Neighborhood Parade

Nice shades.

We had a nice July 4th yesterday.  One of the first events of the morning was a small neighborhood parade.  We decided that instead of participating in it this year that we'd go out and cheer.  It was good that we did. That small troupe needed some encouragement. 

Waiting patiently for the parade to begin

More waiting

Here they come! Buddy and Jellybean were ridiculously excited to see the parade coming. Buddy wondered if it would be as loud as the parade on Caillou.

This small neighborhood parade even had some royalty. Buddy and Jellybean even cheered on the last of the bicycles.

Even though the parade was small, my children were not disappointed.  They loved it.  I look forward to them participating next year.

I purchased the last 2 stars in the city.

On the way in, I had to take a picture of my sad attempt at patriotic porch decor. I had envisioned a really awesome star theme, but shopping on July 3rd turned up a pretty sad number of stars. Also, the large, red star keeps being blown away by the wind... We'll do something better next year.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Happy July 4th!

July 4 2010

We'll be celebrating the 4th by doing the following today:

-Watching Wall-E

-Eating pop-tarts

-Cheering for our neighborhood parade

-A quick trip to Walgreens

-Bagels

-Naps

-Homemade frozen yogurt

-Burgers, maybe at Five Guys (since we don't have a grill)

-Throwing snaps in the driveway (since D dislikes fireworks and the children are afraid of them)

-Going to bed

Exciting!

What are your plans for the holiday?

Me and Jellybean July 4, 2010

Whatever your plans, Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Fizzing Planet Art

Jellybean's complete planet with extra cheesy grin.

We had fun with a new rainy scorching day activity this last week.  This was inspired by an art project that I've seen several times floating around Pinterest.  The nice thing about this project is that all of the materials needed were already in my pantry.  

Buddy and Jellybean working on their creations.

The concept is simple: you fill a pie plate with baking soda.  Then you tint vinegar with food coloring.  We used some ramekins to hold our color. It's so fun to see the baking soda and vinegar fizz each time some color is added to the pan.  It's also fun because the color stays where you put it.

Adding more and more color. Jellybean started adding baking soda to her ramekins so that the entire thing would fizz.

Unfortunately, the one tool that would have made this more fun would have been an eye dropper.  Since I didn't have one available, I had the kids use straws to drip the vinegar into the baking soda. It works in theory, but in practice, this method is pretty frustrating for a 2 and 4 year old. So, I took away the straws and handed them each a spoon. That's when the art work took a serious turn.

Plates transforming into alien planets

Now they were adding a lot of color to the plate. The baking soda still provided some great fizz and added a base so that the color would somewhat stay where it was placed. Buddy started talking about his moster planet and the different monsters that live there. Jellybean was pleased with her pretty alien planet and enjoyed sampling the vinegar color (ick).

Buddy putting the final touches on his monster planet.

This is a great activity for a day when you can't be outside.  They spent a good 45 minutes to an hour on their fizzing planets.  Buddy is already excited to make another one. In fact, if I'd had more baking soda, we would have made more that day.


So, what are your favorite rainy/scorching hot day activities??  


Have a Happy Day!


~MJ

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Princess Festival 2012

Jellybean and I went on a mom and daughter outing last Saturday.  We went to the Princess Festival.
Here she is dressed in her finest princess garb:

Jellybean doesn't go out for the Disney princess look. She has her own style.

We met some beautiful princesses who told their stories and posed for pictures:

Meeting Cinderella and Rapunzel

Jellybean tried on a new outfit...yeah, it freaks me out a little, too.

I'm a little confused about why the arms don't match...

Face painting by one of my old high school friends (go figure). I tried to convince Jellybean to choose a more elaborate design.  I wanted to get my money's worth, but this is what she picked.

She looks thrilled, doesn't she?

They had several craft stations set up.  Jellybean was a little young for some, but she loved making her own hair bow and coloring bookmarks to give away to other children. Such a kind princess.
Jellybean also enjoyed building a sand castle and joining in the dance party with Princess Sonrisa and Little Red Riding Hood.

 Before we left, we had to get Jellybean's nails painted.  This was the first time for her. She was so excited. 

She sat so still. Gotta love the hot pink.

We had a blast. I loved every minute of hanging out with my daughter; just us girls. I get such a kick out of my funny, amazing little girl.

One last carriage ride before departing for home.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

WW- Water Play

Join in the Wordless Wednesday fun and

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Leaf Pressing In Progress

I constantly have projects in various stages of completeness. I thought for today's post I'd visit one of those projects in progress.
I love leaf pressing.  This may come as no surprise if you happened to catch one of my previous projects inspired by an Orangeola Japanese Maple.

When we moved to our new home I became obsessed with a red bud tree in our backyard.  I posted a beautiful picture of it in the Spring.  It went from this:

To this:

When I posted the photo of the tree in bloom, I thought that it was a Western Redbud.  Once the leaves emerged it turned out to be a Forest Pansy Redbud.  The leaves are a gorgeous purple red and perfectly heart shaped.  How could I not try and save some of these beautiful leaves?
I picked several leaves (there were way too many to choose from) and went ahead and prepped them for pressing. I started by washing the leaves and then drying them on a paper towel.

After that, I took an sharp knife and carefully cut the stem away so that the heart shape would be more apparent. I usually just press the leaves between two sheets of printer paper, but I decided that I'd try slipping them in some cello bags.  I'm thinking that this will make transport and storage a little easier. I hope it was a good idea. (ETA: Putting them in bags was not a good idea. I felt a little dumb when I realized that pressing them this way would just keep the moisture in. Glad I took the leaves out of the bags before it ruined them.)
Pressing is easy after that.  I like to do it old school. I slipped the leaves between the pages of one of my large coffee table books and then added on a lot of weight. Another valuable lesson brought to you from my elementary school education.

So, there they'll stay for now while the Complete Works of Shakespeare works its magic.  I have so many ideas of how to use the leaves once they are fully dry. Simply framed would be beautiful, but can't you see one of those beautiful leaves as the center piece on a Valentine's Day card?  I can.

Now go and find some lovely leaves to press and...

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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Box Canyon-Youth Conference 2012

Crimson Columbine- Aquilegia formosa

I've been MIA for the past few days due to Youth Conference.  Our church does an annual trip with the youth (ages 12 and 18). I had the amazing opportunity of hanging out with about 30 teenagers for two days and two nights.  Yeah, not as terrible as it sounds.
One of the highlights to the trip was a hike through Box Canyon in Moroni, UT. 

It's a great, easy-ish hike over and through fantastic natural rock formations. Good hiking shoes are recommended as the entire trail is made up of loose rock. Not only was it a beautiful day for a hike, but this canyon was very surprising.  The trail is somewhat hard to find, so we were the only group there for the entire hike.
I made a hobby of photographing some of the many, many butterflies (so many butterflies).

My best species guesstimation from Left to Right: Boloria chariclea, Field Crescent- Phyciodes pulchella, Clodius Parnassian, Mormon Fritillary, Weidemeyer’s Admiral Butterfly-Limenitis weidemeyerii

Box Canyon branches off of Maple Canyon. We also went further up for some rock repelling.  From what I could tell, it is an excellent spot for rock climbing.  I let those crazy teenagers do all of that dangerous stuff though.  I thought that I'd return home to my children in one piece.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Onion Bite

Photo via SarahLee Foodservice

Our family goes out for bagels almost every Saturday.  If you frequent Einstein Bagels and order the non-savory varieties (blueberry, poppyseed, cranberry, etc.) like we do, something will become apparent.  That something is what we lovingly call, "The Onion Bite."  The onion bite may sound foreign to you, so let me explain:  Imagine you've ordered a blueberry bagel with strawberry cream cheese (my standard order), you are enjoying it until, quite unexpectedly, you take a bite and it doesn't taste like the previous bite, it tastes like an onion bagel.  The horror!

I've posted this photo before, I still like it.

We don't know why this phenomenon occurs, but have discussed it at length. Do they work all of their dough on the same surface so that a portion of the blueberry dough picks up some of the onion? Do they store the onion bagels too close to the blueberry? Is it actually the cream cheese that is contaminated? Where did this errant onion flavored bite come from??  We don't know, so we've decided to make it a game.  You win the game if your bagel miraculously is missing the onion bite.  You also win if your onion bite comes at the beginning of the meal thereby allowing you to eat the rest of your bagel in peace.  You lose when the onion bite comes at the very end, ruining the entire bagel eating experience.  I hate it when I lose...

So, are we the only people who have noticed the onion bite?  It's entirely possible that we're just weird like that. 

Have a  Happy Day!

~MJ

Father's Day 5 Minute Craft

We just finished celebrating Father's Day in our home.  It was a nice day.  We got to spend time with my Dad, D's Dad and D's Grandfather. 
To celebrate the dad in this house, the kids helped me put together a little gift.

I had some scrap booking paper on hand, so I traced the kids' hands on some scrap paper and used that as a pattern for cutting out their prints in color.  Then I photoshopped a message and printed it out on some patterned paper.  After I glued on the hands, I slapped the entire thing in a frame and whallah!
If you are interested in the template for the message, here it is:

Best Dad Template for 8.5X10 Print

I got the inspiration for this project from this awesome blog: Roots & Wings Co.

You'll notice, that she did her lovely piece on a painted canvas with the hands actually going down, which may or may not add a little extra cuteness to the phrase, "hands down." Also note that their dad is apparently, "the World's Best" That's a pretty lofty claim. Sorry, D, I couldn't quite go there. heh.
This version seemed a little more, what's the word...work. I'm too lazy for canvases and paint. Especially if the project calls for a canvas and paint on the evening prior to Father's Day and the stores are already closed. I do wish I had placed the hands pointing down though, I totally missed that element.  I didn't even notice until D was unwrapping it.  He claims that it doesn't make a difference. I'll take his word for it.

I hope you all had a fantastic time celebrating the dads in your life.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

The Boy Turns Four

So, let's review: 

Here is what Buddy looked like at 1 month old:

and here is what he looks like now:

Pretty incredible, right? It always amazes me to look back at those first photos and to see how much a person can change in such a short span of time.

A little about Buddy at four years of age:
-He loves, loves letters and reading. It's an on going love affair that shows no sign of slowing down. He reads for at least an hour before naps and before bed time. He has a growing collection of alphabet posters on his wall. The books he likes to keep in the bed are threatening to take over the bed altogether.
-He loves super heroes. He wants to be a super hero. His little sister is getting tired of being put in jail.
-This year, after a lot of tears, Buddy became a really big kid. He's busting with pride over his new set of Batman underwear. The new set is slated to beat out the old set of Star Wars underwear.
-This kid is a sliding machine.  After two years of major trepidation when it came to slides, he has conquered his fear and now Loves a good slide. 
-He is starting preschool this Fall.  We are all very excited.

Happy Birthday, sweet boy!

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

Eye Spy Discovery Bottle

Buddy came home from church on Sunday with a little discovery bottle filled with treasures for him to look at it. It was his "eye spy." He was smitten with it and carried it everywhere. He even carried it to the grocery store where he promptly left it in the car cart we were using.  I didn't notice that he didn't have it with him and he didn't notice either until we got home.  He was devastated.

So, (in order to stop the sobbing) we decided to make our own... 

We went on an expedition to Hobby Lobby and picked out a few little things to go in our brand new eye spy bottles. Buddy was especially enthusiastic about the ABC beads we found.  I gathered a few more items around the house and then I let Buddy and Jellybean pick what they wanted in their bottles. After they had put in what they wanted, I poured in a generous amount of corn syrup and glitter.

In retrospect, we should have used smaller bottles. I also should have added more glitter. The glitter looks really cool throughout the corn syrup. All in all, the kids are happy with their bottles. Buddy reminds me daily that he is sad he lost his eye spy, but he likes that his new one has ALL of the letters.

To add a little personality and to secure the cap on the bottle, I glued on a bit of ribbon and felt.  With that much corn syrup in there, I wanted to make sure the cap was on tight.

Here's a link to an entire page of discovery bottle ideas.  There are a ton of great ones.
Discovery Bottle Ideas

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ

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