Penn State Chics Dig Nerds

Last weekend, we spent part of an afternoon at camp. Natalee and I walked into camp and picked up pretty leaves along the way. It was cold! But, Amie still managed to talk Pap into taking out the four wheeler. And, it starting snowing (or something) while she was on her ride.  And, Brady wanted to still take his turn anyway.  He just bundled in my hat and mittens. This week, Amie and I spent a day doing some necessary shopping in State College.  The poor girl has to put up with my shopping trips! On the way home, we stopped at Shavers Creek to see the raptors and take a hike.  I had forgotten that they had just set up their Halloween Trail, so there were carved pumpkins everywhere on our hike.  It was quite fun!  Amie was disappointed when we had to go back to the car.  She wanted to stay longer and forget about picking up her siblings at the bus stop! After Saturday's soccer game, we used the leaves from last weekend to make a ...

Since we did not have school today, we put together a craft for Valentines Day.  I was supposed to complete this craft with Natalee's class this morning.  However, that's been post poned due to no school.  It is only 10 degrees and windy outside and Brady is still feeling sick with the stomach bug.  (I had to pick him up at school early yesterday)  So, we decided to do the craft ourselves. We had transparent contact paper.  I drew a heart on the nonsticky side so that later we would know where to cut.  The kids placed cut pieces of tissue paper onto the contact paper. Please pardon the pajamas on our lazy day!!! You can see Brady's flushed cheeks here.  He was feeling better in the morning for breakfast and craft.  However, after lunch and nap is not as good. After they were done placing tissue paper onto the contact paper, I put another piece of contact paper on top of their creation.  We also cut a heart border out o...

I'm glad I have a husband who can do some handy projects. He's also good at improvising to make things work. So instead of showing more things about the kids, today I'm going to show off some of Jesse's recent work. The first picture is of the rack he built to hold my stoneware. The name brand one was expensive so he created his own! Lucky me! The second picture is my new jewelry rack. I picked up this driftwood on a trip this summer. I should have found a bigger one, but this one fits on the wall nicely.  I won't say where I got it because after I got home I thought about the fact that I probably wasn't allowed to take this souvenir! The last picture is of a tin tile that Jesse used to form into a picture frame for our 10th anniversary.

We made whoopie pies for Jesse's poker night while the rest of us are at the beach.  So if the icing looks a bit funny, now you know why! I dehydrated peach-blackberry fruit leather and canned salsa and pickles. No, 18 cups is not enough salsa for us. This was only 1/2 recipe of salsa because I need to wait for more of my garden tomatoes. We were given free cucumbers, so we'll see how they turn out! Amie is attempting to sit up by herself. You can tell she still has to think about it and she's still wobbly! She'll soon be good at it.  I realized that I haven't shown artwork lately. Jesse brought the kids some sketchbooks home from work. Natalee drew this pretty flower. Yesterday, all of the sudden Brady decided to admit that he can indeed write letters. And, he went to town!!!  He wrote a lot of B's. The one on the bottom right is "a sitting down B". Then he went crazy and wrote more letters. Never mind that they are backwards...

 While we are not typically big on a huge Valentines Day celebration, the kids definitely enjoy the holiday and the crafts and baking involved.  Let's face it-- I'd rather have the big celebration be my upcoming birthday!  I did want to take the opportunity to teach/show the kids more about the concept of love during our pre-school time.  We created this heart stamp out of a paper towel center.  I liked this craft because both kids enjoyed it and it was easy for them both to do.  Natalee stamped the pink hearts and Brady stamped the red hearts.  I got the idea from Rust and Sunshine .  I liked the result so much that I decided to display it in a frame.  Then, we did these heart hand print pictures from The Idea Room .  I thought these turned out to be really adorable.  So, I had to put it in a frame, too!  I accidentally put them on upside down.  I did change one other thing, though.  I picked to Bible vers...

We picked out some pumpkins on Monday and then Friday afternoon we finally got to paint the pumpkins!  We had a busy week, so it was hard for Natalee to wait so long to paint. Oh, the concentration! For some reason Natalee decided she did not want to draw faces on the pumpkins after all.  She just wanted to paint freely. We placed our finished products out by the mailbox. Brady's big pumpkin work of art. Natalee's big and little pumpkin, plus the little one Natalee gave me to paint.  Natalee did have a lot of colors on hers until the very end when she decided to try and mix colors up.  That did not work very well for her!

Jesse has been working a massive amount of overtime lately.  So, we were glad to be able to spend a Saturday morning at Hartslog Day with him. We went in the kids tent area and created quite a few crafts.  Here, the kids put peanut butter on a pine cone and then coated it with bird seed.  Needless to say, Jesse was in charge of the peanut butter :) Brady had to test out the peanut butter :) When we got home, the kids hung up their pine cones on the tree for the squirrels to eat.  I think they enjoyed this craft most of all!

This morning we made some macaroni necklaces.  It was still way too wet outside to do very much.  I wasn't sure how Brady would do with this activity, but he actually did very well.  Both kids concentrated and made beautiful necklaces. The concentration! Ta-da!

Natalee's drawing skills have improved a lot lately, so I thought I should show them.  She is now applying more of her imaginations and observations to paper. This is from the library last week.  We traced her hand to form the duck.  Then she cut it out and glued it onto the paper (the beak and legs were pre-cut).  Natalee decided to add grass, sunshine and some flowers.  I was impressed that she wrote her name so small this time! A few nights ago she rather quickly drew our family.  She told me there was something wrong with her picture of me (no hair!).  I loved that she put a goatee on her dad.  She gave herself plenty of hair and then put short hair on Brady and her dad.  Lastly, she added some sunshine.  While she did not take much time to put this picture together, I thought the elements of it were very cute!

Today we made some sugar cookies.  We cut them into hearts and decorated them for Valentines Day.  This activity is right up Natalee's alley, of course.  She was really looking forward to it.  Of course, I was DREADING all of the mess.  It was worth it, though. We used paint brushes to put a glaze on the cookies before we sprinkled on the decorations and stuck on M&M's. ICING!!!  (Hmm...Do you think Mom will notice if I sneak a taste of this stuff?) I noticed today that Brady came a long way since we did this activity at Christmas time.  He has obviously been watching me mix things up in the kitchen (and pretending to do so with Natalee).  He dumped A LOT of red sprinkles into his cup of glaze icing while I wasn't looking.  That turned into a messy goop!  Then, he kept dumping in M&M's despite my pleas to stop that.  I fished them out and stuck them to one of his cookies.  So, two of his cookies are red-c...

I thought I should share a few pictures from this past week.  I was just looking through the pictures from my camera from last week.  A few of them just made me smile.  (A lot of pictures make me smile, so this is not odd) At the Penn State basketball game this past Sunday. Story time at the Library After the Library story time comes craft time.  Brady found scissors while I wasn't paying attention-- YIKES! I love their imagination.  They were taking their dogs to the beach.  Yep, with cowboy boots on!