This year daddy got a pretty special gift; Teva Sandals. I know that he enjoyed those however the real gifts were the coloring pages, artwork with poem and the special herb garden we planted for him. Daddy loves cooking so the herb garden will bring him great joy this season. We planted basil, rosemary, silver thyme, lemon thyme and Italian parsley. I think that covered the basics don’t you?

Chloe also made a super great bear craft for fisherman Papa. We all celebrated Father’s Day at my parents on Saturday with a lasagna dinner, swimming and a yummy DQ cake. I’m so blessed to live near my parents. We also wish Papa Gilles a Happy Father’s day!

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Did you have a good Father’s Day? Leave your comments and links!

• This post links to Magic Marker Monday

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Jenn is wife to one, mother of three and above all, a humble servant seeking to honor the Lord with her life. Happy Father’s Day is a post from Beautiful Calling.

Sometimes we eat at the dining room table but on “lazy nights” we eat at the island with John in his high chair. One of Chloe’s responsibilities is setting the table. Sometimes John helps (he’s not quite so gentle yet). My mom laugh but they do a good job!

Last week was a good week. The biggest thing for me is that I truly (for a whole week, each day!) had my priorities in order. I think consistency in that area (priorities being a priority) is something all of us struggle with.

Because my priorities were in order, everything else just fell into place beautifully {don’t cha love it when that happens?}.

Each day we were able to spend time reading together (in addition to “library time” in the evenings), we did school every day (for fun because she likes it, she is only 3!) and our focus during that time was using scissors properly.

Cutting a Straight Line

Chloe loves to do many things but one of her favorite things to do is cut {not sure why!}. But you know using scissors is harder than it looks, especially for tots! Chloe was thrilled to get her own pair of toddler pink scissors. We practiced how to hold them and open and close them. Now we’re learning to cut in a straight line. She has a little workbook but in order to get more practice, I drew lines all around the edge of construction paper and had her cut along the lines to make a “fringe”. By the 4th placemat, she was really starting to get the hang of it. {Though she was getting tired so if you have a tot and more than 4 people in your home you may want to help your tot make some! LOL}. After she was done cutting, then she decorated them with markers and Easter Seals stickers that came in the mail. Was she ever proud when we used her “fringed placemats” for dinner!

{Unfortunately, they are paper and got dirty. I have to recycle them and am hoping she doesn’t wonder where they are for future meals! LOL)

What kinds of activities did/do you do to teach scissor skills?

• This post links to Magic Marker Monday. Join in the fun today!

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Jenn is wife to one, mother of three and above all, a humble servant seeking to honor the Lord with her life. Tots and Scissors: Practicing a Straight Line is a post from Beautiful Calling.

Well, GG came for a visit, we had a great time, and now she is gone; time to get back into our routine. We haven’t done many crafts but we did fit in one day of “school” last week.

We worked in Chloe’s favorite “schoolbook”  which is made my Kumon. It’s their At the Zoo workbook and she loves the animals and the mazes. As you can see, she is super ambitious and doing two at one time. LOL. While it is a simple book (and we have more advanced ones too), I hope to cultivate her love of learning from a young age by incorporating subjects that interest her. Animals captivate her.

I am slowly learning to let go of my long (and unnecessary in this season?) to-do list and simplify my days.  Since my priority in this season of littles is simply to bond with them, love on them, enjoy them and instill the basics (love Jesus, obedience), much of my to-do list can wait because it doesn’t directly assist my purpose. So some simple goals for the week include:

• Back into our loose routine which will be harder than it sounds since the littles had such a blast with GG around. (I’m making baby steps towards a more structured routine.)
• A walk a day
• Taking my aunt and uncle to the airport
• Spring pictures with the littles
• Getting DH’s car window fixed
• and tackling the paperwork (again!) on my desk (15 minutes a day)
• Following up with contacts for a Sizzling Summer 2010 (and fixing the links in last years series. Ah, the joys of wordpress transition)

At some point {for those who emailed}, I will get up a post about our routine as well as my Contentment page since both of those. I always welcome reader questions and look forward to hearing about what you want to read about!

I know this isn’t a crafty post but the colored pictures were all we accomplished last week for Magic Marker Monday.

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Jenn is wife to one, mother of three and above all, a humble servant seeking to honor the Lord with her life. Simple Goals for the Week is a post from Beautiful Calling.

It’s Monday again and time to showcase one of our “caffs” from last week in Magic Marker Monday.

For those who missed the post, our VBS theme was Polar Extremes and I was teaching the littlest of the littles…those too young for VBS whose parents were working in VBS. Our biggest day we had 8 little ones; 2 x 3 year olds, 4 x 2 year olds, 1 x almost 1 year old and a baby about 5 months. What a busy and fun time we had! The following pictures show mommy’s sample craft and Chloe’s completed one. She is doing a really great job in her crafts! (Did you see our Polar Bear and Snowman last week?)

 Egg Carton Penguin Craft Supplies: Egg Carton, Pipe Cleaner, Construction paper, Glue, Pompoms. (and lest you think I am very smart, I actually found the idea here). Because i was working with toddlers, I made the earmuffs, cut out the cartons and colored them before class. For the actual craft, we pasted the belly and face on, along with wings and put his earmuffs on. They thought it was wonderful!

For the record, this one was one of the trampled on ones who has no little wings and his ear muffs had to be repaired after someone pulled him apart. Chloe gave hers to Nana before I could take a picture and I gave mine to the little person who made this one because I had to bring him home to fix him.

Paper Bag Moose Puppet Supplies: Paper bags, glue and the template. You can either go with color or B&W which is a nice feature. Again, not my idea but this was a huge hit with the littles since once they were done they chased each other around with it on their hands. lol.

• This Post Links to : Magic Marker Monday

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Jenn is wife to one, mother of three and above all, a humble servant seeking to honor the Lord with her life. Craft Time: Moose and Penguins is a post from Beautiful Calling.

It’s Monday again and time to showcase one of our “caffs” from last week in Magic Marker Monday.

For those who missed the post, our VBS theme was Polar Extremes and I was teaching the littlest of the littles…those too young for VBS whose parents were working in VBS. Our biggest day we had 8 little ones; 2 x 3 year olds, 4 x 2 year olds, 1 x almost 1 year old and a baby about 5 months. What a busy and fun time we had! The following pictures show mommy’s sample craft and Chloe’s completed one. She is doing a really great job in her crafts!

Polar Bear Craft Supplies: Paper Plates, Construction Paper, Glue and either googly eyes or a marker. If you have it cut out ahead of time, it is such an easy craft for toddlers and preschoolers! You could even leave off the eyes and cut eye-holes so that it could be used as a polar bear mask!

Snowman Craft Supplies: Paper Plates (or construction paper cut into circles), black and red felt (or construction paper again, glue or double sided tape (which makes it very easy and not too messy for little ones!)

• This Post Links to : Magic Marker Monday

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Jenn is wife to one, mother of three and above all, a humble servant seeking to honor the Lord with her life. Craft Time: Polar Bear & Snowman is a post from Beautiful Calling.

Last week Chloe had her friends over, Gracie and Brady. They are 3 year old twins who belong to my friend, Carm. Well, Carm just moved (Saturday!) into the most amazing house in the country. The house is amazing, the yard is huge (we’re camping in tents there later this month) and…they have an amazing pool! What does this have to do with our craft? Well, Gracie and Brady have their own rooms in the new house so I thought this would be fun! The foam door hanger is from Lens Mills. I took everyone’s picture (and of course my silly girl wouldn’t look at me because she is too nosey!). I printed the pictures out and glued them onto construction paper, laminated them and glued it onto the hanger. Then they added stickers. (you should have heard the excitement over stickers!) Everyone was very impressed with their creations!

Gracie told me that at her new house if she got confused as to which room was hers she could just look at the picture and know which room it was. That made me laugh (but not out loud because she really had a serious expression on her face. Aren’t little people entertaining?!?)

Chloe shows me her “door caff” every time we go in and out of her room. She’s actually driving me a bit crazy about it. LOL.

• This Post Links to : Magic Marker Monday

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Jenn is wife to one, mother of three and above all, a humble servant seeking to honor the Lord with her life. MMM: Door Hanger “Caff” is a post from Beautiful Calling.

There are few things in life that Chloe likes better than “Caff Time” (a.k.a. Craft time). With all of the things we’ve been busy doing this summer, we’ve hardly had time to make anything.

But the past week we’ve had quite a bit of rain so we’ve been working on some rainy day fun. Part of it was this fabulous necklace. Now I know the beads are ridiculously huge but I have a baby crawling around and so she can’t have anything smaller. She loves it anyway. While we were making it, we talked about shapes and colors.

Sunday morning she wanted to wear it to church because it ‘matched’ her dress. Ummm, well sure! It is so hard to get a picture of her. She is always on the move!

I mentioned that I got a huge bag of craft supplies for $4 at a yard sale? Well this was all in it too! I know we will be reaping the benefits of this find for the rest of the year – and maybe longer!

• This Post Links to : Magic Marker Monday

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Jenn is wife to one, mother of three and above all, a humble servant seeking to honor the Lord with her life. Chloe’s Beautiful Necklace is a post from Beautiful Calling.

OK, well I don’t know what is wrong with this crazy picture but it won’t go right side up. So to look at it, simply tilt your head to the left!

Though I have only participated in Magic Marker Monday a handful of times, I enjoy it for a couple reasons. It is interesting to visit the other participants and glean ideas for something to work on. It also gives me an opportunity to post something that Chloe has done this week for overseas family to see…and of course you too!

This week we made daddy an award. We started with a black piece of construction paper. We printed out a 1/2 sized award which we then glued on. We cut out circles and wrote reasons why we love daddy on them. We curled some pipe cleaner for the antenna and added some googly eyes from the garage sale craft supplies I mentioned last week.

If you recall, we made a clothespin caterpillar last week and now another caterpillar this week. We have a learning poster and I usually run our theme for two weeks or so. We’re just about ready to move off caterpillars. I think the natural progression would be butterflies next but we’ll see

Do you have any great butterfly craft ideas? Please Share!

This Post Links to : Magic Marker Monday

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Jenn is wife to one, mother of three and above all, a humble servant seeking to honor the Lord with her life. We Love Daddy (and Caterpillars) is a post from Beautiful Calling.

We made Caterpillars for craft time last week thanks to Simple Kids! Chloe and Jaiden both loved them. Chloe named hers Pillar and carried him around everywhere. Chloe decided to take him to play “nap” together. She kissed him, proceeded to tell him a story and told him to go to sleep. I say ‘him’ but perhaps Pillar is a girl. It sounds more like a boys name to me though

I went garage sale shopping on June 6th. I mentioned here that Chloe and I got matching Columbia coats for $12 combined. I also got a HUGE bag of craft supplies, all sorted and organized into containers for….are you ready?….$4.00. The puff balls and eyes for this craft actually came from that purchase!! I’m sure we’ll have many other creations to share thanks to this bag of goodies!

This Post Links to : Magic Marker Monday

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Jenn is wife to one, mother of three and above all, a humble servant seeking to honor the Lord with her life. The Clothespin Caterpillar is a post from Beautiful Calling.