Thankful!

Happy Thanksgiving to you! I hope you have a bounty of things to be thankful for too!
On this Thanksgiving we have so much to be thankful for! We're thankful for our family, friends(near and bloggy,) our health, and the good life we live.
This Thanksgiving we have new aprons to wear thanks to Regina. She made Nature Girl and I matching Tea For Two aprons in the One Hot Mama Apron Swap hosted by Yarni Gras! Thank you Regina! We love them! Nature Girl so so excited to be included! We've enjoyed our mugs but Nature Girl still won't try the hot chocolate even though pink is her favorite color. She's been drinking milk instead. Thank you again Regina, the aprons are lovely!!!
To see the apron and goodies I sent for the swap check here. It's the brown and blue apron and goodies.

Show and Tell - Better Late Than Never

Here are some swap show and tells that are very late. Of course a bit late is better than never. So bear with me as I share some of the amazing things I've received over the last month or so.


Rosina made me the most amazing stationary wrap for the Gratitude Swap hosted by One Crafty Mumma. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this! Rosina was so creative to think this one up. I love sewing with felt. There is so much you can do with it. Thank you Rosina!!!

This is the inside of the gratitude wrap and the beautiful fall leaf bowl and acorn spreader Rosina set to me. I love them!

I can't forget this beautiful owl quilt Lori sent me for the September Mini quilt swap. The theme was owls and mushrooms. Isn't it brilliant! I love it. I have an owl theme in my resource room at school so he's hanging in my classroom. Thank you Lori, it's perfect! You can see the mini quilt I made for Lori here.


Christy from Mama Said Sew sent us a surprise package. Nature Girl got a book about an orange cat and stickers. She loves orange cats and wants Santa to bring a real orange cat for Christmas. Christy also sent an applique quilt magazine for me. I want to try making one of the quilts featured in this magazine for Nature Girl. At 4 and a half she has begun to out grow her little down comforters she's used since she was a baby. While I know she'll never give up her "Puffy" it would be nice to make a quilt that will actually cover her toes. Puffy's getting a little short! Thanks for the surprise mail Christy, we really enjoyed it!


Sarah from A Spoonful of Sugar sent a thank package to Nature Girl. We mailed Sarah a Sacajawea coin for her upcoming school project. Sarah sent these cute cookie cutters as a thank you.As you can see the adorable cookie cutters are Australian animals. There is a kookaburra, platypus, echidna, frilled neck lizard, kangaroo and a koala. We enjoyed talking about and looking up information on the animals. Now we just need to make some cookies now so we can use the cookie cutters! Thank you Sarah and Lisa!

I hope I didn't forget anyone. Thank you for the lovely swap gifts and surprises!!! My apologies for being late in posting my swap goodies. School has taken up a huge chuck of my life so blogging and crafting has taken a back seat for a bit. This trend is sure to continue for the next few months or longer.

Final Book Swap Post

This is my last post for the One Good Book Swap. I think all of the packages have been mailed with just one or two that haven't arrived at their destinations yet. I hope everyone enjoyed participating in the swap. I know I had fun with it!
Nature Girl's package came all the way from Belgium. Margy and her boys sent a traditional Dutch story that has been translated into English. It's called Jip and Janneke. We're enjoying reading the many adventures of Jip and Janneke, two preschoolers who are always finding mischief and fun!


Oh the excitement of surprise swap mail! The eyes say it all! She sure loves her swap mail!


Here she is tearing into the package. Margy even stamped the ribbon with Jip and Janneke characters.

Look at all of these goodies!!!!! A sticker set, a pencil, ruler, eraser and sharpener set, pennant flags, little Jip and Janneke bags, a beautiful patchwork jean tote and my personal favorite handmade stamps of Jip and Janneke. Margy is one talented lady! Thank you for the fabulous package Margy. We really loved it!

If you had so much fun with the book swap that you can't wait to do another. . . pop over to Holly's blog. Holly participated in the One Good Book Swap and is hosting a Christmas Book Swap. Nature Girl just asked me on Saturday if I had signed her up for anymore swaps. I hadn't so of course I had to sign her up for Holly's Merry Christmas Book Swap. If you'd like to sign up you have until Nov. 14th stop by Holly's blog and sign up. Thanks for hosting Holly, it's going to be lots of fun!

Busy

Hello! Hard to believe I haven't posted for more than two weeks and I haven't read my favorite blogs during that time. School and home life has kept me very busy. Hopefully I'll start to catch up with everyone and post the wonderful swap goodies that have arrived at my house over the last 3 or 4 weeks. So check back for more posts to come over the next week. Well at least I hope I get them posted!
My bloggy friend Barb was sweet enough to give me the one sweet blog award a few weeks ago. Thanks Barb! Stop by Barb's blog to see what she and the kids have been up to and check out Barb's Etsy shop here.

Autumn in the North East and Another Bridge

Nature Girl and I set off for Vermont this weekend to visit my mother and grandmother. We stopped at a rest stop along the way and snapped this lovely picture. Fall in the North East is beautiful! While we were visiting we took the short trip to Bath,NH to look at a second covered bridge. We discovered the Brick Store next to the covered bridge. The Brick Store is advertised as the oldest general store in America so we had to go take a look. We walked around looking at some of the original merchandise that was displayed in glass cases. In the end we purchased apple juice, tootsie pops, a Coke and a bottle of water to hold on the bee sting Mimi got outside near the store and covered bridge.

The Bath Bridge is the longest covered bridge in NH. It's a one lane bridge that is still in use. We explored it on foot first and took these pictures before climbing in the car to drive over the bridge.This is a partial side view of the bridge. It's a long covered bridge!
Mimi and Nature Girl took in the view before walking over the bridge. This sign was hanging on the inside of the bridge. The picture isn't the best but I thought the sign was neat.

This is the view from the covered bridge. I thought it was lovely with all of the fall colors!
We took Nature Girl to an apple orchard last weekend to pick apples. We've been doing this each fall since she was a year old. Nature Girl picked apples with her preschool class this fall but we didn't get enough apples for baking on that trip. So we trekked off to the orchard on a lovely, sunny afternoon last weekend. Nature Girl was determined to pick only the juiciest apples. Here she is with her first apple which she proclaimed the juiciest apple. She also had the chance to choose a pumpkin. She looked at each pumpkin in the pile and finally decided on this one because it was "The perfect pumpkin!" I hope you're enjoying Autumn too!

One Good Book Package

The first package for the One Good Book Swap arrived at my house this week! My bloggy friend Val signed her two children up for the swap. I partnered her son with me asking for a book and package for my 4th graders at school. They are struggling readers who need to learn that reading can be fun. Well, Val and her son have certainly helped with that! They sent not just one book but 25 books!!!! They included Captain Underpants, Ricky Ricotta and Goosebumps which are all favorites of my fourth graders. They just finished up state testing on Friday so they don't know about this wonderful package yet! They are going to be so excited on Monday!!!
Also included in the package was a bookmark project, flower pins, a honeybee snack recipe, bee cupcake toppers, a bee fingerprint art project and my favorite a bee finger puppet. My school teaches the students to be respectful, be responsible and be safe. We have a bee as a mascot. Val had asked about the mascot and designed the package around it.
She wrote "Something I learned years ago is that bees are an enigma. They are not built anatomically correct for flight. It is a mystery as to why they can actually fly. Maybe they can inspire your class to reach new heights of achievement this year." That really touched me! Inspiration is something my students could certainly use. Thank you for this wonderful and inspiring package, I know the kids are going to love it!
Val included books for Nature Girl and this amazing acorn and squirrel she made. When I saw this set on her blog, I loved it and knew Nature Girl would love something like this! Val sent it for Nature Girl. It was love at fist sight!!!! Squirrely and his acorn house went to school with Nature Girl for show and tell on Friday. Really it's so cool, the top comes off the acorn and the squirrel nests inside. You can see better pictures here on Val's blog. Val is sooo talented! I love her amigurumi creations. Check out her blog to see some of the other amazing amigurumi things she has made. I needed to learn how to make some of these amazing amigurumi creations.
This amigurumi bee finger puppet was buzzing around the house tickling Nature Girl and causing lots of laughs. He also became great friends with Squirrely. Alas the bee will be flying to school where I'll be using him in the preschool class. One of our class jobs is the busy bee. The busy bee helps with calendar time and classroom errands. The bee puppet will fit in perfectly with our preschool routine. (Note: Nature Girl is eating a strawberry Twizzler in the picture. She just saw the picture and said what's that? Twizzlers are her favorite candy.)
Thank you Val and Ripstick Boy for the book package!!! I can't thank you enough. I'm very excited about creating the package for Ripstick boy. While I wait for the book to arrive I'm working on a few goodies for the package. I hope everyone else is having fun with the book swap. I can't wait to see what everyone creates!

Covered Bridge

It's been a rainy weekend so we've been hanging out inside today. Yesterday we ventured out for a birthday party and shopping. Nature Girl got to wear her new rain coat and use the matching umbrella. Here she is pictured in the box with her umbrella on the day it arrived. This cardboard boat and umbrella is the perfect set up for our weather this weekend! that brings me to the covered bridge part of my post.


Last weekend we went to Vermont to visit my mom and Gram. We stopped to check out this covered bridge. It's the Bath-Haverhill covered bridge. For more facts on the bridge go here. This is the inside of the bridge. It's pretty amazing to think it's built out of wood. It was recently renovated and rededicated. You can no longer drive over it. There is a side walk part on the side of the bridge with a bench to sit on. Nature Girl loved the view exclaiming "Mommy isn't that so beautiful!"
This is the view from the other side of the bridge. I love the sign "$5 fine for riding or driving over this bridge faster than a walk." We've been talking o Nature Girl about the time when people didn't have cars and used horses to get around so it was neat to be able to show her this covered bridge. eventually I hope to read The Little House on the Prairie Series to her and take her to the Almanzo Wilder Farm in NY. I think she's still a little young.
Here's our self portrait taken at the covered bridge. I'm planning to take Nature Girl to the Bath covered Bridge next time we're in VT. You can drive your car over that one. I think she'll enjoy it. We're planning to go back to VT in a few weeks to visit and take in the fall scenery. It will be beautiful! Happy fall everyone!