Artwork

Sean and Clare bring home stacks and stacks of artwork and writing projects each week.  Sean's writing projects are getting really fun to read:

"Puppies are cute. I love them!  They are fluffy"  And the puppy is telling Sean he loves him.

"Before I am 100 years old, I want to be a video game designer"

"Abraham Lincoln was a great American because he is on Mount Rushmore!"

"I do not like Green and Eggs and Ham! I do not like them Sean I am!  But I would eat... meat on a feet!"

And Clare brought them home in her February artwork packet - I complimented her cute little George Washington craft and she tartly told me that it is not our first president but an ELF!

Last weekend

My oh my was it cold last weekend!  Luckily we had a lot of indoor plans to keep us busy.  Clare went to a bowling birthday party for one of her classmates...

Saturday night, we enjoyed a visit from Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Mary for a little Valentine's Day party.  The kids were up pretty late so we stayed indoors and cozy Sunday morning with specially-shaped pancakes to celebrate Valentine's Day :-)

I took the kids for a quick trip to the library (hence, Clare wearing pajamas and the bed-head hair) but the librarian started to bring out crafting supplies and the kids settled in for some Valentine's crafting fun:

After we came back from the library, the kids watched a movie and played while Thom John and I got to work on a very special project - splitting up the kids' bedroom!  Now they sleep in their own rooms!  We're still organizing and we need to get Sean a big bed (he's still in a toddler bed!!!) but once we do that I'll be sure to show room makeover pictures!

The kids had off on Monday so we went on a jaunt to Barnes & Noble - Clare earned a new book from her sticker chart.  Of course, the kids ignored the books and beelined over to the Thomas table.  They played for a good long time before it was time to go home (in the snow!) and eat lunch and take a lovely, long nap.

When we woke up, we had snacks and go ready for work and school on Tuesday :-)

Crafting and a new snack

When picking up our CSA box last Saturday, the farm had out samples of red, orange, and yellow watermelon.  Clare decided she liked yellow the best and Sean wasn't really a fan of any of them - he's more of a cantaloupe kind of guy...

After we get our "farm box" and whatever else (e.g., extra tomatoes and white sweet corn), we got ice cream!

We went home with a yellow watermelon, btw - it tastes just like a regular watermelon but it's yellow. Strange.  But tasty.

The kids got to work putting together a birdhouse kit and painting it - they we so nice to each other despite sitting in the same chair (which could have gone very badly)

We also did this melted crayon canvas craft - we hot glued crayons to a canvas and then melted the crayons with a hair dryer.  Once the desired level and pattern of melty-ness was achieved, the canvases were done.  Note - the crayon will SPLATTER everywhere.  This is an outdoor/garage craft for sure.

To Catch a Leprechaun

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, Sean's teacher assigned an optional project - a leprechaun trap!  I asked Sean if he wanted to make one and he said yes! After we brainstormed together and I searched the Internet for ideas, we decided on a design. The design was also influenced by a tip from Sean's grandpa that leprechauns are not very good climbers unless they have a ladder :-)  Essentially, we'd lure a leprechaun with pennies as bait to the trap and up a ladder leading the leprechaun to the top of a tall oatmeal tub, and then the leprechaun would fall in and be stuck!

With Clare helping, we started with an empty oatmeal tub and began to paint it green...

...and then we took a short break for some drama over who got to use the purple paintbrush (hint: it wasn't Clare):

That didn't last too long and soon we were all calm and painting the tub green together :-)  Once it was painted, we set it aside to dry and focused our attention on the bait - shiny pennies!  But we didn't have any pennies that were super-shiny, so we took a little science break to shine up our pennies.  First, we made a solution of white vinegar and salt.

Next, we soaked 4 or 5 pennies at a time for about 10 seconds.  

Then, we rinsed the pennies in water.  

And finally, we dried them off and polished them until they shined bright enough to attract leprechauns.

After this, the kids messed around with the water for awhile before lunch and nap.  After nap, I took Clare to the craft store for some more decorations for the trap.

Later that evening, Sean started on the ladder...

...and the next morning, we got busy decorating the trap and setting the bait.

We added a rainbow for a bit of insurance that the leprechaun would follow the trail of pennies up the ladder to the rainbow.

And in case the leprechaun should approach the trap from the back, Sean wrote out a sign:

Finally! The trap is complete and ready for Sean to take to school on Monday.  On Tuesday afternoon, he told me that his trap caught not one but TWO leprechauns!  He was so pleased!

 And a picture of our little cuties ready for school (and parties) on St. Patrick's Day:

100 Days

Seany has his 100th day of school on Tuesday (if it doesn't snow, that is).  To celebrate, he and his classmates were assigned their very first school project to do: find 100 of something and present it in a creative way.  Sean thought and thought about what to bring - make a lego ship with 100 pieces?   A necklace made of 100 pieces of macaroni?  A shirt with 100 buttons on it?  Then Sean looked over at the kitchen counter and saw the bucket in which we keep his collection of applesauce caps!  He figured there must be 100 caps and he was right - the bucket had over 100 caps in it!  

Once it was time to make the poster, we dumped the caps out onto the floor and Sean sorted the caps by color and shape...

Then, he counted out 100 caps by making ten rows of ten...

Meanwhile, Clare cut pictures out of magazines - one of her favorite pastimes while Sean is doing schoolwork...

 

After sorting and counting the caps, it was time to glue them onto a piece of poster paper.  I thought Sean was going to glue them in their ten rows of ten, but then Sean suggested making the number 100 out of the 100 caps - brilliant!  So we got busy gluing and arranging the caps.  Once that was done we painted with a little glitter glue to make the poster snazzy and then it was done!

Gingerbread House

For the past couple of Christmases, Sean has asked to make a gingerbread house - this year, I finally remembered to pick up a kit before all that was left were broken kits :-)  

We set up the materials from the kit (plus some extras we received at the Ship Bottom Christmas parade):

"Mmmmm it smells like gingerbread!"

The kids helped set up the walls...

...and the roof and then they "patiently" waited for the icing to dry before they got started decorating the house!

The kids decorated it almost all by themselves - they only asked for help a few times when they needed fresh icing to help the candy stick to the house...

And the finished product - they were so proud of themselves!

Some detail shots before the kids started to dismantle the house after lunch :-)