Messy Homestead

I have been saving toilet paper tubes for a while now, thinking that I am going to use them for some brilliant craft. Well, today I finally did! Judah loved them! He loved the whole process of making them (which to be honest, took a while). First we painted them, then we glued on the eyes, then we cut them, then we played with them! Octopus out of toilet paper tube We kept stacking them and saying "ah, there's an octopus on my head!" The Octopus round-up! While playing, I mentioned that "octo" means eight and that's why we call it an octopus, because it has eight legs. Simple introduction to language skills and critical thinking. So fun and easy!

I love free printables, and I love to-do lists! Anything to help me get more organized! Here is a simple and fun daily to-do list. Free printable to-do list! I'm thinking that I'll print one off and stick it in a sheet protector so that I can use a dry erase marker and not have to print a new sheet every day! And then if I don't get something done, I can just leave it on the list (come on, I'm not the only one, right??) Click here for the PDF. Please email if you would like me to edit it for you. My to-do list, I changed it to have a section for each of my boys, as I like to keep notes on them! Enjoy!

I love the Summer Reading Program at our local library!  You get a prize when you sign up, and then you get prizes when you read 10 hours for the summer. You get a little sheet that helps you to track your hours and how much you read. This is our second summer doing it and it is so much fun! Especially now that Judah is finally starting to make a connection that how much he reads is linked to something. Last year had a hard time with figuring out how to document our reading, because we definitely don't always read for 15-minute chunks. So this summer I decided to use little rocks that you can find at the dollar store and we count each of those as five minutes. We each get a jar, and after we read for five minutes or however many minutes, we get to stick that number of rocks into the dark! It's nice because I get rocks for reading on my own, and for reading to the boys! From left to right: my jar (biggest because I read the most!), Judah's jar, David's jar, supply

I can't take any credit for this idea. Judah (age 3) was sitting at our island with some water and a crazy straw. I heard him saying "there's a J for Judah!" So I came over and saw that he was scribbling and I decided to write his name for him - which he loves to see! What a fun idea!

I have been on a crazy sewing kick lately! Nothing I make is good enough to sell (or even give away!), but I enjoy making these things for my kiddos. Here is a rattle that I made for David, my 10 month old. I used scrap fabric and some embroidery thread. I got the idea from this website, but instead of printing out the pattern, I just freehanded some shapes. and since I'm still learning what all the terms mean, I had to re-do the ears three times! But I learned an important lesson for a dress that I'm making (finishing - I started it many many years ago!), so I'd much rather redo little itty bitty ears than a whole dress!

We received a gnome house for a white elephant present a few years ago and it came with a very cute little family. I have been wanting to make more people and I finally did it! Viola! As per the Waldorf way, they don't have smiles because then they can have any emotion. However, when I made one and showed it to Judah, he requested eyes. So they all have eyes. I guess they can just never be asleep then. I followed the directions here .