Friday, April 29, 2011

Little Arborists

In case you didn't know, today is Arbor Day! The grounds dept. at Hope celebrated today be planting a few trees and Ryan invited us to participate! So donning our rain/mud boots and our "Trees Are Good" t-shirts we headed out on this beautiful sunny day:)"Plant More Trees, Please!" "Happy Arbor Day!"

Fluttercups!

Another awesome idea from Family Fun magazine! This one is the treat of the month in the May 2011 issue:) Fluttercups......so adorable!Our version....pretty cute. The wings took a little time, but were so worth it to see the kids' faces as they chose a pair of wings and jellybean bodies for their frosted cupcakes!We will definetly be making these again next year, they are so yummy!

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Flutter

Today we took a field trip to the Fredrick Meijer Gardens to see the butterflies!!! We are learning about caterpillars and butterflies in preschool and the butterflies are almost done at the gardens, so we talked Grandma Stehouwer into joining us and headed to GR. Even though the weather outside is really soggy, the weather in the greenhouse was balmy and warm. The kids loved "I spy-ing" butterflies and being detectives! We even saw a huge one that had sparkly blue wings when they opened!The butterfly detectives!This moth had just cracked out of it's chrysalis during the night and was drying it's wings. They told us that this particular kind of moth has no mouth, so it will only live 2 days because it can't eat.These were the most common ones that we saw, although the patterns were all different.This is another large blue one...it appears it's wing is torn up so we're not sure it could fly.Here is one on the nectar feeders that are set up in the garden....the kids also got to see one eat some nectar out of a flower!My adorable butterflies:)

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Oh, Glorious Day!

Resurrection Day 2011 was filled with family, food and LOTS of pictures!!!!! Here is a peek at some of our Easter memories:)All dressed in their Sunday best!Family picture time!My sister's munchkins!All the kids in their Easter digs:)We were also able to celebrate Payton's first birthday on Easter (her real birthday was the day before)! She had so much fun eating her pink cupcake....too bad it didn't come off as easily as it went on!!!!

Spring-y Smiles

This spring (if you can call it that) I have been really photo happy.....the reason why will be revealed in a future post. But for now I just thought I'd share some of the precious smiles I was able to capture!Could they get any cuter???? Anyway, Happy Spring!

JellyBean Hunt

One of our family's Easter traditions is a jellybean hunt in the basement the night before Easter. So with much anticipation, especially on Kailyn's part (Will doesn't really remember from last year), we turned on the lights and a-hunting they went!I hid way more than last year so they each came away with quite a few.....and almost the same amount:)

Melted-Crayon Eggs

This year we decided to try something new for our Easter egg decorating and I came across this neat idea in my April issue of Family Fun. You boil the eggs as usual, but then while they are still hot, you take a crayola or other wax-based crayon and "color" the egg. The wax melts on the hot egg and makes cool patterns and drip lines.....they turned out cute and so much easier than dye! Our finished eggs....Our Easter table centerpiece!

Friday, April 22, 2011

A Friend of the Earth!

The theme in preschool this week was Earth Day!!!! We learned a song and it goes like this: "it's Earth Day, it's Earth Day, What can we do on Earth Day? To make the world a better place, let's (recycle, plant a tree, pick up trash, save water) on Earth Day!" The kids LOVE this song and have been singing it all week:) This year we finally went through with our recycle bins....the kids decorated some paper and then I printed out a label and laminated them. The kids really enjoy guessing which bin the items should go in and it's really challenged me to think about what I'm throwing away!God created the Earth and then left us in charge of taking care of it.....what are you doing to help save the Earth and make it a better, cleaner place?

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Blessed!

Today has been a quiet Sunday here are the Stehouwer's....very different from the first Palm Sunday where I can imagine the crowds singing and praising Jesus were really loud! We had our own version at home today. We made some palm branches (I try to do a different craft each year for the branches) and read a story about Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem and then did some singing and praising "Hosanna!" of our own!I was so impressed with how much of the story the kids remembered from last year.....getting to teach them about Jesus is the best part of being a parent:)

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Spring Break 2011

Being that I homeschool my rugrats, we had the flexibility to take our "spring break" at a different time than all the area schools. There were a few reasons why this worked really well this year, the first being that we had made it only up to letter y and I didn't see the point in stopping there and then coming back to z! The second being that we were able to hit all the local hot spots without all the crowds and chaos:) We kicked off the week with an 80 degree Sunday and lots of time outdoors, including a campfire and hobo pizzas! On Monday we headed to Crazy Bounce for a few hours of fun and then ran a few errands before heading home to play outside again. Tuesday we went to Kailyn's ballet class and then to the Aquatic Center. The kids had a great time in the water and can't wait to go on vacation to a HUGE waterpark in a month! We ended our outing by having Pizza Hut with daddy and then headed to the library. After a phone call from my sister, we decided to head to the mall for a ride on the carousal and to check out build a bear and then headed over to my sister's house for the kids to play and for me to get my hair highlighted. She also ended up cutting Josh's, Micheal's and Will's hair!!! We ended a very long day by getting dinner from McD's with my sister, her kids and my brother. We were also able to see my dad on the way home!!! Wednesday I took the kids to try something new....paint their own pottery at Paint a Pot! They both got to choose what they wanted to paint and in what colors. Kailyn chose a mug with a heart on the front and Will chose a small T-Rex dino. After picking colors they both got right to work. Will finished in about 20 minutes where Kailyn and I took about an hour and a half each!Our finished products (before glazing and the kiln)!

We are already looking forward to picking up our pieces in a week! We are having such a great spring break! Today we just chilled at home and waited for our dryer to be delivered. It's been full of Wii and baking and water painting.

Baggies, Shower Curtain and Valance, Oh MY!

Here' s a preview of all the projects I've worked on recently! The baggies are reusable with a wipeable liner and velcro closure. I made them from the extra material left over after I did the kids' initial shirts! My friend Wendi took the time to draw step-by-step directions for me, so my confidence was high! Thanks again Wendi!The following pics are of the new shower curtain I made for my bathroom with a matching valance. We also purchased a roman shade for the window. Now that we've lived in this house for 4 years, I feel like I really know what we'd like in each room in terms of decor, so I'm working one room at a time! Our bedroom windows are next.....the bare curtain rods are just calling for some pizzaz:)
The pattern is called "floating petals" and I fell in love with it....we're planning on re-painting the walls in a muted gray color after we patch up some water damage on the walls and ceilings and replace the vanity! (I'm talking sometime in the next 3 years, but hopefully we can do a little at a time.)