A Toy Garden Giveaway Winner!

Congratulations to Hallie, who said,

"I am definitely a fan on FB! What a fun giveaway! I know my girls would love to make these and it would much cleaner than the hand dipped ones we made! lol"!

You have two days to get in touch with me.  Congrats, congrats and thank you to everyone who entered and most of all thank you to, A Toy Garden!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day & A Shop Update

 

I know, I know, I should have posted this a long time ago!  But, in honor of St. Paddy's day and all things rainbow I'm posting now.  

I made this rainbow gift set for my nieces & nephew for Christmas.  I bought plain white silk scarves or playsilks (35" x 35") from Dharma Trading Co and dyed the colors with kool-aid and egg dye. The gnome clothespins you'll recognize from my tutorial. I also sell them on etsy.  I love how they came out. I sent along a string in case they wanted to hang them on the wall.  

In other news I have some lovely dolls in my Mama West Wind shop for those Easter baskets! 

Don't forget to enter the giveaway I'm hosting!  A beeswax candle making set from A Toy Garden!  I'll be back here tomorrow evening to post the winner!

Until next time...

{ this moment }

Don't forget to enter A Toy Garden giveaway!

***

And I'm cheating this week!

{this moment} - "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

~Amanda Soule

Go to Soulemama to participate.

Thoughts on Simplicity...

 

I'm loving this magazine that just showed up in the mailbox this week. Taproot!  Such a nice surprise, courtesy of Nova Naturals. It's so far from my reality but it's helping me to dream.  I've been doing a lot of that lately.  Dreaming, dreaming, of what I want my life to be.  Also taking stock of what I have and being truly grateful for it. Plus taking some concrete steps toward what I want. 

Many of you know we live in a desert and we are spoiled with beautiful weather.  I love our area of the country but also find myself pining a little for back east.  I want a large shady yard for the boys to run in and a large sunny garden to tend.

We rent a small house, 2 bedrooms and less than 1000 square feet with a tiny and I mean teeny, tiny backyard.  My garden plot which we began last year is about 5 x 6'.  Lest you think I'm complaining, I truly love our house.  It's small and cozy and nestled into a little half cul de sac.  But lately it has seemed smaller and smaller and I've found myself wishing for a bigger home and feeling a little entitled to it with the size of our budding family.  But then I watched this, thanks to a friend on facebook.



And suddenly our house seems huge!  Not only that but I recently read this book, which I highly recommend.

Not only did it help me clean out and clear out the boy's room but it's inspired me to clear out the rest of the house.  Spring is in the air!  Every nook and cranny is being sorted &  ruthlessly cleared of things we don't need.  Which brings me to the question, what do we really need to live?  Do we need huge houses of stuff?  The stuff in my life has begun to feel heavy and burdensome and I'm ready to clear it out and breathe in space & clarity.  Do I need shelves and shelves of books when there is a perfectly good library in our town?  Do we need 16 towels or could we do with 8?  Do the boys need 10 pairs of pants or could they do with 4 or 5?  I know I'm not alone in these thoughts.  Here's another post I read recently on simplifying and some great tips on how to do so.

My "tiny" house now feels large and roomy.  With much of the excess gone, or nearly gone it feels so much more expansive and much easier to keep clean.  But why after watching one little video does my house feel so much bigger? My definition of a small house has changed, which was only just a mindset to begin with.  Ah, freedom.

So after watching this video, could you join the tiny house movement?

Until next time...

***

Don't forget to enter A Toy Garden giveaway!

A Toy Garden Giveaway!

***  

Hallie, who said, " I am definitely a fan on FB! What a fun giveaway! I know my girls would love to make these and it would much cleaner than the hand dipped ones we made! lol"  has won the giveaway!  Congratulations!!!!

After my candle making post, A Toy Garden asked if I would host a giveaway!!! I'm so pleased to be apart of paying it forward.

One lucky winner will be gifted a multicolored beeswax making candle set! There are some lovely colors
in this set, perfect for candle making for your Easter table or Spring nature table and for all year round too.  My boys had such a fun time making these and are so proud they've contributed to our Springtime celebrations.

So, here's how to enter the giveaway! This giveaway is limited to US entries only.

• Become a fan of A Toy Garden on Facebook.  Leave a comment here saying you are a fan. 

• For a second chance to win, visit A Toy Garden and tell me about an item from their shop that you love.  (If not on Facebook, you can enter this way.)

• For a 3rd chance to win share this giveaway on Facebook or Tweet on Twitter and come back & leave a comment saying you did so. If not on Facebook or Twitter email or tell a friend & come back and leave a comment saying you did so.

• For a 4th chance to win blog about this giveaway and leave a comment with a link to your blog post.

I will announce the winner here on Saturday, March 17th, by Random Number Generator. Good luck & thank you to A Toy Garden!

Here's a candle that we made together for our Spring nature table.

*** comments are now closed.

Be Back in Three Buckets!

Our little Owen is just growing and growing and it's so fun seeing his personality shine free and independent.  He is his own little being.  Lately all he wants to wear on his feet are these boots!  These used to be Michael's and it's so fun seeing Owen love them just as much as Michael did.  

And he loves this sweat shirt and will not give it up even though it's quite small on him now.

Cute things he's been saying...

• "I'll be back in three buckets" (he means seconds).  One day Michael was upset because Papa was taking Owen out & he needed to stay home so we could do our school work.  Owen whispered in Michael's ear, "Don't worry, we'll be back in 3 buckets!" He made Michael laugh. This has become "a thing" between brothers and so they both say it now.  

• One morning he woke up saying "sawberries, sawberries..." over and over.  "Can I eat sawberries?!"  I asked him if he had been dreaming about strawberries and he said yes.  A couple of days later I brought some home and he ate them with a look of pure excitement and ecstasy on his face!  I wish I had gotten a picture!

• This morning he asked if we could make "chocolate bounies" (brownies) or have "sawberries".  I said we can't have brownies for breakfast and I don't have any strawberries. He asked "How about some butter?" (peanut butter).
 

• He asks me for "apples with a cut on it", meaning apples that are cut up.  

• One day we had to be somewhere and so rushing the boys I said, " Eat your breakfast!"  In the next breath, like a distracted Mama & making my list of things to take I said out loud,"diapers!"  Owen said, "Diapers!  I can't eat diapers?!"  My little two year old cracked his first joke!

Stay tuned tomorrow for a special giveaway!!! Until next time...

"I want to read!" ...

Thank you for all of the comments and homeschooling wisdom on my last reading post.  This last week was exciting!  We have finally finished our journey to the Wise Sophia.  All angel sounds (vowels) have been gifted and he is on his way to reading!  

He's been enjoying learning word families.  Here's the UG family.  He pronounces the word I make from our watercolor cards and then he writes it down and draws a picture of what the word means next to it.  He really enjoys this process.  It's all been a lesson in patience for me. It's challenging to know when to pipe in and when to let him work it out for himself.  For us the answer lies somewhere before the point of frustration, which can be a challenge to catch. 

On the day of our last vowel story Michael found the scrabble letters and we worked on sounding out more words.  He was really excited and said "Now, I can play scrabble!" and he brought out the board and demanded a game. Of course he's not ready to fully play scrabble but we played and I helped him to make simple words and showed him a little about how the points work. We practiced sounding out each word we formed together.  He was really interested and we played for about a half hour.  I was impressed he stuck with the game so long. He sees Papa and I play and he wants to play too.

Last night we had a break through.  Often when sounding out words he will forget what we sounded out just a moment before.  Last night we read a book together.  He would sound out a sentence or two and then I would read more and then he'd sound out a word here and there.  He was remembering the words he had just sounded out! The excitement & joy of reading just bubbled up and he screamed "I want to read!  I can't wait!". 

It's just a pure joy and privilege to see his excitement!  Warms this Mama's heart!

Until next time...

Candles & Gratitude!

Recently I won a giveaway of a Beeswax Candle making Kit from A Toy Garden through Little Acorn Learning. We had never rolled candles before so I was excited to try it. Just a week prior I had bought a pastel kit that I saw went on sale.  The kit we won has mostly bright colors so now we have a fun variety of color. 

Can I just tell you how very grateful I am for these giveaways!  When I think back to last year... I used to go through our lessons crossing off all of the projects we couldn't do because I couldn't afford the supplies for them.  Now, between giveaways, trading and my MamaWestWind store which I have designated toward home school, we are able to do all the projects I have listed in my lessons.  I cannot even express how grateful I am for this!

Michael & Owen loved this project.  Of course Owen is a bit young for it, but he really wanted to make a candle. I wish I could say it all went smoothly but with Owen and his little grabby hands and Michael and his many questions, it was chaos! So, Owen rolled this candle with my help and then he was sent off to play.  Things calmed way down after that and everyone was happy. (I have to add, had I organized this better or worked with the boys one on one it would have been easier.)

Michael rolling his candle.

And decorating it for Spring.

Michael decorated Owen's candle too.  So, here are our dinnertime candles.  They were both so proud they made our dinnertime candles. 

I just recently bought these unfinished wooden candle holders and put a beeswax finish on them.  Michael and I made the tapered candles to fit.

And one to decorate our Spring Nature table!  It was such a fun activity and I think we'll have plenty of candles for a year of celebrating! Thanks so much to Little Acorn Learning and A Toy Garden!

Until next time...

The Angel Sounds...

Last week we started on vowels!  This is a big deal for us.  All year we've been working on the consonants and reading/ telling fairy tales that go with each story.  Our curriculum tells a lovely "container story" of a little girl who is on a journey to receiving a great gift.  I wrote more on that here.  Anyway, we are finally at the point of learning what those gifts are, the vowels of course!  The key to reading!

A week earlier we learned the roman numerals and made some keys for each number. Now, Michael has to use his keys in order to open the 5 doors.

I quickly drew 5 doors with their corresponding Roman Numeral on this piece of wood.  Michael really loved pretending to unlock the door.  

I told him the story of "The White Snake", by Brothers Grimm for letter A.  This is not the fairytale story that the curriculum provides, but... have you ever had a Grimm's story just rub you the wrong way? There have only been a couple that I really don't like and ,"Our Lady's Child", is one of them.  So, with the recommendation of my friend Becca over at Cedar Ring Mama, I chose, "The White Snake".

I told the story with the help of a few props, including a little wooden castle, tree, felt pond and a couple of gnomes.  Then we practiced some words using our vowel sound.

Our watercolor cards have been a tremendous help in learning all of the sounds.  I notice Michael remembers the sound better when I've drawn or painted something simple on the card from our story.  Some of them have this and some are just plain letters.  I've been a little inconsistent with them. I want to illustrate the plain ones as it really does seem to help.

We go through our cards every school day to remember the sounds.  To make it fun, we also use scrabble tiles as well.  We tile them up on the wooden tile stand, saying each sound as we go. The last letter that is put on, filling the stand, gets to push every other letter off.  Of course Michael thinks this is great fun! 

So, I'm not really sure how this reading thing goes. I feel a bit like I'm on the edge of a great abyss or waiting with bated breath to see when it will all just click.  Does it happen that way?  Right now Michael sounds out the words really well but has a hard time getting those individual sounds to sound like a word.  Does that make sense?  I guess, we will just practice, practice and keep it fun.  Any sage advice or stories of your experiences are more than welcome!

Until next time...

{ this moment }

{this moment} - "A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember."

~Amanda Soule

Go to Soulemama to participate.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had a fun Valentine's Day today!  When the boys awoke they found one of these little gnomes, a little love note & a box of Sweethearts candies at their place setting at the table. The gnomes are wood-burned all around, painted & capped.  I found my inspiration in the bright blue and red on our "The Queen of Hearts" plates behind the gnomes. 

This nursery rhyme is printed on them which I used for Circle time this week.

The Queen of Hearts

She made some tarts,

    All on a summer's day;

The Knave of Hearts

He stole those tarts,

    And took them clean away.

The King of Hearts

Called for the tarts,

    And beat the knave full sore;

The Knave of Hearts

Brought back the tarts,

    And vowed he'd steal no more.

I also hid Valentine hearts all around the living room for the boys to find.  They had secret messages written on them & the boys had to paint them to uncover the messages.  It was a fun hunt but only a few of the messages showed through.  I guess I should have tested it out first.  Perhaps I didn't press hard enough with the white crayon?  We'll try it out another time for sure.  I found this activity through Pinterest originating at Better Homes & Gardens. 

For story time I told, "The Prince's Valentine" by Author Unknown found at Freeflowing Ways. The boys loved it.  Michael said, "This is the best Valentine's Day ever!"  Warms this Mother's heart!

Hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day too!

Until next time...

Valentine's Day Weekend!

Thank you so much for your wonderful response to my last post.  I had no idea when I wrote it that there would be so many Mama's with similar thoughts & experiences.  So nice to know we're not alone and what a great support system we can all be for one another.  I'm so grateful to have that! 

~~~~

Anyway, this weekend was a special one.  In honor of Valentine's Day our local shelter was adopting pets out for $14.  We had no idea when we went to our local Farmer's market that we'd becoming home with this little guy. We weren't looking for a pet but we all agreed rather quickly that we had to bring him home.

 

He's about 4 months old, still a kitten and we're all completely smitten with him!  Our little boys have been in seventh heaven. We haven't had a pet since our last kitties passed away about 5 years ago.  Michael was only 2 and doesn't remember too much about them.  So this is all new & exciting for them.  Michael keeps asking, "Are we really going to keep him?!".

Poe, as I think we've named him (we've gone through a few names already), is sweet and wild and fun!  He's already getting used to Owen and his loud and sudden ways and he always has a playmate in them both.  What a wonderful Valentine gift he is for us all!  I hadn't expected how much he would change the dynamic in our home. Fun, fun!

In other news, we've been enjoying the Valentine's Day build up.  We made Valentines today.

Here's Michael's Valentine for Daddy.

And one for Poe of course.

We made sugar cookie hearts, Michael's favorite cookie.

Owen was such fun to watch decorate his cookies.  He is a fan of the large clump of frosting with an equal amount of sprinkles.

And of course they're even more fun to eat! 

I've been busy making my Valentines for all of my boys.  I'll be back tomorrow with some pics of them!

Have a Happy Valentine's Day!