Swap Fun

I joined the Witches Cupboard Swap hosted by Yarnigras. Nature Girl and I had fun this morning starting our items for the witches cupboard. We used these old canning jars I salvaged from an auction last year. I got a whole box for 50 cents. We found tiny skulls, stretchy rats, sticky eyeballs mixed with stones, skeleton hands to fill the jars. We also found a little black crow and a styrofoam skull to add to the cupboard. This is turning out to be so much fun! Nature Girl wants to make her own witch's cupboard in her bedroom for Halloween. She has a tiny skull, a stretchy rat and a black crow to use as a start. Once the witches cupboard swap package arrives I know I'll be sharing some of those items too. She's already asking to pull out all the Halloween decorations. I think we'll wait another week. I have another idea up my sleeve for the Witches Cupboard Swap. I just need time to make it but alas it's Sunday night and my school work calls.

This is Nature Girl with the package she mailed off in the Little People Back to School Swap. Her partner loves music so we went with a musical theme. We included a CD by a local artist Ben Rudnick and Friends. It's a great kids album. You can check it out here.

Here's another view of the package. We included a book, a clown whistle, directions for making your own instruments, an elephant plush because you need a friend to share your music with and a pumpkin bag with a few goodies for our partners mom.


This is the package Nature Girl received. She received shells, pencils, colored pencils, mini notebooks and a set of 6 card games. She's had lots of fun with her goodies. Thank you Zoey!

As you can see swap mail makes Nature Girl happy! She loves it when a packages arrive! Here she is hugging the box.

Halloween Swap

Now that school is in session I'm excited about fall. I can't wait to make pumpkin dip and decorate the house with fall foliage and pumpkins. I like the sweet and prim side of Halloween. None of the scary, bloody stuff for me. Nature Girl doesn't like scary either. She's trying to decided between a Velma(from Scooby Doo) costume or a girl super hero costume. I haven't come up with a good idea for me yet. My school does a Literacy day on Halloween so your costume must come from a character in a book. Since Haloween is still a long way off I have time to decide.
In anticipation of Halloween I joined the Witches Cupboard Swap over at my friend Yarnigras blog We were asked what kind of Halloween things we like. I listed sweet Halloween stuff. Then I found this Halloween personality quiz. As you can see my Halloween personality is a candy corn. Sweet like me, ha, ha! (Are you laughing Robyn?)

You Are Candy Corn

Your Halloween personality is whimsical, colorful, and creative. You see Halloween as a time to get your creative juices flowing. Each year, Halloween can't start soon enough for you. You tend to go all out for Halloween. You decorate like crazy and always dress up.

What Halloween Treat Are You?

Blogthings: Quizzes and Tests and Memes, Oh My!

A Rock in the Park

Here's Nature Girl playing on some rocks in a local park. She loved climbing through the holes in the rock and passing through the rock that was split in two.

Now's she catching a ride on a stone tortoise. This one is pretty slow! She has always loved turtles.

Nature Girl starts kindergarten on Wednesday and I start back at school tomorrow. We've had fun this summer. I had high hopes of posting pictures and details of our summer events. Hopefully soon. In the meantime I just finished posting an introduction of Nature Girl and I on the littlepeople swap blog. You can check it out here: Meg and Mag are hosting a back to school swap. We just sent out our package and can't wait for it to arrive at it's destination.

Long Time No Blog!

Well long time no blog!!!! Nature Girl and I are still here. This summer has been busy and it feels like we're just finally starting our summer vacation. With two teaching conferences, our usual family vacation and a lot of rain it seems like summer just started last week. The scary thing is that it's almost August and school will begin again on August 26th. This past year was a flurry of activity with learning to balance teaching, being a mom and a wife. I have missed blogging and reading all the wonderful blogs out there. I hope to get reading so I can catch up with everyone. Thanks to all of you who have checked in on me during my long absences. I hope to post a little more regularly this year. In the meantime here's a fun summer treat . . . frozen bananas. Yum!


We use Wilton milk chocolate candy melts, bananas, sprinkles, wax paper and popsicle sticks or lollipop sticks. To make frozen bananas start by peeling the bananas then cut them in half. I place wax paper on a cookie sheet(I used a paper plate here since the freezer was full) then I put a stick in each banana piece and set it on the wax paper. Next I melt the chocolate candy melts according to the directions on the bag. I hold the banana over the bowl and spoon chocolate over it until it's covered. Next shake sprinkles on the banana and place on the wax paper. Once your bananas are covered place them in the freezer for a few hours. Serve them on a hot summer day, they're delicious!

More Gingerbread Travelers

I leave for work early each morning before Nature Girl is even awake. Since I'm not there to greet her, I write her a note every morning before I leave for work. She looks forward to her notes and on the few occasions that I've forgotten to write she lets me know she's disappointed. Of course she quickly forgives me. All of these notes have started to result in return notes from Nature Girl. Nature Girl wrote this little note on my white board when she went into school with me. What a sweet little message! I didn't erase it for a week!

Speaking of school I finally got our Traveling Gingerbread Men bulletin board up and took a few pictures this week. These aren't the greatest pictures but they give you an idea of what the bulletin board looks like. You can see that we put all of the postcards in a little pocket with a gingerbread man, the name of the state and some facts we learned about each state. This has been such a fun project for the preschoolers and now the rest of the school is enjoying reading the postcards and looking at the information we learned. We've gotten lots of compliments and questions about our project.

The greatest part is that even since I put this up earlier this week it's changed and more additions have been made. Margy sent us information about Belgium and Lady of Perpetual Chaos sent us information about Utah. Robin sent us the sweetest felt gingerbread ornaments. Each child got to take one home. I put a picture on the bulletin board with all the the preschoolers holding their gingerbread ornaments and another of all of us wearing the Mardi Gras beads Val sent us from Louisiana. So thank you to everyone who has sent us postcards and packages. We greatly appreciate your help. So many children are enjoying the cards and learning about the US and the world with us. Thanks!

What We've Been Up To

Well February is drawing to a close and once again I've haven't posted hardly at all. We've been busy. Life is speeding by and we've done many fun things but I haven't had the time to post about our adventures. With the daily hecticness of work I haven't been good about taking pictures these last few months, but I did take quite a few pictures this month thanks to my new camera. Thank you honey, it was a great Valentine's Day gift!
So here's a run down of some of our February adventures. This week we had four birthday parties including one for me. Here's Nature Girl at a children's science museum with a dinosaur display. We attended a birthday party and she had lots of fun. They have a huge lego replica of the mill buildings that the city once boasted.

We also went to a birthday party at Build a Bear. Nature Girl made her first ever bear. We had to head back there today to pick out clothes for the bear and she was so happy with her choice and claims that "This was the best day of my life." Of course she said that yesterday too when we stopped at Panera Bread for nourishment after waiting in line at the DMV with me for an hour and a half to get my license photo taken. Sometimes she's easy to please and she's one of the greatest joys in my life! Today she told me that I'm the best mom in the world because I'm so good to her. That melted my heart! But I digress. . . so back to our February adventures.

We attended a free show called Curious Creatures. This was an interactive animal show so Nature Girl and I were able to pet an American alligator, an African tortoise, a chinchilla, a boa constrictor, a bearded dragon, a rabbit and a milk snake. It was a cool experience even though I am not a fan of snakes. I've never touched an alligator(or eaten alligator tail though I hear from both Val and my husband that they taste like chicken.)

We both loved the African tortoise. What a cool pet! Of course they grow really big and they outlive their owners so I don't see any tortoises in our future no matter how much Nature Girl likes turtles. But isn't he cute? His name is Squirtle.
I haven't figured out how to get the pictures off my phone but Nature Girl and I went on a field trip with my mom to an Emu farm in VT. Nature Girl got to see the Emus up close and got to buy an Emu egg. It was really neat and we learned a lot about Emus. We plan to go back this spring to see the babies after they hatch. This month, we also took Nature Girl's Grandma and Papa candlepin bowling for the first time. Really it was even better than bowling, it was glow bowling where everything is lit with black lights. We had lot of fun, even though none of the grown ups were very good even with the bumpers up! Really candlepin bowling is hard!

Here's Nature Girl getting ready to eat a yummy chocolate cat pop sent by Heather in the owl swap. I need to post pictures of the owl crossstich Heather sent. Nature Girl has it displayed in her room and she's asleep for the night, so pictures will have to follow later. Thanks Heather!

Also a special thank you to all of you( Cheri, Val, Barb, Robin) who have sent postcards to my preschool class. We've had a great time with this project learning about the different states. I hope to have some pictures of our bulletin board for you this week. Thanks again for the help!

Be Mine Valentine Swap

THANK YOU Beth! You totally spoiled us! We can't thank you enough! We loved the package!!! Nature Girl was so excited when I got home tonight and we sat down to open the package. No wonder she was excited, check out this package of valentine goodies. Who wouldn't be excited?


Look at all of these goodies! Nature Girl was snapping them up and claiming the items before they even made it out of the box. Beth sent plenty for us to share so neither of us was disappointed!


In fact, I love my goodies! My favorite is the owl coasters. I made coasters as Christmas gifts for my family last year but never made any for myself. So these are a special treat, I just love those little owls. The pin cushion and the postcard are amazing too. I have a cheesy looking red tomato pin cushion that will quickly be replaced with this little beauty. I also tried to claim the little bear since Nature Girl got the little stuffed owl but it turns out that I'll have to share it with her as she wasn't willing to give it up. No wonder, it's adorable!!


Now this a is a must see too! It's a tin of felt chocolates made for Nature Girl by Beth. Nature Girl took this photo of her Valentine chocolates all by herself.

Nature Girl and I were very excited about our goodies! We've already read the books twice and the felt candies have been sampled by all of us while we played. They look great and as Nature Girl says "I like the pretend candies. They are perfect for playing with." Yes, they are! I think that they'd make a great Valentine decoration too!
Thank you Beth for hosting this swap and for spoiling us. This has been a fun swap and I'm looking forward to swapping with you again! You are very talented!