Chunky crayons

Here's another fun, simple project

If you're like me, you have a bunch of crummy crayons lying around.

 Occupy the kids for a good long while by asking them to peel of the paper.

 When they're done, have the kids sort them by color.  Then break the crayons up (they don't even have to be even this small), keeping them sorted.

Then arrange them into an old muffin pan or USE METALLIC LINERS in a muffin pan you want to still use and don't want to mess around for a half hour getting residual crayon off of.  You can keep them all the same color or make multi-colored ones.

Melt the crayons in a 250 degree oven for about ten minutes.  When they're melted, stick them in the freezer to firm back up.  When they're ready, they'll just pop right out.

I help, too.

Luke and Ally now both love to help me cook.  As soon as I'm making something in the kitchen, they run in, pull over the chairs from the little table and climb up to help.  

It's not always pretty.  It gets messy.  But I love it.

School

My twins have reached that age.  

That age where they realize they are missing something that when the big girls leave for school with out them.

And thankfully that age where they enjoy doing projects...sometimes without crying or screaming or fighting over who gets which paint brush.

They were so angry they couldn't go to school on Monday, we had our own little school at home.

Cinnamon applesauce ornaments

This is my absolute favorite holiday project of all time!  

I've done it for over ten years.  First with classrooms full of kids in school, then with Sunday School classes, and now I've been doing it with my own kids.  This year, we made presents for the neighbors, in lieu of cookies.

This project is so adaptable.  You can make them in any shape.  You can make them into ornaments or group them together for wall hangings.  

It's quick, it's easy, it doesn't require anything too sharp or too hot for little ones, it makes your house smell wonderful, and the product lasts for years, even retaining the delicious smell!

Recipe

All you need is: 

applesauce

cinnamon

Elmer's glue

cookie cutters

a few straws

ribbon

rolling pin

waxed paper

Simply mix together equal parts applesauce (drained just a little in a mesh strainer) and cinnamon (don't waste your Penzey's spices, cheap stuff works perfectly) with 1/4 part Elmer's all-purpose glue.  (For example: 1 cup applesauce, 1 cup cinnamon, 1/4 cup glue)

Stir until it's the consistency of a thick dough.  (If it's too runny, add more cinnamon.  If it is too crumbly, add more applesauce.)

Then roll it out to about 1/4 inch thickness and cut out whatever shapes you want, just like cut out cookies.  Set the shapes on cookie sheets and make a hole in the top with your straw.

You can then let them dry about 24-36 hours, flipping every 8-12 hours.  Or you can bake them in your oven at 180 degrees Fahrenheit  for about an hour and a half or so, flipping every 20 minutes. 

After they're thoroughly dry, hang them from the ribbon.

Oh, Tannenbaum!

Now that Kate is involved, our loose tradition of putting up the tree the weekend after Thanksgiving is set in stone.  By the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, out of nowhere, Kate was telling the other kids we'd be putting up the Christmas tree on Saturday.  

And so it was.

I love this picture.  It wasn't posed.  Isn't it sweet?

Chair!

When Luke and Ally saw me getting myself some tea this morning, they asked for some, too, and not in a plastic cup, mind you, but in a mug.  As soon as they got their mugs, they began to gently click them together saying, "Chair!  Chair!"

Today's "Oh, Anna" moment

Anna said, "I know something.  Baby flowers come out of the ground... not out of bellies, because they don't have bellies...  Right?"

The role of Herod...

Kate and Anna are reenacting the events of Jesus' birth. The role of Herod is being played by Strawberry Shortcake.

Even more ironic, is what has led to this moment.

Every year I've searched for a nativity scene to buy, one that can withstand the kids playing with it and also meets all my other qualifications.  I've always gotten frustrated and given up.

This year, I persevered.  I decided to go for the Fischer Price Little People nativity scene.  It seemed like it was the sturdiest with the most play value.  The problem is it included the three wise men but not the shepherds.  Other years, this has dissuaded me from buying it, out of principle if not practicality.  The thing is, in all Biblical accounts the three wise men didn't even visit Jesus in the stable, (They visited him very much later in a house.) but the shepherds did, so why would they have the wise men but not the shepherds.

This year I bit the bullet.  I forked out the money for the nativity scene and additionally bought a set of  shepherds.  I'd thought of using other Little People figures for the shepherds, but I wanted them dressed in appropriate Biblical attire.  We had a Noah's ark set, but that only included Noah and his wife, and a woman would not have been a shepherd back then.

When the shepherds arrived, I was irritated to find that the set labeled "Shepherds" (plural!) only had one shepherd.  I thought it was an error in packaging, but that was the way it comes.  Stupid Fischer, stupid Price.  Well, I went and dug up Noah to play the second shepherd and everything was set.

We read through the gospels in their children's Bibles and pieced together the whole story.  The angel appears to Mary and then to Joseph.  Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem for the census.  Jesus is born in a stable there and they lay him in a manger.  The angel appears to the Shepherds, and they visit Jesus.  Herod hears of the birth of a king asks the wise men about it.  The wise men visit Jesus.  Joseph learns Jesus in danger, and they move to Nazereth.

The children decided to reenact this with the Little People and realized they had one missing character.  Herod.  Because authenticity is obviously not as important to them as to me, they let a Strawberry Shortcake doll stand in.

Today's "Oh, Anna!" moment

Yesterday evening, after dinner, I was giving Anna a little cuddle before I got ready to go teach my class.  Her weight pulled my shirt collar down.  She looked at the exposed edge of my bra and started to reach for it, but I moved her hand away and repositioned her and my shirt.

A few minutes later, I went upstairs to go get ready.  I was in my closet when Anna came upstairs and asked me if I could bend down by her.  I crouched down, thinking she was going to tell me a secret.  I turned my head, so she could whisper in my ear, but she didn't come closer.  Instead, she reached her hand out, pulled the collar of my shirt down, exposing my bra and shouted, "Breasties!" and ran off laughing.

I'd be really worried, but she apparently acts very appropriately in school.

Today's "Oh, Anna" moment

Anna's class had a Thanksgiving feast this morning.  While Anna was eating, she asked for butter for her bread, and I told her there wasn't any.  Then she commented, "I don't really like this cornbread."

I told her, "It's not cornbread, it's just a whole wheat roll.  Mommy can make you some cornbread soon, though.  Daddy loves it."

I went to clear some of the other kids' plates, and when I returned, Anna was standing a little ways away from her spot next to another dad who was there.  He looked at Anna and then at me and told me, chuckling, "Your daughter made you some cornbread."


I looked down at Anna, she was holding her roll out to me, with three pieces of corn shoved into the side of it.

I laughed.

"Try it," she insisted, "Try it!"

I reluctantly complied.  "Oh, wow," I commented, "I guess this is cornbread."

"Yeah," she explained, "I tried it and didn't like it at all, so I thought you should try some."

Everybody.... Oh, Anna.

Oh, Anna

Oh, Anna.

I find myself saying this every single day.

Sometimes Anna is crying hysterically, angry about something small, and I'll mutter, "Oh, Anna."

Other times, she does something ridiculously funny, and I laugh so hard that tears brim up my eyes,  and I gasp in between giggles, "Oh, Anna!"

Lately when Anna wants something and I don't comply, she's been telling me that I'm hurting her heart.  She's added recently that her heart was bleeding.

Anna wants more walnuts for snack, but I tell her to wait for dinner.  "You're hurting my heart, Mom.  My heart is bleeding."

"Oh, Anna."

The other day, Anna and I were talking and I said, "But..." and trialed off.  Anna pulled down her pants to expose one of her cheeks and said, "You said 'butt'!"

"Oh... Anna!"

We recently broke it to Anna that Kate would be having a special outing with Grandma to celebrate her birthday.  Upon learning this, Anna immediately declared, "Nobody loves me with this nonsense!  This is one hundred and fifty five million ridicule!"

"Oh, Anna."

This morning Ally and I were talking.  I said, "Is Luke your sister or your brother?"

She replied, "My brother."

"What about Kate?  Is she your sister or brother?"

"My brother," she guessed.

I said, "No, Kate's your sister.  What is Anna?"

Ally replied, with confidence, "Anna is funny."

She got that one right the first try.

"Here's what I want to do..."

Anna is going to a birthday party for a friend from school tomorrow.  I realized we didn't yet have a gift.  I said to her, "Anna do you want to make Evi a hat for her birthday tomorrow?"

Anna looked like a lightbulb went off in her head, and she said, gesturing with her fingers to really make her point, "Well, here's what I want to do:  I want to pretend that I made it.  And tell her that I made it.  But I really don't want to make it at all.  That's what I want to do."

Lo Hisimos!

Luke was potty trained in July, but aside from once that very first day of potty training, he didn't poop in a toilet until Monday...this past Monday.  It was such a block for him.  He just couldn't do it.  He was scared to death.  I tried talking to him about it, sitting with him, holding him while he was on the toilet, and bribes.  So many bribes.

Finally, a combination of all of them (one of them being a really good bribe, a stupidly huge Hello Kitty doll from Costco) worked on Monday after three and a half months.  Three and a half months of at least one poop a day.  About a hundred pairs of underwear washed, aside from the few days I'd just had too much and threw the underwear away.  I know, I know, there are starving children in Africa who could use those underwear.  Well, they wouldn't have wanted these pairs.

 After his first success, he's had two more.  I'm hoping three is a charm!

Long hair freaky people need not apply

I went to read to Anna's class last week.  When I came home, I was telling Dave about it, and I mentioned this one little girl who kept saying she couldn't see and kept moving closer and closer.  Later, we were looking at the pictures on the class blog and I pointed out the girl, saying, "Oh, this is the little girl who ended up practically sitting on my feet."

He said, "That kid?  That's William, Kristal!"

"No," I exclaimed, "Are you sure?"  I looked closer, and, sure enough, under his shoulder-length golden locks, was a boyish shirt and, unmistakably, boy shoes.

Dave shook his head and said, "That's it.  We're cutting Luke's hair tomorrow!"  I gave a sheepish grin, hoping he didn't mean it.  He shook his head more and continued, "I mean, you, the mother of a boy with long hair, thought another boy with long hair was a girl."

I liked it like this.

And the way it's been since his trim last month really even that long anymore.

Insightful statement of the day?

Kate and I are sewing a hat together.  I've been struggling with my sewing machine for days.  It's skipping stitches and the thread keeps tearing.  I have been seeking a solution.  I've changed the needle, reinserted the bobbin, rethread the bobbin, and rethread the top thread.

Today Kate was sewing and the thread balled up and broke again.  I thought of one of the things I'd read on the web about possible solutions, and I took out the thread, saying, "Ugh!  There's one more possibility.  It might just be this crummy thread Oma got me.  Let's just try a different thread."  Kate asked, "Was the other thread bad?"  I said, "It might be."  And Kate said, "Oh, yeah, because Oma likes things that are cheap."

My poor thrifty mom.  She can't catch a break.

My new artist

Anna was never very into drawing until a few months ago.  She gave up naps then in favor of downtime, where she has some time alone in the playroom listening to books on CD.

She's decided she only wants to listen to Magic Tree House books and she draws up a storm.

She began drawing in just one color, but now she uses many colors and her drawing is amazing.  I find it a little psychedelic, too.

From her single color phase.

She also likes to give many of her subjects funky hats.  Here's one of the first.

She likes to cut out creatures and boats, yes boats, too.  Here's a creature.

Just try to tell me it's not psychedelic.

Here's a pool of Elmos.  If you weren't already convinced there was something psychedelic about her art...

So, lately, when Anna does things that are... out of the ordinary... that's one way to put it... I say, "That's because Anna's artistic."  

This morning, I was going through her rack (where they hang clothes that have been worn but are still clean) and half of them weren't just dirty, but disgusting.  I asked her, "Anna, are you looking to see if they're dirty before you hang them up?"  

She said, "Of course, I am, Mom."  

I found even more dirty clothes.  I asked, "Anna, why are you hanging up clothes that are so dirty?"

She said, "Mom, I'm hanging up clothes that are dirty, because I'm an artist."