Leaves--Crafts & a Story

Today we worked on changing Hazel's seasonal tree to be autumn. We started to hang our salt dough ornaments and I made her a leaf garland. All I did was use thread and a needle to sew some fabric leaves that I bought at the dollar store. Very easy to do and it added much to her tree. It could also be used to decorate a mailbox, mantle, or staircase.

I used those same leaves on a candle I bought at Rite Aid. I took the sticker off and used Mod Podge to stick them on and seal them on. I actually tried with some pressed leaves that I had, but I think they had gotten too dry and pressed because they would not stick well. I love what the leaves add to the candle. Did I mention the fall candles are 50% off this week?

Finally here is another story about Sister Autumn and her leaf fairies. Click on the picture to get the pdf of it.

Happy Autumn!! Enjoy!!

Tough Week at School

So my happy go lucky daughter who has loved school got sick two weeks ago. She had a very bad cold that kept moving around her body (first throat, nose, voice and ears) and it made her very lethargic. She missed three days of school as a result. Well one of those days I believed my mother-in-law that Hazel was back to her healthy self after spending a day with Nonni so the next morning when she was full of energy I took her to school and I got a call about an hour after I left to come get my sick child. Apparently her energy fizzled out pretty fast. The next school day was class picture day and I brought her in just for the class picture, but otherwise she was stuck at home for a week and a half. Now we are sending Hazel to a Waldorf School and are trying to follow the no media rule at the school (for a great video on why no media is important for young children go here--thanks to Donni, at The Magic Onions for sharing it).

Day 2 of her bad cold she literally just laid on the couch the entire day, so I caved and let her watch television. I picked shows like Caillou and Curious George. (One of the other parents mentioned a study to me that showed shows that went at a slower pace like Caillou showed almost the same brain activity as a child who didn't watch any versus shows like Sponge Bob which showed major brain activity to the point of often becoming ADD.) We also pulled out some of the Disney movies. Hazel is very into the princesses right now and had never seen any of the movies. I pulled out Cinderella since I knew it was not too scary. We also watched Pocahontas. The other ones I thought might scare her, so I kept them put away. 

Now after being home for a week and a half and getting to watch some television, she no longer wants to go to school. On Tuesday morning she woke up at 5:30. She listened to her stories on CD until 6:30 and then came into bed with me crying that she didn't want to go because she would miss me too much. She cried the entire time we were home and then cried more when we got to school. I left her there with the teacher (who was already dealing with a boy who always cries and has been a bit aggressive with some of the students) and figured she would stop once I left. She didn't. From what I understand she whimpered most of the time at school. I had even tried bribing her, but apparently that didn't work either.  I keep hoping it will just go away.

Unfortunately, this morning she crawled into bed with me at 6:30 again crying about not wanting to go to school. It breaks my heart to hear her cry so much. My daughter hardly ever cries unless she is really hurt or overtired, so this is not like her at all. I know she will grow out of this, but I just want my happy child back--the one who loves school.

Any advice is welcome!! Oh, and I'll share some crafts later.

Story Time to Help Fight Hunger

If you read my blog regularly, you know I joined a group of parents, teachers, concerned citizens called Moms Fighting Hunger to help bring awareness to the No Kid Hungry Campaign in September. (If you have not been following them all you can see all my posts about this here.) September is National Hunger Month and thus why we did all of this in September. As I was thinking of what I wanted to do to help, I came up with the idea of having a story time at the library about food and hunger and ask the children (and their families) ahead of time to bring a can of food for our town's food pantry. I had really wanted to do something different. I knew I could bring cans of food to church which is always collecting for one of the local places, but wanted to make a difference in a way that affected more people than just myself.

My first stop was at our town library. Luckily the children's librarian, Ms. Bethany is amazing and we know her well. She loved the idea and the only stipulation was that it could not be in September since the September calendar was set and we needed time to advertise. So we chose the first week in October. She does two morning story times every Tuesday: one for toddlers and one for preschoolers and then often she does something after school for the older children. So yesterday was our day. Now I wanted to help as much as possible. We brainstormed about some book/story ideas and I came up with Stone Soup and making story stones so the children could add a stone with a picture of an ingredient to the pot. She loved the idea and I made her the stones. (I shared them here.) I also talked to the editor-in-chief at our local newspaper and he of course said he would help advertise it. I just had to send it to him, which I did. It made it into the paper here.

So yesterday between the three story times, she had about 40 people including parents. We gathered six bags of food which I brought to the food pantry this morning. Hazel and I attended the afternoon story time since Hazel was in school for the morning ones. This had the smallest crowd, but it was fun. 

The first book she read was Sylvie by Jennifer Sattler. This was a very entertaining book about a flamingo that changes color by eating different foods.

 

Next she read One Potato, Two Potato by Cynthia DeFelice about an elderly, poor couple who only has potatoes to eat and when the man realizes he has dug up the last potato he digs deeper and finds a magic pot that recreates whatever you put in it. Therefore, the last potato becomes two and then four, etc.  It is a very cute story that uses magic to save these people, but definitely shows hunger (they shared one potato for all three meals of the day each day) in less scary way.

Then she told Stone Soup. She used her felt board with three travelers on it. And she had distributed the stones with pictures of food on them to the children. She asked if each child had any food to spare for the travelers and of course they said, "No."  So the travelers decided to make stone soup and she put the three blank stones into the basket (she forgot the pot at home). Then asked if anyone had water they could spare. The child with the water rock said yes and put her rock in the basket. Then she asked for salt and pepper and the child with the salt and pepper rock put it in the basket. Then the kids and Ms. Bethany kept adding their rocks to the basket.

Hazel putting a stone in

When there were no stones left, they stirred the soup. The kids loved checking it all out.

After the story Ms. Bethany had a Stone Soup craft for them. Each child got a bowl and three beans which were the stones and then they added cut outs of food. She even had pieces of yarn as noodles. Then she talked to the kids about what kind of soup they liked best.

Bethany's Sample

They had a blast doing it. Hazel liked trying to cut out the shapes. They all seemed to really enjoy it!

Here is Hazel's before she added the food she cut out herself. When she was done there wasn't much inside of the bowl showing.

Oh, and a reporter from a local daily paper came to take a picture of the story time, so we will be featured there as well. I'm also going to write a press release and send pictures to our town papers. Oh, and did I mention Ms. Bethany and I decided this should be an annual thing. Next year I'm going to make her a felt fire for under the pot!

So have you met my challenge yet and donated a can of food to your local food pantry or soup kitchen? I hope so!! Please let me know if you have! You can also make a donation directly to the No Kid Hungry Campaign here. Thank you for helping us in our fight!

Happy Family Times--Family Dinner

Have you done anything fun with your family? Kelly at Happy Whimsical Hearts and I are collecting different family activities in hopes to inspire all of us to have more quality family time. Please share below and check out both mine and Kelly's stories for the week!

Growing up my family ate dinner as a family in the dining room. We used our good china and good silver every night (well Monday through Friday). Their belief was always if we have it we should use it and enjoy it. The only thing that was not used regularly were the Waterford Crystal glasses (my grandparents brought back from Ireland) and some other fancy glasses that were all hand wash only. My mother also would say if we ever were robbed she would be most upset about losing the silver since it had our teeth marks in it from when we were teething.

It was at these family dinners that we (my sisters and I) learned our table manners. I still remember my father's reaction to my sister's elbows on the table. I learned fast not to do that even by mistake. It was also where we heard about each other's day and what was planned for the next one. Now I had a parent at home with me until I entered third grade. (My father was in construction, so when there was no work he was the one home. Yes, I was one of the only kids growing up that had my father chaperone class trips.) When both parents were working as I was in third grade our chore system started. This included cooking dinner once a week (Monday through Friday). The weekends were a bit a free for all and it depended on who was around. So yes, my father and I learned to cook together when I was in third grade.

Our dining room set (at my birthday party)

I think this is why having a dining room set and good china was important to me when I got married. We bought our dining room set right before we got married and considered it our wedding gift to one another. Our china was on our registry. Well actually it was our second set of china. One of my friends who had lost her husband and daughter gave me her china set that she bought from a retiring couple when she was on her honeymoon. She said she never used it and had no one else to give it to.

The china my friend gave me

This beautiful china is hand wash only, so we do not use it very often. I knew I wanted some every day china to use like my family had growing up. So we also picked a Lenox pattern to have something we could throw in the dishwasher.  Of course, it became discontinued (as did everything we registered for) just before the wedding. We picked it knowing we would want it to have blue and pink flowers to match the first one.

Our Lenox Dishes

Our set also had matching silverware or I should say stainless steel flatware. We got those as well. Whatever we hadn't gotten but wanted we bought from our registry since it was being discontinued. So recently we started eating in the dining room with our good china. We started doing it  a few weeks ago, but stopped when Hazel got sick. So Saturday we started again with our Michaelmas celebration.

For our Michaelmas meal, I made Harvest Apple Soup. I followed the recipe from How Sweet It Is for the most part, but made a few changes. I used closer to two cups of pumpkin since our small pumpkin from my father's garden gave me two cups. I also tasted it while it was cooking and thought it needed a little something more so I added some cinnamon and nutmeg. Hazel and I loved it. Steve (who doesn't like pumpkin) did not.

Then we made our huckabuck bread. We used the recipe that the teachers used in our parent/child class last year. This time I used my Kitchen Aid to make it and knead it. It came out wonderfully. I shaped it as a dragon and used the rest to make small sword rolls.

 Then for dessert instead of the traditional blackberry dessert we had a raspberry tarte. It was in our freezer from awhile ago. We also don't really like blackberries so I figured raspberries were close enough.

Overall, it was a lovely dinner. We have continued to have dinner in the dining room. Steve and I were talking tonight about how it is more relaxing. Plus I can already tell we are teaching Hazel more table manners. Everything is more formal when you are in the dining room versus the kitchen.

Where do you eat your dinner?

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

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Ok, now for our PARTY!! Please share your FUN Family Times!!

Multicultural Monday--Vive Mexico

Continuing with our celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month, we read the book, Magic Windows or Ventanas Magicas by Carmen Lomas Garza. Like the book last week, this book was in both English and Spanish. All of the artwork is the author's own paper cuttings. Paper cuttings or papal picado are a Mexican tradition and considered folk art. For more information about them you can visit here.

In Magic Windows, Ms. Garza describes a bit of the process and much of the Mexican traditions that she is picturing as well as some personal family events. It amazes me that they do this with tissue paper and a craft knife and it has to all be connected. 

The last picture she shares if of herself with her nieces and nephew making papel picado or what she calls banderitas. So I did a little search and found a couple of websites with tutorials on making banderitas and thought Hazel would be able to do it with me.

The first is on Hubpages and is Papel Picado Tutorial for Kids. Basically the instructions have you fold a square of tissue paper into either fourths or eighths and then use paper punches to make designs.

The second is on eHow: How to Make Mexican Decorations with Tissue Paper. They have you fold the square of tissue paper in accordion style.

We tried some both ways. I ended up liking the Hubpages folding the best, but folded it into eighths. I cut eight-inch squares of some tissue paper. I did all the folding since Hazel's folds were not quite neat enough for this project and then we used all of our punches and scrapbook scissors to make fun designs.

Hazel did not quite get the idea of how the patterns were made, but had fun using all the special punches and scissors. You can basically tell hers form mine.

In Mexico the colors also mean something. Depending on the holiday or festival they are used for will determine the color used. There is more information at Hubpages.

Now I just need to attach them all to a string and hang them up for some festival!