DIY Scarecrow

As previously mentioned, I LOVE fall.  Especially fall decorations.  There are sooooo many cute ideas on Pinterest for fall that I could easily spend a fortune at Hobby Lobby getting our house all festive!  But, could I just as easily decorate without spending a dime???

Yep!

Meet Max!  Max is our new scarecrow buddy that we made out of stuff around the house.  We stuffed some old clothes with some thin old blankets (because we didn't have any straw or newspaper on hand), sewed a face and a hat out of some fabric scraps and set him up on a chair.  $0.  The kids LOVED helping with it!  And every time we go out to get the mail or drive away from our house, they say "Hi Max!!!"  The pumpkins and gourds are courtesy of our parents' gardens.  $0.  Corn stalks were given to us by a church member who farms.  $0. 

Inside our house, Micah has been decorating up a storm.  He's been coloring pictures of pumpkins, ghosts, and bats and hanging them on the wall.  He also decided to make some "streamers" to decorate the door leading up to their bedrooms.  He worked so darn hard on those streamers, and kept setting off to make more and more and finally I just said, "Honey, why don't we just buy some streamers for you to decorate with."  And he said, "Well, you could.  But why buy something when you can make it for free?"  Love that boy!!!  While saving money AND having a cute home is great, teaching your children the joy of being thrifty is priceless!

Micah's "streamers."  He's so proud!  And those little dots on the wall behind are the tiny pumpkins he made leading up the staircase.

Fall Fun!

I love fall!  It's my favorite season!  Fall in Iowa meant corn mazes....lots and lots of corn mazes.  Fall in Wisconsin means corn mazes too, but also tons of apple orchards and pumpkin patches.  I think there are enough where we could go to a different one every weekend.

Last weekend, we checked out a pumpkin patch.

The first thing the kids did was ducky races.  I loved all of the free activities to do!  They had scarecrow decorating, a corn box (like a sandbox only with corn), and a HUGE playground that was really fun!

 

They also had a lot of photo ops of course!

The kids loved walking through the pumpkin patch and singing their pumpkin song (I won't post it here because it will be stuck in your head FOREVER!...Thank you very much Barney!)

The big thing around here is apple cider donuts.  Everyone is crazy about them!  I have to say, I thought they were really overrated after trying them at this place….and then we went to an apple orchard yesterday….OMG!  Their apple cider donuts were incredible!!!  So incredible that cars were backed up for 40 minutes to get in, you had to stand in line for another 20 minutes to get into the building where the donuts are, and another 15 more to get your donuts once inside....worth it?  Not sure.  But they were darn good!

Besides the donuts, the kids also enjoyed the other activities, despite the large crowds.  They went on a wagon ride with Nana!

Micah loved the maze they had set up!  I liked it better than the corn mazes because I could see him at all times.

Liliana was obsessed with the mums everywhere.  She kept bending down to sniff them.  So cute!

On the way home, we stopped by our church friends' house to visit their baby pigs.  Oh my goodness!  So very, very sweet!!!!  

    

We're savoring each moment of fall glory before the long months of winter come.  

Quick and easy way to record cute moments

You know how your kids say and do the most adorable things that are so incredibly precious you're certain there has never been another child as brilliant and wonderful as they are.  And how everyone says, "Be sure you right those things down!"  And how you are so impossibly busy that it never happens.

Any of this sounding familiar?

 I've come up with a solution!  There are very few things I'm consistent about...but I am pretty consistent at updating my facebook statuses...especially with all the cute things our kids do.  Probably annoyingly so.  So I took a little notebook, went to my profile, and clicked on "Show More Posts" until I got back to the very beginning of all facebook time.  Then I copied down all of those cute statuses into the notebook for safe keeping. 

It was so much fun to look back on all of our kids' precious moments!  They've said some pretty hilarious things.  A few highlights were:

8-13-09-  Micah picked up the toy phone- "I'm calling the garbage man and telling him to come pick up Liliana."  Nice.


1-30-10-  I put Micah to bed tonight and said, "Goodnight sweetheart!  I love you!" and turned to walk out the door.  He shouted after me, "You forgot to say GO TO BED RIGHT NOW!!!"

10-9-10-  We're at a hotel with Jeremy's parents and Liliana wanted to go in the hot tub, but she put her foot in and said it was too hot....so then she asked me to blow on the water to cool it off.

It was also interesting to see the random things I felt were important enough to mention...particularly while potty training Liliana.  Two weeks worth of twice daily updates about her bathroom habits.  Sorry friends!  It was hugely exciting at the time...I promise. 

In any case, if you are a frequent facebook updater I highly recommend this as a way to keep track of those milestones and memories so you don't have to rush off to find their baby book every time something mildly entertaining happens.  Update and then later when you have time, copy it down!

I LOVE my husband!

I love my husband for many reasons.  Including the fact that I came outside one day to find him doing this with our kids...

We have a bunch of random PVC pipe from one of those ladder golf games, and so Jeremy had the kids connect the pieces, place a marble inside and put the hose in one hand.  They covered up different pipes to change the pressure and try to get the marble to come out of different tubes.

It was an awesome physics lesson, and a lot of fun!  And he came up with it all on his own!  He's amazing.  It's official.

Displaying Kids' Art

Micah has been on an artistic rampage lately.  I think he's gone through half a ream of paper in the last week.  His subject, of course, is Army Men and Star Wars guys.  And of course, EVERY picture must be proudly displayed.  We may have two refrigerators, but it just isn't enough room!  I had intentions of hanging a rope around the basement walls and using clothespins to hang up his artwork.  But in the process of searching for clothespins, I found these drapery hooks I used to use to hang blankets over the windows last year when I was doing daycare so the kids would sleep better. 

 

Since we had extra rods too, the end result is this:

I'm pleased with it for now, but someday....oh some glorious day...when we have a house for keeps, I will buy really pretty drapery rods, make some wooden letters that spell "ART" on a little shelf above them, get track lighting to hang a few feet away- shining at the display, and have it hung on a beautiful taupe painted wall.  Until that day, at least our fridge has some breathing room!

Liliana Ballerina

When we decided to go to seminary...to give up our jobs, sell our house, uproot our family...I had two conditions.

1-  The money we had saved up for a family vacation would be kept for that purpose, and we would take a trip together sometime over the four years.

2-  Our children would not miss out on opportunities we would have given them had we not chosen to go to seminary.  This included preschool, class field trips, and extracurricular classes.

This has meant sacrifice...we watch every penny we spend, the kids wear clothes from rummage sales, get Christmas presents bought on clearance and wash their hair with shampoo I couponed for.  BUT, they get to take gymnastics and swimming, soccer and dance!  So it is totally worth being frugal!

Tonight was Liliana's first dance class!  This is a moment I dreamed about since the day we found out we were having her.  She was soooooo excited (and I was too)!!!  All day long, she asked how many more minutes until dance.  She's worn her tutu for the past week.  And she's been telling everyone she sees about her dance class.

She did FABULOUS!  Technically, she was too young for the class.  It was for 3-5 year olds and she turns 3 in November.  But she was definitely one of the best kids in the class as far as listening and mimicking the teacher.  I was so proud of her!  AND more importantly she was so proud of herself and beaming the whole time!



  

Best Finger paint Ever!

I will never be buying finger paint again!  This recipe is awesome!  (Thank you Pinterest)  Not only is the paint the same great texture as store bought, but you can easily customize the color and it costs pennies to make!

3 T. sugar (I accidentally used 3 t. sugar and it still turned out fine)
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. cornstarch
2 cups water
(I added in a squeeze of dish soap to make for easy clean up)

 •  Combine ingredients in a pan and heat until thickened.

•  Cool.

•  Put in containers and add food coloring as desired.  Love these custom colors!

•Paint!

I've made homemade finger paint before, and it was a disaster...it turned out all weird and jello like.  I'm so glad I tried a new recipe.  Easy, cheap and fabulous!  Enjoy!