Wintering

What have we been doing this winter? It seems like all of our time has been sucked away by projects around the house, preparing to put it on the market in March. The bathroom remodel alone has been going since March of last year (yes really, I had to look it up)! But thanks to my incredibly handy and hard-working husband, I am pleased to say it is almost done! I'm hoping to show a reveal in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

Other things we've been doing this winter:

Baking. Ooey-gooey cinnamon rolls. Yeah, probably the best thing to do in the winter! I've made them a few times this month, and will probably make them a few more times before winter is over. Not good for the New Year's resolutions. Logan helped me make this batch for Andrew's birthday treat for his class.
I wish I had a picture of their baked and cream cheese frosting-drenched goodness, but here they are on the pan, freshly rolled and cut, before rising. If you want the recipe for the best cinnamon rolls EVER, you can find it here. The secret is vanilla pudding mix! I try to do a craft or art project with the kids once a week, usually on Wednesdays when I have my babysitting kiddos. I stumbled upon this cute "snow painting" idea somewhere on the Internet. You make "snow paint" by combining equal parts Elmer's glue and shaving cream. It stays foamy as you paint and then dries nice and puffy.

I drew a basic snowman shape on a piece of construction paper, and then let the kids fill it in.

I happened to have some white glitter, so the kids added a little of that to make their "snow" sparkle!

Finally, when it dried, we added a hat, eyes, and carrot nose cut from construction paper. This project was so easy and such a hit with the kids! Cute R said to me, "Summer, today we are having so much FUN, FUN, FUN!" R and Logan begged to do a second snowman! When three-year-old G finished his (pictured upper left), he turned to me and said, "My snowman melted." So cute!

My Winter mantel. I took down my Christmas decorations pretty quickly after Christmas; I was just ready to move on this year. It was nice to bring back the photos of the kiddos, and the pretty clock was a thoughtful gift from Bryan's uncle and aunt when Russ passed away in December. It contains a sweet saying which reminds us that, "In time, Christ will heal all wounds. In time, we will be together again." Thank you, Kelly and Becky.

I kept the pinecones and tree branches from Christmas, but added some glass icicles for a little sparkle.

I like my decor to be a little more sparse in January. It feels refreshing after all the heavy Christmas decorations.

I know it's still pretty early, but truth be told, I am just itching for Spring! I nabbed these Amaryllis kits in The Home Depot after-Christmas clearance aisle. (I think I need to find some cuter pots to transplant them into.) I love seeing them start to sprout, and they are satisfying my craving for something green and growing. For now...

Last Day of Preschool

The last day of preschool was actually almost two weeks ago, but I'm just now getting around to posting this. We talked about homes and families and made these little family trees out of real tree branches from the yard. The name of a family member was written on each leaf.

Gavin, Logan, Brigham, and Wesley. We were sure lucky to have such a fun group of boys for our little preschool this year. Brigham will be sticking around for round two next year, but we will really miss Gavin and Wesley who are moving away.

I can't take the credit for this awesome craft; this was from Miss Lisa's beach unit a few weeks ago. She made sand dough for the boys to shape into a "sand castle" and then let them decorate it with shells, rocks, sticks, etc. This has got to be the best craft for little boys EVER! When Logan arrived home, he stuck R2-D2 in there for good measure.

Dr Seuss Would Be Proud...?

As you may know, I babysit part-time for two of the sweetest kids you'll ever meet, R & G. I mean, I am really lucky to have these two! When they come, I try to always have a craft to do with all the kids. This week to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday, we made Cat in the Hat hats. I was pretty excited about this one, so I took pictures.I started out by cutting out the center of a paper plate for the hat brim. I then cut small slits in the top of a paper lunch sack, put it through the paper plate, and taped it to the plate for the top of the hat. I stuffed it with newspaper to hold it's shape, and then let the kids go to town with the red paint (I gave the littlest guy red crayons instead).

As always, the kids were wearing big old paint shirts to protect their clothes, but sweet R reached down under the shirt and wiped her paint covered fingers all over her darling, brand new BabyGap khakis and white socks.

Okay, this is the part where I made a really stupid mistake. I picked up Hannah in one arm and sweet R in the other arm, made sure the other two were safely and contentedly playing, and then dashed down to the laundry room to try and save the pants! The bottle of red paint was up on the counter, out of reach of little G, but apparently not out of reach of Logan. When I returned from cleaning up the first disaster, I found the second one.

The story from Logan went something like this: After I rushed out of the room, Logan decided his hat needed more paint, so he reached up for the bottle of paint, squirted some on his palette, and then set it down on the table. Little G then grabbed the bottle and squirted it all over the kitchen floor. When I found him, he was sitting in the paint (also dressed head to toe in BabyGap, mind you), driving a Hotwheels car through it. Pretty ironic that gave him crayons instead of paint to color his hat to avoid the mess, huh?!

Now that I think of it, it's really quite appropriate: "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" making a crazy mess in the house while the mother is away. Hmmm...sound familiar?

I ordered the kids into the living room, and Hannah screamed in her high chair, while I wiped down little G and the kitchen. This time, I dragged all four kids with me to the basement to wash G's clothes. All I can say is, thank Heavens for washable paint! With a lot of Spray-n-Wash, scrubbing, and a trip through the washer, everything came out (I think. I still need to scrub my floor with bleach. Pink grout just doesn't look that great in my kitchen).

When the hats were dry, we glued strips of white paper around the hats to complete the Cat in the Hat look.

Logan insisted on making this face in every picture!

The hats turned out pretty cute and the kids seemed to get a kick out of them, but I'm not sure they were worth the aggravation. I think we are going to take a break from the paints for a while.

Presidents Day Preschool

Today was our turn to have preschool at our house. After introducing the topic to the boys, I started off with a few questions:

Me: "Who is our President right now?"

Brigham: "President Monson!" (Good job, Lisa!)

Me: "That's true, President Monson is the President of our Church, but who is the President of the United States?"

Wesley: "Barack Obama!"

Me: "That's right! And what does a President do?"

(Lots of blank stares)

Wesley: "He gets all the presents?"

Me: "Close. He is the leader of our country and he makes important decisions for our country to make it better." (more blank stares)

Me: "What would you do if you were the President?"

Brigham: "Nah. I want to be a nice ninja. And a doctor like my dad."

Gavin: "I like chicken. And I dip it in ketchup!"

Wesley: "I would drive cars around. I love Lightning McQueen!"

Logan: "I don't want to do this."

So we moved on. I told a few short stories about some of the presidents, then we talked about the presidents pictured on our money. I gave the boys a pile of coins for them to sort. That lasted a few minutes, but soon the table became an air hockey table and quarters were literally flying across the room.
Then we did a science experiment. What cleans a dirty penny best: milk, soapy water, or vinegar and salt? The boys were pretty excited to see the vinegar mixture make the pennies bright and shiny before their eyes!We finished off with a craft - Abraham Lincoln's log cabin made from popsicle sticks. President Lincoln (a penny) is peeking out the window!

This craft took them about two minutes to make; they were in such a hurry to finish so they could play with the Star Wars toys at playtime. Remind me never to let a three-year-old boy build me a house!

Tasty Art

Today we tried a little fingerpainting... with chocolate pudding! Yum!

Andrew, doing a little multi-tasking - fingerpainting while talking on the phone to Aunt Jenny.

Surprisingly, Logan was the least messy of the whole bunch! He pretty much kept it to his fingers!

These are the little boy and girl I baby-sit. Aren't they cuties?!


Everyone sneaked a taste or two of their creations.

I have a feeling I'm going to be cleaning up chocolate pudding for a week!