kirstencan

Tidbits and Follow-ups

Thanks for the playroom love, guys!  I'm so glad you liked it!

I wanted to say, to those of you who wished you had a playroom, that we don't have a huge house.  We really don't.  But, like many houses, there is a 'living room' and a 'family room' and we decided to LIVE in the living room, and turn the family room into a playroom.  We don't need a formal living room - who does, really? As the kids get older, the playroom will evolve and change, probably eventually sporting a decent TV and game system (so the kids will want to hang out here! :).  I think part of the decision to use our rooms that way came from reading The Not So Big House.  That book is cool.

(random shot - a bird in the grocery store)

Speaking of books, the books I used for my mobile were definitely specific cut-up books.  I keep the books that have good illustrations that my kids rip up (we're now on our third copy of Zen Shorts, I think).  That's happening less and less, but Thomas went through a stage where it happened frequently.  I also have picked up books at yard sales or thrift stores that I bought to cut up.  I've cut up these books for tags, magnets, ornaments, cards, and now the mobile.  I LOVE cutting up books.   

Also in the book category, I found out that my book club (which, sadly, I haven't been able to attend for a few months) is reading P.S. I Love You this month.  So I picked that one up and read it... all on Sunday.  It is great - I really enjoyed it!  I have a feeling the movie will be so completely different, probably still good, but different.  The book is definitely worth a read.

Haven't decided what to read next, except for Click and Clack.  That's right, after two long weeks, the insurance company finally decided that our car has major frame damage and will be 'unrepairable'.  That stinks.  Seriously, it seems unfair that because of a relatively small fender-bender which wasn't our fault, we get a little bit of money - not what our car is worth to us at all - and not enough to get a decent car to replace it with - but such is life.  (Think zen, think zen!)

And finally, to end this random post on a happy note, here are some pretty spritz cookies I made yesterday.  Flowers and snowflakes to take to a church activity. 

I only make them when I can share them, because they are way too yummy!

Playroom - details

**Updated - check out our new floor!**

I wanted to show you a better look at the mobile I made for the playroom:

I painted an embroidery hoop red, and cut out lots and lots of circles (3 different sizes) from vintage children's books.

Everything is hung with red/white baker's twine.

It moves and sways a little with the slightest breeze, and I like how each circle is really different and fun.  Fun to make, more fun to look at! It really matches the decoupaged bookcase it's hung by too.

Another picture I have hanging is a shot of the three kids in front of Thomas (from this year's Day Out With..).  I actually can't believe how well it came out.  I found some semi-subtle Thomas scrapbook paper to back it with.

I covered all the outlet covers and lightswitches in fabric:  Dick and Jane or a stripe I used in the bunting.

Here's a better shot of our... art/picture hanger thingy.

Basically, I found a piece of wood in the garage, hot-glued wooden clothespins to them, and then painted the whole thing red (same color as the bookcase ).  Easy.  I tried hanging it horizontally, but the papers on top flopped over too much.  But vertically works well!  I like having a place to hang the kids latest coloring, or photos of the cousins.

The best thing is, since you know I'm a total cheapskate - none of this cost much!  Some cost nothing.  Woo hoo!

It's all in the details.

Playroom

**Updated - check out our new floor!**

So, I was waiting for a few more finishing touches (and maybe new carpet - anything but rose!) before showing you our new playroom.  Remember that?  But it's as done as it'll ever be! :)

Since it was a while ago, I'll just remind you that it was a longer/narrow room (with HORRID rose flowered wallpaper), and we built a wall in the middle so that Princess could have her own room.  The door above goes to her room. 

Then we painted (lots and lots) over the wallpaper.  I'm happy with the color - it's a very pale blue-green.  I tend to go 'medium' on paints, and I was kinda proud of myself for going this pale.

(left of the door)                (right of the door)

Please imagine the ugly (but we got it for free) play kitchen gone and replaced by this red IKEA chair.  AHHH, that's better, right?  Hopefully that'll happen soon.

More details tomorrow, but you can click on the pictures to see notes in flickr.

Originally I wanted the toy cabinets (IKEA, unfinished) to be red, too.  Eventually I decided that they'd probably be too high contrast. There's plenty of that without a giant red cabinet, right?  I decoupaged red dotted scrapbook paper to make the letters on the doors.  The cabinets have baby locks on them so that the boys have to ask to get something out - and to do that, they have to put something away. 

The train table rotates between trains, Playmobil and Legos.  The bins beneath the table hold engines + track, star wars stuff, and cars.

Not shown are the cubbies (for shoes and library books)with red-framed baby pictures of the kiddos above them, and the big sliding door with new white drapes (goodbye vertical blinds!).

For pictures I used inexpensive IKEA frames, put red-checked scrapbook paper in them, and on top of that put illustrations from cute books.  There's kind of a Dick and Jane/train theme going on.  On the left are pix from D&J, and on the right are some from The Little Train.  The framed Thomas poster was a hand-me-down from a neighbor - someday it'll disappear, but for now the boys love it - and it matches.  Some of the bunting fabric is D&J, too.

All in all I'm pretty pleased - it's a fun room, and turned out pretty much the way I imagined it - how often does that happen! :)

I'm just saying...

So, for Aaron's birthday yesterday we went to see I Am Legend after a great dinner out (ribs) and homemade vanilla ice cream with homemade brownies (mmmm).

Let's just say that I didn't know what I was getting into with that movie.  That is the most scared I have ever been in the theater.  For real.  I spent a good part of the time with my coat over my face - and that is so not me!  And I wasn't the only one in the theater doing that either... It wasn't so much the fun kind of scared, either.  More the kind where Aaron will be turning off the lights and checking the kids for the next week or so.  The last time that happened was Signs.  And this time was way worse (I can't believe they only rated that movie PG-13!)

I'm just saying that if your husband wants to see this movie, and it's not his birthday... make him take someone else!  :)  I mean, the premise is really interesting, but... holy cow!

Happy Birthday, Aaron, you know I love you!

(He loved the movie).

Jane Austen, etc.

Here's my Stack 'o' Books from Christmas- The bottom one is Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts (wahoo!).  I immediately plowed through Austenland (again) and Twilight.  I enjoyed Twilight, especially the beginning.  Not as fond of the middle.  I'm not as excited about reading the other two in the series, but I probably will eventually.

The collected works of Jane Austen is awesome. I'm excited to go through the whole thing. Is anyone else watching the Jane Austen Masterpiece series?  I missed Persuasion, but watched Northanger Abbey - which I haven't read.  I enjoyed the show, it was pretty well done. The previews for the Mansfield Park show don't look as promising.  I read somewhere that MP was Jane Austen's favorite work.  So far it has been my least favorite of hers.  I just didn't enjoy it.

I saw The Amber Spyglass on my sidebar - ha!  I'd forgotten that I was reading that book - I put it down about a third of the way through.  Which is a shame, it's the third in a trilogy, but it's very different from the first two, very metaphysical and 'deep' - and it totally lost my interest.  Tells you a lot about my personality, eh? :)

I just finished Angela's Ashes - wow.  That's about all I can say.  It makes me feel tremendously blessed to have the knowledge, family, and material things that I have.  An amazing book.

I also just read East .  What a fun book!
Princess asked me what it was about, and I was telling her and she's like 'Oh, I know that story'.  What?  'Yeah, it's from East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon'.  I hadn't realized it's a re-telling of an old folktale.  Much along the lines of Gail Carson Levine and Shannon Hale.  A popular trend right now.  It's a really great read, actually, and Princess may read it next.

Now what should I read next?

Any suggestions?  Please?

While you're thinking, here's a couple more handmade gifts - I'm a lucky, lucky girl:

My mom made these cool fingerless gloves for me - I like to wear them - sometimes to play Katamari!

Letterpress cards from my SIL, Eva - I hope it's obvious that those are 'hello' cards and not 'hell' cards - although those might find a niche market, too. :)

Up To...

Actually, we're not up to much here today.  I'm feeling quite boring, really.  Sorry about that!

I finally sat down and sewed something - first time in a month!  Isn't that crazy?  Stupid strep... I never made Christmas gifts for Thomas' teachers because I was sick. I'm thinking of packaging these tissue holders with anti-bacterial gel... or chocolate.  Since they're very very late.  (He has a lot of teachers - just like last year - same gift, too).

Today we pulled out the fingerprint book and inkpads, and when we weren't looking Thomas scribbled all over Princess' lovely pond drawing.  That's the not-so-good part.  But then, with his own paper and unsupervised, he made this:


Tie-Fighters!   I love this - they look like them!  We usually draw them (he's always asking us to draw Star Wars stuff) with a circle with lines on the side.

He's been a stinker today (no school) so this is something positive to talk about. :)

Oh, yeah, I signed up for Miniswap3, too - anyone else in?

And Since We've No Place To Go...

Let it snow...

let it snow...

let it snow!

I love when the big storms hit on weekends or days off! 

Art Project

Hey, thanks so much for your support and encouraging comments over the last few days - I really appreciate them.  I wish I had time to reply to them all, but that's not happening this week, so here's just a big THANK YOU to all of you.

Yesterday we finished an art project.  Well, Princess and Monkey did anyway.  I was feeling rather stupid that I have a degree in Art Education and barely ever 'do art' with Princess.  We totally copied Alisa's Eric Carle project.  BTW, that is a great site, and Alisa, I hope you update often so I can copy you some more - it's cool that one of us is teaching!

Anyway, first we looked at some Eric Carle books, and then they covered their papers with various colors.  We didn't use brushes, we used popsicle sticks, toothpicks, buttons, straws, etc.

Oh, and fingers.

Then we tried to making different patterns and textures on the wet paint.

The next day we cut up the dried paper to make animal collages.

(Yup, she's in a princess dress and pearls.)

Finished products:  Princess made a 'Girl feeding a foal an apple'.  This photo crops it a bit, as I forgot to talk about using all of the paper, composition, etc. so her figures were rather small and at the bottom of the page.

Monkey wanted to make an alligator.  He ripped up and glued some paper for the background and helped me cut out an alligator.  He's pretty good about using a gluestick now.

More art soon, it's a must.

Thomas Update

I've mentioned before about how Thomas seems to go through a rough spell before an improvement or jump in skills.  I think that's just happened again, thank goodness!  I need to record this, so that I remember the positive and the progress that he's made.

He was pretty 'off' for a couple of months.  But this month he is a rockstar.

(Below Photo: Monkey and Thomas 'writing notes' to each other - mailboxes from the dollar section of Target)

He and Monkey have been playing together - well and constantly!  I'm glad that Monkey came when he did and is precocious.  I say this because when I was pregnant I really wanted Monkey to be a girl, and now I'm so very glad that he's not!  Having two boys to play together is amazing.  I'm always hearing 'Monkey!  Monkey!  Wanna play Legos?'  or 'I don't want Thomas to go to school, I want to play with him!'. 

They will sit and play playdoh and use words (instead of just snatching) to share the little tools for it.

They hunt dragons, dinosaurs and AT-AT's together - with only swords as weapons.  They are very brave.

They also duel - as Peter Pan and Captain Hook.

They head up to their bedrooms to play blocks or Legos.

When Thomas runs out of snack, he doesn't grab Monkey's (anymore) but he asks Monkey for some, and usually Monkey is happy to share.

It's been awesome.

Thomas has been able to play games a little better.  He's never had patience enough to wait his turn and understand board games before, but we've now had a handful of successful 'Memory' games - a few of which he's won.  He digs 'Hullaballoo', too.  I'm excited that we can play games together now.
                                    
(Photo below:  Monkey and Thomas having a little supervised time in Princess' room - a rare treat.  They got into the Barbies, and Thomas' Barbie is kissing the prince.)

Thomas has been wanting to practice writing!  He loves carrying around a small notebook and pen and making 'tickets' for everyone (for the train, of course).  I'd bought him a cool tracing workbook, which he would be interested in for 2 minutes and not want to pick it up for 2 months.  Now he voluntarily gets it out and is doing great!  I guess his fine-motor skills caught up with him just enough to spark his interest/relieve some frustration?

He's been awesome about his diet, too (GFCF).  He's finally able to understand it a little.  While the excellent sharing between him and his brother has been exciting, it also means that Monkey tries sharing things that Thomas can't have.  Once Monkey got into the chocolate chips and snitched a handful.  I didn't realize this, but as I walked by Thomas, he handed me the one Monkey had shared with him.  No words, but he knew he wasn't supposed to have it.  Good boy!

(Photo Below:  Playing blocks - and moving fast to get 'their share'.)

Thomas has been making great progress at school, and has just started attending the 'integrated' (mostly non-delayed kids) preschool at his school one afternoon a week.  And he did great.  After attending a meeting about transitioning special-needs kids to kindergarten, I'm guessing that he'll be able to attend a 'regular' kindergarten, with some pull-out time for working on fine-motor and speech.  Let's keep our fingers crossed that we find the right spot for him!

He still has his moments, but it's good to see improvements!

Like we needed this.

So, Aaron calls this morning to tell me that he got rear-ended on the way to drop Thomas off at school.  Everyone's okay. 

The car may not be. 

Aaron has been saying a lot lately:  Why is it NEVER easy? 

It just seems like our life has been full of complications lately, from the top rack of our dishwasher not working, to being sick, car and house repairs, lots of meetings, etc.  The list goes on.

I had to go downtown and pick them up while the tow truck took away our car.  After dropping Thomas off at school, Aaron said:  We have to be very zen about this.  You know, like in that book?  Maybe this was a good thing.  Maybe our car was about to die anyway, and maybe this way we'll get some money out of it.  Maybe if we'd made it further down the road we would have been hit by a semi.  Who knows?

The book he's referring to is Zen Shorts, and there is a story about 'luck'.  Sometimes really bad luck isn't always what it seems - like the family whose oldest son falls and gets hurt.  The neighbors tell them 'Oh, bad luck' and the father says, 'Maybe'.  It turns out that there was soon a draft for a war, and the son was not chosen because of his injury.

I think Aaron's attitude has helped me a lot today - if he was stressed out and mad, I would be too.

And really, everyone's okay and the accident wasn't our fault.  I'm very grateful.