bucket.

I gave Emily watercolors to paint the paper for the leaf collage.

Emily glued the leaves onto the paper.

Emily's finished leaf collage.

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My Poor Little Girl

It all started with a trip to the pediatrician because Juliette felt warm and was just not acting like herself and ended up with a trip to the ER and a six day stay in the hospital.

Juliette had a 104 degree temperature and the Dr's couldn't figure out where it was coming from. We finally found out that she had a really bad Kidney Infection. I spent the next 5 days in the hospital with her waiting for her temperature to come down. She will still need more tests to find out what caused the infection in the first place, they think it might be a result of reflux.

The radiologist originally saw a blockage in the kidney that he said was a congenital defect, after the third ultrasound they did not see it anymore and he had no explanation as to where it went. All I could do was thank God!!

As I was sitting in the hospital waiting it put so many things into perspective for me. I am blessed with so many things in my life that I take for granted. I realized I would trade all the material things I had at that moment just for Juliette to be well again. I am so grateful for all that God has blessed me with and plan on enjoying every moment that I have together with them.

stART ~ The Stuborn Pumpkin

A Story + Art = A Great stART!
Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our book and art project and maybe even share your own too! For an explanation of stART click here.

This week we read The Stubborn Pumpkin, by Laura Geringer. This is a cute repetitive story about a farmer who tries to pull a gigantic pumpkin from the vine. He asks for help from his wife, daughter, cow, dog, cat and finally a little tiny mouse.

After reading this book we decided to make our own pumpkin. I asked Emily if she wanted to paint or glue. She was in a gluing mood so I got her some orange paper and glue to make a torn paper pumpkin.

Emily riped the orange construction paper into little pieces.

I cut a pumpkin shape from a piece of white card stock and Emily glued on the orange paper pieces.

I cut a green stem and Emily glued on the stem.

Emily's Torn Paper Pumpkin

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Kids in the Kitchen ~ Apple Cake

This week we made an Apple Cake. This recipe is from my church's cookbook. I still have a bunch of apples left from apple picking so I thought it would be fun to try this recipe out. We all enjoyed it and I thought it went really well with a cup of tea, it would have been even better with a scoop of ice cream if I was able to have some :0)

Emily adding in the sugar.

Emily greasing the pan.

Emily helping layer the apples on top of the batter.

Apple Cake

• 2 cups flour
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1 1/3 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup butter (I used 1/4 cup smart balance dairy free buttery blend and 1/4 cup applesauce)
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 4 large McIntosh apples

1. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time; then add vanilla
2. Add flour and baking powder.
3. Peel 4 apples. Core and cut each apple into 16 slices.
4. Place batter in spring form pan and arrange apples in a design on top (Emily just put them anywhere she wanted)
5. Cook for 55 minutes at 350 degrees.
6. After cake is cool, whisk together 3 tablespoons apple juice and about a 1/4 powdered sugar and dribble over the cake.

My Little Copy Cat

Let Me See Your Tongue!

This is probably Juliette's favorite game and it is so simple. She loves to copy! To play I just sit in front of her and make faces, stick out my tongue and say "Hello." She tries to copy almost all of the time even since she was only a few days old. Sometimes she actually sounds like she is saying "Hello" her mouth actually moves the way you would if you were saying it! Emily even likes to get in on the fun now and stick her tongue out to get Juliette to copy her.

Here is a clip of Juliette sticking out her tongue, I ask her where her tongue is and also show her mine. Usually by the third try she copies me.

Muffin Tin Monday...

...All About Emily

This weeks theme for Muffin Tin Monday is "All About Me" so we made a muffin tin lunch that tells you a little about Emily!

Emily's All About Me Muffin Tin Lunch!!

Top Row: Graham Cracker, Apple Butter and Marshmallow Heart since Emily's birthday is the day before Valentine's Day, #2 Peanut and Butter Sandwich since Emily is 2 years old, Apple slices with "God Made Me Special" and " Jesus Loves Me" picks since Emily is a child of God

Bottom Row: Green Yogurt since Emily's favorite color is green, Curly pasta since Emily has curly hair and is part Italian, Mango Applesauce since Mangoes are one of Emily's favorite fruits.

We will be working on some "All about Emily" projects later this week to continue this fun theme!

TOTSchool

Our week in TOTSchool

Emily is 31 months old.

This week we have been doing circle time in the morning. We sing the Days of the Week Song and then we put the day of the week word on the door. Since we have been talking about the letter Aa Emily was very excited to point out the letter Aa in each of the days of the week. We also talked about the weather each morning and put the correct weather card on the door. Then we sang some songs together. I brought Juliette over to sit in her bouncer and she actually started making sounds to sing along with us. The favorite song of the week was "Teddy Bear Teddy Bear" Emily enjoyed doing the different movements that go along with the song!

Emily enjoyed Music Class at my friend Sarah's house. We have been meeting for over a year now and Emily loves singing the songs and playing the instruments.

For our Unplugged Project we did a feather painting. Emily glued the feathers on when she finished her painting.

We got some new play dough toys and Emily has wanted to play with them almost every day. This sprinkle maker is now her new favorite!
We dyed eggshells for our open ended art project. Emily was so excited to fish the eggshells out once they were all colored. She did a great job with this, there were NO spills I was so amazed at how careful she was the whole time.

Emily and Daddy got to work on an Eggshell mosaic for our Open Ended Art project.


For our stART project this week we read "Do You Have a Hat" and "Go Dogs Go" and then we made our own paper hats and decorated them with Sequins and Spangles, stickers, feathers and markers. This was a great fine motor activity!

We have been working really hard to use up the 25.5 pounds of apples we got when we went apple picking. It has been a lot of fun trying lots of different apple recipes. This week we made an apple cake. Emily really liked being able to arrange the apples on top of the cake batter.


Emily got out her giant coloring book and was having fun coloring on the floor with Juliette. I loved how intently Juliette seemed to be watching Emily. I know she can't wait to join her in everything that we do!

Emily and I had fun singing "Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar" and I was actually able to get it recorded. We have done this song in our Music Class and Emily was asking me to sing it to her.

Our favorite books from this week:

• Do You Have a Hat? ~ Eileen Spinelli
• Go Dog Go ~ P.D. Eastman
• Sitting In My Box ~ Dee Lillegard
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? ~ Bill Martin Jr.

Check out the great things that others are doing in their TOTSchools by clicking the button on the top of this page!!

Open Ended Art ~ Mosaics with Eggshells

Emily's Eggshell Mosaic

This month's Open Ended Art theme is Mosaics. This weeks material is eggshells. We have been saving our eggshells for the past 2 weeks and had a huge bowl full. I was so excited for this project. Emily and I dyed them 8 different colors and glued them on a piece of construction paper.

Emily dropping the shells into the dye.

She did a great job scooping them out too!

The drying eggshells.

They made a beautiful design on the paper towels as they were drying.

Emily and I broke the eggshells into smaller pieces...

...and put them in our muffin tin.

(between Muffin Tin Monday and art projects my muffin tins are getting more use than ever before!!!)

Emily gluing the eggshells down.

Daddy came home from work and helped work on my project, Emily was very excited!

Emily's finished (for now) Mosaic.