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85 homemade Valentine cards are ready for school!

You read that right – 85! Between three classes, my kids are handing out (with teachers included) a total of 85 Valentine’s Day cards. At their Montisorri school they have “communities” versus classes. My oldest is in a mixed age setting with first through third graders. There are 46 children and five teachers. So – you see how the numbers can add up.

It started out simple, by letting the girls make one homemade Valentine with me reproducing it – saving us from doing 85 signatures. My inspiration came from here, then as my ideas grew, it turned into a not-so-simple undertaking. In the end I will say the kids loved them, and it was really fun spending that time together Monday while we assembled them all. We listened to fun music, drank hot chocolate, danced and sang while we pasted and taped two-hours a way in a flash.

Here’s the results, with my childrens’ names blurred out because it just seems too personal of a thing to share with the world. I hope you understand.

Below the images is the information on how we made the cards – in all of their wonderfully imperfect, childish ways.

Here’s how I went about this.

First I took pictures of each girl standing against a blank wall, with hands out like they were holding an imaginary heart (not my idea – it’s all over Pinterest). I printed the photos at home, cut them out – old school style – and gave them to the girls. They each had a 5×7 card to make one Valentine card using their photo. They liked this touch and feel variety, versus the techie way of me cutting and pasting electronically in Photoshop (and honestly, I don’t really know how to do that). The downside is the quality of the photo decreases every time it is reproduced. But for a kid card, I was okay with that.

My youngest daughter wanted to paint. My middle girl wanted to trace my writing, sign her name and was really most pleased with her silly picture. She’s not much of an art gal. My oldest girl took the longest amount of time with her card, drawing out a nice picture.

Next I scanned in their cards to my computer, resized the images and sent them to Walgreens to be printed as 4×6 photos for 10 cents apiece. When I asked about envelopes for photo cards, the lady gave me the 5×7 envelopes for free. Score!

I will say – the resizing of the image threw me for a loop this time because I couldn’t get it right, where the Walgreens auto cropping software did not crop out parts of their best work. Thankfully, a friend who has become our family’s professional photographer, was up late watching the Grammy’s, chatting about it on Facebook, and offered to resize the images. She saved me! (Since the scanner was the problem, another option would have been just to take a picture of the art, and skip Photoshop all together.)

We glued the 4×6 photos to the red 5×7 card stock. Tip: Office Depot will cut a 250 count ream of card stock to any size for $1.50. So don’t you dare do that yourself! Lastly, we used double sided sticky tape to adhere a chocolate candy in the girls’ hands.

For my toddler’s cards, instead of chocolate we used remelted heart-shaped crayons, made from old crayons. (To do this – use a silicon mold, unwrap crayons and break them into pieces to fill the molds. Bake at 250 degrees for about 10-20 minutes – keeping a close eye on them.)  The remelting the crayons project was great fun with my two-year-old. I could write a whole post about her excitement doing this.

SO – our homemade idea and way of avoiding the tedious time of signing cards, turned out to be a time well spent tighter and a lot of fun.

Happy Valentines Day.

And for you grandparents, aunts and uncles out there. Don’t fret, you’ll be getting these cute cards too. As soon as the postman can get them there. 

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A quick, make-the-night-before Valentine shirt

It was the night before Friday’s Valentine Bake Sale at my childrens’ school. I was going to be there most of the day volunteering for the event, with my two-year-old on my hip. So naturally, I thought she should have a festive mama-made shirt to wear.

Thankfully making this Heart Doily Shirt worked out well and went off without a hitch. I started it at midnight, the night before the Valentine Bake Sale, and I was in bed by 12:30. It was a great, satisfying, adorable project.

This Heart Doily Shirt idea came from The Artful Parent. Like our Ice Danglers project – both are featured in The Artful Parent Calendar 2012 that we have hanging in our kitchen. It offers month-to-month seasonal inspiration for creative ideas with children. The Artful Parent is one of my favorite blogs.

I’ve known since last month that I wanted to make this, so I picked up a pink shirt for my little one in advance. But really, any plain, light-colored shirt you have on hand could work. I thought I had fabric paint, but found out late in the game I just had fabric crayons and some dried up fabric markers. So I substituted fabric paint with acrylic paint. It wasn’t ideal because of its thickness, but it worked fine.

I definitely sometimes always pretend there are more hours in a day than reality allows us, staying up too late and taking on too many ideas. But organizing the school bake sale, with my girl by my side, was one thing I was glad I did. You can read why here.

Below is my little sweet munchkin, my bake sale sidekick, wearing her Heart Doily Shirt.

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The yummy joys of a Valentine Bake Sale at school

Nothing gets my mouth watering for Valentine’s Day like a good old fashioned bake sale. After organizing the bake sale at my daughters’ school on Friday, I was inspired to share some bits about it. I hope you enjoy the stories and photos. And that perhaps it will get your juices going to start the tradition at your child’s school – or simply have some fun baking with your kids this weekend.


Little fingers held one-dollar bills with bright eyes looking at the cookies and chocolates, while thoughtfully making their choices of the perfect goodies to pick.

Young new readers were joyed to read the names of the festive treats printed on pretty tags.

Middle school students hit the jackpot buying whole cakes for $10.

First grade boys found glee in stuffing their sugary treasures in their shoe bins, along with their shoes for later (notice bin number 18 in photo below). They gathered, joked and whispered in out-of-the-ordinary mischevous ways.

It’s a Montessori school. Sweets are usually not allowed. Waste free lunches are encouraged with healthy foods and no prepackaged items. Daily snack offerings include whole-wheat items with fruits and veggies. It pleases the parents. It’s all the children know.

But at the Valentine Bake Sale, a room gets filled with home baked sugary goodness (white flour included). Many items are even wrapped in colorful plastics and glittery boxes. Parents go to great lengths to bake the best, and present the treats in pretty heartfelt ways that are full of fun.

You can see the joy on the kid’s faces, in their eyes – the specialness of it all. It was such a treat! It’s the one single day of the year when cupcakes are allowed in school and everyone eats desert after lunch.

The excitement was priceless. The bake sale is the school’s longest standing tradition, and through the years it has gained momentum. This year, one cookie, one chocolate covered strawberry and one brownie at a time – the school raised over $1000.

It’s amazing to me. It happens 50 cents at a time, a dollar here, maybe 10 over there.

Funds raised all go to improving the outside spaces at the school, enjoyed by all 250 students from ages 2-13. So yes, after the kids were all sugared up they went outside to run it all off.

It is a Montessori school after all. Versus many schools where pure daily recess time is a thing of the past, these kids spend an hour a day outside after lunch -EVERYDAY. They swing from monkey bars, walk the nature trail, shoot hoops, build forts, jump through tires, ride bikes and make up games.

Thanks to all our bakers and volunteers, we’ll have lots of funds to do more sprucing up and creating more spaces that fuel our childrens’ imaginations while letting kids be good old regular kids.

For you curious readers: the kids you see here are all friends of our family, with mothers I know, who read this blog, and don’t mind me showing pictures of their children’s sweet times at the bake sale.

I would never post a photo of a child without permission of the parents or the school. The school’s name has been blurred out from the school-issued green bags that each child carries, and hangs where they enter the classroom and remove their shoes. The blurring of that information is to protect the privacy of where my daughters (and their friends) spend their days. If you are a Montessori professional or a local parent looking for schooling options for your children, and you want detailed information about this great school – just email me. I’d be happy to share.

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Child-led play took my kids to “the beach” while I made chili

I had coupons that expired at Old Navy today. So I did something I never do – I took three girls, ages 2, 5 & 7 shopping – at the same time! They were great. They were thrilled about buying swimsuits and the thought of the beach while they still needed a winter coat to walk outside.

When we got home the little girls wanted to put on their suits right away. This led to all kinds of wonderful child-led play fueled by their imaginations. I loved it. I loved the joy it brought them and the peace I got in the kitchen while making dinner and sipping on my favorite beer of the moment, a Blue Moon Winter Abbey.

The little girls are still little enough that they were absolutely thrilled to have matching swimsuits. This made them giddy enough!

When my middle girl suggested to my toddler that they “go to the beach,” or course she was up the fun.

I ran down to the basement, got out a big beach towel and threw it on the floor in the middle or the living room. From there, beach balls, bath toys, sun hats and an umbrella were added that they found in various parts of the house.

All meanwhile I enjoyed mixing, spicing and stirring my homemade chili. Homemade as in I soaked the beans, used tomatoes canned from our garden and local, fresh cow meat for the three meat eaters in the house – which um, never happens. But I was feeling extra nice at the co-op during my last visit. It turned out pretty good. Most of us were happy, minus my most picky eater – the vegetarian who won’t eat beans.

After the living room beach scene the fun moved to the hallway, which was “the ocean.” Then came the idea to have the ocean in the bathtub, which is in the hall bath right off the kitchen. Everything got moved in there and that became “the beach.” The fun kept on going for about an hour, till we had to clean up for dinner.

Yes there was water everywhere, dripped around the circular footprint of the house as the two decided to get out of “the ocean” and play in “the sand” – on the hardwood floors. Hey, at least they put their cover-ups on! Ha.

The clean up was worth it. It was fun.

I love imaginative, child-led play. There is nothing like it. Even if it means mopping the floor with a giant oversized beach towel big enough for two adults. I always try to say yes to it.

Tonight, I think it even made the chili taste even better.

To read more about my views on child-led play, read my post Confession: I don’t play with my kids and why that’s not such a bad thing. I also like a post over at Awake Parent Perspectives called Following the child: How child directed games and activities can create connection, learning and mutual cooperation. 

 

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I’d drive The Milk Truck. Would you?

I’ll admit when I first read about the The Milk Truck hitting the streets of Pittsburgh, driving around with a giant boob on top and offering moms a comfortable place to nurse inside it’s mobile nursing room – I thought it was a bad idea.

I, like so many moms who want other moms to feel comfortable breastfeeding in public, fell into the category of thinking that giving someone a truck to nurse in will just defeat the purpose of encouraging people to nurse in public and be bad for breastfeeding.

At least that’s what the article on The Stir led me to believe. And that’s what most of the commenters on the Natural Parenting Facebook page were saying too.

Then I did some more research, and did some more thinking. My conclusion is, sometimes I think us breastfeeding moms and advocates can take ourselves a little too seriously.

The colorful stripped truck with the big boob on the top is adapted from a true milk truck that in the 70s would have delivered milk to your door before the sun came up (remember those?). At least that’s what it reminds me of.

The Milk Truck is designed by Jill Miller, an artist and mom who created it for an art exhibit at Pittsburgh’s Any Warhol Museum. And now it’s been transformed into slap-stick humor on wheels.

Moms who don’t feel comfortable nursing in public, or are asked not to, can call or tweet to The Milk Truck to come to them. Then, you can only imagine the faces of business proprietors when it shows up on in their parking lot! It’s like an instant mobil nurse-in making a big artistic statement.

Personally I think this is great breastfeeding humor with a good cause in mind. Of course in an ideal world I’d love it if all mamas felt comfortable feeding their babies in public. While that might not be the case right now, at least The Milk Truck is sparking some conversation about it.

If I were in Pittsburgh I would probably volunteer to drive The Milk Truck. Just for the fun of it.

What do you think?

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Muddy dresses, jumping fences and boy neighbors

It’s our first day home from our Colorado trip, and before the bags were unpacked (or even unzipped) the girls were begging to play with friends. Then I got a text from our next door neighbor that her boys were looking to play with our girls. My oldest dropped her American Girl Doll in flash, threw on her boots and hit the backdoor.

Wearing a cute Matilda Jane dress and a sweet mama made skirt, these girls are not afraid to get dirty. I like to provide my girls with cute clothes. With that, I have learned the art of holding my tongue from telling them not to get those cute clothes dirty.

It’s been a strange winter here, with thunderstorms, lots of rain and zero snow. This has turned yards from soft grass into lots of mud. But mud aside, I love that my girls love to play, and get dirty with the neighborhood boys. We are mostly, always surrounded by girls. These boys who they have known since we moved here six years ago, are almost like brothers to my girls.

After making rounds pulling each other around the block in a vintage Radio Flyer wagon, the kids migrated to the boys’ yard to jump in the leaves, dig in the dirt and play football. All the while us parents were texting back and forth keeping up with their whereabouts. It’s a newfound dynamic of old school play mixed with modern technology  to keep up with the kids as they enjoy the freedom of running through neighborhood semi-unsupervised.

Then I got a text from the boy mom witnessing the kids jumping in leaves, saying, “LOVE that your girls get down in the dirt in boots & tights.” And I couldn’t help but think, yeah me too!

When I went out to spy, trying to get some pictures of them in action, I found them standing on bales of hay and flowerpots amid many bushes, figuring out how to jump the fence back to our yard. The boys ages are 10 and 6.

I had just been thinking earlier, that maybe we should put a gate in the wooden picket fence between our yards. But when I witnessed the problem solving skills and sweet actions of the bigger boys helping the younger girls over the pointed top fence – I thought nope. This is much better. Just like girls in pretty dresses getting dirty.

Here’s pic of my oldest daughter, picking leaves out of her hair, with muddy boots and a cute dress – just after she took her turn down our backyard zipline. 

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Simple to sew valentine banner

This banner was sewn by my sister-in-law and hangs on their mantle in Colorado. I also love the vintage wool ice skates she found at a thrift store, hanging above the banner. Together it’s the prefect seasonal display of Valentine happiness.

To make the banner she created her own bias tape, using fabric, for the ribbon top. She cut out the letters by hand and sewed them, with a zigzag stitch, on to the triangles. The triangles were cut using zigzag scissors with the edges left unfinished.

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Hello from the high alpine, in Snowmass, Colorado

This is a quick pop in to share some photos of us having fun in the Colorado snow. So far there has been lots of glove carrying, hats to counts, bibs to keep up with, helmets to buckle and feet to get into boots and on skis. Not to mention the snacks to have on hand, lots of extra water drinking (because of the altitude) and a toddler who is now plain wiped out. Vacationing with three kids is always a lot of work. But it sure is worth it!

The girls are having a blast. My sister-in-law is a kids ski instructor here at Snowmass, one of the world’s (I’m not exaggerating) greatest ski resorts. The first two days the kids skied with her, getting in some private lessons which was a real perk and a boost of confidence for their little ski legs.

My six-year-old niece (in the blue pants) has been a good helper too. That little whippersnapper of a skier has been at it since she was two and can ski the whole mountain with her parents! If you’ve ever been skiing, fallen right on your butt with your skis going in the opposite direction, while a little kid about three-feet-tall goes whizzing by you – that is my niece. Here she is explaining some moves to my five-year-old who was on skis for the first time that day.

They have a great set up for beginning kids at Snowmass, from ages three and up, to learn how to ski. It’s a small hill, just outside the kid’s Tree House area where the kids ski school gathers for lunch, hot chocolate and a general indoor place to warm up. But so far at the bottom of the mountain with the sun shinning, it’s been really warm here – relatively speaking. Which explains the lack of gloves and coats in some of these pictures. We’ve been lucky with bluebird days. Snow is coming tomorrow. Which will be fun too!

My toddler was begging to be part of the gang, saying, “I want to go keying (meaning skiing) too.” We put some ski boots on her and let her walk around but we haven’t actually gotten her on skis – not yet at least.

Yesterday the kids graduated to real ski school, going from 9:00-3:00 with a different teacher other than their aunt. My seven-year-old mastered the chairlift and hit the green (beginner) slopes. My five-year-old had a teacher who took them up the gondola to another kid’s ski area and our toddler had a blast in the daycare area. She walked right in on her own and did not even looking back.

I’m not sure what it is about the Snowmass Village, but I’m pretty sure the snow has some kind of magic happy dust in it. I do know that my seven-year-old’s sweet little teacher from Argentina had something to do with it! The staff is amazing all around, and comes from all over the world to work the winter season here. If you can ever swing a ski vacation, this is the place to go!

While the kids were at ski school – me, my husband, my brother and my sister-in-law went straight up to the top of the mountain and enjoyed a day of grown up skiing. Having these long-time locals as guides was the best perk while navigating such a huge mountain.

My last run of the day included skiing with my oldest daughter, which was great fun! We were on the last lift up because she didn’t want to stop skiing. I’m envisioning her begging us for her own plane tickets by the time she’s 10 so she can go ski with her cousin.

I downloaded a nifty ski tracks app on my iphone half-way through the day (while skillfully trying not to drop my phone from the chairlift and way down into the snow). I learned we skied 15 miles yesterday on our last 6 runs of the day, and I hit a top speed of 34 MPH. Whoo hoo, I’m a real dare devil let me tell you! Not really. I play it safe. It’s always in the back of my mind that caring for three kids with a broken leg would be a real hassle.

On the home front, neighbors have been sending us pictures of our renovations in process and of our garage being rebuilt. And the pet sitters say there have been all kinds of nosy neighbors taking the long route walking their dogs to check out the action happening on our garage. So yes, The Brown House is in good hands.

And incase you are wondering, so is that vintage pram I blogged about last week. It is safe with a new mama, who homeschools a whole slew of kids in the Smoky Mountains, breastfed an adopted baby and walks two miles a day to the mailbox with her clan of young’ins. Sweet! I love the ending to that story and that the pram will live on with lots of glory.

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And we’re off, flying a family of five!

This morning we set off, out of the house at 5:30 AM for our first trip flying as a family of five. We’ve flown a lot with kids. But it seems we’ve had a dry spell since the birth of our third daughter. Maybe the purchase of a minivan had something to do with it – because since then it’s been mostly road trips to justify owning Betty the Bus.

There was our quick trip to California in 2010. It was one of my husband’s business trips that I bootlegged along with baby number three. But the big girls stayed with grandparents in Georgia.

The last time we flew as a family of four we were taking this same trip to Colorado. The first morning we were there I found I was pregnant. I took the positive pee stick in my coat pocket and took pictures on ski slopes with it, and used them to announce to family that another one was coming. In my mind it was not going to stop us from living, from traveling and being on the go.

Since then I’ve become a pro at throwing a few necessities, in a moment’s notice, in each girl’s traveling duffle bags that get tossed in the van for a family five.  Road trips have become easy-peasy stuff. Even with a traveling dog!

But getting everyone’s stuff for a weeks worth of playing the snow, into bags and on an airplane took major logistic planning in my head.

It turned out we checked three suitcases and one bag of snow boots. On the plane each girl had a backpack with a doll, a few simply books and sticker sheets to occupy them on the plane plus their own healthy snacks they had to ration for the day of travels and two, two-hour flights. Ski coats all got worn on the plane. Oh, and they slept in their clothes for today.

And now that we are sitting on the plane – I must say we did quite well for ourselves.

I did my best to pack light. Except for all those doll accessories the girls insisted on bringing. My oldest daughter has been saving her money for nearly two years, waiting for something special to buy. She decided on a set of skis (helmet, goggles, boots and poles included) for her American Girl Doll fit the bill. And my middle girl followed suit with a dog sled. These are no small items!

I have sympathy for them. I still remember the time I packed a bag for my baby doll as a kid when my family was traveling to Michigan. My dad was always trying to save space in the car (which now I DO understand). But he left out my doll in the last minute. So for a week I had a bag full of doll stuff and no doll.

The girls are SUPER excited to play with their cousin (their only immediate cousin) and her doll – who has all the appropriate snow gear. So I was a sucker for the doll accessories, mittens, ice skates and coats.

My brother lives near Aspen, Colorado, about 20 minutes down valley. My sister-in-law is a kids ski instructor at Snowmass Mountain. So yeah, we have the hook up. This is how we are able to swing this trip. They’ve borrowed big cars for us from their friends, car seats and are all ready for us to take storm!

I’m going to try and pop back on the site to say hi sometime during the week. But mostly I’ll be doing a whole lot of playing in the snow with my kids, skiing, being in the moment and trying not to take too many pictures.

Back at the home front there is lots of activity going on at our house – so do not to worry about me announcing the fact that we are not home.

Our extremely well mannered and trusty contractors will be at our house all week rebuilding our garage. They drive big manly trucks. I already mentioned how cute one of them is. And then, on the first day on the job I learned his brother, who runs the business with him, is his twin! It’s like a double mint gum commercial from the 80s with two cute twenty-somethings using power tools.

Soon I’ll tell you some funny stories about how we are NOT DYI folks and my ramblings about our cute contractors will make more sense. My husband has many wonderful qualities, but home improvements is not one of him. He waved the red flag when I had him pulling down wallpaper when I was pregnant with baby number two. He once wore a tool belt backwards and my when we got married my aunt gave me a pink tool box with a poem saying I could always call my dad.

In addition to those happenings on the home front with my double mint contractors using power tools, our pet sitters are there to care for our furry family.

So The Brown House is in good hands.

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Renovations update, an old radiator and a vintage baby buggy up for grabs

This morning the rotted side of our garage was torn down and put in a dumpster by the time I got up, got breakfast and went to the store. Poof, just like that! For a before picture click here.IMG_0069

I’m hoping someone will do a drive by looking for scrap metal and pick up that radiator (show in the picture up top) that was living in our garage. We’re in the process of taking them out of our house. We used the old lovely beasts, with the broiler we named Bruce, the first winter we moved in before we got central heat and air installed. I loved the old romantic idea of them and the dehumidifier affect the steam heat set off into the whole house. However the boiler worked at 67 percent capacity, the house heated unevenly (one room would feel like the beach and the next like the mountains) and we were getting $800 utility bills to heat this old house.

SO, that’s why there is a radiator living on our curb, hopeing for some soul to come by and recycle it before the trashman comes and takes it to a landfill. I am hopeful. It has happened before.

The other thing I’m hoping to find a home for is this awesome, vintage baby buggy. I have a thing for old, rare stuff. It seems this neighborhood friend of mine whose mom used to push him and his three siblings around in this buggy on the streets of New York City some 50 years ago – knows it too. He didn’t want it in his garage anymore so it got moved to mine, with me hoping to find it a perfect home of someone else who loves old rare stuff.

So – anyone out there love things like this? I’ve seen refurbished ones on Ebay go for up to $500. And it’s really in good shape. Email me if you want to come get it and it’s all yours for the price of free, and promising to be nice it.

Now I’m off to dreaming about a new period correct kitchen and ways to honor what we have. And save money by keeping things like our original hardwood floors while staying warm in a house that has original wavy, single pane glass windows. I know – they are not energy efficient – but I have a theory that it’s better to use what I’ve got versus buying plastic windows manufactured in China that uses who knows how much petroleum to get from there to Tennessee. So yeah, I’ll keep my old windows. I’m also thinking about what color to paint the wood trim on the windows when it comes time to paint the house, next month I hope.

And that is really, really fun!

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