Baaaaa

March 30, 2011 One day last week while in the car, Madeline (out of the blue) said, "Mommy, Easter is about Jesus. I want to make an Easter craft so I can hang it up so everyone can see that Easter is about Jesus." My heart melted as I said, "As soon as we get home!" (and Ethan's asleep!) We had recently checked out a book from the library called "Easter Crafts," so while I was getting Ethan settled in for his nap, Madeline looked through to pick out what she wanted to make. This day, she picked the lamb.

Today's Tidbits

Madeline loves anything crafty! and she spends hours a day dreaming up crafts and constructing them. First thing this morning, she wanted to make a mask. She asked for a plate and told me where to cut a few holes, then she got to decorating. When she was finished, she asked me to attached some string so she could wear it. I follow directions well, and did as I was politely asked. Then she got into character:
Growling and laughing at the same time:

On Tuesday, the kids and I went with our Moms' group to a park we haven't visited before, Reed Creek Park. It was beautiful and very close. A lady did some songs, stories, lessons and a nature walk with our group. It was a wonderful morning!! Madeline and Ethan decorated these leaves:

Wednesday, Madeline spent some time over her friend, Mariah's house. I'm sure Madeline was in her glory when she saw the fun craft they were going to get to do!!!

Last week, while my friend Renee was visiting, I was showing her how to sew one of these little snack bags. I already had some dinosaur fabric cut, so when I was done making it, it became Ethan's bag. He's used it every day now and Madeline really wanted one of her own. So this afternoon, I let her pick out a piece of fabric and "help" me sew her one. Here they are having a snack from their new bags (typically these are the bags I'd keep in my purse for when we're out):

Just because I think it's funny how much I made, here's a picture of the chili I made for Doug (and Ethan) tonight. It was my first attempt, and I was just following a recipe. The recipe apparently was sized for a competition my friend was in that had 50+ tasters. Doug now has enough chili to last him the winter!

They both played with Lego's for so long today, I had to snap a picture before interrupting them to prepare for bed:

I love our family :)

Clean up, Clean up, Everybody, Everywhere

While Daddy and Madeline were out running some errands, Ethan and I decided we would clean up the guest room as well as organize my sewing stuff (which had multiplied and disbursed throughout the house). Ethan was actually very helpful...in that he just played with his toys in the room with me. He was very excited once I was done with the project. Like most kids, he loves a room that has just been cleaned ;)
Ethan saw me get the camera and prepare to take a picture, so he ran in front of me, squatted down, and gave me this look:
See how nice and neat the spools of thread were:

He played with the spools of thread for an hour. Never unwinding them...just carrying them around, stacking them, trying to put them back...

...and wandering off with them:

But he's so darn cute, that who cares:

Our little artist

Following in her Aunt Amy's, Uncle Joe's, Grandfather's and Great Grandfather's footsteps (certainly not mine!), our little princess loves art. At any moment of the day she wants to be drawing, coloring or painting. In fact, I needed to run up to the grocery store tonight and she wanted to join me, but before we left she "needed to draw a picture real quick for the lady." She drew a picture of herself, wrote her name on it and brought it with her to the grocery store. I wasn't sure which lady she had in mind, or if she even had any particular lady in mind. But indeed she did, she made the picture for the lady at the cash register. The [young] lady loved it! Madeline decided that next time she would draw a picture for "the lady" and another one for "the little boy" (the guy who takes our groceries out to the car).

Mudpuppies

On Monday, we went to Little Friends Gym with my friend, Sarrah, and her kids, Owen and Holland. We were also pleasantly surprised to meet up with my friend, Arrika, and her daughter, Adilyn. Anyway, Sarrah and I decided to take our little ones aside for Mudpuppies to do a quick little craft. This day they had the choice to paint a Christmas Tree or a Teddy Bear with a Santa hat. Owen and Madeline chose the Christmas tree and I helped Ethan choose the teddy bear. Yes, Ethan was going to attempt to paint!
Here is the crew listening to the directions (they were given three paint brushes and three colors. One paint brush to be used for each color!):
Here's Ethan eating some snacks so that his hands were busy and he wouldn't break another Teddy Bear ornament:

Madeline thinking carefully about which color she was going to use first:

Ethan needed a lot of assistance from Mommy (mainly to keep the paint brush from going in his mouth):

Madeline and Owen worked really hard on their ornaments!

...and Ethan just kept trying (and succeeding) to eat paint:

For a quick second he did get the technique down:

The finished product: (Ok, so I'm not a great photographer and I only captured the backs of their ornaments. But trust me, they did a great job):

After all their hard word, we accidentally left their artwork there!!! We're going to go back tomorrow to hopefully pick them up!

My attempt at being Green (and cheap)

The kids have been really into Thomas recently, as well as climbing in and out of boxes. So I decided that when the ladies came over on Saturday night for Craft Night, I would attempt to make a Thomas rather than scrapbook (since I usually can't concentrate well on the scrapbooks).
I used a diaper box, construction paper (that had been scribbled on as you can see), and a paper towel roll. Here is the finished product:
Ethan found the smoke pipe quite interesting:

..and since he's one...he tore it off!

but he wasn't too sure he should have done that...

...so he tried to put it back on:

Can you see Madeline's reaction in the background?? She couldn't wait for her turn!!

She managed to fit in it too!

A pretty fun, new toy that didn't cost a dime!

The Harkins' 6/16/09 and 6/17/09

During our trip to Maryland, we stayed at Doug's folks' house (Thanks Roger and Liz!). Doug's younger brother, his wife, and their two kids live there too, so it was a pretty kid friendly house :) Liam, our nephew, has a his very own playroom (previously know as the sun room), so it was great for our kids to have a big room full of toys to keep them entertained and happy. However, Eric, Sarah, Liam and Analee went to the beach for the week, so our kids didn't have any playmate for the week. Overall the stay was very nice, but on our second night of staying at their house, Madeline had a little bit of a meltdown at bedtime, crying saying that she wanted to go home. At got her calmed down with a snack, but shortly after that she went crying to the door saying she wanted to go for a ride in the car to go home. We think our poor little girl was homesick and driving around to see people she didn't know. We decided to just stay at the house the next and have a day of playing! This seemed to cure everything and all was happy :)
My mother-in-law and Ethan:
Here is Doug's little sister, Mary, painting with Madeline. Madeline really enjoys her Aunt Mary and asks to call her quite often...but it's usually early in the morning when I know Aunt Mary wouldn't appreciate it :)

It was perfect timing that we happen to be at the house when Doug's Great Uncle Paul stopped by to drop something off at the house. It's always great to see Father Paul!! He married Doug and I and baptised Madeline and Ethan. He's retiring now and we wish him a happy retirement!

Here's a great picture of Uncle Paul, Double-O-Doug (what Uncle Paul calls him), and Ethan:

Mom-Mom showed Madeline how to make brownies. Madeline had soooo much fun, so I've made it a point to have her help me in meal preparations since then. She loves helping!

The blender scared her a little bit. Maybe I need to pull mine out and dust it off?

The best part!!

Thanks Mom-Mom!

Out and About Again

Now that Mommy and the kiddies are healthy again we started getting out of the house again. Yesterday, we started bright and early with painting (per Madeline's request).

Ethan loves watching Madeline do anything. Here we were watching her paint.

After painting we packed up and went to Kindergym which we just found out they renamed Little Friends Gym. We love going there occasionally because it's just a big gym full of toys and Madeline usually meets a friend or two. Ethan is just now getting to the point that he can play with some of the stuff.

At the same place we go to to play in the gym, they also do a little craft on certain days that is perfect for 2-3 year-olds. This is only the second time we tried it. Madeline did awesome!! She made a turtle and was SO proud of it. I think I may buy or make a shadow box to place the piece of art.

This morning we went to the YMCA in Augusta again for a "field trip" with our moms' group. Madeline has a blast playing on/with all the gymnastics equipment!

We ended the day relaxing at the computer playing her "mouse game."

Fun, Fun, Fun

Madeline was willing to let me take a picture of her in her outfit, but only if Penny was in the picture with her. She's just like her mommy and daddy...not comfortable being the center of attention.

Renee gave me the idea to bring in our water/sand table from outside (which required a LOT of cleaning!!). We filled it with a bunch of different types of noodles. I ended up taking a bunch out because as you can see in this picture, it was overflowing. Renee put beans in Emily's table. Madeline has been having a lot of fun with this "new" toy. Fortunately, she's at an age now where she understands the rules we set in place. The main rule is that the noodles stay in the table. She's pretty good about it because if they end up on the floor, Penny gets them and chews them up...not leaving our princess very happy. We played many rounds of "Where's Sally?" and "Where's McQueen?" yesterday. Do YOU see Sally?

Madeline's friend, Mariah, was visiting yesterday, so we made necklaces. Well, actually Mariah made a pretty necklace and Madeline sorted the different colors and shapes. Mariah is about a year and a half older so she was awesome at the hand-eye coordination. Madeline watched her and tried and tried, but finally just decided to sort :) Ethan was a little fussy-gus so I wasn't able to help her much. We'll work on it more this weekend :)

Painting!

Madeline was so excited to get a chance to paint again today. We picked up some little wood shapes at JoAnn's to give her something to paint other than her hands. She LOVED it! As my friend Renee suggested, I tried giving her a paintbrush that matched each paint color so that the colors could stay separate. To my amazement she did very well with this idea...she would actually get a little upset if the colors got mixed.

Mommy colored each petal of the flower and colored the center yellow. Madeline asked to see the flower and drew a mouth and two eyes!!! I was shocked! It looked so good...for about 10 seconds before she painted all over it...oh well.

Here she is drawing one of her favorite things...a circle. She wanted a brown circle and a green one.

She was so excited to see a birdhouse at JoAnn's. She did a great job painting it. She wanted Mommy to help her with the birdhouse...I guess it was a little overwhelming.