Wordful Wednesday

Spring has sprung in our backyard! I've been enjoying snapping pictures of all the new blooms.

The wisteria is all over the place and has completely taken over this tree!

Wordful Wednesday is hosted by Seven Clown Circus and Parenting by Dummies.

I'm having a contest for my son's bookclub and I need help with the judging. If you'd like to help click here and vote for your favorite Peeps diorama. Thanks! I really appreciate all of my readers who have stopped by and voted!

Peeps Diorama Contest

If you read my last post you know that we've been making Peeps dioramas for the contest in our newspaper. I had Nathan's bookclub make them too, but with a twist...they all had to be a classic work of literature. Five of the bookclub kids participated. I think they did a great job!

All of them will be entered in our newspaper's contest, but I am also having a contest on my blog for just the book club kids. So please leave a comment telling me which is your favorite diorama. (just vote for one please!) I have a prize that I'm going to give to the child with the most votes. I have 3 pictures of each diorama...1 that shows the complete diorama and 2 close-ups that show detail. It would really help us out if you could vote for one!

1. Little Peeps on the Prairie:

2. Gulliver and the Lilli-peep-tians:

3. Peep the Raven Nevermore:

4. Peeperbury Tales:

5. Peeper Pan:

Didn't the kids do a good job? Please vote for your favorite. Please only vote once and immediate family members of the book club kids may not vote at all! :)

Voting ends Wednesday, April 13th.

If you want to see the one Claire and I made (which is not up for voting) you can scroll down or go here.

L.E.N.S. Photo Challenge: Spring peeps

It's time for another L.E.N.S. Photo Challenge hosted by Home is where you start from. This week's theme is Spring. Well, what says spring better than Peeps? You know those tasty little marshmallow rabbits and chicks that come around each year! Each Spring our Newspaper hosts a Peeps diorama contest. Claire and I entered one last year...just a basic little shoebox diorama. Some people really go all out though so we tried something a little more creative this year. Peeping Beauty...

The above picture is my entry into the L.E.N.S. photo challenge, but I thought since we worked so hard on the details I'd show some close up pictures too. :)

Here is Peeping Beauty and her Prince. See the little pillow claire made her? And notice her bed is made from Peeps bunnies!

And you couldn't have Peeping Beauty without those magical little fairies, now could you?

I actually had Nathan's book club make peeps dioramas too, but I gave them a theme. They had to do it based on a classic piece of literature. They did a great job. In a couple of days I'm actually going to hold a contest on my blog and ask my readers to vote for their favorite. The winner gets a prize pack from me. So, check back here in a couple of days to see theirs and vote. :)

Wordful Wednesday

So, I left my teenage son home the other day when I took Claire to gymnastics. He was waiting for my husband to get home and take him to baseball practice. It was a really busy night and we were all running in different directions. I told Nathan he needed to make himself a sandwich or something and it before he left. Well, he did!



He made a double PB&J. He's such a boy! There were 4 slices of bread left in the bag...2 regular slices, 2 heels. He used them all. I NEVER use the heels, but he's a teenage boy and will apparantly eat anything! I'm pretty sure the bread was going stale too. I told him to check it before I left and he said it was fine. I'm pretty sure I would not have eaten a sandwich on it!

He was so proud of his double decker creation that he took a picture of it! (And he makes fun of me for taking pictures of everything!)

I sure hope he ends up marrying a girl that can cook!

To join Wordful Wednesday visit Parenting by Dummies or seven clown circus.

chilis coupons

Are you signed up for Chili's email club? I am! They email you coupons. I got one today for a free kids meal. Just might end up there today too. Nathan has a baseball game tonight so cooking dinner will be a little hard to do.

If you want to sign up click here.

Happy Eating!

Catching up

Gosh, it's been awhile since I've blogged! Man, have we been busy! Here's a little sample of what we've been up to...

My son's last book club for the year.

They read Huck Finn and then made rafts that they raced across our pool. :)

My sister-in-law and my 4 year old niece came to visit for the week. We didn't stop having school over the spring break week, but I did give Claire less work so she could go have fun with her cousin. We took them to a children's opera in Fort Worth-The Three Billy Goats Gruff...

It was a cute show and a great introduction to opera!
After the opera we walked over to the Children's museum...

It was VERY crowded, but the girls still found lots of fun things to do!

On Thursday we went swimming at the gym.

Thursday night, my husband and I, along with our friends took Nathan's book club to see Mark Twain Tonight. Its the one man show by Hal Holbrook. It was fantastic! My son really loved it and Hal Holbrook does an amazing job as Mark Twain!

Here they are all dressed up at Bass Hall...

On Friday we took the girls to the American Girl Doll store (1st visit for both of them). They had lots of fun. We took Nathan too, but I was nice and didn't take any pictures of him there! :)

And today, my sister-in-law went home, Nathan had baseball practice, I hosted a Homemade Gourmet meal assembly party, and Nathan went to his youth group meeting.

Oh yea, and lots of things are blooming at our new house.
We don't really know what all was planted because this is our first spring to live here. Here is the wisteria that is growing along the fence. Its beautiful and smells soooo good!
Every day there are more blooms than before.

So, in a nutshell, that is what we've been up to. What have you been up to?

Round Robin: St. Patrick's Day Lapbook

Amy is hosting Round Robin today. Stop by her blog to check it out!

Here is a link to a great St. Patrick's Day lapbook.

http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks/st_patricks_day.htm

My 4 year old niece is coming to visit this week so we are going to introduce her to lapbooks. :)
I've printed one of these out for her and my daughter. Since they are different ages, I have different stuff for each one. I also printed out coloring pages for them to color and put on the front. In art class they are going to make a watercolor rainbow and put that in there as well.
If you've never tried lapbooks check it out. They are a fun way to learn! I even make my own. You can also add things to customize it for your child.

Coloring pages & activities:
http://www.first-school.ws/theme/cp_h_stpatricks.htm

http://www.dltk-holidays.com/patrick/

I use coloring pages and activities that I find online to add to the lapbooks sometime. Since my niece is only 4 I got some "trace the letter" coloring pages for her. I just saved the coloring page and then inserted it into Word and changed its size to fit in the lapbook.

I'll post pictures of them when the kids finish them so you can see how they turned out.

You can read my other post about lapbooks here. It has a picture of one in case you've never seen one and want to know just what I'm talking about. I used to hear people talk about them all the time and I had no idea what they were!

mardi gras

Wow, I haven't blogged in a while! I've been sooo busy. Nathan's baseball has started and Claire always has gymnastics. And then there's school and homemade gourmet parties and vacations to plan and a house to clean...etc., etc., etc.!!!

Well...
Mardi Gras is tomorrow. I signed up to do a Zararain's House Party. I won't be able to do it tomorrow so I did it on Thursday when I was going to be keeping the younger kids while the older kids went to art class. I invited everyone over first for a Zatarain's Mardi Gras Lunch.


Zatarains sent masks and mardi gras beads in the party pack. Claire and I decorated our light fixtures with the beads...



I even made a king cake. I had never done it before and had very limited time so I used refrigerator cinnamon rolls. I put them in a bundt pan and when they were a little over half done I flipped it out onto a cookie sheet, stretched it into an oval and finished baking it. It was very easy to do and the icing came with the cinnamon rolls so that was easy too. The hardest part was finding a store that had the purple sprinkles!

I read a book to the younger kids called Mimi's first Mardi Gras. I already returned it to the library so I don't remember who the author was. It did a great job of explaining the mardi gras traditions though.

Do you celebrate Mardi Gras?