Rainbow popsicle stick boxes

Hello spring break and hello freezing cold weather!  Hopefully it warms up yet this week - not feeling like spring at all yet. :P

Annika's birthday party is coming up in about 2 weeks, so this morning we did a "test drive" of the craft that I'm planning for the kids to do.  The theme of the party is "rainbows", so I thought these little popsicle stick "treasure chests" would fit the bill nicely.  I want to get some of those chocolate "gold coins" for the treasure to go inside.

I found the rainbow colored craft sticks at the dollar store, however, I may invest in some higher quality sticks for the actual party, since there were quite a few warped ones which made them difficult to glue together.  The craft was a little beyond Emmett (he was good at putting on the glue, but I had to help him with layering the sticks properly), but Annika got the hang of it right away.  It took her about 20 minutes to put together her box, which should be a good length for the party.  I also had fun making one. ;)

After the glue dried we were going to decorate them with stickers and some glitter, but after Emmett dumped almost a full container of glitter on the table and floor (and everywhere else), I decided that there was absolutely no way that I would be using glitter at the party, so we weren't going to use it today either.  We just stuck with the glittery letter stickers.  For the party I may get some other little jewel stickers, etc to make them fancy.

Annika gave the craft a "thumbs up", and I think it should be manageable to do with the kids at the party, so I guess the morning was a success (plus it kept the kids busy for half an hour - I have a feeling this may be a loooong week).

First of the season

And someone is eager to learn how...

Tasting day

Emmett's preschool class has been learning about the 5 senses, and yesterday was "tasting day" (or as Annika referred to it, "the best day ever").  The kids got to taste something sweet (gummy bears), sour (sour patch kids), spicy (BBQ rice cakes), salty (pretzels) and bitter (craisins) and then rate each item on their chart with a happy face or a "yucky" face.  Emmett liked everything but the craisins.  Then, when we were sitting in the car after school, waiting to pick up Annika, he showed me the different faces he made when tasting everything.  What a goof.

Bandana scarves

Yee-haw!

I've been knitting a lot of bandana scarves lately.  I've been using this pattern, which by now I almost know by heart!  It all started on our trip to Phoenix, where I made this red scarf for myself.

Then, I decided that I liked the pattern so much and wanted to do it again (to practice the new things that I figured out the first go round), so I made another one.  This one ended up a little longer (on the first one I was worried about running out of yarn, so I made it a little smaller than the pattern said), so it drapes a little more.

Then Annika decided that she needed a pink bandana scarf, since she's been obsessed with "Sheriff Callie" lately (a TV character on Disney Junior) and loves playing cowgirl.  I wanted the scarf to be smaller (of course), but also lighter, since she wanted it for dress-up and I didn't want to use heavy, chunky wool that would get too hot.  My first attempt didn't quite work out how I planned and Annika said it was too big for her.

So, back to the needles, and I tried again.  This time it came out just right for my little cowgirl.

And of course, my little cowboy then needed one too. ;)

If anyone is interested in how I changed the pattern to make the kids' scarves, I can write it out (assuming I remember what I did!), but I figured it would probably just bore most of you, so I won't bother with the details for now.

Wooden peg dolls for Emmett

I FINALLY finished this set of guys for Emmett.  I did the doctor, policeman and electrician (styled a la Carey) for him for Christmas 2012 and I did the Jets player just before Christmas last year, and just finished the "Emmett" guy yesterday.

This little guy was, of course, inspired by...

... this little guy and his favorite sweater (the color of the stripes on the doll looks sort of red-ish, but it's really more orange in real life).

 This sweater has been quite the inspiration for me - it also inspired this scarf and this hat.

What can I say, the boy loves his orange!

 

Outside

Took advantage of the nice weather this afternoon. However I think we were a little late in the day for making a snowman, as it wasn't working too well for us (but we did manage a little one).

I'm back

It's been quiet around here lately because we've been away on vacation.  We were in Phoenix from Feb 21 - Mar 4.  It was a good vacation - the weather was gorgeous, we did lots of fun things, and even spent some time relaxing.  In the past I've posted pictures here on the blog with a summary of our vacations and also posted a link to the Shutterfly photo book that I make of each vacation, however this time I think I will just post a link to the photo book when it's complete.  I just don't have the time to go through all my photos twice (I have about 900 to go through!), so I figured I could save time and just do it once.  So stay tuned for the photo book.

In the meantime, these are 2 of my favorite photos from our last day there.  The kids were picking the biggest grapefruits I've ever seen (I told Annika to make an "I can't believe how huge this is" face - love it).

On a different note - yesterday was my 3 year "blogoversary" (that is, 3 years since I started blogging).  Happy blogoversary to me!  Thanks to everyone who has been reading over the past 3 years. :)