Wednesday, December 30, 2009

have you ever?

While checking out blogs and hats, and hats and blogs.. I came upon the cutest hat ever.
Yes. Ever.
And here it is.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Another great year almost over..


{photo via jacqueleen bleu}

No hippopotamuses for Christmas this year.. (thankfully) but a great year over all.

The kids will be much easier to occupy for the next month or so and I have lots to keep me occupied too! Some new crafts I'm getting excited about- a giant canvas I just bought at 50% off with my Michael's gift certificate that will hopefully be decorated by the kids and on my mantel by the beginning of January. A new wreath form so I can get a jump on next years holiday season. A recycled magazine clipping painting and perhaps some fancy Thank you cards for all these wonderful presents we received. Stay tuned!

Monday, December 28, 2009

snow























~image from Ohdeedoh~
I'm always on the look out for fun free stuff.. and this makes my list as long as our snowsuits and mitts stay the same lovely colours they have always been...
Add food colouring to a ice cream or margarine container full of water and let freeze overnight.. just pop out and play! (you can always grease up your containers ahead of time if you so desire)

Saturday, December 26, 2009

robot alphabet

We have enough robots. What? Never. Found this on etsy and had to share the cuteness!

another excellent filth wizardry find

























I love how easy this looks! You can get the kids involved making all sorts of gift tags and ornaments using Model Magic! Just use the Crayola Model Magic colour of your choice and a rolling pin, plus your favourite cookie cutters! Let dry and wowsers you're done!

Sadly, A Christmas craft I missed out on this year

I haven't been that chatty lately I know. I hope you understand with the holidays and all. Perhaps you've been busy too and didn't see all the lovely christmas crafts the wonderful blog-world people were doing? Neither did I. I'm especially sad I missed out on these!

The wonderfully creative and brave-for-putting-beads-in-a-muffin-tin-in-the-oven Filth Wizardry blog came up with these!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Sunday, December 20, 2009

blooming

On November 25th I took the kids to buy Paperwhites. We planted them, watered them and have been following there progress. It's now December 19th and we've got blooms! Here's a few pics incase you haven't seen a paperwhite bloom.


Saturday, December 19, 2009

stocking success!


Family arrived today from Calgary and with them was a wonderful little present for the kids.. hand knit stockings with there names! This was just what I was looking for and I love them! (I'm already planning how I can ask for some for my husband & myself) Yay knitting!

Friday, December 18, 2009

keeping tradition


Well, I'm not really following any kind of family tradition.. but I know it is often a traditional thing to do that gingerbread house before Christmas. Isn't it? Is this your tradition?

This year I bought the kit.. and added to it with all the left over candies bought for J's cake. E and I decorated over two days and here's the result. It's been 4 days now and we haven't had so much as a nibble.. we'll see how long we can hold out.

Friday, December 11, 2009

snowpeople



Another fun Christmas craft that a four year old can really get into. Take white paint (white ink pads work the best) and use your finger pad to print the face and your thumb to print the body. Then add a carrot nose, clothes and last use your favourite sharpie to add the face and arms! So many possibilities with this one!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

good old paper crafts








We've been getting back to basics this year. E is learning all about sissors and J is learning all about grabbing and ripping so this is a perfect year to break out the paper.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

flower power

Remember the paperwhite bulbs? Well I'm glad we planted two that's all. One still looks just as it was pictured the first time around, the other looked like this only a few days after it was planted.



and already is looking like this:



Not to shabby for less than 2 weeks! I'm betting there be paperwhites come Christmas! Arr!

Friday, December 4, 2009

as good as its gonna get robot cake



After all the dreams I had of buying an icing spatula and making fondant, as well as trying to create the perfect shade of grey icing. I completely bailed and made up a batch of Butter cream icing and used my trusty butter knife to do the job. We must have bought 10 different types of candy at Bulk Barn the other day and in the end.. used 3 of them.

So I need to say that's not at all what I expected our robot cake to look like.. but hey. It's a cake.. and it should be edible.. so I'm done and very happy I've rinsed out the icing bowl and can start to recover from the self induced sugar high.

I guess I should sign up for the Cake Decorating class at Michaels before my husbands birthday in February and try all my fancy ideas then. Right now, I'm off to bed.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Robots



With J's second birthday right around the corner I needed to decide on a theme and cake.. which came at last to a battle between Batman and Robots. Now if you ever need to choose between the two I'd love your thoughts but in the end Robots seemed to win. So I'm about to embark on a new adventure. The challenge of The Robot Cake. For inspiration I found these amazing cakes by typing 'Robots' in the search at Google Images.



This white cake with the chocolate wafers is my favourite so far but I'm hoping to incorporate bits from all three. If I succeed I'll post the outcome. If you enjoyed these Robots I found some great Robot Party accessories at a wonderful blog called Wendolonia. She's amazing!



This calls for a trip to the Bulk Barn and I know just the 4 year old to help me!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

no seriously. how long will my kid actually PLAY with it?

When E was more interested in the drapes and utensil drawers than any of the toys we had.. I started buying more toys. I was hoping if I kept her occupied she'd forget all about that utensil drawer. Yeah, right.

When J came along he was much more interested in the plumbing systems in every home and building he went into and he was fascinated with every vent cover he saw. It was a very long time before I was able to pee without that dreaded feeling that he would choose this moment to stuff his leg down a vent, or the TV remote.. and so on. So what did I do? I sought out more toys.

After 4 years of medicating with toys I have two conclusions. First- no amount of toys will distract my monsters if they choose to chuck that tiny My Little Pony down the central vac opening.. and second Wedgits is a fabulous toy. It seems to capture the interest of both a 2 year old and 4 year old almost every day. Thank you Wedgits. Thank you.

Here's a look at what E did in the minutes it took me to write up this post: