Throw the Beanbag (and Catch!)

I remember a song that sweet Kjersten at good ol' Manchester Library taught us when I used to take E there for toddler story time. It's called "Throw the Beanbag and Catch". You can listen to it or download it here. It teaches coordination (kids try to throw the beanbag up in the air and catch it again), large motor skills (walking in a circle, stomping, balancing beanbag on head), and parts of the body ("put it on your elbow, put it on your foot..."). And the best part is, both of my kids (age 2 and 4) love it. In fact, it's hard to stop once we get going. But it takes no preparation and it's actually really fun to do with them. We usually use stuffed animals rather than beanbags, but whatever's at hand. Here are the lyrics:

Chorus:
Throw the bean bag and catch
Turn around, turn around, stamp, stamp, stamp
Throw the bean bag and catch
Turn around, turn around, stamp, stamp, stamp

Put it on your head and walk around the room
Put it on your head and walk around the room

Repeat Chorus

Put it on your head and walk around the room
Put it on your head and walk around the room

Put it on your shoulder
Put it on your elbow
Put it on your knee
Put it on your back now

Put it on your stomach
Put it on your finger
Put it on your foot
Put it on your arm now

Put it on your head and walk around the room
Put it on your head and walk around the room

Repeat Chorus

Easy Festive Cookies

I saw some cookies similar to this at Sam's Club yesterday, and thought they'd be fun to try. These were truly EASY cookies that were so fun for E to help with. And I got so many compliments on them! Here's what you need:
Chocolate chip cookie dough (enough for about 2 dozen regular cookies)
1 tub vanilla frosting
Sprinkles (I chose spring ones for our Easter party)
Your kids to help! They'll love it.

Make the dough into tiny 1" balls (these are super sweet, so that's why I made 'em small) and bake as directed. Allow to cool completely. Pour some sprinkles on a large plate. Spoon a generous spoonful of frosting onto the bottom of one cookie, then squish it with another cookie until the frosting starts to come out the sides. Have the kids roll it like a wheel in the sprinkles, then set it on the serving plate. Voila! Festive cookies without any fuss!

Easter Egg PRACTICE Hunt

It's almost Easter, and this morning, E woke up and came to my room saying, "Mom! Can we fill our eggs now?" We have two family Easter egg hunts this weekend, so we had like 80 eggs to fill. I was glad for the help.
We used the leftover empty eggs to have a practice hunt inside the house. I first hid them for E, then she hid them for B, and they played a few rounds of it. They both really enjoyed finding the eggs (and hiding them for each other), plus it was great practice for B, since he's only 2 and has never done this before.
Just thought I'd post it as a fun activity to do with the kids - inside or out - all year round.

I have never been good at playing.

Even as a kid, I had a hard time just "playing" like normal kids do. In kindergarten, my favorite thing was to play checkers. Uh, yeah, weird. I liked climbing trees and listening to the wind, swinging, reading, drawing... but I don't remember just playing something unstructured. I guess that's why when E asks me, "Mom, c'mon, play with me," and I say, "What do you want to play?" she gets frustrated. "I don't know. Just PLAY" is her response. There is no WHAT. It's just something kids do. And I want to be able to do that. For her.
Today I looked online for some fun things to play with your kids, and most of what I found was great, but took preparation, which doesn't work out when they want to play NOW. The best idea I found was to make a fort, which we did, and the kids seemed to like that. I even got in it, b/c the website said that's what cool parents would do. And I pulled out our bag of instruments and we played them for a few minutes, too. I even played dolls for a while. But I just have a really hard time staying with it as long as they want to. I have a hard time getting lost in the "here and now" that kids live in, and start thinking of laundry and projects I want to do... and next thing I know, I'm sneaking off to do them.
So I need your help. Anyone with great ideas of quick, fun things to do with your kids (like the fort), PLEASE tell me. And if you have any tips for staying focused on playing, that'd be much appreciated as well.
PS- I'm not down on myself or thinking I'm a bad mom; I'm just wanting to become better each day, and today I realized this is one area I could work on.

Grandma Vera's Quilt

I was feeling a bit down several weeks ago, in part because I hadn't created something in so long. It was "Nana Day", so we headed to Jon's mom's home (E has school on T/Th, so we spend one day at Nana's and one at Grammy Boo's each week, b/c school is close to their homes). I told Cindy (Nana) that I was thinking of making a quilt for E's new room. She said, "Oh! I have to show you something" and took me to her storage room. She pulled out two large bags, one filled with crocheted items and one with quilt tops. Every piece had been made by Jon's paternal grandma, Vera. She was amazing at crocheting and quilting. Cindy gave E two doilies Vera had made, and then showed me the quilt tops. They were pretty, but the last one was my favorite. I didn't dare say anything, as I assumed they were all spoken for by her children. Then she surprised me by saying that the one I liked was the one she had been saving for Jon. She said she'd been wanting to get it quilted, rather than have it hiding in a storage room. The quilt had lots of yellow on it which is E's favorite color, plus lots of other cute colors for a little girl's room. So we figured E could use it even though it would really belong to her dad. We both got really excited about it, and hopped in the car to go to Material Girls to get some backing and binding fabric for the quilt. It didn't take long to find what we wanted: a floral purple backing and floral yellow binding. And we found out it could be dropped off at Material Girls on Saturday to be machine quilted for about $120.

We went home and prepared the backing and binding. As we looked more closely at the quilt, we realized that several of the 2" squares were cut from flour sacks that Vera may have purchased as early as the 1930's. This was very interesting to me and I want to learn more about it, but you can read a brief description of the flour sack fabric era here. Cindy took it on Saturday to be quilted. She got it back the following Saturday. It was GORGEOUS. Ten times prettier quilted than it had been before. We worked together on the binding (Cindy doing the harder part).

Two weeks after I had first seen the quilt top, I was able to take the finished product home and lay it on E's bed. It looks so perfect in there. I just have to stop and stare every time I see it. Cindy gave E a framed picture of Grandma Vera for her room. She said she felt strongly that Vera was very happy that her quilt was being used by this special great granddaughter. I'm so grateful, too. Thank you, Cindy, for lifting my spirits and making a beautiful quilt - and a beautiful woman - come to life for us.

Baby Girl Quilt

I've been dying to create something, especially to sew something, so I decided to make a quilt for a baby girl (nope, not for me!). I saw a diamond quilt on the cover of a quilting magazine and thought it was so cute that I decided to give it a try. I remembered that I loved the black and white fabrics I saw when my friend Billie and I went fabric shopping last year, so that's the way I headed. And I added some pinks to keep it from being too grown-up.

The diamonds were only slightly more difficult to cut out (using a rotary cutter and ruler) than a typical square. And piecing them together wasn't bad either. But laying it out and keeping track of where I was was extremely confusing, since there was no solid edge until I cut off the halves of the diamonds that were on the edges. Plus, I was just sewing the different fabrics together in a random pattern, which was really hard for my mind to grasp. Does that even make any sense? Probably not. But it wasn't all that bad, and I totally think it was worth it.
After I'd made the top, I saw this gorgeous SOOOOFT pink swirly fabric for $12.99/yd at Hobby Lobby (one of the coolest decorating/crafting stores on the planet) and had to get it for the backing. I only needed one yard, so it wasn't too bad. I had enough left over for a border on the front which made all the difference in the world on how cute it turned out.

And Cindy (my mother in law) had just taught me how to do real binding, so I tried my hand at that as well with some black fabric. Even though it's FAR from perfect, I really liked that look over the rolled edge that I usually do.

Pretty cute, eh? I think it's my favorite quilt I've made yet.