Ultimate Spotlight Home Construction -- Book Review

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Kids are always so interested in construction. The big trucks and bulldozers are exciting. It is fun to watch as a building goes up. Kids also love books with flaps, pull-tabs and more. Today I am sharing a book that combines these two. The book is Ultimate Spotlight: Home Construction by Anne Blanchard and illustrated by Didier Balicevic. It is coming out today and is recommended for ages 5+.

Mongolian Gers -- Tent Houses

 

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

So I had big plans to start reviewing books on Japan. I have quite a pile. However they are going to wait until next week and into June because I found one other Asian country to cover on my bookshelf. Today I am going to share with you Story of the Mongolian Tent House by Dashdondog Jamba, retold by Anne Pellowski and illustrated by Beatriz Vidal. Before I begin my review, I would like to add that there are not a whole lot of books about or from Mongolia or many crafts or resources for kids. When I did a search for craft ideas most of them were adult crafts and for sale. I think this is a topic that needs a bit more exploring and I am going to share what I did find.

Books about Home

Disclosure: I was sent these books to review free of charge in exchange for an honest review. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review.

After spending a fun snow day at home with Hazel, I think it is appropriate to share some fun books about homes. We will start with The Road Home by Katie Cotton and illustrated by Sarah Jacoby. 

Exploring Singapore with Books, Food & Maps -- Global Learning for Kids

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me copies of these books free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

This month Global Learning for Kids is exploring Singapore. I requested some books about Singapore from my contact at Tuttle Publishing. She sent me six books and a traveling map. We shared Singapore Children's Favorite Stories with you a few weeks ago as one of our posts for Multicultural Kid Blogs' Asian Pacific-American Heritage Month Series and Giveaway. (Have you entered the giveaway yet?) The first book we are going to share is Singapore: World City by Kim Inglis. 

Home and Maps Activity Book Reviews for Multicultural Monday

Disclosure: Candlewick Press gave me copies of these books free of charge to review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

For Multicultural Monday I am sharing two fun books that you may not realize right away they are multicultural. The first is an activity book to accompany the book called Maps by Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski. The book we are reviewing is Maps Activity Book also by Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski.

Spring Candy Bird Houses

Have you entered my current giveaway? This is one you do not want to miss!!

We finally have spring weather in the Boston area and we definitely have a bit of spring fever at my house! The weather is too nice to stay inside all day. However we took time the other morning to make these adorable bird houses from graham crackers, Peeps and frosting. I saw the idea at Yesterfood. When I saw them, I knew Hazel would want to make them. She is after all obsessed with birdhouses and bird cages.

 
 We Had fun making them. Hazel remembered making gingerbread houses out of graham crackers and this reminded her of that. We used a tube of decorating frosting, but it took a few tries and some time to get them to stay together. 

We had two kinds of Peeps. The new birthday cake flavor (which Hazel thought was ok) and the original ones in pink (which Hazel does not like since she does not like marshmallow, but I love them). She made the house for the pink one and I did the blue one.

For similar ideas check out these posts:

• Graham Cracker Nativity 
• Valentine's Day Gingerbread House 
• Building a Bird Nest
• Yarn Bird Cages

DIY Canopy for a Princess Bed

For the past year Hazel has been scared of everything. She does not like to be in her room alone or for that matter almost anywhere in our house. One day she told me she might feel better if she had a canopy. Now being a girly girl myself, I had seen this idea on one of those home improvement/design shows and loved it and tried it for myself when I was single. Steve did not really want a canopy over our bed, so we packed it away in case we had a daughter some day. I should add we inherited Hazel's bedroom set from my grandparents (yes, my Grandmother Hazel slept on that bed frame), so we did not buy her a bed. If I had my say and bought one it would have been a canopy bed.

To make this easy canopy for a bed (I guess technically it is half a canopy), you need a wooden curtain rod, two matching small wooden plaques, fabric and screws and anchors for the screws. First cut the wooden rod in half (I obviously did not measure when I did this). Then put the cut edge against each plaque. I glued them, but would recommend screwing them together with flat headed screws (on one of them this eventually had to be done). If you want to paint them (I did) paint them now. Then hang them high above each side of the bed using the wall anchors to make sure the screws stay in the wall and the rods do not fall on top of anyone.

Once hung, hang the fabric over each pole and decorate however you want. I glued fake pink roses into the holes on the ends of the rods and draped over fake ivy. When it was over my bed I also had a string of pink star shaped lights going over it. We decided she didn't need that and kept her star light under the canopy. 

Apparently Pumpkin (one of our cats) approved of it since she does not usually sleep in Hazel's room. And of course Hazel loved it the moment she saw it. We put it up when she was at Nonni's. We told her we had a surprise for her and I told her she had to search for it like and Easter egg. This is her reaction when she saw it.

When I had it as a single woman, my good friend and landlady owned a store. We bought the share fabric wholesale and she gave me a pillowcase that read: "The Princess Sleeps Here." The pillowcase is on one of Hazel's pillows now. Needless to say she loves it all. Here is another view of it from when I was single. This was my winter look for the bed. I wanted to match my newly finished winter quilt.

Dress up/ Closet Organization

If your child is anything like mine she has many hats, bags, purses, etc. everywhere. My daughter has always been into purses (apparently so was I). For a changing table we had used a piece of furniture (almost a dresser but with a door to hang small items). When she out grew the changing table pad we moved it out of her room and started using it for dress up clothes. I like to buy costumes at the post-Halloween sales, plus she has my old hats and things. She is getting quite a collection, however when she does play with them it tends to be pulling everything out and leaving them in a pile. I wanted to find a better way to organize it all.

As I was looking at my disorganized closet I remembered the over the door purse hanger I have and wanted to replicate it for Hazel. I decided to tie ribbon along the door of the dresser and hang some of her hats and purses on them. I simply used clothespins to hang everything up. We are going to also add some ribbons at the side that isn't against a wall to spread this out and hang the rest up. That will require some nails and since I had my eyes dilated this morning at the doctor's and can barely see it will have to wait.

I'm also thinking of doing something similar over her closet door for all the bags, backpacks, etc. we have collected. She seems to have more bags than me and she still would rather use mine.

One last thing to share before I go rest my eyes. On Saturday we went to Lakeshore Learning Store for their free craft. It was decorate your own notebook. Here is Hazel's.

The notebooks themselves were paper with a colored piece slightly thicker on top. Two holes punched through and a rubber band stuck through from the back and strung onto a popsicle stick. Then they had foam stickers, markers, stamp markers and glitter glue to decorate them. Hazel of course globbed on the glitter glue and stuck all the stickers in one spot, but had fun. It is an easy craft and now she has a notebook or drawing book of her own.

Hope your Monday is going well.

Valentine's Day Gingerbread House

So today, we had school then we went and ran some errands including buying Valentine's Day themed candy for our next gingerbread house. We also picked up a jar of strawberry frosting so it would be pink.

I think Hazel liked taking the wrappers off the chocolate hearts because she kept using them.

She really likes just sticking the candy on. She asked me all morning before school to do it and then couldn't wait to do it when we got home.

Ok, I did this side. Hazel looked at it and noticed my wreath. Then she wanted to make one.

So the line on the side of M & M's is her wreath. She didn't quite get how to do it, but who cares. She had fun!

So what do you think of our Valentine's Day Gingerbread House?

Now Hazel is at my mother-in-law's house for the afternoon so I get to go work on (and hopefully finish) my quilt!! I will post pictures of it finished--I promise.

Tomorrow we have a tour (without Hazel) of the nursery room and kindergartens at Hazel's school and then our interview with the nursery teacher (with Hazel) in the afternoon. Such excitement. Hazel is beginning to get excited for it as well. She is talking about going to school without Mommy and needing to be potty-trained before then, which I'm happy to report she is doing pretty well except the setback from the pediatrician wanting a sterile urine sample. We had many accidents for a few days to avoid giving it, but after we got it, she has been doing well. :o)

So something to share: We were asked to view this video before the tour tomorrow. I think you might find it interesting. http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/prescriptionforplay Let me know what you think.

Midweek Crafts and things

This week seems to be flying by. I feel like I have had no time to get things done. I have been working on visiting all the amazing posts shared on Saturday. Have you checked out our current Sharing Saturday? There are 81 posts so far!! They are all so wonderful. You should really go check them out. So many fabulous ideas of things to do.

We have been a bit busy here. Hazel had her 3-year-old well visit on Monday. And I feel like I have been running around all week. In fact we have to leave soon for my doctor's appointment--a follow-up--nothing too major.

One quick craft we did was make a Valentine's Day frame. I bought a bunch of the wooden frames at Micahels for $1. These have the heart cut out for Valentine's Day gifts. Our first one, we glued on Conversation Hearts. I need to seal them still, but it came out cute.

Since I don't have a picture to put in it yet, I decided to do some word art. Last week I read about this great site--Tagxedo. It allows you to enter a website or words and choose a shape, color themes, etc. and makes these beautiful word arts. Here are a few I did using my blog.

I also did some playing around with love, and bible quotes about love.

Ok, I think you get the point. I highly recommend you check out Tagxedo.

What was in the box

The other thing we did today was to make another gingerbread house. A friend gave us two kits that her aunt gave her (and then realized she couldn't use them since they contain tree nuts and her son is very allergic). Hazel of course was excited to do it. It came with everything, but we didn't use most of what came with it. We used the leftover frosting we had from our other gingerbread house and some candy we had floating around.

First Hazel gave it a face. These are the eyes, nose and cheeks. I'm not sure about the mouth.

I gave it a graham cracker door and some heart windows. Then we had fun decorating the roof. We'll see what we do with the other one.

Conversation hearts worked well as decorations!

Play Kitchen

So about a year and a half ago, Hazel and I were taking a walk when it happened to be trash day in our neighborhood. Three houses down out with the trash was a play kitchen. It was dirty and didn't have any of the drawers, etc., but otherwise was in good shape. And it was large. I called my girlfriend to see if she could come watch Hazel so I could get it into my car and then while waiting for my friend I happened to mention it to the general contractors who were doing our addition at the time. They of course said they would take a coffee break and go get it for me. Then the next day, one of them brought me a cleaner that works great on plastic and helped me clean it up. So here is the kitchen we got for free if it was new:

Source: http://www.kaplantoys.com/

I went to the Dollar Tree and Target and bought various baskets, etc. to fill in the holes and bought the accessories: pots, pans, dishes, food, etc. We have been slowly replacing the plastic food with nice wooden food and have even made some ourselves. Hazel loves playing in her kitchen.

This Christmas Season we seemed to get every toy catalog possible. I would give them to Hazel (as well as any other catalog that came that we didn't want) and she would pretend they were magazines. Well she fell in love with a pink and white wooden kitchen with curtains. I believe it was this one.

Source: http://www.cptoy.com/

Which of course is almost $400. Needless to say she isn't getting her dream kitchen. However she began asking me to make curtains for her kitchen. Well I went to Joann's and picked out some pink and white fabric and then bought more recently when it was on sale--enough to make a table cloth, napkins, curtains for all the openings that shouldn't be there and probably I will make some potholders and an apron to match and possibly some seat covers and cushions. While I was at it, I also printed out new stickers for her kitchen and personalized it. My dear babysitter put them up for me today while Hazel was napping and I was tutoring. So her almost finished kitchen now looks like this:

Yes, these curtains open so you can still see the lovely view they printed on the window!

I added a Command hook for potholders, but since her glove potholder was the one I found in her mess and it didn't have a loop, I hung her pink frying pans instead. Well, actually I hung one of them. When I got home she asked for another hook for the other one. I haven't put it up yet.

Needless to say she is pretty excited over the makeover of her kitchen. It is not her dream kitchen, but it certainly cost less than $400. Oh, and I mentioned to the neighbors who were getting rid of the kitchen that we had taken it (we don't really know them), and they were very happy someone took it since they couldn't find anyone who would. They also gave us their daughter's tricycle when they bought her a bicycle, so Hazel now gets her hand-me-down toys and we are not complaining.

Now if I can just get her to clean her kitchen up. Every time I organize it for her it stays that way until the next day (I do it after she is in bed), but it certainly does not last long. Oh, well she has fun with it! (As you can see we have discovered Starbucks kid size hot chocolate recently, so we washed  the cups so she could pretend to go. I also gave her my empty gift card so she could pay when she goes. I found a cute tutorial to make their coffee cups from felt and will try to adapt it to her hot chocolate and my chai latte.)

She also found a new place for her Caillou figures (and her treehouse family and many other things) to live. While cleaning off the top of the kitchen I took an old broken toy down. Unfortunately I haven't gotten around to fixing it, but she didn't care. My father and I made it this summer for her, but one of the supports gave way. Oh, well, now she has a home for her new toys. I moved the plastic furniture my mother-in-law gave her into it as well.