Fancy Nancy Decorations

The plans for the party are coming right along.

The presents are wrapped.

The decorate your own tiara craft supplies are assembled. (Sun visors for the boys)

The activity books are made.

The tissue flowers are almost done.

The fabric ribbons for each corner of the windows are done (well, almost, they just need the ends trimmed...

Oh, did I not mention that fabric ribbons?

You know the ones, they are also called floral ribbons and often grace fancy floral arrangements and packages? The ones that sell for about $15-20 a bow at craft stores?

Super easy to make!

Basic instructions can be found here.....

...don't for get to curl the tails of the ribbon if you are not using them to tie the ribbon to the present!

Have a great weekend!

Check, Check, triple check!

When you are a bit on the tired side (i.e. you are a mom) and you are planning a birthday party, check, check, and check again your list for the party supply store.

Otherwise you might end up with 2 purple ribbons and no pink ribbon...

...don't ask.

A Fancy Party

Saturday is Miss Pear's 4th birthday, and she has requested a Fancy Nancy party. So during nap time this week I am getting everything ready for Miss Pear's Fancy Nancy birthday party on Saturday.

Today I made the activity book to be photocopied for the children. I simply went to Fancy Nancy's website, looked through the printable activities and selected what I liked. Then I renumbered accordingly, and for the ones that said reproducible activity on the bottom I printed out a label to announce Miss Pear's 4th Birthday. As they are all reproducible I will take them to the office supply store and have enough copies made. Then I will punch a hole in the top corner, put a binder ring in, and attach curly ribbons to that, and the activity books are done!

The reason for the books are that the craft activity will take little ones more time than the big ones and this will keep the big ones occupied. The little ones will be able to do the activities with help. Everyone can take their copy home.

What I am learning...

Remember the break I took from blogging to focus on what God was teaching me? And that Sunday as my break was winding down Miss Pear got croup and life when kablooey?

Well, even though things did not go quite as I had planned, God used that time to teach me a lot of valuable things.

One of the first things He showed me was that my motto when Baby was born was not just for then, it is for this season of life. That if I have served my Lord well by loving my family, by providing meals for them (extra points for super healthy), and they have clean laundry I have done well. And that it is okay if my only quiet time before bedtime is reading scripture to the girls and praying while I nurse Baby (more on that in another post).

That has to be my standard.

When I try to fit more into my schedule loving my family thing often loses importance.

My children thrive (and Miss Pear has excellent behavior) when they get quantity time from us, even if they are just with me in the kitchen while I make supper, or playing nearby while I fold laundry (Baby likes to wrestle with the socks). And if we can fit in some extended picture book reading all the better.

But my standard is simple: Serve God by loving my family.

Baby's Afghan

Last summer I began work on baby's afghan. I had trouble with the pattern but finally figured that out. And I got a fair bit done. And then she arrived, and it was not done. And then we had the meningitis and the hip dysplasia, and life in general, and it was not done.

If you remember, I set a goal this year to be a finisher.

So I put this as number one on my list to finish. And last week I did.


I am going to guess that it is about 37 inches by 42 inches, so a good size and in a very light pink.

Baby still likes to be swaddled...at 8 months. We had huge swaddlers (42 x 42 inches) to swaddle around the harness and she still loves them. Actually, she loves to break out of them and then hang on to the end corner while she sucks her thumb. But as soon as she decides she is completely done with swaddling her blanket is ready.

Brownies for Breakfast

This morning we had brownies for breakfast.

We were celebrating.

Miss Pear finally made it through the night without needing a change of jammies.

Of course, while the brownies baked we had a "snack" of Raisin Bran.

Please excuse me while I do my happy dance...not as good as miss pear's, but I think I need to steal a few of her moves.....

Early Math

We have the great privilege of being friends with an exceptional math teacher. While this might sound weird considering they are not homeschooling and we are, this is the same friend who said of our decision to homeschool, "That is great! Don't let anyone change your mind."

So she lets me ask her questions, and she gives me fabulous answers.

We often talk about science and math and those are key interests for both her children (all older than Miss Pear) and Miss Pear.

When we were talking about beginning in math, she said something exceedingly interesting to me:

One of the most important things to starting to teach about math is to teach your child about patterns.

She said this before she said to teach numbers.

I was pretty shocked by that thought, it messed with everything I knew about math. And I loved math. But I figured that it was important to learn your numbers and how to count first.

But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense! If you can think clearly in patterns, and identify them and extrapolate them, math is a way of thinking, not memorization.

So while we are working on our numbers, a huge part of our early math is looking for patterns.

I sort the counting bears red, green, yellow, red, green, yellow and let Miss Pear put them next.

I sort 4 counting bears the same color big little big little and let Miss Pear tell me what comes next.

We are always looking for patterns!

She thinks it is a fun game, especially when I use mini-marshmallows instead of counting bears and she gets to eat them when she gets it right!

Croup is no fun...

...and Miss Pear is still sick.

She does not have the seal barking cough, but neither is she recovered....So I may still be missing...

We are thankful that Baby continues to remain croup free!

Amazon here I come...

...guess what I won?

Yup, gift card for Amazon, just when I needed it!

Such a blessing!

For Father's Day I always try to get Daddy something he can do with his girls. Which is why he got a water table one year, and I have to tell you, he LOVED it!

This year I am thinking that he will need a copy of Stokes Field Guide to birds for our area. He has talked about it off and on since we moved to Southern California almost 10 years ago, but now Miss Pear is starting to point out the birds by name too, so I think that would be a great gift! (Along with homemade cards, and a special meal of his choice too!)

Guess what is ready to eat....

O'Neil and Misty blueberries from our backyard!

Learning Latin?

If you would like to you could win help from Rosetta Stone over here....

View from our Porch

Last week one night...er morning...just before 3AM a coyote came out of the canyon and was howling long and loud. I did not think too much about what he had been up to, except to pray that he would not wake up the girls. And I did not think too much about his activities again until we saw this on Saturday...

Can you see what it is?

How about now...in flight?

It is a turkey vulture.

Which makes me think that coyote was doing some hunting. Nothing like a true to life science lesson....and I think Daddy will be getting a bird handbook for Father's Day...

Miss Pear at the doctor

I just had a quick minute to share with you Miss Pear explaining her cough to the doctor.

You see, she has a frog in her throat, and when it goes ribbit ribbit, she goes cough cough...

Tissue Flowers

Miss Pear's birthday is coming up, and the theme this year is going to be Fancy Nancy! (In the past she has had Winnie-the-Pooh (her nursery theme), Backyardigans, and Polar Bears)

I have learned my lesson about selecting a birthday theme from a book that is not also a television show. When you do this the result is a lot of do it yourselfing. Which is great with me!

So for one of the decorations for the party I am going to make tissue flowers is Fancy Nancy's colors - pink and purple. These are also Miss Pear's colors, so that works wonderfully well.

If you are wondering how to make these...or like me simply needed a refresher course, click here for a video tutorial!

Although I may have to move on to more sophisticated tissue flowers and try these carnations!

An Unwelcome Visitor...

...arrived last night around 11:30.

Croup.

It arrived in Miss Pear's room, and she was none to happy to greet it.

The doctor warned us to expect a few more rough nights, so except for a couple posts that I set to auto-publish, I will probably be AWOL once again.

Nurse Mommy on duty.

(So far Baby is showing no signs of it!)

And I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day! My family was so good to me, and God was so phenomenally gracious to me in giving me my family!