Happy Family Times #27--Meeting Cinderella

Just a reminder that today is the last day to enter my current giveaway!!

Have you done anything new with your family? Anything fun? Kelly from Happy Whimsical Hearts and I would love to hear about it. Please share below!! Or look below for inspiration for some fun family activities (and read about mine and Kelly's as well).

This week we had a lot of relax and cuddle time since we have a sick little one. However before she got her cold (or at least before she showed signs of it) we went to our local McDonalds for dinner and to meet Cinderella. For some reason our local McDonalds has characters and different events all the time. The only reason we go to McDonalds is to see the characters. Usually if we go we just get french fries and drinks since that is about all I can usually get Hazel to eat. However since Cinderella was going to be there from 4-6, we had to eat there. We ordered a cheeseburger Happy Meal since Steve wanted a cheeseburger (and it got Hazel the small fries and apple slices plus the toy) and I got their premium chicken strips which we actually liked. Hazel and I split it and Steve helped out too. Plus Steve and I split some fries.

When we arrived Cinderella was painting the girls' nails. When it was Hazel's turn she got blue nails. (Have I mentioned how I really hate blue nail polish?) Next Cinderella put eye shadow on the girls, but I talked Hazel out of this. She was going to do blush as well, but for some reason did not. Next Cinderella blew up blue balloons for the kids and autographed them and drew different pictures on them. Hazel got a crown.

She also put pink metallic ribbons/streamers on the end of them. Cinderella then noticed that several kids were eating their dinners so she had the ones not eating dance to Bippity Boppity Boo. She passed out lyrics to the parents sitting near by to help sing.

Then she had the kids play keep the balloons in the air. If your balloon popped you were out, but she gave the ones whose popped stickers that said something about getting popped.

 Next Cinderella made them streamer wands to dance with. All she did was rip a piece of crepe paper streamer (blue or pink) and roll one end to be thin enough to stick in a straw. However the streamers kept falling out so one of the mothers went to her car and got some scotch tape and taped them in so we weren't all fixing them every two seconds.  (We are definitely going to use this idea for Hazel's birthday party since she wants a princess party.)

By this point it was getting close to six, and since that usually is around the time we start going to bed, we headed home. Hazel gave Cinderella a hug goodbye!

Now I have to say, Hazel and I went to see several of the princesses at McDonalds over the summer. It amazes me that almost all of them have been the same actress (she owns the business) and the kids who are almost always the same group don't seem to notice. Or maybe they just don't care. The princess always gives a gift to each child with a business card attached, so they get good advertising and McDonalds definitely gets more business. I guess it is a win-win for them. During the summer it was at lunch time so Hazel and I would walk over after having an early lunch at home. This time she was very excited that Mommy and Daddy were with her. I can only imagine what it will be like when we go to Disney. It amazes me how much she loves the princesses when the first time she saw anything Disney on television or (movie wise) was this past weekend. We let her watch Cinderella on tape. I figured it would not scare her and we gave in on the television when she was barely moving from the couch. Now we will have to break that again. Oh, well. She does know she is only getting to watch it because she is sick.


Now it is your turn to share how your family has spent some quality time lately.

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Cuckoo by Lois Ehlert Virtual Book Club for Kids and Multicultural Monday

Just a reminder, Tuesday is the last day to enter my giveaway!! I hope you have entered!

Sharing Saturday is still open!! Please come share your child-oriented crafts and activities!

Last week I shared Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert for the Virtual Book Club for Kids. This week we did some activities with her Cuckoo or Cucu in Spanish. This book is written in both English and Spanish on each page. Therefore, we are continuing our celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Cuckoo is a wonderful book about a cuckoo bird who is very vain. She knows she is beautiful and she knows she has a lovely voice. The other birds are sick of her especially since she is lazy and does not help gather the food. All the birds go to sleep including the bird leader, Owl, so they will be well rested for the next morning's work of gathering all the seeds so they could plant them the following spring for their food source (and the other animals around). 

Cuckoo becomes bored singing to herself and then she sees a red flash and fears it is another beautiful, flashy bird. She goes to investigate and discovers the meadows are on fire. Mole is out of his hole and tells her to bring the seeds to his hole to save them. It is too late to get help from the other sleeping birds, so she spends the entire night flying to the meadow to the woods bringing all the seeds to mole's hole. She gets very close to the fire and her beautiful wings turn black and her eyes turn red from the smoke. When the birds awake they see the burnt fields and are upset about having lost their seeds and thus their food source until the black Cuckoo comes to tell them what she has done.

One of the things I love about Lois Ehlert's books is you can often see how she made the pictures. This one was a very easy collage of papers joined by brass fasteners. Well Hazel and I made our own Cuckoo. Hazel made a colorful one and I made a black one. I did all the cutting and Hazel helped with the gluing and the hole punching as well as putting it together.

Hazel loved making them. Now she is enjoying playing with them as well. Another thing I loved about this book was that the animal community worked together to save their food source. All the birds participated in saving the seeds each year to feed not just themselves but the other animals as well. Then in this story the mole provided his home as a place to store them safely from the fire. Now that we are entering our last week of National Hunger Month, I hope you will take up my challenge from last week and donate a can to your local food pantry or soup kitchen. Let us help end hunger in our own areas!! Or you can make a donation to the No Kid Hungry Campaign (run by Share Our Strength). They are fighting to make sure no child in the United States is hungry!!
 
Now it is your turn to share!! If you have a new or old post about an activity to do with a Lois Ehlert book, please share below and grab the button and code if you would like to help us advertise! (FYI, the blog hop goes live at midnight!!) Also please make sure you visit the other blogs that are hosting to see what they have created with the various Lois Ehlert books! (Plus next Monday we will share another project to go with a different book!)

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Sharing Saturday #38

Wow, once again, I'm blown away with last week's amazing ideas. If you have not been back to check them out, please do so (and don't forget to leave some comment love!).

Ok, now for this week's features! Our most clicked was a wonderful way to remember a loved one. And with this feature I also send my deepest sympathy for your loss and prayers for you and your family.

Some of my Must-Share Favorites:

1) From Life with Moore Babies: Location Nesting Boxes 

2) From A Happy Song: Humpty Dumpty Doll Tutorial

3) From Rustic Remnants: Name Puzzles

4) From Art Mama: Yogurt, Apple & Summer Squash Muffins

And since autumn is beginning here are 

Some Fall Favorites:

1) From I HEART CRAFTY THINGS: Apple Tree

2) From We Made That: Crock-Pot Apple Butter

3) From I HEART CRAFTY THINGS: Fall Tree

4) From One Creative Mommy: Paper Candy Corn Bunting

5) From A Happy Song: Fall Hair Clips

6) From Two Big, Two Little: Apple Printing Wall Banner

7) From Reading Confetti: Maple Seed Birds

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog.

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From Your Hostess: Autumn & Her Fairies a Short Story (and some clothespin dolls)

 

Now for This Week's Party   

A Few Simple Guidelines:
1)  Please follow both hosts via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).  

Hosts are Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart2Heart. A reminder: Mia is taking a blogging break. Hopefully she will be back soon to host again!!

2)  Link any kid-friendly, child-centered post. Please no etsy shops or giveaways, etc.  Remember to link to your actual post.

3) Post the button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

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All right everyone...This is a PARTY!! Have Fun!!

Pause in Our Rhythm & Autumn & Her Fairies

Yesterday morning, Hazel woke up extremely early (3:30 a.m.) with a sore throat. She did not go back to sleep. I had trouble believing the sore throat thing since she was singing and jumping, but as the day went on it became obvious. She had an awful night last night and was awake quite a few times crying in pain or wanting something to drink. This morning she slept a little later and then wanted to listen to her stories on cd. At 7 she climbed into bed with me and we stayed there (sleeping most of the time) until 8. Needless to say, we canceled our plans for the day and she did not go to school yesterday. So we have a pause in our weekly rhythm--the first week of our full rhythm with swim lessons starting this week. I got to thinking about how it is easier to pause because Hazel is sick than because I am. And I know how fortunate I am to have my mother-in-law close by and always willing to take her when I'm sick.

Autumn

Source

This morning I made some clothespin dolls for Hazel of Autumn and her Maple Fairy and Oak Fairy. I shared the story I wrote about them the other day. I used a paint marker to paint their shoes and eyes. Then I used cotton for autumn and some scrap red yarn for her hair. For the fairies I used felt and cut out templates of the leaves. Then I used some fabric paint markers to have their spilled paint on them. I decided not to sew the clothes since I originally was going to have Hazel do this with me. So I used Sobo Glue which works great with fabric. I discovered it when I was making dollhouse furniture and dolls.

Maple and Oak Fairies

The other project I have been working on is a doll from Joan Russell's Dolls of the World Collection. The pattern is from The Woman's Day Book of Soft Toys & Dolls by Joan Russell. I'm hoping to make all of her collection as well as her Native American collection and my ultimate goal is to make her Amy doll (the cute one on the lower corners of the cover) and all her clothes and doll for Hazel for her birthday gift. I figured I would practice on the other ones first and it is a good thing I did because I messed up the hair and the eyes are not perfect. Oh, well. Now I just need to make the poor doll clothes. Joan Russell is very detail oriented when it comes to costumes so this may take awhile. Can you tell which country she is suppose to be from?

Did I mention that September is National Sewing Month? So it seems like a great time to be playing with doll making! I hope you will join us for Sharing Saturday later tonight!

Multicultural Monday/Thursday--Latin American Dance

As promised my late Multicultural Monday Thursday post. So as I mentioned in my last post, Hazel has not been in the mood for crafting lately. (I don't know why.) So today we read a couple of books about Hispanic Families (Mexican to be exact) and then had a Latin American Dance Party based on one of the books. We are continuing our celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month!

In My Family by Carmen Lomas Garza has a description both in English and in Spanish of the author's paintings of her family and special events. It goes from every day things to healing practices to weddings and other celebrations. It is really lovely and she identifies each family member for you as well as what they are doing in the painting. A great glimpse at another culture from a very personal view.

What Can You Do with a Rebozo? by Carmen Tafolla describes all the uses different family members have for a rebozo or a Mexican shawl (typically made out of cotton or silk). The uses go from dressing up, cleaning up, playing peek-a-boo, building forts, cradling a baby for free hands, etc. The story is told by a young girl whose favorite thing to do with a rebozo is dance. This is what we did. I pulled out three shawls--not rebozos but the closets thing we had. I put on a Hispanic CD, Latin Playground by Putumaya   from the library and we danced. We even pulled out our homemade instruments from last week!

Hazel even put on her princess shoes--plastic heels! But I think she had trouble dancing so she often was taking them off and putting them back on. She played the guiro and I played the maracas. We had a great time!

Of course, Fluffy did not like the noise of our homemade instruments. Any time I shook the maracas she gave me a stare. This picture does not quite do it justice because of the flash with her eyes.

It was a fun time!! Afterwards we needed a little down time and went to play with hers and Daddy's trains. How are you celebrating National Hispanic Month?