Change Purse

Happy Fathers Day

It's been a busy June. We celebrated Fathers Day in low key fashion with a SUPER homemade wall hanging and favorite photos, church fellowship and Cullen fried oysters for himself. It was full day and reminded me how thankful I am for my heavenly Father, and our earthly fathers. I have been provided for abundantly and probably this year, I realize it the most.

Graduation Project

Helen worked hard on her graduation presentation which was about hamsters. She wrote and colored a six page presentation in Japanese and English and created this great hamster cage diorama. At her graduation, she read her reports and introduced Hammy, our stuffed hamster. She did excellent work on the written pages, her public speaking needs work but she's only six!

Happy Birthday my Helen!

We've had about a week of birthday festivities and still have a few gifts to open. Thank you cards are next on the agenda for Helen. She's never been into making cards with me like Carys. I really hope we have a breakthrough because she is becoming very interested in writing stories. Now we have to catch enough time to sit still and write cards to all the wonderful people in our lives who love her very much.

I love you my Helen, Happy 6 years!

Christmas Crafts!

A friend of mine introduced me to cardboard crafts. These ornaments were made by cutting cardboard, wrapping in aluminum, and attaching the string. The rest is glitter glue by kids and the decorating possibilities are endless.


I know this is an old craft but new to us this year. This wreath is made from all the kids hands. It turned out so well, I want to do it again with felt for a wreath we can pull out many Christmases from now.


These are spiced hang ups, another craft from a homemaker blog. What a fun thing these are and great smelling too.

Tooth Fairy Purse

The night Carys lost her tooth we whipped up this little tooth fairy purse for under her pillow. It has a little pocket for the tooth and a big pocket for the cash. Inflation has hit the tooth fairy hard.

A New Medium-Clay

The girls and I had fun with this clay animal project. It was good for about an hour of fun. We'll do this again, time to get more clay. I also found that the little book that came with this so we could model our animals was necessary. The girls were much more interested in trying to create the animals than coming up with creations on their own.

Walker in Composition

Spring break brings lots of creativity, some of it the good kind. Walker is constructed in Carys' ham sandwich plate and he is created in contruction paper, tape and playdoh.

Merry Christmas 2008

Tiffany invited the gang to her house for a Christmas celebration. She had a craft table set up downstairs and we were going to make our traditional graham cracker houses at her house since we were unable to do it earlier.

We had a great time but I underestimated the craziness of organizing the kids at her house. Usually we have it here and that's all we do. The kids were super energized to be at Tiffany's house and were bouncing around like crazy. Plus I thought we'd be able to manage making the houses like we did last year but I think with more kids added, we will need to premake houses. It was still fun and I'm not sure the kids were disapppointed, I did not hear anyone complain.

We did have to make an early exit though. After ALL the excitement, Carys threw up twice and the final straw was Helen pooping in her pants. It could have been worse I guess but that was pretty much the end of the party for us.

Construction Paper, Glue Sticks and Scissors

The girls spend a LOT of time with construction paper, glues sticks and scissors. Helen LOVES cutting paper. She's had a few close calls but is pretty good with the scissors. Then she glues the bits on more paper or bags them for next time. We've added other elements like jewels and cutouts from magazines. I need to take more time to have cut outs from magazines and show them how to make collages.

Carys was in a building mood and was making a house until she became frustrated that she did not know how to put a roof on. I think that ended this session for her but it kept her busy for a good while.

Graham Cracker Houses

Carys prepared all the twizzlers, mini kisses, gummies, jelly beans, chocolate covered raisins, gumdrops and dried cranberries we had for our graham cracker houses this year. Almost every picture I took captured someone chewing on candy or licking fingers. Tamra came up with the idea to use graham crackers and this year she made royal icing. We did not eat our houses but the kids decorated some graham crackers which were eaten after dinner with milk days later.

Pumpkin Creation

Carys and I decided to paint and glitter our pumpkins this year. I initially thought we might have some traditional pumpkin faces on them but it turned out more free flowing which is just like Carys envisioned it.