Playing in the woods

Here is what K played while I made dinner the other night. His aunt found this awsome wooden play set at a garage sale. We set up a town, woods, and a river. K spent most of the time sending a boy down the river in a boat. :)

The problem with pink

Stirring the dye pot.

K's four new pink shirts
See how happy he is?

My son's favorite color is pink. He insists on wearing pink everyday. Anytime we pull out a plate, a cup, play with a shovel, a bucket, a car... he wants it to be pink. Here is where the problem comes in. They do not make little boys clothes in pink. I have searched and searched for pink shirts that don't have ruffles, hearts, or sayings such as, "girls rule."

To keep K happy I've been buying lots of pink socks but now that summer has come I thought it was finally time to make him some pink shirts for boys. I bought a pack of white shirts, some pink dye and made him four shirts. Guess what the only color shirt he'll wear is now?

I'm thinking of embellishing some of them. He's really into dump trucks, animals, and trains so perhaps I'll have some pimped up pink shirts on here soon.

Sunflower

We had our first sunflower bloom and its beautiful! This was our first time growing sunflowers and I cannot believe how big they have gotten! We spotted lots of bees and butterflies visiting the flower.

Garden Loom

The first step (after collecting sticks from the woods that is) in making a garden loom is to use twine to tie the sticks together into a frame. Casey used knots he learned from being a boy scout.
Here he is tying the last one together.
After the loom was together we dug two holes in the ground and put the loom in. I then wrapped brown yarn around the sticks.
I used blue yarn to weave in the sky while K searched for leaves and grass to weave in the bottom.
For a finishing touch we wove in flowers from the garden.

I've been wanting to make a garden loom for a long time. I keep seeing them on other people's pages and have been thinking how beautiful they are. I love the idea of keeping it out all year and adding/ changing it through the seasons. We collected our sticks on a walk through the woods a week ago and spent Saturday morning putting it all together.

One of K's friends wearing his chef hat. I couldn't get K in his chef outfit so hopefully I can in the near future and get pictures.
At K's little person party the kids made their own pizzas.
They also decorated their own muffins.

The day after K's birthday he had some little friends over for a chef party. We hung kitchen utensils in garlands all over the house. I made all the kids chef hats to wear and take home and I made K a chef costume. (hopefully I can get him in it soon and get some pictures). The kids made their own pizzas (we made the dough earlier in the day and then heated the pizzas in the oven after the kids put their toppings on). For dessert they decorated muffins.

After that they just ran and played. In the evening we had a little bonfire with smores. K had a great time but sure was tired by the end of the night.

Birthday Gnome

I made this little gnome as a birthday gift to one of K's friends. Her birthday is only 10 days after K's birthday. This is the first time I've tried needle felting on one of the gnomes. I think I like the way it turned out and am going to try and incorporate it in the current gnome I am working on.

Car Painting

We pulled out our big paper and some toy cars I had stashed away to make ourselves some tire paintings. It was a fun art project and kept K happy and creating for quite a long time. He ended the project by painting himself. Too bad I didn't get a picture.

Playing Farm

We pulled out some Lincoln Logs to play with the other day and made ourselves a farm. K had a lot of fun, especially with the chicken coop. Today when K asked his dad to play animals he insisted they build another farm rather then use the barn that he has. I'm glad he enjoyed these same toys that I loved as a kid.

Birthday decorations

The nature table on K's birthday. We just bought the birthday ring this year.
K's birthday banner going across the wall. You can see in the foreground one of the utensil garlands. He also kept asking for a pink birthday so we put up a little pink crate paper and a few balloons.
I had a great time wrapping his presents in our old easel paper. I plan on continuing to save our easel paper to wrap Christmas/birthday gifts. I love seeing it reused.

I wanted to just post a couple pictures of K's birthday decorations. I had a lot of fun collecting kitchen utensils at garage sales that we then strung into garlands to go around the house. My plan is to then freecycle

Happy Birthday K!

K feeding the giraffes at the Detroit Zoo
Not a great picture of me, but this is K eating fresh green beans from the garden with is great grandma in the background.
K blowing out his 2 candles. We had a whole wheat blueberry cake which turned out really moist and wonderful. In the foreground there is his new birthday ring. I'll have a better picture of it later.
K in his new birthday crown. He was not thrilled to have it on so this was the best picture I could get. Hopefully next year he'll be more excited about it.
K playing in his new Kitchen. He has been making eggs and pizza and everything under the sun.

Ok this is one of what will be a few blog posts about K's birthday. Sorry. :) The day of his birthday we spent the morning at the zoo with some friends. K got to feed the giraffes! Very fun. We also rode the train which was a treat. Later that night we had family over, opened gifts, and had a wonderful whole wheat blueberry cake.

I'll be back to put up some pictures of the decorations and some better crown pictures. I'll also get some pictures of his little person party tonight to put up.

Ohio

Old Man Cave
K is pointing at his dad who is way up in the corner.
We spent this last weekend on a last minute trip with some friends. We had a great time hiking through the Hocking Hills area. One of the hikes lead us through an awesome cave, another along huge cliffs, and another past swimming holes and waterfalls. K really enjoyed himself even though he had to stay in the backpack much of the time (the cliffs were too dangerous). We spent sunday canoeing down a river. K really had a great time paddling. I didn't bring my camera for this part so I'll have to get some pictures from my friends.

Hope everyone had a great weekend. Now its back to last minute birthday projects.

Our first harvest

Last year we planted a little garden in the backyard, however, it was too shady and we hardly had any veggies at all. This year we dug up our front yard and are amazed at our success. The other day we picked our first zucchinis and found 7 huge ones! Above is K enjoying raw zucchini. :)

What I've been working on

This is K's birthday crown about half finished. The crab represents K's sign (Cancer). The flowers are K's birthday flowers (delphinium), the rat (which is not done yet) is for the year of the rat. There are also going to be "rubies" across the top for his birthstone. After a million drawings its fun to see it actually start coming together.

K's birthday is next week and I am getting pretty close to being done with everything. I am almost done with is little chef outfit. As you can see the crown still has a little bit of work. Then a couple of little tweaks to his birthday banner. http://seasonalgnome.blogspot.com/2009/12/birthday-banner.html

Star lantern

K and I spent the morning of the 4th painting and creating this star lantern. We got the pattern from Childhood Magic: http://childhoodmagic.blogspot.com/

She made the tutorial really easy to follow. Thanks!

Happy 4th!

For the weekend of the 4th we were very busy! We went to a parade with some family and friends in our hometown. Then we wondered over to their little historical village to listen to music and visit the civil war soldiers . That night we went to Greenfield village to see the Detroit Symphony Orchestra play and see fireworks. On Sunday we spent the day with family swimming and eating. HAPPY 4TH!

Birthday Napkin

I found this great material thought I though I'd make K a special birthday napkin with. I figure I'll just store it with his birthday banner and pull it out each year for him to use on his birthday. I ended up with some extra material so I made a few for friends. I'll just give them with birthday gifts.

Chef outfit

Here is part of K's chef outfit. For his hat I made matching pants and I am also working on a chef shirt. Hopefully it will be done soon and ready to post. He seems to love the pants already and has been asking to wear them. He's not so sure about the hat so I'm not sure I'll actually get a good picture of him in it. Hopefully. I've made it adjustable though so if he decides a chef hat is fun in a few years, it will still fit him.

Chef Hats

I've been working hard at making a few things for K's birthday party this month. He is going to have a few friends over for a little chef party. For party favors I've been making these chef hats. I found all the material from my stash. I got the pattern from Joe-Anns when they had a great $1 a pattern sale.

The next few posts are probably going to center on K's birthday as I finish up a few projects.