For the LOVE of Strawberries!

Our good friend Val from Yarni Gras sent us a wonderful strawberry package this week! We LOVED our strawberry goodies!


This was a swap was hosted by my friend Susan at Chickenfoot. It was a swap for me but Val being such a wonderful friend sent along some goodies for Nature Girl including a cute Strawberry Shortcake tote and a sun catcher kit that Nature Girl insisted we make right away. Here's Nature Girl with her finished sun catcher.


We were fortunate to receive an original Curly Girl Arts piece. It's a sketch book and with strawberries on it. We were very excited about this! If you haven't seen Curly Girl's blog check it out. She is a very talented young girl!! She has a tutorial for the strawberry sketchbook Nature Girl and I are holding. The sketchbook tutorial is here.

I was just saying I needed a tote bag for school and look what Val sent for me...a strawberry tote bag! I was a little upset on Friday when I was half way to work and realized I had forgotten it! But no worries it's stuffed with items for school and is ready to go with me tomorrow!

Val sent lots of goodies as she always spoils us! We got two pincushions, two tote bags, a strawberry note book, lots of yummy strawberry recipes and the strawberry sketchbook(I just realized the sketch book isn't in this picture!) Thank you Val and Curly Girl for all of the lovely goodies! Your goodies are still in my head waiting to be translated into swap goodies. I hope to make them a reality later this week!

Swapping Updates and Thank yous!

We've had a great summer when it comes to swaps! I've been busy finishing up swap goodies and sending them off. We participated in the Mee Crafty kid swap this summer. We were partnered with Ali and her boys for the swap. The boys are dinosaur fans so we put together dinosaur themed goodies for them. We sent tee shirts, felt dino finger puppets, dino eggs, dino softies and cherry Twizzlers because they're Nature Girl's favorite! I used Clair Garland's pattern to create a stencil for the dino tee shirts but opted to design and create my own dino softies. I like the stegosaurus softie the best! Ali and Boys blogged about their goodies here. The pictures they took are very cute! Thanks to Ali and boys for a great swap! We had a lot of fun with this swap and it was our first international package. We blogged about the goodies from the swap here.

After a summer of fun adventures with us Adventure Bunny was sent off wearing her new costume and accessories. You can see Adventure Bunny at her new home here.

When you send a swap package out you get one in return. Adventure Bunny arrived at her new home the same day Nature Girl's new swap friend arrived here. Daffodil the bunny has since been renamed Daffodil Love Bunny and is seen here enjoying some ice tea. Nature Girl isn't usually allowed to sit on our table so she was excited that she could for the picture!


Daffodil arrived with a photo scrapbook detailing her summer adventures before arriving at our house. Daffodil has enjoyed lots of snuggles, ice tea and a trip to daycare since she came to live with us. You can see more about Daffodil in this blog post. This swap was through the Little People Swap blog. Thank you to Karah and kids!


I participate in the Miniature Quilt Swap. Each month you sign up and create a miniature quilt between 6 and 12 inches for your partner. I made this one for my July partner Solihubb. I received this beautiful mini quilt this week from her. Thank you Solidia, I love it!!! It's going to be hung up next to my desk at school.
This is the back of the quilt. The fabric is soooo cute! Nature Girl was trying to steal my mini quilt because she loved the fabric! No such luck, I'm keeping it!!

A Recipe Treasure

My summer is ending so I'm doing some summer cooking while I can. Tonight I was shredding zucchini, peppers and onions to make zucchini relish. I had some extra zucchini so I decided to make zucchini bread using my mom's recipe. Several years ago my mom took the time to handwrite and illustrate individual cookbooks for my siblings and I. As I searched for the zucchini bread recipe tonight this apple crisp recipe fell out of my cookbook.

This was the recipe my classmates and I made in kindergarten 31 years ago! See my signature. Since there's a jumble of letters and names, I highlighted it with an arrow. It's neat to have this recipe sheet as a reminder of my younger days and my first school experience.
I'll have to try this recipe with Nature Girl this fall. I think I'll send home a recipe sheet like this with my preschool students this year so maybe they'll look back in 10 or 20 years and remember cooking in preschool. I think my kindergarten teacher would be happy to know this recipe is still floating around and in use again!
As I post this I smell delicious zucchini bread cooling in the kitchen. It smells so yummy!!! Tomorrow the house will smell like pickles as I can the zucchini relish. It's a little stinky but worth it to have a stash of zucchini relish all year!

Going to School

On Friday I spent a few hours at school. I got to see my teaching space for the first time. I'm in a room shared with two other teachers. The room is divided into three sections with folding walls so that three teachers can work in the room at the same time. I'll be teaching special ed and this is often the set up for a special ed room or resource room.

This is the view from my desk. The blue wall is the folding wall. And the wood door heads to the hallway.
This is the view from the hall way door into my room. The open doorway heads to an OT(occupational therapy) room. I'm hoping it isn't used as a pass through since that will be disruptive. In my little space I have two boxes of materials, a desk, computer, table, chairs, 2 filing cabinets-one is broken and a computer for a student. I'm planning to head back on Monday morning to add a little bit of personality and to bring in my own materials as I know I'll need them!!!!
The little fake window above my desk is going to be turned into a cork board and will have things that inspire me like family pictures, favorite things and a sign that says "Progress not perfection." To remind me that everyday I should make a little more progress but not to strive for perfection. It's a lesson I need to learn! Finding a balance between home and work will be my biggest challenge this year.
In the afternoon I'm teaching a preschool class that will be held in a different classroom. I haven't seen that space yet and haven't talked to the administrators or other preschool teacher about what that program will look like. Good thing I have some experience and can fly by the seat of my pants because I think that's what I'll be doing for the first little bit! Of course eventually it will all come together, it always does.
I start teacher workshops this Wednesday. Nature Girl is excited and can't wait for me to go to work so she can go play with her friends next door! That's not the reaction I expected but I'll take it!!! It seems I'm the last one who was ready for me to go back to work but here I go. Wish me luck!

International Swap Mail

You know the saying when it rains it pours? Well it certainly has been raining and pouring in New England! The yucky weather means playing indoors but that's ok because when it rains it pours has also applied to our swap mail. Nature Girl is downright giddy about another international swap package arriving on our door step!

This photo is a bit dark and blurry but I just loved her reaction to discovering the koala sewing bag that Beth and her granddaughter sent her for the kids sewing kit swap hosted by One Crafty Mumma. Her reaction was so cute in a high squeeky and excited voice she said something like "Oh my God! It's a koala!" And yes that's my fault I say it too! We have to start working on saying oh my goodness, not oh my God!
Beth included lots of goodies for sewing and crafting together. Best of all she included two post cards of Australia and lots of Australian animals in the sewing kits! I went to my bookshelf and pulled out Wombat Divine and Possum Magic by Mem Fox and we read those. She was excited to see a wombat in a book. We sewed the little orange wombat included in the package, then we checked out Wikipedia for information on wombats and koalas . I printed some pictures and basic information about each animal. It was very interesting and Nature girl soaked up all of the information like a little sponge. After sewing the wombat together she showed her dad what we made and got him to play with her and the wombat. She pulled out her guitar and sang songs to the wombat and even told a story about the Three little Wombats and The Big Bad Wolf. Which was then turned into the Three Little Wombats and the Big Bad Tasmanian Devil since Tasmanian Devils eat wombats. It was so cute to listen to her use her imagination and incorporate in all of the information she had learned! This swap was such a great way to learn about another part of the world! Thanks Beth for putting together such a great package for us. It was way more than a sewing kit, it's been hours of learning and fun imaginative play, so thank you!


A second international swap package arrived yesterday. This one was from Katy at imagingermonkey. Katy was kind enough to swap one of her gorgeous dolls for a mini kite quilt.

Here is Nature Girl the doll and Nature Girl the girl! Check Katy's blog here for more pictures of Nature Girl the doll. I love Katy's creations so to have her make one for my daughter was very exciting!!!! Want your own imagingermonkey creation? Check out the imagingermonkey etsy shop.

Mee Crafty Swap

Nature Girl got swap mail on Friday. Ali and her boys were our partners for the Mee Crafty kid swap. Nature Girl was very excited to get a package. This is her first international package. We're starting to keep track of where all of our swap packages come from so we can learn more about the world around us. Opening the package. The goodies were wrapped in lovely paper with leaves embedded in it.

This is the ooooo!


The squeeze!

And it's love! Introducing Eboo the owl. Eboo came with a sweet little note introducing himself to Nature Girl and asking to be her friend. She was so cute taking him around the house on a tour and introducing him to everyone and everything!

She also received these beautiful hair clips,

and this pretty flower tote bag. Nature Girl took her tote bag to our favorite thrift store to carry her treasures home in. She's already learning to utilize reusable bags. Yeah for her, now her mom needs to work on that!

After the package was opened she discovered the card and picked it up saying "I'm going to read the card." She opened the card and looked at it. She realized she had a it upside down and flipped it the right way before looking up at me and saying."I remembered I can't read, can you read it?" I had to laugh!
Thank you Ali and boys for a wonderful swap!


I also got swap mail on Friday too. This wool felt came from Tanaya. I traded some batik fabric for wool felt. I can't wait to start creating with this great stash. Thanks for trading Tanaya!

Visitng in Vermont

We spent a few days in Vermont visiting my Mom and Grandmother. My Grandmother is preparing to have a hip replacement surgery at the end of August and even though she's stubborn and won't admit it, she is in tremendous pain. She has always been very independent and doesn't like asking other people to help her. She has always been able to drive herself and go as she pleases. For the last few months she hasn't been able to get around like she normally does and now is having difficulty just walking around the house. We are all anxious for her to have the surgery and begin to feel better.

My youngest sister and I took our children and headed to VT to visit and help out for a few days. Mimi(my mom) and Grandmimi(my grandmother) are nature lovers and gardeners. The kids asked as soon as we arrived if they could pick the flowers. Mimi handed each child a pair of scissors and headed outside to cut flowers. The kids loved having their own scissors to cut flowers. Of course my sister was a bit stressed watching her two year old son walk around the backyard with a pair of scissors cutting his own flowers. I'm happy to report there were no scissor injuries and we ended up with lots of flowers.

Here's Nature Girl and I with her cut flowers. Mimi pulled out an array of vases for the kids to choose from and let them arrange their own flowers. Each child had two vases of flowers when they were done.

After cutting and arranging our flowers we headed out for a nature walk. The kids loved this! We found more flowers, rocks, insects and even a few red raspberries to eat on our nature walk. We discovered some burdocks too. As a kid we would gather them then stick them together to create bird nests and houses. Mimi showed the kids how the burdocks stick together.

Nature Girl shows her blob of burdocks. Thankfully when they're green they mostly stick to themselves. In the fall when they turn brown they stick to everything including hair and clothes. I had a few run ins with burdocks as a kid!

We headed off to the beach at a local pond. Yes, you are reading the name right. It's called Ticklenaked Pond. A visit to the pond was on Nature Girl's summer fun list so she had a great time swimming and playing in the sand with her cousins.

My youngest sister and I relaxed on the beach while watching the kids swim and play. My sister BB is great at holding the camera out and getting a good picture. I always cut someone out or get half a person in the photo.

While we were in VT we went to an elk and deer farm near my mom's house. They have machines where you can get corn to feed the elk. One of the elk was very friendly and met us right at the fence. There were also several free range chickens milling about. The kids had a great time throwing the corn to them.

Sweet and Kind

On Friday our refrigerator was on the fritz so we had to call a repairman to come have a look. The good news is he was able to fix the problem without us having to buy a new refrigerator. While the repairman was working, Nature Girl grabbed a piece of paper and began drawing. She brought the picture over to give to the repairman then realized he was wearing glasses. She took the picture back and worked on it again before bringing it to the repairman. He was busy fixing the fridge and she felt shy so she left it for him on the floor next to his tools. In the end the repairman fixed the fridge and took the check but didn't take the drawing. I'm sure he didn't see what I saw. I saw a sweet little girl who wanted to do something kind for a stranger. She worked hard to make the picture just right so he would be happy with it. It was a gift. To me it was a sweet and kind thing for her to do and it made me proud! I didn't expect this middle age man to see a four year olds drawing as the gift she meant it to be so when he left the picture behind I quickly snapped it up and took a photo. Then I put it in the pile of pictures to save. This one was so sweet and kind it's certainly a keeper! So is Nature Girl!!!!

We're heading out tomorrow to go spend time with my mom and my grandmother in VT for a few days. My sister, her two boys, Nature Girl and I will pile into the car tomorrow morning for the two and a half hour trip. This will be Adventure Bunny's last adventure with us. She'll be heading to her new home next week. The trip is one of the last activities left on our summer fun list. Nature Girl is very excited about going and has been asking for two days if it's time to go see Mimi yet. Summer is flying by and I begin school in just two weeks! I'm trying to enjoy the last days of summer while I can.