If you read this blog from time to time, you know that our group of friends like to do harmless, yet decorative,
pranks at each others homes. A few weeks ago, we decided to decorate our friend
Lynne's yard for her 40th birthday. We wanted to do something unique - no pink flamingos or tombstones(that's for her 50th!). Lynne is a British expatriate so we thought we'd have our own little tea party in her yard.
We used 99 British flags for the lawn and 100 tea bags for the tree. Luckily it wasn't raining or we would have stained their yard! We'd wanted to have giant cut outs of the Royal family but couldn't find any and didn't really feel like trying to make them. Lynne's daughter and husband decorated the windows and her car with washable paint too! All in all, we think it turned out rather nicely and Lynne said it was a fun surprise.
Just wanted to post some pictures from our trip to the
Riverwalk in Naperville this weekend. It was a terrific day to go and the kids were quite photogenic.
Here's the motley crew in front of the Dandelion Fountain - Little Boy Blue, Boo, Smiles, Bubba and Ebabe. Bug was too busy throwing a tantrum to participate in this photo!
Landforms sculpture, located just off of Jackson and Eagle Streets.
Ebabe watching the ducks on the river below. This was taken on one of the covered footbridges across the DuPage River.
Lilies in bloom.
Bug spent much time looking up at the sky and then contemplating about a leaf she'd found.
Meanwhile, Ebabe decided to try her hand at climbing trees...
Boo and her cousin Bubba taking a quick rest.
A pine cone - tranquil serenity.
So, after realizing that this is the longest I have not been pregnant in 9 years, I have been a little bit sad. Not sad enough to really contemplate having another one (well, not REALLY) but still nostalgic. As Ebabe grows, we have given away or sold many of our infant toys, the swing, the exersaucers, the tiny cute little shoes, the double stroller... Now, after a week at Kid's Club (VBS at our church) with a wonderful nursery worker & friend, she is day time potty trained and I realize that in a short time we will not have a little potty in every bathroom. AND, she's 2 1/2, still in her crib and is probably more than ready for a big kid bed. *SIGH*
What brought on this post? These shoes!
We had my SIL and her 3 children over for a long weekend. At a garage sale on Friday, I found a pair of crocs in the next size Ebabe would need and brought them home thinking I'd feed her
shoe fetish and that they'd fit her soon. Well, they fit her NOW. After a year of almost constant wear (she refused to wear any other shoes or boots for about 6 months!), we passed Ebabe's pink croc knock-offs to her younger cousin. For some reason that makes me a bit sad! Atleast they are going to Smiles who has as much of a shoe fetish as Ebabe!
Every year we go through our crayon collection and pull out the small broken pieces. Not wanting to just throw them away, I try to come up with some fun or interesting things to do with them. This year, we decided to try to use the sun to melt the crayons into a crayon candle.
We used an old jelly jar, many crayon pieces and some candle wicking.
Step one entailed my two helpers peeling all the crayon papersoff of the crayons and breaking them into smaller pieces. Next we put the crayons in rainbow order into the jar, carefully dangling the wick into the jar as we piled the crayons in. I tied the top end of the wick onto a pencil to help hold it taut. Then we decided to use the 100+ degree sun to melt the wax.
It took about 5 hours in the hot sun to get it mostly melted. I put it on top of a sheet of tin foil to help hasten the melting. It worked.
We lit it and enjoyed the warm glow and waxy scent for a few minutes before the wick burned out. We relit it and had a few more minutes before it burned out again.
All in all, I think it was an educational experience about solar heat and color combinations. One side of the jar melted the colors into a lovely black goo, while the other just melted the colors into color pools. The kids had a good time and felt that they were doing a good thing recycling the crayons into something useful.
My parents sang at Carnegie Hall last weekend. If you'd like to read about it, check out my
sister-in-law's blog as she writes much more eloquently than I do. I flew out for a very short weekend, arriving in NYC around midnight and leaving Sunday morning. Even though it was a quick trip, I had a blast! It was wonderful and I can't put the trip into words well. So, instead you can just view my pictoral of last Saturday.
Several billboards in Times Square were advertising Michigan.
Lunch at the Stardust Diner, where the servers are aspiring Broadway stars and sing on the the counters!
Vertical parking
One of the tributes at St. Paul's Chapel - just outside the World Trade Center area
Ground Zero
Building details
Skyscrapers and blue skies!
Ground Zero Cross
Sculpture in the City Hall Park
City Hall Park fountain
Carnegie Hall
Atlas statue in Rockefeller Plaza
Times Square at night (or early morning, as the case may be!)
No alleys in NYC - all trash and recycling goes on the street every night. Such a lovely sight...
Our hotel at about 2am.
My family loves cinnamon rolls and other sticky, gooey breakfast foods. When I saw this
recipe on the
Pioneer Woman blog, I just knew we'd have to try it.
Here's the gist of the recipe...
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 sticks of butter
2-3 teaspoons cinnamon
3 cans of Buttermilk Biscuits (the non-flaky ones)
1 cup sugar
Preheat oven to 350.
Open the biscuits and have your helper cut each one into quarters.
While she's cutting, in a gallon size bag, mix cinnamon and sugar. Have your 2nd helper add the pieces of biscuit to the mix in the bag. When they are all in, seal the bag and gently shake until all the pieces are coated.
While your helper is doing this, melt the butter in a sauce pan. Add the brown sugar and stir until carmelized. Now, back to our helper... Put biscuit pieces into a bundt pan. Pour brown sugar mixture over the top. Bake for 30 minutes (or until the top is a golden brown).
Your teeth are getting cavities just looking at this photo but it's totally worth it! The kids LOVED the monkey bread and want to make it again as soon as possible.
So for Boo's main teacher, who is getting married this summer, we created a pencil vase and added some pretty flowers. The hope is that she will use the pencils next fall for her next class of 2nd graders. We're looking forward to doing this again with colored pencils, crayons and markers next year.
To make the vase, use a soup can (label-free), orange juice container or other plastic container and put two rubber bands around it. Simply slide the pencils under the rubber bands. Voila! Ready for flowers. Just be sure to carry it with one hand underneath the vase.
For our teachers this year, I decided to try my hand at this simple project I saw at
Just A Girl. Personalized hand sanitizer bottles! I bought small bottles of hand sanitizer at Target (and some from Meijer since Target only had 4) and peeled off the labels. I used some
GooGone to clean off the sticky areas, then washed the bottles with soap and water. Once they were dry, I used stickers and rub-ons (mostly Heidi Grace). I tried to match up the quote or decoration with the subject taught or with teacher personality. I finished off the decorating with ribbon on the top and a tag (or gift card).
I made a total of 8 of these for various teachers. I only have pictures of a few since Boo got confused, grabbed some of them off the counter and took them to school before I was completely done with them (aka they didn't have ribbons and tags). Here's what the few I got pictures of look like.
For our preschool music teacher (Boo's music teacher got one that was similar):
front...
...and back
For Bug's teacher:
The last one pictured was for one of Boo's specials teachers.
