Saturday, January 31, 2009

Christmas gifts we made this year

I totally forgot to post this before. Cameron has a neighbor that he LOVES!!! Especially during the summer when he sees him all the time. We made this gift basket for him. Cameron helped make everything in there. Rich got to enjoy all sorts of yummy treats!! We had fun making the labels for each of the snacks. Cameron was a great helper with this!We also made Isabella some diapers for the doll we got her for Christmas! These were really easy and fun to make! Thanks to all the great tutorials that are on the internet! We made burp cloths to go with the diapers! This isn't the greatest picture but you get the point! We also made my mom some granola! We told her that whenever it was empty just give it back and we'll fill it up! She's already brought it back a couple times!
Lastly, we made Isabella homemade playdough for the whole year! At the beginning of each month, we bring her a new playdough and theme shaped playdough (cookie) cutter that has to do with month. For January, we brought her white playdough with iridescent glitter and a snowflake playdough cutter! We had a great time with this!! We also make a batch for preschool each month too!

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I spy containers

We made some really fun I spy containers! We made an I spy bottle with Racine Family Club. Cam and I hosted a kids event making these. It was soooo easy to make. We already had colored rice and added that to a water bottle. Thank goodness we had some that I saved for a craft because we don't use ANY plastic water bottles anymore. It was fun to see what everyone came up with to put in their container. We let the kids decorate the paper with dip dots before we put the items that were in our containers.

Some ideas are: crayons, pom pons, tip eraser, foamies, penny, bead, golf tees, counting bears, ribbon, you can put anything that would fit in a water bottle

We also made some out of fabric! I really like the fabric ones better and they are quieter if you are going to take it with you to church or somewhere you'd like the kids to be quiet at. I'd like to make some theme ones with the fabric too. (Someday when there is time!)



Sunday, January 25, 2009

Beautiful!!

You have to see these awesome quilts that my mom and aunt made! We had Cameron's birthday party on Saturday and I was completely amazed by the great gifts that were given.
My aunt made this one for Cameron. We had a pirate themed birthday party so she came up with the idea to make him a treasure hunt quilt. The second picture shows that under the X on the bottom left corner is a treasure. It was so creative!! On the back corner, it says: Cameron's treasure 1-09.
Then to my surprise (my mom never even hinted that she was making this!) my mom made Cameron a quilt with all of our family members on it. It's really nice because you can switch in and out pictures. Cameron LOVES looking at the pictures of everyone. We had to take Chris' sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew's picture at the party to put on it because my mom didn't have a picture of them. At the bottom of the back of the quilt it says, "This quilt was lovingly created for Cameron Max Porcaro in celebration of his 3rd birthday! January 22, 2009 Love, Gramma Roxie" This is something that will treasured always!!

Happy Birthday Cammie!!

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Bakin', bakin' and more bakin'

I think Cam is burnt out of crafting with me! ): I LOVE making, crafting, painting, doing things with him. The only thing that is wants to do play with McDonalds disney characters t hat Chris and Cam get off of ebay and animals. He loves to play pretend, which I don't mind doing for a little while but NOT ALL DAY LONG!! I told Chris last night that I was going to open up an art studio where kids can just come in and make/play with craft and art materials. You can just move around the room and there would be easels, painting, chalkboards, playdough, every kind of art materials. I would love that; if only I had the time. Enough dreaming for now.

Today we made Buckwheat bread in the bread machine. Yum!! Even the older kids love this kind of bread. If anyone knows of another great bread machine recipe, please let me know. I'm really into my bread machine right now. Here's the recipe:
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 2/3 cups bread flour
3/4 cup buckwheat flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup water
Directions
1. Add all ingredients in the order recommended by your bread machine manufacturer.
2. Process on the bread cycle.
We also made apple cinnamon muffins. They turned out great and Cam loved them.
The last thing we made today was banana pudding. I let Cameron cut up bananas to put in it. He did a great job with the knife (it was a plastic one we got from IKEA; I love that store). Well that's been out day so far and it's only 10:30. I think we'll try to go outside and play for a while. We haven't been outside to play in about a week and a half and its finally warm enough (20 degrees is warm enough, right????)

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Things we've been working on

With the matching mittens we decided to also make counting mittens with snowflakes. We used these at school and they were quite a hit! This was so easy but so useful.I went to a bookmaking class for kids (I will post more about this later) and one of the books we made were accordian books. Cameron and I decided to make a numbers book with stickers. We used animal stickers (of course) and he would put the stickers on and I would write the name of the animal on the page. This was great to make and also great to look at. We "read" it everyday. I let Cam decorate the cover. He's not really into coloring (no matter how much I wish he would) but he did a little bit.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Frickin'

Okay, I think it's funny and Chris, hmmmm not so much! Chris asked Cameron what he wanted for breakfast this morning and Cameron said, "Hot dog, bun, and some frickin' cheese!!" Chris turned and give me this look!! I started giggling and Chris asked me if I would think it was so funny if he said it in public. At that point, I still couldn't help not laughing but was wondering if it would be as funny if he said to someone.

Workin'

We've been working, working, working! Or as Cameron would say, "we've been playing, playing, playing". It makes me laugh when I think of montessori and explaining it to people. When people come in to visit at school and we explain that we have work time, it sometimes freaks people out. We could call it play because for the kids that is what it is but with montessori they call it work time.
Here is some of the new things that we've made to work with. We made a snowflake numbers mat. The kids can use these with a friend or alone. I couldn't find any white glittery puffs so we had to use colored. The kids roll the dice and whatever number they land on they put that many snowballs on. I put stickers 1, 2, 3 on the dice. Cameron is almost 3 so we are only able to recognize those numbers.


We brought this to school and the kids really seem to enjoy this. They really enjoy finding a friend to play "work" with this. A little girl in class wanted Cameron to play with her so she took him by the hand and lead him over to it. He just adores this little girl and will do anything she asks of him but when they got there he didn't want to so he started acting like a putz. Sometimes I feel bad for him because the work at school isn't anything new for him. Since I've made or done a lot of the stuff at home, he's already seen it and worked on it at home.

We also made these really cool matching mittens. We used felt and cut out two of each color. We used them during group time. We give each child a mitten, turned on some soft music and the kids had to find their match. We've done this with other items also and they seem to understand what they are suppose to do now. In the beginning, they would hold their item so no one could see it and they could never find a match. They are really starting to have fun finding their partner and talking about their items that are the same and what is the same about them. We made 1-10 but when we put them out on the shelf we put 1-5 and 6-10 together. This way we don't overwhelm the younger ones.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Busy, busy, busy

WOW! I have been having a blast! I can't get enough of making crafts and things. I thoroughly enjoy teaching preschool and having a preschooler!! We have been busy creating and Cameron is really enjoying it.

Here we made white playdough with fine glitter and mint in it. It is our playdough for January; it's suppose to look like snow. We've been playing with it every day. Yesterday, we used buttons, beads and toothpicks to make a snowman. I wish I would have taken a picture of one of Cameron's snowmen.

I'd like to start making one of these handprints every 6 months. I wish I would have thought of this when he was born. Obviously he wouldn't have been able to paint it when he was really little but I love it. I let Cameron paint the canvas with lighter colors and then when it was dry I painted his hand with a darker color. I think I am going hang them in the playroom in the basement. We had to paint on paper after we were done. Cameron LOVES painting!

It was my cousin's 4th birthday party on Saturday. I had so much fun making her some birthday gifts. She always wears handband so we made her some reverable handbands. I had to use Cam's head to measure; I should have taken a picture of him wearing them. That would have been another great picture to show his wife. We made 4 but I hadn't finished it when I took this picture.We also made her a "pocketbook", a purse; my grandma always called it a pocketbook and so does my cousin, Amy. It makes me smile everytime I hear it. I had so much fun making her this. We filled it with tissues and lipgloss.


I told you we've been busy!!

Will he forgive me for this when he gets older?


I love having boys! When I was pregnant with Cameron I really, really, really wanted a girl. I wanted to do all the things that I loved with Kaitlyn and more (is that possible????!!??). Okay, I wanted to be able to do a little girl's hair (Kait would NEVER let me touch her hair). I hate to say this but was disappointed when I found out that we were having another boy but goodness gracious God definitely knows what he is doing. I couldn't have asked for neater kid and have come to realize that I LOVE HAVING BOYS!! They are truly, truly different than girls ( please don't roll your eyes, I know what you are thinking). Here's my little guy with his big sis. He had NO desire to put clothes on and insisted on singing and playing piano to "Rainbow Connection". I even have it on video. It's great! This will be a great picture to show his wife or put on his graduation invites (just kidding!). Kids, I love them! There is nothing that makes me happier than all three of my kids. They are why I was put on earth (;