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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Who's Gonna Win?

We are having a contest in our house. We have all planted a bean and we are going to see who's plant grows the tallest. I am giving the contest 30 days. Who ever wins, will get a prize. I still have to figure that prize out! Any suggestions?We are also experimenting to see which will grow faster a green bean or a pea.

Paper Plate Bunny Craft

Here is a very cute and easy bunny craft you can do. All you need is 2 paper plates, construction paper, googly eyes (optional), black yarn for whiskers,cotton balls, scissors, glue and a black marker.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Weekend

We had a really nice weekend. The weather wasn't very nice so we spent all our weekend inside.

We spent the night at my in laws house on Saturday night. We celebrating our cousins birthdays and stayed up late playing cards. We always love going up there but always seem to feel about 10 pounds heavier when we leave since we spend most of the time grazing on snack food and drinking coffee!

Friday afternoon I made 3, yes 3 batches of chocolate chip cookies. 16 hours later this is what was left.Crumbs. Granted we all ate about 1/6th of the cookie dough before it was ever baked. Cookies don't last long in this family.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

You Call This Spring?

Last weekend at this time we were working outside. Racking leaves, working on our rain barrels, enjoying the sunny 70 degree weather. Today, we are sitting in the house watching the snow flakes fall outside. I really thought Winter was behind us. I guess that is Iowa weather for you!

Friday, March 27, 2009

Monkey Lapbook - Totbook

I made a new lapbook for Brodie thanks to Carisa at 1+1+1=1! She is so generous to post her templates when ever she makes a lapbook or totbook for her children.

This is the first bigger size lap book I have made Brodie. The others have all been half the size. There is definitely some areas that are a little old for him still, which is great he has something already made to grow in to.

The abc cards I kept in sets of 3 instead of cutting them all individually. I think what I will do is cut out the letters of his name and have him practice with those letters. I didn't put the lower case letters in the book yet. I will save those for a few months. The upper left corner is a sequencing game. The bottom left ia a "how many?" book. The upper and lower case alphabet are on the top right, then there is 5 Little Monkey game at the bottom. This was his favorite by far. He sang the whole song while he bounced the monkeys on the bed. Not familiar with this song? Go here. Then next to that is a "colors" book.I added the coloring page on the front. If you are interested in printing this totbook for your little one you can go here to get the pdf. Thank you Carisa once again for this awesome book!

I am also in the process of making the Very Hungry Caterpillar, Brown Bear Brown Bear, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and Goodnight Moon totbooks. I will post them as soon as they are done!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Decorating with Eggs

I found this idea from Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. Isn't is cute? And so simple, I like that. She like me, loves to decorate for the seasons. She has some really cute ideas for decorating with Easter eggs. Go here to see more of her ideas.

Being Helpful

This is the result of Drew helping me put the silverware away. He started off really good, but didn't end real strong.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Spring Chick Craft

I used the same chick template as I did in my craft the other day. You can find it here. We just glued on feathers. Very simple, easy and cute!My boys were being shy today.And were trying to be anonymous!
Check out Ramblings of a Crazy Woman for more craft ideas.

Confusion

5 things I am confused about today.

1. The conversation I had with my 3 year old this morning...

Brodie...Mommy you smell gooooood!
Me...Thank you, what do I smell like?
Brodie...You smell like a piece of chicken meat.

2. 13 year old boys.

3. Why some days my gray hair doesn't seem to show and other days I look like I have more gray hair than brown on top :( Does that mean it is time to color?

4. Why my 2 and 3 year olds got up at 4am yesterday and 6am today. Why can't they understand mommy played on the computer too late last night and she really needs her rest.

5. It was 75 last week and now it is suppose to snow. How does that happen?

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Frugal Blog Post

As some of you are aware I also have a frugal blog called Learning the Frugal Life. I am excited to announce that I have written my first guest post about "Making the Switch to Cloth Napkins" for a pretty popular blog called "Cents"able Momma. Go here to check it out!

Monday, March 23, 2009

Spring Nest Craft

This week we are talking about the letter N. Today we read the book Little Quack (one of Brodie's favorites, he loves all the Little Quack books) and then did this craft.I printed the chicks from here. Then I cut nests out of tan construction paper. I had lots of left over pieces of yarn from when I use to do latch hooking so we used that to glue onto our nest. We colored the chicks, cut them out and glued them onto the nest.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Weekend

We had a very productive weekend. The weather was beautiful so we were outside the entire time. Friday I spent most of the day cleaning my kitchen. I am fully into Spring cleaning mode. Friday night I spent most of my time surfing blogs while the guys watched a movie. Saturday we played outside most of the day and did some planting, raking and more burning. Will went to Menards to get all the stuff to make our rain barrels. Saturday night we had Wills parents and sister up for a grill out. The weather was great and it was good to spend some time with them. It was a relaxing evening.

Sunday morning we attended a Baptism brunch for some friends of ours son. Then we were hard at work again doing more yard work (it is never ending, but I actually really enjoy it!) Will spent the afternoon getting our rain barrels put together. They look awesome!I can't believe tomorrow is Monday already. This is the start of a couple months of even more craziness. Jake starts track tomorrow and Tony starts baseball practice. For the next few weeks our Mondays will consist of picking Jake up from track practice at 4:30, having Tony to his piano lesson by 5:30 and then to baseball practice by 6:30. Not sure when we will squeeze in dinner. Might have to have PB and J's in the van!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

A First For Everything


Drew...never know where he is going to fall asleep. On the cold kitchen floor is the last place I would have thought.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Ultimate Blog Party 2009!

Welcome to my blog 5 Minutes for Mom readers!

I am Sara and I am a wife and SAHM of 4 boys, ages 13, 11, 3 and 2! Life in my house is a little crazy to say the least! Here is where I blog about my more personal side and what goes on in our home. I also like to post about different crafts and projects we are doing. I hope you stick around and read a while. If you like what you see feel free to subscribe via email or become a follower!

Please leave a comment so I know you were here and I can come visit you!

Thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Flower Garden

We got all our St. Patrick's decorations down and our Easter/Spring decorations up! I am lacking on the decorations for this season so we will be busy making some.

We made our own flower garden yesterday. I cut flowers out of white paper. The kids painted them with water colors and then we cut out stems, leaves and grass. We taped them up on the wall in the kitchen! It looks very Springy!
Head over to Ramblings of a Crazy Woman for more crafty ideas.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Now What Color?

Yesterday was full of green! We started off the morning eating green eggs. Of course we had to read the book Green Eggs and Ham after breakfast! Brodie wasn't sure what he thought of the colored eggs but then decided they tasted ok.It was another beautiful day so after breakfast we headed to the Zoo! We had a really good time there. We ate lunch there on a bench watching the monkeys. After the Zoo we headed home and the little boys rested for a bit. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon outside playing.For dinner I made some Irish Stew. The younger 3 kids weren't fans, but the older 3 thought it was pretty good. I also made some Irish Soda bread and green lemonade. We ended the night with green rice krispie bars. It was a very Happy St. Patrick's Day at our house. Hope yours was just as enjoyable!

Monday, March 16, 2009

Welcome Spring!

We have had beautiful weather the last couple days. We have spent every waking moment outside enjoying it! With the exception of staring the weekend out inside decorating cookies. We didn't have any St. Patrick's themed cookie cutters so we did a random assortment of Spring like ones. We had a very busy and productive Sunday. We came across some free mulch and decided to take advantage of it. Our friends came over with their pick up and we got 2 huge bed loads. I have been wanting to add mulch under the kids play area. I put mulch down 2 years ago and it has almost completely turned into compost. It was getting pretty muddy every time it rained. Now, it looks wonderful again! I have to thank Jake for making countless trips up the hill with the wheelbarrow to transport the mulch. We couldn't drive on the yard because it was too soggy so we had to do it all my wheelbarrow. Jake did it all himself. It was the hardest I think I have ever seen him work. It took him all afternoon and evening.We also raked, and raked, and raked. We raked so many leaves, branches, pine cones and needles, all of our hands and bodies are paying for it today. Even the kids did an awesome job loading their wheelbarrows and taking needles and leaves over to the fire. Who says child labor is a bad thing!We also burned the gigantic pile of wood and sticks that we have had building up the last year. Will decided to top it off with the Christmas tree. As fast as that tree went up...It was over. But as of tonight 36 hours later the large logs are still burning. Even after spraying it with water for a few minutes last night before we went to bed. Of course Tony has not been able to stay very far away from it. He is mesmerized by the flames. He constantly is poking at with his stick.I have been so grateful to get outside and get some yard work done. It feels so good to have the warm sun on our faces. It has been a very long Winter. I can't wait to get the garden going. I have already planned out what we are going to do but I will save that for a different post!
This post is linked to The Finer Things in Life, Finer Things Friday.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Handy Manny Tot Book

Here is the new Tot book I made for Drew. He is really into Bob the Builder right now. He also likes Handy Manny. Something to do with the tools. He loves tools. I found this Tot book on this wonderful site called 1+1+1=1. Carisa is so generous to share all her ideas for the world. I have gotten most of our lap books from her. I went to the Disney website to print off the coloring page on the front. Go to 1+1+1=1 to check out the other books she has to offer.

Friday, March 13, 2009

My House Today...

My house today was a war zone by 8:30am. Nerf darts sailing through the air.A construction zone with Play-dough dirt.And a baking zone. I made 10 loaves of bread and a double batch of sugar cookies.I would say we all had a pretty productive day. We won the war, built a city and we have enough bread and cookies to feed them all.