Photo of the Day.

Snow Day!

Today it snowed, and snowed, and snowed.
We played outside, made snow angels, waved at neighbors and shoveled.

Did a fun project, spelled things, built stuff with legos, cooked yummy food and shoveled.


Painted ornaments, practiced karate, baked bread and shoveled.


Read books, played board games, baked cookies and shoveled.


Fed the birds, watched the bunny and...shoveled! Fun day!

for the birds.

My husband has been gone pretty much all day and night for many many many days with work (and has taken our family car many times due to the bad weather), so we have been tucked in a bit at home. The boys seem to be a bit more intense and moody when dad is gone so much, so I have been trying to keep the holiday crafting projects rolling in a bit at a time, to keep us busy and happy...craftiness plus lots of games, baking, and snowball fights on the deck is good.

Every year we like to make pine cone bird feeders. They are easy and look nice out on the tree. We have had a bit of snow already this year, but a 'big one' is hitting us tonight and tomorrow. When there is big snow, our other bird feeders usually get blocked a bit, so it is the perfect time for the pine cones!

It is easy. You just need UNsweetened creamy peanut butter, a little coconut oil, pine cones, birdseed, and ribbon.


Scoop out a container of creamy peanut butter into a bowl and stir in a tablespoon of the oil to thin it down a little so that it isn't too thick or sticky for the birds. Don't want to choke them. An alternative to the oil is to mix in a little corn meal - that makes the peanut butter more gritty and easier for birds to eat as well.

Tie ribbons on the pine cones. Put the pine cone in the peanut butter and spoon to coat. Let drip a little, then put it into a bowl of birdseed. Roll to coat well. Done! Hang it out on a tree, up close to a branch!


Within 60 seconds of hanging our pine cones on the tree we had birds already feeding on them (not exaggerating - we walked in and closed door and they were on it). Fun!

clay tea light holders.

Over the past few weeks G has been making tea light holders with me out of air dry clay. We started by making a few as a test to see how it worked and turned out. It is quite simple and anything to do with clay is good with G.


We started by taking an air dry clay (we like this one) and rolling it into a ball - about palm size. We then took a tea light and pushed it into the middle firmly, until it was even on the bottom and pushed it around sideways a little to be sure there was extra room for the tea light to go back in when it dried. G dipped his fingers into water and smoothed around the tea light a little bit.

We let them dry a few days with the tea light still in it, and then took it out, turned over the now mostly dry clay, and let the bottom dry too.


G painted the clay with a craft acrylic paint - we found one that said it was for ceramics and was shiny. He did two coats.


Once that was dry he took a brush and dabbed glue on the holders and then sprinkled glitter on that to stick. After they were all dry we lit them! G loves the sparkles in the candlelight.


They look nice and festive. We are making some more with different colors/shapes and less glitter for gifts.

To make the clay base even it does require working together with little ones more closely in the first molding phase, but the painting and decorating is no holds barred! :) Fun!

Photos of the Day.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, arrives the snow.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The boys were so happy with the arrival of some real snow that they packed snowballs and shovels and cups and threw it into the air over and over, dancing under it as it fell back to earth.