Inexpensive Bath Paints

Monday
September 27, 2010


Meara loves to paint in the bathtub. We use an inexpensive Walmart brand white body wash and add food coloring to make her desired colors. It keeps her entertained for over an hour in the bathtub creating masterpieces!

Flooding

Thursday
May 6, 2010

My community has been dealing with devastating flooding. It has been labeled the thousand year flood. It is so sad to see so many of our friends who have lost so much and have no flood insurance to rebuild and recover. Thankfully, our county has been one of the counties in TN officially considered a Federal disaster area. My city was somewhat grid locked due to many road closures. We have two rivers that flooded swallowing up main roads, businesses and homes. The Cumberland River crested at 62.5 ft, 16.5 ft above flood level. As of 3 pm today, the river is still at 56 ft (flood stage is 46 ft.). Please pray for all of those affected by this flood and consider giving to the American Red Cross to help those who are in desperate need.

Haircut for Locks of Love

Tuesday
April 13, 2010

Meara told us she wanted to cut her hair. So we told her she had to wait a month and see if she still wanted to do it. Considering she had barely any hair for the first 15months of her life we have only trimmed it in her six-years. It's been at least a month and she asked again if she could cut her hair and give it to a little girl who doesn't have any hair. How can a mother say no to that? With a tear in my eye we said, yes and that we were so proud of her! We found a Salon in town who offered to cut it for us for free. Thanks to Desiree at Gist Salon for cutting 13 inches off! Now, we are off to place it in an envelope and mail it to Locks of Love.

Galloping the Globe Passport

Monday
April 12, 2010



We have started using Galloping the Globe. So far we have found it to be very fun and exciting. I wanted Meara to be able to have a passport that we could stamp after we visit each country. I am a frugal mom so I decided to make one instead of spending money and want to share it with you here. We are going to use a stamp I found in the scrapbooking section that looks like the old library stamp from when I was a young child to stamp the dates.

Punctuation Posies

Thursday

April 8, 2010

Meara is practicing with punctuation. We found this idea on The Mailbox Magazine website and thought it would be fun. We filled our flower pots with dried beans to help the sticks stand up easier.

Color one side of jumbo craft sticks green and attach a flower, we used foam stickers and cut only the size of the stick out of the sticker backing. On the other side write your sentences (exclamatory, question, and statement) leaving off the puctuation marks. Label your pots with punctuation marks, we used post it notes. Have your child read each sentence and place the flower in the correct flower pot.

Wordless Wednesday~Easter Photos

Wednesday
April 7, 2010

The Winner is...

Friday
April 2, 1010



Thank you so much to ALL of you who entered, for all the wonderful blog love you left us and for our new followers! YEAH! So, without further delay the winner (picked by Meara) is...

The Frugal Homeschooling Mom. If you haven't seen her blog you should check it out. She has a lot of useful information including reviews, list of homeschool giveaways, coupon information, free stuff etc...

Rabbit With Foot-long Ears!

Thursday
April 1, 2010

"This little bunny will last for years. He is so cute, with foot-long ears!"


Materials:
white paint
two wiggly eyes
pom-pom
white pipe cleaners
12x12 paper
black pen
white crayon
white paper plate


Cut the center out of a paper plate and paste onto paper. Then, paint the bottom of your child's foot and press above circle onto paper. Use crayon to draw around each foot to make ears. Glue wiggly eyes, pipe cleaners and pom-pom down. Add eyelashes, dots, mouth and teeth. Trace around entire image for outline. Cut down to size.

FREE Lego Club, Jr. Magazine Subscription

Wednesday
March 31, 2010



I am frugal and LOVE FREE deals! Meara really enjoys building whether with Legos, Tinker Toys or the like. We wanted to share this deal we found with you.

Lego Club, Jr. magazine is designed for children 6-years-old and younger. The magazine offers stories, simple building models, comics, puzzles, coloring pages, games and more. Get your FREE 2-year subscription here.

He is ALIVE! Easter Craft

Tuesday
March 30, 2010

Materials:

egg carton

popsicle sticks

Easter grass

Play-Doh

crayons/markers

scissors

hot glue gun

Cut one cup out of the egg carton and color green. We cut three popsicle sticks to about 3/4 of the normal size for the cross pieces and hot glue to regular size stick. Color the sticks with markers or crayons. Roll a piece of Playdoh into a ball and wrap the Easter grass around the ball and place into the cup. Stick the popsicle sticks into Playdoh making sure to keep the middle cross higher than the side crosses.

"These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up." Deuteronomy 6:6-7

We Now Have a Blog Button

Monday
March 29, 2010

Woohoo! I've been wanting a button for a while. Thankfully, I found a wonderful tutorial at Musings of a Housewife and here is my end result. You can grab it on the left sidebar.

I used Adobe Photoshop Elements. I found the html to create the code box under the button at A Heart for Home. We are BIG into Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover right now so I didn't want to spend money on an image. I found this image at a free royalty free website, stock.xchng. If you make a button I would LOVE to see it!

Free Geo Trax DVD from Fisher-Price

Saturday
March 27, 2010

Fisher-Price is offering a free Geo Trax dvd here. First select your country and proceed to the FREE check out. We have gotten several different ones for free in the past including Planet Hereos and Precious Places.

Counting number line

Friday
March 26, 2010

My daughter is a visual learner. We use this counting activity to enforce her number recognition. At The Dollar Tree we found this number border pack. We secured one to the wall and cut the other up by individual numbers. She runs the number card along the line as she counts. She likes multisensory learning. We paper clip the numbers to the back side of the number line for storage.

My First Giveaway!

Thursday
March 25, 2010

YEAH! I am so EXCITED! We are giving away Learning Resources Gears! Gears! Gears! Lights and Action Building Set($45 value). I picked this one because around here we LOVE gears, building things and anything that lights up. It's so easy with entertainment centers chocked full of video games, DVDs and tv for children to become couch potatoes. I really like games and toys that keep her active both physically and mentally generating a great way to get out of that couch potato habit.

Here's how to enter(give yourself a serperate entry for each one by leaving a comment above):

• Become a follower of my blog. If you are already a follower remind me.
  
• Take a look around my blog and leave a new comment to one of my other postings.
  
• Create a posting on your blog with a link referring back to this giveaway.

Good luck everybody!! ;-)

Giveaway ends April 1, 2010 at 10 pm central.

Open to US and Canada

Make Your Own Lamb Stuffed Animal

Stuff the glove with fiber fill.

Then, roll down wrist of glove inside itself to seal it.

Rub glue all over both sides of the glove and glue fiber fill evenly to the hand portion to give the lamb it's fluffy coat.

Glue a wiggley eye and tie a piece of ribbon around the neck (thumb) of the sheep.

Now your done...baa!

Make sure you check out the posting for my very first GIVEAWAY($45 value) here.

Happy 101 Award

Yeah!! I am so EXCITED to get my first award! Thank you Debbie at Our Cup of Tea.


Here are my ten things that make me happy(thankfully I have way more than ten).

1. My personal relationship with Jesus Christ who proves to me over and over that I don't have to fear anything. He is always there for me and has proven it more times than I can count or probably even know. His blessings blow me away because I know I don't deserve them.

2. Feeling my husband's arms around me and hearing him say, "I love you"! He IS my gift from God and my best friend. After ten years, I am more in love with him with each day that passes.

3. Listening to my sweet daughter laugh and see her face light up when she's happy.

4. Crafting...I LOVE to craft! (my crafting blog, Inspired Artistry)

5. Reading books and other people's blogs

6. Going on field trips with my husband and daughter to museums, historical sites, hiking, festivals etc...

7. DISNEY WORLD, DISNEY WORLD, DISNEY WORLD!!

8. Snuggling with my daughter in the morning when she wakes up talking, laughing, tickling and singing.

9. Watching my husband chase our daughter around the house, wrestle, and play hide and seek before bedtime every night.

10. My husband and I sitting so close to each other on the couch that we meld into one person watching tv.


Here are five blogs I want to pass this award on to, I LOVE reading your blogs!

A Little Fun With Me and Lu

Casa Camacho

Daisys and Diggers

Flip Flops and Applesauce

The Peterson Party

Cereal Bar Treat

Sunday
March 21, 2010





I have fond childhood memories of Rice Crispy Treats. This is a spin on that recipe. I thought it would be yummy to try it with Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereals. It turned out to be a big hit at our house...we had seconds!

Ingredients:
3 tbs. butter
1 bag of regular marshmallows
2 1/2 cups of Apple Jacks
2 1/2 cups of Froot Loops
1 cup of Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Spray 9x12 baking pan with cooking spray. Melt butter in a pot on medium heat then add marshmallows, melt until smooth. Remove from heat and pour cereal into pot stirring until cereal is evenly covered. Pour mixture into baking pan. To prevent sticking spray spatula with cooking spray then press mixture evenly into dish. Allow to cool and cut into squares.

Paint Chip Word Family Game

Tuesday
March 18, 2010

I came across this WONDERFUL and free idea at The Snail's Trail blog a while ago but have really been utilizing it lately. Mama Snail has a listing of many different word families(over 500 words). Meara has had fun with it!

Coffee Filter Flowers

Monday
March 8, 2010

Meara made a lovely bouquet of coffee filter flowers today. She colored inside and outside of the coffee filters then stacked two to three of them and twisted the bottom with a pipe cleaner for the stem.

Torn Paper Collage

Tuesday
February 23, 2010

Meara had so much FUN with this art project. She really enjoyed tearing the construction paper into pieces and fitting them together to create this image. We started out with a 12" x 12" piece of poster board, drew the heart in the center and four division lines for the colors. Once all the pieces had been glued down pink strips of construction paper were added to make the border.

We Are Back!!

Tuesday
February 23, 2010

YEAH! We are back to blogging after a hiatus due to an injury. The day after Thanksgiving my family and I went to Gatlinburg to stay in a cabin for four days. While waiting for our cabin to be ready we decided to spend some time on the playground. In an attempt to cast away the fears of my five-year-old over the "scary" big green slide I slammed into the first curve of the slide stopping dead in my tracks and ended up with what turned out to be a fourth degree sprained ankle. Needless to say our vacation was spent inside the cabin with my foot up in bed. I was on crutches for six weeks and had two months of physical therapy. Thankfully I am almost back to my old self aside from running and jumping. Ahh...the price to pay for being a BIG KID! ;-)