Gnome Beard Bib {FREE Pattern}

This sweet little boy turned one last week. His Mommy, my friend, threw him a gnome themed first birthday party. Here is a sampling of the adorable party she hosted. (Photos by Jennifer Bradford.)

His gnome beard bib was made from soft, white Minky fabric and took about and hour and a half from start to finish to create. After searching the internet for a gnome beard bib pattern I ended up just creating one. Below is a free pattern with basic instructions for making your own (adorably handsome baby boy not included). I felt like the bib was a tad too long, so this pattern is slightly shorter in length than pictured above. Save these images and print on letter size paper at 100%. Happy sewing. 

Kindergarten {Our Fourth Six Weeks}

Our Fourth Six Weeks (March 4-April 12, 2013):

During our two weeks off our family took vacation toNewMexico to enjoy snow sports. It was a 21hr one way road trip with family. The girls experienced snow shoeing for the first time and went sledding.

Bible Study: Marin read aloud daily form ZonderKidz “The Beginner’s Bible” and she completed all of the Old Testament (276 pages). She also memorized all of the books of the New Testament and earned $3 from Awanas for doing so. Having her read aloud from the bible has been effective in helping her understand the bible stories more thoroughly.

Calendar: In her Calendar note book Marin continued to make daily notations on a calendar and practiced writing the date in the correct form, April 1, 2013 and with numbers 04/01/2013. She continued to track the number of days of school numerically and with tally marks.  She updated a weather chart daily and we compared the most and least days of certain types of weather over the last four months. We talked about St. Patrick’s Day and April Fool’s Day. She pulled a prank on her Granny and Pops and had a blast thinking of lighthearted gags. We also observed Easter and completed fun activities to help reiterate the importance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Grab Bag: This concept worked so well we continued to use it these six weeks replacing three of the review topics with new items. These included:

·         Skip count by 10s (eliminated)

·         Skip count by 5s to 100 (eliminated because she does this when counting her tally marks)

·         Count to 100 (eliminated)

·         Learn to tell time (NEW)

·         Learn about Money (NEW)

·         Learn to Tie your Shoe  (NEW)

·         Say and write your phone number

·         Say the months of the year

·         Say and write your address

·         Say the pledge of Allegiance

·         Skip count by 2s to 100

·         Say the days of the weeks

·         Is _____________ a common noun or a proper noun?

·         What is a noun?

·         Family relations quiz. For example (Your mother’s mother is your? ________)

·         Write the letters of the alphabet (Upper and lowercase)

·         Sing the vowel song

·         Write your numbers 0-20

·         Name the five senses

Reading: Completed lessons 80 through 102 of “The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading.” Covering adding S to the ends of words, reviewing long-vowel words, common spellings for the long A sound, vowel pairs and common spellings for the long E sound. Our read aloud selections were “Farmer Boy” (finished from previous six weeks) as well as “The Hundred Dresses.” Marin read her first chapter book “The Box Car Children” aloud to me during reading time. She also read many easy reader selections including “The Frog and Toad Treasury.”

First Language Lessons: We completed Lessons 37 through 48 in “First Language Lessons.” We focused on identifying nouns and drilling family relations. The book covered mailing addresses, days of the week and months of the year, but this was already familiar information for Marin. She memorized “The Months” a Mother Goose Rhyme. We learned what a pronoun was and have begun a list of pronouns that we are working to memorize.

Math: We are currently working in the Math.U.See Alpha book. We completed lessons 7, 8 and 9. We spent two weeks on each lesson covering addition +2, solving for an unknown and addition +9. I feel confident that Marin understands these concepts well enough to move forward. We have flash cards for math fact memorization and Marin is confident in 64 of 100 facts. We also spent a lot of time playing Sum Swamp!

History: Finished the Travel and Transportation section of “The Usborne book of Living Long Ago.” While reading from this section of the book we spent a lot of time identifying locations on the world map and globe. We also referred to the maps when reading from scripture.

Science: Read from  ”Simple Science” and “The Berenstain Bears’ Big Book of Science and Nature” but most of our “science” this session was hands on. We visited a local honey manufacturing company to see how honey was made. We planted a flower bed in the back yard, working together as a family. And we created a Nature Notebook filled with leaves from the various trees in the yard. Marin identified each leaf and labeled it appropriately.

Music: Continued to learn the piano using “Music for Little Mozarts.” We covered identifying and locating “C” and “D” on the keyboard spending time in review of the concepts already covered.    

Easter 2013

 Maintained our Easter tradition of coloring eggs with Hannah.

As a gift for Easter I made the girls these stick horses. I purchased the pattern from Rustic Horseshoe on Etsy. The shop owner was so very helpful and also provided a kit complete with everything I need to make the horses. 

 Easter morning. Checking out their goodies.

 Egg hunt at Granny's house.

 Little A wasn't interested in smiling for the camera.

 Celebrated Bunny's birthday. Another Easter tradition.

Newspaper Themed Baby Shower {The Party}

Here are pictures from the vintage newspaper themed baby shower that I hosted at our church. The color scheme was brown and lavender. The mother-to-be's grandfather owns the local paper and she works for the company, so it was only fitting that we announce the arrival of her fourth baby girl with an "EXTRA" special edition.

The newspaper heart garland was made by cutting out hearts from newspaper and sewing them together in one continuous line using my sewing machine. The purple flower garland was purchased from Dollar Tree. I made the table runner from Brown and cream polka dot fabric that I purchased from Michales.

 Purchased the mini brown striped paper straws from the Etsy store Talking Twine and Trim and after cutting them in half inserted them into the cake pops. Simple and cute.

 The antique typewriter, camera and fan were used to put emphasis on the vintage aspect of the party. Most of the items were borrowed.

 All of the paper rosettes were made using this tutorial from Ali P on Catch My Party. Some of my favorites were made from brown paper grocery bags.

 Menu: Blueberry Parfaits, Blueberry Bunt Cake, Paper straw cake pops,
brownie bites, fruit, sugar free candy,

Centerpieces were paper flowers made from newspaper, a paper rosette and a copy of the party invitation and a 36 inch chocolate brown balloon. I made the newspaper flowers by following this rolled paper flower tutorial from Creations By Kara. I wanted to write on the balloons with a white marker, but ran out of time. Was hoping to achieve this effect seen on Pinterest.
36 inch latex chocolate brown balloons were purchased from Balloons123.

Photo by Bethany Evans.

Didn't use them myself, but these Newpaper print Paper Craft bags would be perfect for party favors. Available from a variety of sellers on Etsy.

Inspiration Color Scheme
Inspiration Newspaper Baby Shower

Newspaper Themed Baby Shower {The Invitation}

In March I coordinated a Newspaper Themed baby shower for a member of our church. She is employed by the local paper which is owned by her Grandfather. I thought a vintage spin on a family legacy would be a fun way to celebrate the new arrival. Above is the invitation design and below is my initial sketch pulling together all of my inspiration.

Big Creek Scenic Area Hike

We'd like to do more hiking as a family. Steven found this trail nearby and so we took the afternoon to check it out. We all had such a good time. Exploring nature, locating the perfect settings for fairy activity and following the trail map. The Big Creek Scenic Area is part of the Sam Houston National Forest. 

Winter Family Vacation - New Mexico

Our little family took a 1,716 mile road trip to New Mexico Feb 18-22, 2013. Our first day on the road I coined the phrase "hard core haulin' it" because that's what we did. The first day we left our home at 2 a.m. The girls were carried gently from their beds to the car and we pulled away from the house with our fingers crossed. Hoping they'd fall back to sleep and stay that way until sun up. Did it work? You bet it did! We drove for 350 miles of the trip before the girls woke up. We were pulling into Cracker Barrel five hours from home when the sun came up and the girls came too. The next 225 miles took the rest of that day! We spent one night on the road and pulled into Red River, New Mexico the next afternoon. The photo below is of Marin and me in the snow that first day.

 Here is tiny Adalyn's first SNOW experience. She never once hesitated and dove in with enthusiasm!

 Below is a shot of the crew hiking up to go sledding. We enjoy the week with close family members. 

 The trail to the sledding spot had a bridge over a river. I was amazed by the beautiful mallard ducks swimming in, what must have been, frigid water.

 Snow has the same appeal as sand for children. There is copious amounts all around and it hold hours of fun! One downfall is if mom doesn't pack waterproof mittens, your hands get cold and wet. 

 The view from the top of the sledding hill.

 I recorded Marin's comments as we drove into New Mexico and began to see snow. Here are some of my favorites: "Oh snow! I wanna FEEL it! Woooooo hooooo SNOW! Oh my goodness. Hold on tight! We made it. Moma, feel your window! Burrrr. Oh look! That was a pile.

Adalyn and Coralee need to wake up so they can see the snow!"

One of the first things she did was to plop down and make a snow angel. 

 Marin wasn't quite sure about sledding and it took her awhile to warm up.

I was so glad when she finally did. 

 We took time to do a little shopping. Here are the three cousins together outside one of many shops.

 The highlight of our trip was a day of snowshoeing at the Enchanted Forest Cross Country Ski Area. Here is Coralee getting bundled for the trip. There was so much snow, we had to be shuttled into the ski area. The wind was blowing like crazy in the parking lot and Steven and I almost chickened out, but decided that if the shuttle was willing to come and get us, we give it a go!

  I think the crew thought we were crazy for taking three little ones out, but we proved them all wrong. Theses three cuties were troopers and we had a blast! 

 My view for most of the trail. Such an amazing way to see the beauty of a winter forest. 

 Coralee was content in her pulk eating a grilled cheese with sliced apples. 

 Here we are coming back into the ski house. Marin asked to pull Coralee for a little while.

 Posing for this picture I remember thinking that anything is possible with kids. Attitude and willingness make all the difference in how things turn out. I was so happy we didn't let the possibility of this being too difficult keep us from at least trying and in the end having a blast. I look forward to many more days of snowshoeing as a family. 

 Adalyn was sooooooo relaxed that she fell asleep in her pulk. I think it must have been the warm blankets and the swishing sound of the pulk as it glided along on the snow.

 The last day I spent time with the girls just playing. Here is Marin sliding down one of many HUGE piles of snow. It was record snow fall that week with more reported coming the day after we left.

 Not only did Adalyn fall asleep in the pulk while snowshoeing, she also fell asleep in her tube while tubing! It was the funniest thing. Steven would seriously pick her up out of the tube, set her in his lap, slide down the slope get up, put her in the tube hop on the lift and out she stayed. They must have gone down five times and she slept through the entire event. 

 Here is Marin with her Paw Paw Benny. Checking out the slope.

They took the last ride down together. 

 Farewell, Red River, New Mexico. Hope to see you again soon!