the girls somehow got it in their head yesterday that they wanted to make fruit salad.  really?  fruit salad?  so i humored them and yeah-yeahed them, and when they woke up this a.m. they were still all gung-ho about the fruit salad.  it just seemed to me that there are too many ingredients involved, and i was afraid someone’s baby head was gonna explode…

we’ve been at home for several days now, enjoying a quiet and relaxing vacation away from the frigid chill and germy people…  there was snow in the forecast, so i had decided we’d get out and maybe do a little shopping or lunch today.  but the snow began to fall hours ahead of schedule, so we just ventured to the little local grocery.  and OH LOOK! WATERMELON! ON MY FRUIT SALAD LIST!  and HEY! ORANGES! YOU KNOW WE LOVE ORANGES!  so i bought a couple of makings for fruit salad.  i love that they are entertained for such long stretches of time with a plastic knife, some grapes, orange slices and hunks of watermelon.  (and you know they did NOT eat the orange slices, they left those for me!)

but i’m doing what i can to make it pretty…

winter arrives today – it’ll be here in about an hour!

last year i really enjoyed taking part in the preschool’s ice sculpture in the week leading up to our open house (click here to see pics).  i might’ve enjoyed it more than the girls, but they liked it too.   then someone (forgive me, i don’t remember who) sent me a link to resurrection fern and her blog post on making ice doilies (click her name to go to her blog, she’s awesome!!)  and now that it’s wicked cold outside, i’ve got ice sculptures and ice doilies on my brain.  i’ve been freezing water in various containers for a few days now, and waiting for the wind to die down so that i can go out and do something with them.  this is my trial-run ice doily:

a few lessons learned -

1) these suckers are HEAVY, so i’m trying the next batch with less water.

2) they’re prettier with more delicate looking doilies, ones that are lacier than this one.

3) i did some research on how to freeze ice so that it’s CLEAR (mine’s kinda bubbly), so we’ll see how that goes.

4) i freakin HATE the cold.  there is nothing i enjoy about it.

5) i would be an AWFUL tutorial writer, because i feel the need to report in on EVERY trial and bit of progress.  i have no patience.

so with that, i’ll come back later and let you know how the next batch turns out….

take 17 four and five year olds and give them milk cartons with graham crackers and frosting schmered on them:

and give them some of the tastiest candies a starving mom has ever seen (mmmmm….  hello, breakfast!) 

and you get the most adorable and creative 4 and 5 year old created gingerbread houses!  so much concentration.  the best part is, she doesn’t even LIKE candy!

sectional housing:

and the guinea pig says hello.  or *squeak* as it were….

beanie’s preschool class has a mascot named Merly who goes home with a student each week.  and finally, FINALLY it is beanie’s turn.  she’s been waiting since day one.

merly is supposed to explore and have adventures and is kinda helped along my mom and dad to get into some strange places… but beanie will not let merly out of her sight!!  she’s been taking his picture:

at the end of their time together, the parents help to write a story about merly’s visit… and tonight beanie was convinced she’d have to bring merly back to school tomorrow and we HAD to write a story.  i *think* merly is staying with us for the holiday, so we will have 2 weeks of stories once merly returns to preschool!

    i can tell merly’s having fun, but he’s worn out!

it’s winter.

and my children spent the majority of the afternoon lying on the ground.

i could really leave the cold and snow and never look back, but these girls are true yankees.  they love it!

it occurred to me this a.m. that if you don’t follow me on facebook/twitter/etsy/where ever and you  just look here, you missed how the snowflakes turned out.  the rest of you that follow me on facebook are all like “OMGSHUTUPABOUTHEDARNFLAKESALREADY!”

i made 3 batches of 2 each, some with blue food coloring and some with red food coloring – the colors are very pastel and subtle – so pretty!!  next time i’ll have to think a little more about hooks or hangers for them, i cut the strings off of these and they are sitting on a plain white dish in my diningroom.  they are lovely, but they’d be great hanging in a sunny window, or even in a high spot on my tree… the possibilities are endless!

we wander around the field and we all say:

 ”how bout that one?”

“no”

“how bout that one?”

then we find one we like, but then wander away to see if there’s anther we like better, and then can’t find the original tree…  this year i’d throw my scarf on the possibilities so we could find them again.  and luckily, i didn’t lose my scarf!!

i have to say it is much more enjoyable to look for a tree when there is no snow on the ground and the temps are approaching 50 f.  and now that the girls are older i don’t worry about them running off and getting lost among the trees – it’s a pretty big place!  this farm also has an awesome new barn that has handmade wreaths and swags – we picked out a great square wreath for the front door with a big red bow, it’s so pretty!

oh sure, nablopomo is over, and i’ll start with the good posts now…

doesn’t this look fun and easy??  you should totally make some! 

it doesn’t take much in the way of supplies.  but i did learn that our walmart doesn’t carry borax.  i also learned that the 4 lb box of borax is the smallest one available at the grocery store.  that seems like a lot of borax.

so.  make some flakes:

pipecleaners are a furry, fuzzy mess.  don’t wear a black shirt.

add hot water, borax, food coloring and wait til tomorrow.

i wish i had more containers so i could do more than 1 or 2 at a time, but we’ll have to be patient.  how cute will these be as christmas trees, or hearts for valentines day… i might try to figure a way to glitterfy them, how cute!!

i really pished away this nablopomo.  i’m so lame.  but amen, it’s:

and now i’ve gotta get back to work!!  now back to your regularly scheduled weekly ramblings.  =)