....And while we're on the subject:

A classic but one we try to view frequently here:

Making more changes

Already using reusable bottles/jars..
Thin I'm gonna start the move away from the large water jugs in our dining room.

From the maker of The Story of Stuff:



Anybody want to buy a crock?

Doing, doing, doing

We have had some busyness here lately. We're planning our months a week at a time.

In the last few weeks, we learned about Egypt and the kids have a "mummy in progress" on our kitchen cabinet.



They got up at the crack of dawn one day to 'assist' with a balloon launch





And then they planned, created decorations for and hosted a Valentine's Party for their AP Group.









I took them bowling for Valentine's Day also.




Having good times.

Lisa Leonard Design Giveaway

Lisa Leonard Designs, Check her out! She has some great hand hammered jewelery for all. She also does baby spoons, key chains and rings.

my favorite is the My Heart necklace.

This woman makes the most beautiful jewelery and now she doing a giveaway at Walk Slowly, Live Wildly

Go over there and leave a comment to be eligible to win!

Counting Down...

We are great fans of 'counting down' On my IGoogle, I have several countdowns; trips; birthdays; visits, etc...
SO Advent is only another reason to do a countdown!

We had a few options this year.
A friend gave us a Playmobil Advent calender. It has a bunch of little tiny Playmobil figures and pieces.



Everyday you open a box and voila! One more piece of the scene is revealed and placed in its place..
Leigh folded up all of the boxes and put this one together herself.






We also are doing a Blessing Box this year. We were gonna do it last year and time got away so we started it early and were able to get it done in time to start the day after Thanksgiving.
The idea is that you red a card everyday about something you are blessed with that a lot of people are not and you make a little contribution depending on how. you are blessed.
For example:
Are you glad you have indoor plumbing? Give 5 cents for every roll
of TP in your house, counting all the stored away rolls.
and
In some countries of the world, most people cant read. Are you
thankful you can read? Put in a penny for every book in your home.
It also brings into play math and money skills.

Then we have a regular cardboard one that I got at Target on the after Christmas sale that Carson is doing for fun.

He even shared with Talia...



Oh yeah and chocolate one that is similar to the cardboard one....
Other friends are doing some really cool things too.

We were talking about maybe doing these type of countdowns for other occasions. We sometimes do like treasure hunts with clues.

Princesses

OK, I'll admit it, I'm not overly partial to the whole 'Disney princess thing' I think it is a money sucking commercial venture. That being said, Leigh loves princesses, whether or not they are Disney. She's seen a lot of different princesses, including some actual princesses to see what they are all about.

She's actually more into the 'fairy thing'

Anyway, she picked out this book from Bookman's, (our great local used book superstore...)
and it was called, "Disney Princess Crafts"
I was really surprised at how neat some of the crafts were! They were very generic, (even though the book itself is divided into sections titled by a particular Disney Princess name...)

We made the "Jeweled Scrapbook" from the Aurora section...cute!
We used a hinge, bought for 25 cents at the Habitat for Humanity Re-store,



Construction paper, glitter, sequins and a ribbon to hold the pages in...
easy peasy!

Carson's



Leigh's



I think we will be making more stuff out of this book..

Tale of two trees

Last year, my mom sent us a "Christmas in a Box" craft to do. We saved it until this year and got it out last week.



The kids decorated it and put it on the mantle.



They were able to do most of it themselves. The little ornaments hung on the ends of the little cardboard branches.





Then we got our tree on Thursday (adopted it from a nice Jewish family...) and had to put that up this weekend.





We have been house bound due to the Chicken Pox, so it has been great getting stuff done for the holidays.









We're gonna try and decorate the house this week also. Thanksgiving is now just 1 days away! Spending it with friends!

Have a happy!!