Happy New Year!

Everyone knows that I don't blog for long periods of time, right? And everyone knows that I come back with a vengeance and make all kind of promises that I'm turning over a new leaf, right?

Maddie was in full fledged princess mode on New Year's Eve and rounded out her evening by taking a pony ride.
Good thing she's got her Daddy wrapped around her little finger.

Well, it's that time of year again! Topping the resolutions is a the pledge to a) indulge in my creative side and b) blog regularly. We'll see if I can make it through the month, but I have some serious motivation and clarity of thought this month.

Happy 2014!

Be back really soon. I promise. Again.

May

May

It's nice living next to one of the wonders of the world. It's even nicer to have family visit and have them take your photo!

Family Photo

March

Ok, I look really bad in this photo, but it was a cute moment when we all had off and hung out in our jammies.

Cuddled Up

February

Our monthly family photo: us cuddled up on the couch, making valentines and watching Duck Dynasty. Just a regular evening in.

Deconstructed Family

Remember last year when I promised to take a family photo every month? Yeah, that was a really good idea. Too bad, I didn't do it!

So guess what, I'm resolving to do it in 2013. Here we go!



January 2013

Rob wanted a Polaroid camera this Christmas and I wanted to see his eyes light up on Christmas morning, so he got one! Rob loves to let Maddie take photos. Which has led to a lot of Outkast in this house.

But it's also led to this fun, deconstructed family photo.

Parenting Resolutions

My daughter is perfect. I am not. Far too often, I let time slip by for lack of planning or focus. That's why this year, I decided to have some resolutions for Maddie.

Not for her to do, but for me to do for her.

Resolutions for Maddie:

1. Concentrate on Focus. Oh, this child is exuberant. But now we're getting close to school age and it's time to learn when to settle down. One of the ways, we're going to get ready is a new Story Hour that we joined. And we'll be doing some story hours at home too.

2. Reduce technology time. Yeah, at said Story Hour, my daughter walked up to a kid and said, "Hi, my name is Maddie and I watch My Little Pony on Netflix everyday." To which I withheld saying "Don't tell people that! Tell them we only watch PBSKids!" But it's true, there are many times when Mommy just needs a break.

3. Do one big reading/writing project each month. Here's a pledge for you, blog readers. Supposedly, I'll blog about this activity each month. I'll be working a lot on pre-reading skills this year, so there may be bonus posts. I hope!

4. Make a Calming Jar. I love this idea from Pinterest and it would be good for my little one who sometimes gets frustrated.

5. Plan for some Physical Activity! It's so easy to expect kids to just run around and burn off energy. But sometimes that bouncing off the walls burn Maddie needs, just drives me crazy. So I'm going to try to harness that energy, by planning some activities ahead. That way when she's all crazy-like, she can do something physical but not so crazy... For me. And guess what, I'll try to blog those, too.

6. Create a Gem Jar. Another Pinterest idea for positive affirmation of little things. A great reward system!

7. Organize play areas. Christmas made me realize that we had outgrown our current toy storage system. A new one is coming soon! And while, we're at it... Time to start learning to clean up after ourselves. That one goes for both my children: Rob and Maddie... And maybe Mommy, too.

I hope to keep up posts for all of you, too. More science and craft projects to come. And I hope you like them as much as I like posting them!

Plus, a few more resolutions on Saturday...

March Play Project

It technically is still March, so this counts as fulfilling my resolution to post a play project on a monthly basis (and more importantly to make a play project on a monthly basis!). Back in January I had posted about all of the fruits and veggies I made for her Farmer's Market. I found that I liked doing that a lot and had a few ideas for some more. So this month's craft project (and maybe last month's too was this:


A Sweet Shop! Complete with velcro-attached signage that fits to her carriage/house.


With cupcakes -- and toppings that she can put on and switch around.


Pie, here shown with strawberries, but you could also do apples.


See? See my pie?


And cake, which I apparently forgot to take a picture of, but which Maddie really likes! So far Maddie's most interested in just transporting her sweets inside her carriage. I think she's closing up shop. I have high hopes that she'll serve me some treats soon!

I don't have patterns for these as I mostly just played until I got it right, but if you would like some patterns email me at alexkogler2003 at aol dot com. I can put something together for you.

A Few Updates

Weeeellll, this whole posting more often thing is going really well. Apparently I'm just as good with New Year's resolutions as I am with Lenten promises (broken on Day #2 of Lent this year. Stellar!) Somehow I've just been a little stuck. I have a million things I want to post about, but I seem to look at those ideas and just keep looking. As opposed to actually writing!!

Today I was having a few random thoughts that follow up on some topics mentioned here:

*This Spring Cleaning List? Yup, still not one single thing crossed off.

*I mentioned here that we were potty-training. It turns out that big kids who are terrible at sleeping are really good at potty-training. Hooray for an easy one! And a big thanks to my sister-in-law for giving me a guide that helped me out big time. That kid was potty trained in 2 hours. No kidding.

*I did one of my Easter crafts and I'll post about it soon! Plus I have another Easter project that will be brand new to all of you loyal readers... I hope to post it soon.

*I broke the resolution of the family photo once a month. But hey, I really only missed one month so far. Stay tuned for a March family photo.

*And I broke this one too... The monthly craft project? Totally missed February... but I got a hum-dinger for March.

*This sleep chart TOTALLY worked. I used to tell Rob that rather than sleep-train, I would just wait until I could rationalize with Maddie. Turns out, I did. Who knew? I actually don't even have a sleep chart anymore. But now I've jinxed it all.

*This Jane Austen book is even more awesome than I thought before I started it. It's also a game. And it's spectacular.

So that's where we stand. Quite a few updates, huh? Ok, let's see if I can recover from this crazy winter and get myself into a doing instead of thinking phase. Wish me luck!

Under the Table and Dreaming

When I think back on my childhood, some of my favorite memories have been sitting underneath a card table in the basement or in the back porch of my childhood home. Most of the times I remember involve my mom coming to join me and bringing me graham crackers and frosting left over from one of the cakes she had made. But it really was as simple as that to have fun as a child. Card table = instant play house.

So when I saw this on Pinterest, I thought, "I have got to do that for Maddie." I actually wanted this very pattern, but had some trouble finding it. And then I thought, "eh... I can do that." Please be forewarned this is going to be one of those posts that I mentioned here in my last post.

The final project was my February game for Maddie, as I mentioned in my post Resolutions:



What you'll need:

• A queen size flat sheet (I recommend cotton and not t-shirt fabric, because uh, that was a mistake)
  
• Clear vinyl
  
• lots of white felt
  
• lots of green felt
  
• other felt scraps for decorations
  
• velcro

I didn't create a pattern for this; I mostly eyeballed it and used a lot of pins. Here's how you can fake a playhouse tablecloth for a 36x60 dining room table, which is pretty standard, but I'm sure you could try to expand this or shrink it for a different size table.

• Take a queen size flat sheet and a box of pins. Lay the sheet out on the table upside down (i.e. seams up). Your sheet probably won't reach all the way to the floor on all four sides. I set mine to reach on two sides and started planning a way to cover it all up (stay tuned).
  
• Pin a little gather at each of the corners. Working from bottom to top pin the corners all the way down to the floor so as to eliminate all the access fabric.
  
• Using a sewing maching, sew along your pins and cut out excess corner fabric.
  
• Cut out four vinyl squares of the same size (let's say 18 inches squared). ( I planned for two windows and two doors, but you could add more if you wanted.)
  
• Cut out 16 1-inch wide strips of white felt that are the same height + 2 inches as your final windows (get that, so if your vinyl is 18 inches, cut a 1x20 inch strip).
  
• Using big stitches (you don't want to put too many holes in your vinyl or sew too close to the edge as it may tear) sew two strips onto each vinyl square to form a t (your window panes).
  
• For two vinyl squares, sew a strip around each of the four sides, being careful to stay towards the center of the strip. These will be your windows.
  
• [Here comes an eyeball-it part] Cut out two large white felt rectangles: Measure from the floor to about 2 inches below your table top and use this as your height. Add four inches to the width of your vinyl square and use this as your width. These will be your house doors.
  
• Cut windows into your house doors (you can either measure everything out, or like I did, lay the vinyl on top and cut around them).
  
• Sew in your vinyl squares.
  
• [Here comes a HUGE eyeball-it part] Pin your windows and doors where you would like them and cut out holes in the house walls giving yourself a good inch of fabric to hem for every hole. (Ok, you could also just measure everything out, but be brave!)
  
• Pin your hems and get sewing.
  
• Sew your windows and doors as you had pinned, sewing only along the top edge. Doors will lift for your child (or you, I guess!) to enter) and windows will roll up to allow air.
  
  
• Cut four 1x3 inch strips of white felt and 2 1-inch sections of velcro. Sew a piece of velcro to each strip.
  
• Sew these strips to the center of each window, velcro facing in. This will allow you to roll up the window and fasten them.
  
• Cut strips of green felt to equal the gap between your tablecloth and the floor. I was able to take a package of green felt and cut it into four equal strips and then just string them together, sewing around the bottom of the tablecloth.
  
• Then comes the fun part -- I used a package of felt flower and ladybug stickers I found at the Michael's felt aisle. I also cut out numbers out of felt and sewed them to the front door (Maddie seems to think that 6-7-8 is one number, so that's what I picked.)

That's it! It seems like a lot when you see the steps, but really I did this a little bit at a time each night.

Maddie's already had her first visitor, Black Cat.

She so far is loving it, though there seems to be some confusion. Maddie goes inside and says, "I'm going to work. This is my car." and then proceeds to pretend to drive. Ah, well, at least it's fun. I'm sure you've noticed from these pictures that Maddie already has a library, a farm and a piano in her house. Not too shabby for a new homeowner.

Hello 2012

I know that New Year's Eve was two nights ago, but to me tonight feels more like the end of the old year and the start of something new. On the eve of going back to work after a long vacation, I find myself making lots of resolutions and invisioning a whole new start. It seems the time to evaluate, so here goes. On this the last day of the old I find:

• There's finally snow on the ground (please let this be a sign of lots of snow days but not a late spring!)
  
• My house is an absolute catastophe. And I've tried cleaning just about every day.
  
• I have absolutely nothing to wear tomorrow.
  
• There are precisely two Christmas cookies left and I consider it my duty to eat them tonight before the resolutions kick in.
  
• All the work I said I would do over my vacation has not been miraculously done by elvesas I originally thought it would be. (That may have been a bit naive.)
  
• I just discovered that my Christmas shopping is not done.

When I told Maddie I was going back to work tomorrow, she said, "Yea!" I'm trying not to be insulted (she followed that by "Grandma's House!" which hey, I'd be excited about too.)Well, tomorrow is a new day. So I guess there's nothing like a fresh start with no mistakes.