Beautiful Calling

What We’re Playing Are you familiar with kijiji? I’m well acquainted with it and was delighted to find a tub of Lincoln Logs Great West Express for a steal. I love toys that inspire creativity, require imagination and demand interactive play rather than provide entertainment. We haven’t yet mastered the art of building the actually [...]

Confession time: we just started “back to school” on Friday Jan 21st. Of course the days are still filled with play, toys and books but being “off school” I haven’t grabbed my  camera as frequently. I’m looking forward to this week, with a return to our usual routine. Needless to say, this tot school post [...]

Last week Chloe and John both came down with fevers and the following day, Daddy was sick too. It made for a rough week with very little “school” going on and a whole lot of cuddling, book reading and movie watching. Thankfully everyone was feeling better in time for Chloe’s 4th birthday party on Friday. [...]

When the post Salt Dough Ornaments by Happy Housewife  popped up in my reader, I knew this was something to add to our holiday to-do list. The littles enjoyed it and now we have lots of personalized gifts for friends, teachers and family. Her recipe was simple with ingredients we had on hand. Simply roll [...]

  My friend Sherri, whom I had never met, sent me an invite to an Usborne party. How could I resist? I love books, especially Usborne books, and we’d get to meet. My very first bloggy friend in real life! What a fun night. Cassandra {yet another blogger!} was the Usborne rep and I can [...]

Beading Gifts Anything craft-like and the littles are all over it. We made bead bracelets for GiGi a while back using different kinds of beads (picked up at a yard sale last summer) and pipe cleaners. They carefully slide the beads on and once they have enough, Mommy helps them twist it and tuck the [...]

Drawing Improvements This week was spent drawing a lot. We now have markers, pencil crayons along with our regular and fat crayons. They’ve been using each of them to make creations and we’ve been looking at how each one helps us make a different looking drawing. I noticed Chloe has improved in her drawing in [...]

“I don’t know my ABC’s” I’ve never taught my children their ABC’s. Not the song, not what they are, what they look like. It’s not a priority for me. Yes, Chloe has friends who know them all, can write them and maybe even read them but I am confident that she won’t be hindered at [...]

   The Schoolroom Earlier this year, or possibly last, as we talked about homeschooling, we talked about converting our office into a dedicated school room complete with desks or tables, bookshelves, a blackboard and more. (We have an office with desktop computers but generally just use our laptops on the couch). But the more I [...]

View Full Album Painting This week we did some painting. We painted some with brushes and some with our fingers to see (and feel!) the differences. They came up with some really great stuff. Using a couple Clips Rimless Frames from Ikea, we framed their favorites and put them up in their rooms. John was [...]