Recovery (Fair Review and New Game: Pong Hau K'i!)

Alright folks, climbing back in the saddle after a wild rodeo of a weekend!  But it sure was fun!  As I mentioned before, I've been a bit absent of late prepping for GWMC's first craft fair!  It was very small, but I made a handful of sales and met some really wonderful people!  Thanks to all of you who stopped by or had a hand in the behind-the-scenes work!  I can't imagine having done it without you (certainly not without a few more silver hairs to add to my crown ;)

All in all, I felt pretty prepared (thanks to some Pintrest hints).  Maybe a little too prepared.  I may have diversified excessively, but I think it worked out in the end.  I sold everything from skirts and bibs to notecards to fudge!  One item that caught all the children's eyes were these little game boards with flat marbles as game pieces.  I'll be honest, Josh and I broke them out during some of the slow times, too!  But so easy to make and I wanted to share the idea with you!

You can get these tree rounds at a craft store, but they can get a little spendy.  Josh just took a branch that had been trimmed from one of our trees and went at it with the chain saw!  I was really quite impressed with how narrow he was able to get them!  I'll have to remember that for future projects! =)  After a light sanding, I did some quick straight lines with a wood burner, but I'm sure you could accomplish the same effect with a permanent marker.  Then seal with a layer of matte clear coat!

I'm fairly certain everyone knows how to play tic tac toe, so I'm not including instructions.  Though my four year old and his buddy had a pretty interesting version of it that I'm sure they'd love to teach you if given the chance =)  But I found this other small board game from China called Pong Hau K'i that I thought was really fun!  The idea is that to players each have two pebbles.  They take turns placing them one of the intersections or corners.  They then continue to take turns moving to the open space with whichever pebble can go there by following a line until one player is unable to move.  So you try to trap your opponent onto one side.  Video instructions from "What Do We Do All Day."  I really enjoyed learning something new and simple to play and I hope you will, too! 

KISS Play Dress or Shirt (Keep It Simple, Sweetie)

Pretty sure I figured out (one of) my problem(s) this week.  I often feel like I do nothing well, but I'm interested in doing almost everything.  You've heard the phrase Jack of all Trades?  Me to a t.  It's becoming clear to me as I see the same attitude in my tiny daughter whose favorite phrase right now is, "Me got this."  I got it, I'm good, I can figure this out by myself.  Apparently, from my own mothers stories, my similar phrase at age two was, "Do it by myself."  I'm sure it's quite common among two year olds, but I evidently never grew out of that!  I have this desire in me to figure things out by myself and just be as self sufficient as possible.  And most often this comes out in a joy to learn new skills such as cooking from scratch, animal tending, and homemade utensils and clothing.  But then I'm on to the next thing, often without honing my skills to an adept level, but just enough to get by in a pinch if I needed to. 

Ah, well.  Perhaps expertise will simply come with age?  Speaking of which, is it just me, or has time picked up the pace a little bit?  It seems to be screaming by with a 4 and 2 year old growing in our home!  Wow!  Every day they amaze me!  And every day I'm amazed by which of their clothes no longer fit! =)  Even a non-parent friend of mine commented yesterday how absurd he found it to spend a fortune on a child's wardrobe when they so quickly out grow (or wear through) it! 

And while children's clothes can be less expensive, great deals can be found a thrift shops, and little blessings of hand-me-downs sometimes appear, there's something very satisfying in making something specifically for your child.  While I love knit and crochet, the investment of time alone into the project makes it a precious commodity that I tend to reserve for occasions such as church or the like.  But more often than not, my children live in play clothes.  I've made (refashioned) several simple play dresses for my daughter, but have been hesitant to share them on here because they're not perfect, not well-finished they're just comfortable play dresses that she will outgrow in a couple months!  But for those of you who might have a similar interest and goal, I'll sketch out my quick process.  Usually this dress takes me less than an hour, start to finish.

1)  Select a shirt: I do this from my give-away pile.  Some stains and small tears can be avoided depending on where you place your pattern.  Select a long sleeved shirt if you want your new dress to have long sleeves.

I wanted to put this here because it's often difficult to determine the shape of the sleeve.  You want to shoot for this bell shape where the sleeve will connect to the bodice so that it will hang well. 

2) Trace pattern: take a shirt or dress that currently fits (or mentally add a slight margin if you know you want it bigger), turn it inside out and fold it in half.  Likewise, fold the adult shirt in half. Line up he collar and, after you've determined how long you want the bodice to be, trace arm holes, sides and waist, lifting the sleeves to trace the arm holes if necessary.  Continue the waist cut all the way across the shirt.  This bottom rectangle will be your (already hemmed!) skirt section.  If you need to make it shorter, cut away desired strip size from the waist side.  Then determine how long you need the sleeves to be and line up the top folded edge before tracing it'sbell shape onto the sleeves of the shirt.  Don't forget seam allowance of about 1/4".   

3) Cut pieces: remember to consider seam allowance. 

4) Sew:  With right sides together, I like to start with the shoulders and sides of the top first.  Be sure you sew from the collar side toward the periphery on the shoulder seams so the collar is sure to line up.

 

 

     After this you can do a slight gather on the skirt, but I often just pin the bodice (right side out) to the skirt (inside out over the bodice so right sides are facing) at the quarter marks and then gently gather as I go. 

 

And to finish off with the sleeves, you need to sew the seam the length of the sleeve first, set it into the armhole of the bodice, and (pinned and right sides facing again) carefully sew around. 

 

 

 

 

New dress!  Time: 1 hour, Cost: $0 Ready to play and I won't worry a lick if it gets muddy, stained or torn!  This easily translates into a shirt pattern and you know it's going to fit your little one perfectly!  Though I tend to make mine on the larger side so she can wear it just a little bit longer! =)  I've used this concept for all the tops pictured.  As I mentioned, I'm not much of a sewer (Haha!  "Sewer!"  I mean "seamstress!"), so if you have any questions or I can provide better instructions in some way, I would love to hear from you!

Variation: with this sweater dress, I omitted the waistline and continued my side seams to the original bottom hem.

Variation: Use a men's dress shirt (and keep the pockets!)

Variation: no waist, higher bottom for shirt style that I did have to hem myself

Edible Chocolate and Peanut Butter Play Dough!

Today I’d like to introduce you to the silliest member of our family: meet Clancey!  He joined our family just a few months before our eldest was born.  You  could say I was in baby mode.  I also got six chicks at that time.  Life was a little crazy for a while, to put it lightly!  Anyway, Clancey has had a bit of a rough life with us thus far, having been attacked by moose twice and nearly fatally hit by a truck on the highway.  He loved the Alaskan winters, though, being half Malamute.  In fact, he was born at the beginning of winter, so by the time the spring came (at least six months later) he had such a hard time knowing where to go to the bathroom once all the patches of snow had melted!

I was just going back through photos last night and came across this video, taken exactly one year ago Saturday.  He loved cracking through those first layers of ice to catch the bubbles. And to think this year they’ve already been having snow on the ground for a couple weeks!  This makes me smile every time:

Clancey does the Fox Hop

Sometimes just going into a new season triggers fond memories.  For whatever reason, as the air began to get crisp and breezy, our little one (who’s only experienced four autumns) began to remember making edible play dough.  Although this is probably true to some extent anywhere, a lot of outdoor life is crammed in to the summer in Fairbanks, then we did all our fun indoor activities when the cold weather hit.  So he thought of this recipe and started reminding me about every other hour that we needed to make a batch.  And I’m so glad he did because it’s fun and simple, we can make it together, play with it together, and enjoy eating it together!  So yummy!  Really chocolate and peanut butter are always good together!  I remember this Reese’s commercial from TV Land when I was growing up!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Crash

SO cheesy!  But memorable, I guess.  Digging up the recipe reminded me of how Mom would make it growing up.  In fact, she would get groups of our friends together and make huge batches of it at a time and everyone always loved it.  Except when my buddies of the time decided to eat the evaporated milk by itself.   That didn’t go over too well…

Anyway, I only had a little honey left so I just made a half batch of the recipe below, then split that and added a little cocoa powder to one to have the chocolate along with the peanut butter.  Yum!  It was hard to convince the little hooligans to play with it they were so busy just gobbling it down!  I love how quick this is too!  Super fast, no baking, 3-4 ingredients, and minimal dishes!  A delicious consumable that’s okay to play with.  That’s my kind of activity!

2 cups evaporated milk

2 cups peanut butter

1 cup honey

2 TBSP cocoa powder (optional)

Mix them together.  Enjoy!  Yup, that’s it!  Add more evaporated milk or peanut butter as needed to achieve the perfect consistency.  It will be a little more grainy than regular playdough, you’re just looking for a moldable texture.

 

Hope you’re enjoying this autumn-time and can make some new pleasant memories with your family this season!

Autumn Scavenger and I-Spy Jar

It’s AUTUMN!!!  I’m just so excited!  This is the first time in seven years that we’ve had a fall season that lasts more than a week or two!  (It’s super short in Fairbanks where the snow is already falling right now)  The colors and pleasant crispness and all the harvest activities are so appealing to me!

 

Behind our home are two trees side by side: an apple (see my previous blog post about these treasures!) and a horse chestnut.  The later took us a while to identify this summer, but now it’s perfectly obvious as it drops it’s fruit to the ground.  And it’s shedding its leaves quickly!  Dumping might be a more appropriate term.  

So our big guy started raking the leaves all together this week into a big pile.  He did pretty well before getting distracted and I was able to finish it up into a 3-4 foot pile.  I had to explain to them what to do, then ready…set…GO!  They sped to the pile and jumped right in!  Oh, they were thrilled!  Squealing and giggling, throwing the leaves in the air and burrowing down in.  By far the best part of their day!

 

Clancey getting in on the joy

 

Sometimes you just need to get outside and get some fresh air!  We were having one of those days earlier this week, and everyone was grumpy.  In fact, our oldest was seriously fussing that he did NOT want to go out!  I insisted because I knew it was just the medicine we needed, though I didn’t even know what we’d do once we got there.  We just started wandering and picking up tiny treasures, and as we went the mood improvement was drastic!  There were feathers, acorn hats, pebbles, lichen, pinecones, and bark.  Each new item was celebrated.  We got back to the house with a bagful and I wondered what we could do with our collection?

I had a freshly washed honey jar and we tucked them all away in there.  It was so fun to look at them all through the glass and remember finding each one!  We’ve hung on to it now as an I-spy jar.  They will try to pick out the items they found or I’ll ask them to find something white, round, sharp or whatever.  It’s really been quite fun and such a simple form of entertainment!  You could do this with anything!  I even thought about picking up litter along the road for some tidying and color variety.  Or maybe toys that get left out!  Even if you just kept it to natural items, it would look different depending on the season.

Then just yesterday I read about this Nature Pal Exchange and it looks so fun!  From what I understand, every season you can sign up to have a sort of pen pal in another climate.  Then you go on a nature walk and collect little treasures just like we did earlier.  You take them home, label them, and send them off to your nature pal while they do the same.  Then you get to discover nature treasures from a completely different region!  How fun!  And I love how they keep the focus on God's creation and how we can be responsible with it.  This is their first year and they're already supporting charities with the monies made, too!  I’m going to see if we can get in on this next one and I’ll let you know how it goes.  If you get a chance, check out their Instagram account, too.  Some of the collections are absolutely lovely!

 

Happy treasure hunting!

Seven Ways to Find Playscapes Near You (And 10 Pre-Tested in Lane County!)



Wonders of Nature (A Little Golden Book)

by Jane Werner Watson, Eloise Wilkin

This is our life right now: Wonders of Nature.  (If you get a chance to pick up a copy of this book, Wonders of Nature, do!  So sweet and poetic!)  Every morning, the littles wake up and before I can finish picking up their breakfasts, they’re begging to get their shoes on (or not) and escape to the great outdoors.  This week we’ve been studying beetles and caterpillars, flattening mole hills, picking apples, and splashing in rivers.  I say that in multiple because we’ve been exploring fair number of parks since we’ve been here and an even higher proportion this past week while Josh was at Peterson University in Oakland.  Parks seem to distract kids from missing their dad the best, they meet friends, and sleep great that night!

Willamalane

It’s always hard finding where to go to play in a new town.  So far I’ve been very impressed with the parks in the Eugene area, so I wanted to share our local experiences with others in the area who might be curious, as well as general ways you can look for play areas in any town. 

Armitage

How to discover new play areas near you:

1.       Drive Bys:  You know, to be quite honest, we’ve found the majority of parks by mistake.  Nothing beats exploring on your own, getting a little lost, finding some hidden gems and figuring out a new area.  My first memorized route in this town of crazy roads and traffic was to the grocery store (priorities, right?) and it was from there that I spied at least three of the parks we’ve visited!  Look for the brown rectangle park signs and yellow diamond playground signs.  In fact, even the kiddos recognize and seem to be on constant look out for these ones.

More info about recreational signs here

2.       Google (or other search engine) maps: Type in “playground” on the map and watch those red dots pop up.  Or “park” if you’re not particular about it having a play structure and swings.  A little tricky knowing just what you’re getting into, but it will often link to the parks web page and you can choose what area you want.  If you don’t see many, try zooming in and the smaller ones will appear.  Sorry if this is too elementary, but I myself am fairly technologically challenged, so it took me a little while to figure this out!  Maybe I can save someone else with a similar condition a minute or two! =)

Amazon

3.       County Parks home page. Search for (your county) county parks.  The Lane County Parks page  has links to a variety of different parks as well as regulations and passes.  They also have a page listing all the parks in Lane County with information on the amenities provided, though the presence of playgrounds is not always mentioned.

4.       State Parks: Search for (your state) State Parks to find their web page.  Oregon’s is definitely geared more toward camping and outdoor adventures rather than playgrounds.  And of course it covers the whole state, so you have to narrow your search.  But if that’s what you’re looking for, this can also be a great tool. 

Dorris

5.       Kaboom:  Have you ever heard of Kaboom.org ?  You just type in your town and it pops up a map and list of play areas near you, both indoor and outdoor.  And you can add in the ones not yet listed!  Pretty convenient.  I’m going to have to play with this one some more.   

6.       School rules:  Did you know public school playgrounds are available to the public for play during non-school hours?  We visited these all the time growing up and got to discover many fun places we would have never seen otherwise!

Hendricks

7.       Word-of-mouth:  Do you know anyone in the area?  Especially if they have similar interests they are probably your best bet for directing you to the spots you’ll really enjoy.  Or, if you can find one park, ask others you come in contact with where else they like to go.  In my experience, people are usually more than willing to share their knowledge!

Mt. Pisgah

Just prepping this page I found so many more parks I want to check out!  I hope you can benefit from it, too!  Play is so necessary for everyone old and young alike and promotes physical and mental health.  Sometimes just knowing where to go can be half the battle.  Especially for homeschoolers or those with young children who may not have access to the play structures on a regular basis.  And you can use a lot of these searches as you travel, too!  Just remember to check local park regulations and fees; they’re usually posted on site.

Amazon

My kids are totally into playgrounds right now, so those are always at the top of their lists!  But for those locals (or newly locals) reading this, I wanted to share a couple of our favorite spots so far:

1.       Discovery Village in Skinner Butte Park: Awesome play structures and water play!  Pretty busy and open with tons to do.

Discovery Village

2.       Fairmount City Park: Smallish park tucked behind the university that also has water play.  Very peaceful secluded feel to this park.

Fairmount

3.       Amazon Park: Lots of fun structures that seemed to enthrall a wide range of ages.  Outdoor pool in the summer and miles of paths.

Amazon

4.       Willamalane Park: On our way to the grocery store! =)  Lots of play structures, skate park, and apparently there’s an indoor swim facility we have yet to discover.

Willamalane

5.       Hendricks Park: Although it does have a few swings, we appreciate this heavily wooded area best for its peaceful walking paths.

Hendricks

6.       Dorris Ranch: more info on this one in my last post, but this park has miles of paths, mostly through century-old hazelnut groves.  They also feature a living history village.  Although open to educational groups by reservation, we visited a community day last Friday and found it very interesting!

Dorris

7.       Petersen Barn: this was the first park we visited (found word-of-mouth) and loved the sandy playground and open space.  Turns out, our new church meets in the community center here!

Petersen Barn

8.       Dorena Lake: nice swim area and wooded picnic area on this lovely lake in the hills.  A little bit of a drive from Eugene.

9.       Lowell park and Dexter Lake Park: equipment to climb on and a great swimming area.  The day we went here it was almost 100 degrees!  The cool lake was so pleasant!  Again, about a half hour drive.

Dexter Lake

10.     Armitage Park: paved paths that wind around by the river, gravel bars and large fields with picnic areas.

Armitage paths passing under bridges

Where is your favorite place to go outside and play?  Do you have one great spot that you keep going back to, or do you like to discover new place each time you go out?  I hope you have a great week and happy exploring!