Imagination ROCKS

The boys decided to make a CLAW game... you know? The ones at the Pizza Parlor where you put in your quarters and try to pick up a toy? Yep. I want you to notice that Josh even has the claw SHAKE when it's moving down to a T... Imagination ROCKS.

SUE!

SUE one of my regular commenters and adored visitors, won the button RAK! Thanks, Maya, for reminding me that I had promised buttons in THIS post! Sue, I need your address so I can mail those buttons to you!

Sept. TallyKit!! The Kit that COULD

TallyScrapper's Sept Kit was a little late this month, due to some ordering issues, but IT'S HERE now! Go! Grab yours! It's a FUN one!

For a Friend

I scrapped this page for an on line friend, Lisa! She won a challenge on TallyScrapper and her PRIZE was a page scrapped by ME! lol (some prize!) These photos are of her son Joshua (man, I like that name) dressed in his sister's pink coat...

Sneak Peek

A Scrapping The Music sneak peak! Check out STM! It's a great challenge blog with a little something for everyone! Sunday, you can check the blog and see the REST of my layout! mark it on your calendars! hee hee

Week 38 Deck of ME

The prompt this week was I WONDER...
I chose to do a little "retro" art work and do a drawing like one I would have drawn back as a teen. I did my card about my best friend and first true love. This was a really hard card for me to do. I cried most of the time I did it, and I'm fighting tears now, so I'm just going to let the journaling and art speak for me.

Add me to THAT challenge!

I have made it onto the DT a NEW scrapping CHALLENGE blog! I'm so excited! Thanks to Mary Yontz for allowing me to be a part of your DT!

Karaoke for the Deaf........ :)

Mu music on the sidebar can be paused... you'll need to do that.

Two things....

I joined Rhonna Farrer's 21 Day Challenge
and my goal is to FLY... which starts with shining your sink! So I've not been feeling 100% and I've still managed to do pretty well! This is a sink shot the other night. Go ME!

And in other news. I will never again be the mother of a three year old. It's really weird to me, to think that I'm not going to have that again. Funny how you think about those things in a new light when you've made the fact that you aren't having more kids pretty final.

BUT I am the proud mommy of a FOUR year old. Here's a photo of Macs on his birthday... showing me his new hand. Two things
El
Oh
Vee
Eee
about this photo.
1. The crooked pinky that Macs got from Gramma Betty. I never knew she always had them. I thought they got that way from hard farm work and the arthritis that she had. Turns out they were probably there all along, just like Macs.
2. The turned up hand at this boy's side.... just makes me
happy....

Week 37 Deck of ME!

So I really took this prompt Literally. It was DRAW SOMETHING and I did just that. I drew the WORD something! I love the way it came out! So much fun just to doodle and play! Thanks, Em!

Getting even FANCIER!!!

I have FUN news! I got asked to be a featured scrapper for a new challenge blog, called Scrapping the MUSIC. Hop on over and check it out! I'm sooooo excited! Love the concept of the blog! And I love how my Layout turned out too!

RAK yummieness

Thought I would give a RAK out! Good for a week.... if you comment on my blog, I will put you in a drawing for some of those buttons in that basket. Basket not included. These buttons are from my grandma. I'm saving some of them for me, but I have many many more buttons from her, and I think some of these need a new home. I'll be sorting in a few days, and I plan to have them ready to ship in a week or so....

Week 36 Deck of ME

This week's prompt was LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL and I REALLY enjoyed it. I didn't have any preset notions of how I wanted this card to turn out, and I didn't have a plan for my journaling. I love what came out of my pen when I sat down to write. Thanks, Em!

Tagged by My MOMMY!

My MOM has a cool MEME on her blog! Seeing as how she tagged ANYONE who read it, I have been tagged. I don't mind though! This was FUN!!

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car)
Sarah Aerostar
2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Chocolate Chip Mint Snickerdoodle
3. YOUR "FLY Guy/Girl" NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name) R Whe
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Orange Lion
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Desiree Laguna
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)
Whe Ra
7. SUPERHERO NAME: (The word The, 2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
The Orange Slurpee
8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)
Jack Jack
9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne, favorite candy)
Wicked Wahine Jr Mint
10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother's & father's middle names )
Lynn Raymond

Scrapping the Music #2

I found a new challenge blog, called Scrapping the Music. You take inspiration from music and do a page on it. This week, was Nelly Furtado's song SAY IT RIGHT.

Please Excuse my messes!

I've been doing a bit of blog cleaning! I plan to do a bit more... and I would LOVE it if you would read through the next few posts a few pages back, because I've brought over some blogs that I had, and deleted. I took some posts from those blogs, and put them here. Labels and some good navigation coming soon! Thanks for loving me! lol

Trading Convenience for Creativity?

There is a relatively new product on the market. It's pretty handy for mom's on the go. It's paints and markers without any visible color on them, until they meet the specially formulated paper that chemically reacts (I assume) with the paints, and makes color ONLY on the page. Go ahead. Color on the couch. TRY to get purple on the carpet. It's not happening. While the convenience of this product is obvious to ANY mother with sharpie on her living room furniture, as a mother and teacher who has seen the wonder of a child who has just chosen blue and yellow and made GREEN, I have to wonder. At what cost are we trading convenience for creativity? Look at any public school these days, and TRY to find a good art program that still exists. They are few and far between. Yet studies continue to show that students who are exposed to art, have higher grades.
Now, as the time has come more than ever, for parents to take the reigns and provide an art experience for our children, there are products that threaten to take away a piece of the creative link. A large part of the creative process is about exploration. Even more so for a child than an adult. If we take away a child's ability to wonder what one color (which can't be seen) will do to another color, how are they to learn? How are they to see? While there is certainly a place for such products in our everyday lives, I implore you to allow time for TRUE art in your children's lives as well. There is a NEED to feel paint in your fingers. There is a PURPOSE to learning first hand what colors mix to make new ones. LET your children get messy. ENCOURAGE them to explore. Art is NOT about coloring within the lines. Children should be able to experience it. The box tells us it's "mess free", but I argue that mess free isn't art at all. It's simply one more thing to put away.

Chore Charts

Most of you have heard about or personally tried reward systems for things like potty training. This worked really well for me with my last son, and I just today had the (if I do say so myself) BRILLIANT thought, to put rewards to good use in my home on a chore chart. So I've created a chore chart based on a few things that I know well.

1. Everyone has things that they need incentive for
2. Kids do REALLY well with choices.
3. Kids WANT to be productive.
4. Sometimes they want #3 when I am in the middle of something, and they STILL want ME to think up the stuff I need them to do.
5. Even I am not good at remembering the things I would like help with.

I got myself a nice large dry erase board.

I made three CHORE CHOICES lists with three categories. EASY, MEDIUM and HARD. Within each list, each chore earns a points according to which list it's in. Easy chores get you 1 point. Medium gets you 2, and so forth.
I have written ten squares on the board for each boy. Every time they earn points, they check off the same amount of squares. When they fill the ten spots, they put a TallyMark next to their name, and clear the squares. For every 7 TallyMarks next to their name, they can
A) go to the 7-11 and get a slurpee, or
B) Get paid $1.00
I figure that they COULD earn about 10 points a day, so this will set their reward time table at ABOUT once a week.
Now, I also have a 13 year old, and I needed a system that would be good for him as well. So I added another LEVEL to the reward system. Instead of cashing in at 7 TallyMarks next to their names, they can also earn $10.00 for every 20 tallymarks next to their names. We started tonight, and josh is LOVING it. Ian isn't home, but I asked for his input on some of the chores, and he seemed really eager to try it all out! SO.... WISH US LUCK!

One thing I really like about it is that they chores aren't assigned to any one kid. They are just there, and they can choose which ones they feel like doing. ANY of them will help me out.
When my boys were younger, and I had set chores for each of them, I also had a "bonus" list of things that they could do for "extra" stars, that weren't really EVERYDAY things... you might try that if your child isn't liking the chart system!
Have a Parent in the family who is against rewards for chores? Maybe you can sway them to the reward system by reminding them that "points" is really just a time sheet that tells you how much your kids have "worked" and thus how much they should be PAID. Because really, WORK is just a chore chart, and time sheets are just the amount of points you get paid to work for. No reason to expect our kids to do the "jobs" of childhood and not get compensated. They won't when they are adults. No one lives off of Volunteering! lol
AND
Maybe if your kids are working toward some mommy or daddy time together, or a visit to the ice cream parlor, or a family night where THEY pick the videos, that sort of thing... Working and THEN reaping the benefits is a GREAT thing to teach kids.

I don't want to come off sounding like the KNOW ALL of chore/reward charts, but I do have a lot of teaching experience with them, and I know what worked for me. So I just wanted to mention this: Sometimes when kids backslide on reward charts, it means that they need to have short term rewards too. I would recommend that you get your self a "treasure" box, and put things like pennies, shells, shiny rocks, cool buttons, army guys, anything CHEAP and SMALL. Put them in the box, and allow your to take something out of the box IN ADDITION to the BIG reward. Like say every five (or ten if he gets a lot in a day) points (or stars) just so that every day or so, he gets SOMETHING for the work that he's doing. This is a really useful tool for younger kids. They just don't have any idea of TIME and if they have to wait too long to get a reward, they will fizzle out.

ETA I have since modified our chart so that each check mark = 10cents. After ten checks, you get a tallymark, which is worth one dollar. Every pay day, the boys get paid for their tallymarks. It's been working REALLY WELL!

Letting Go

Creativity is so important for children. It's not a matter of IF you will give your child a chance to express themselves, it's a matter of HOW. Often, as adults, we stifle without even knowing we do it. How many times have you scolded a child for not staying in the lines? No you? Maybe you didn't scold. You just reminded them. Coloring within the lines is a skill that SHOULD be learned. However, we seem to lose sight of the chance to flow, and fall OUTSIDE as well. What will happen when the colors colide? What will happen if the lines are blurred? These are things that we should encourage children to discover on their own! There are so many oportunities for children to be free in art. Who's to say that there shouldn't BE a turkey that is purple? Just think of the things we would not have if the world were only filled with things the way they should be...
First of all, there would be no Cat or his Hat for that matter.
There would be no invention.
There would be no Shel Silverstein.
No Sarah Silvia Synthia Stout.

I encourage you. Allow your child the chance to explore. There are enough lines to stay inside at school, and at home. In their art, let them be FREE......

Listen to the MUSTN'TS
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then Listen close to ME~
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.


~Shel Silverstein

I suppose you could even make an easter wreath, and just modify the poem!
I wrote this poem for the center of the wreath:



Candy canes,Christmas tree, & Mistletoe,
The spirit of Christmas is bright & aglow.


My hands in circle are here to remind,
How fast I grow in so little time.


When decorating this time next year,
Remember first grade with Christmas cheer!


Merry Christmas!!

From my Art and Ideas for KIDS blog

I have been making playdough for my kids now for awhile. I have seen several recipes, and tried them all. I have mixed a couple of them and perfected the "art" so to speak, of making a batch that kids will love you for.
Here is the recipe.
1 c All purpose flour
1 c Warm (not hot) water
2 tsp Cream of Tarter
1 Tbs Vegetable oil
1/4 c salt
1 pkg Unsweetened Koolaid
Food coloring as desired
This version is the most efficient and uses the least of each ingredient that it can and still come out well.

Combine all the ingredients and blend well to get all the lumps out of your mix. I do this directly in my non stick cooking pan. See picture below:


Heat your mix at a Med to Med High Temp. Stirring the bottom of your pan slowly. As you scrape the bottom of the pan, you will see your mix begin to lump up as below:


The mix will continue to lump, and will become harder to "stir". At this point, it's more of a flipping of your mix. You will start to see the "cooked" portions as darker, "dry" portions of lumps. See below:


As your lump becomes more and more solid, you should press out the blob to make as much of the still wet mix touch the heat of the pan. See below. Notice that you can still see the color difference between the cooked and still wet parts of the dough.


When you are finished, your lump will look like this:


After you remove your dough from the pan, knead it to finish smoothing out your mix. After kneading it, be sure to press it flat to allow for a larger cooling surface. Do not put into containers until completely cooled.


The Koolaid makes your dough scented, and helps tremendously with coloring.

If you experience stickiness with your dough, DO NOT add flour! All you need to do, is pour vegetable oil onto your hands and knead the oil into your dough until it no longer sticks!

The key to smooth dough is in the mixing before you cook. Smooth liquid mix translates into smooth dough. This is where the warm water is a help. However, too warm, and you can CAUSE lumps. Go for room or baby bottle temp.

Dough should be stored in a sealed container. I use a large ziplock bag. My dough has kept for up to a month, and usually gets tough before it actually spoils.

I buy cookie cutters, pizza rollers, pie crust cutters, rolling pins and all sorts of other playdough tools out of the cooking utensil section of the thrift store. My kids love the texture and feel of this mix.

The best part about this dough is the ease of clean up after making it, and the ease of clean up if it gets where it should not. One of the worst things about store bought dough is that if it gets somewhere it shouldn't and dries, you are just out of luck. With this mix, all you have to do it get it good and wet with warm water, and it dissolves. Happy playing! Betcha won't able to stay out of it yourself! Let me know how you like it!

Worminess

Here are a few pictures of my Worm Bin. It's sitting at the end of the counter, behind my trash, right in my Kitchen. I'm seeing right now, that it could use a wipe down... I just recently brought it in from the Garage.

Below, is a picture of what the worms actually DO. This is a picture of cucumber peelings. As you can see, the peelings don't have any "fruit" on them in spots. The worms have reduced them to the very outer waxy shell, which will have decomposed in no time...

This is a picture of what you will find under the waste you place in your bin. My worms seem to like tomatoes, and bell peppers. I tried to get a good picture of the bottom of that avocado skin, but it didn't work. The bottom of it has been totally eaten away!

So that's the grand tour of my bin! If you have any questions, you can email me using the link in my sidebar!
In JUST two days, they have done THIS!
This is what worms can do in a matter of DAYS. The first photo is the one I posted in my first post. The second is the same spot of cucumber peelings. You can see that none of the fruit on the peelings exists. The worms have eaten it all.