Easter Goodies

It was my goal this Easter to fill Rowan's basket with inexpensive things. In the past I've spent quite a bit of money on toys and movies, but she's almost 4 now, and she's got toys coming out the ying yang!

Also, at this age she'll remember what she gets... so unless I want to commit to 100 dollar Easter baskets for the rest of her life, I need to make the change now!

Part of keeping things frugal, I decided to make a few of her goodies.

I checked this book out form the Library and created this adorable little breakfast gift pack.



And of course, because the girl is a sucker for Penguins, I just had to make this adorable little fella from the Lion Brand website. :)




I think next up on my list will be this guy from Lion Brand.



Add in a bunch of dollar store goodies, and she'll be good to go! Hopefully she doesn't realize the Easter bunny crochets like mummy does.

Weigh in Wednesday

Forgot about this yesterday.

I had an ok week considering I was pmsing and I lived off of cookies and chocolate.

But, thankfully, it has been a wonderfully warm spring week here in New England so I've been running all week long. I got 5.29 miles in on Sunday before my feet started to hurt. I need new running shoes badly, but as a stay at home mom, I'm going to have to save up for an expense like that. I want to get really good shoes to support me through my half marathon training and that'll cost me at least a hundred dollars. Blah..... Anyone wanna donate to my cause and buy mama new shoes? lol

Anyhoo, I weighed in at 208.5 yesterday so I lost 1/2 a pound. I'll take it! It wasn't much, but at least it moved in the right direction.

Check it out! Our Abacus in use!!

I'm bound and determined to raise a math genius. Rowan shows a huge affinity for math, and the fact that she gets it and I taught it to her is making me unbelievably excited.

I have daydreams of hauling her off to kindergarten only to receive a call from the school to advise me that she needs to skip a grade or two because of her geniusness-ness.

(OK, so I'm obviously a little full of myself, I pray for humbleness often)

Working out a problem



Oh the pride, I can hardly contain it.

Winter Carnival

I've never thought of it as a big deal because I grew up in this town, but I guess being this close to an Ivy league school is kind of cool.

We live about 40 mins away from Dartmouth College, which around here is considered a hop skip and a jump.

At the Dartmouth owned Ski area this weekend, there was a Winter carnival celebration hosted to benefit CHAD (Children's Hospital at Dartmouth).

It was a fun event but the high light was most definitely the snow board box derby. There's not much funnier than a bunch of innocent kids, shoved inside a none to stable cardboard box, and shoved half way down a ski hill. The crashes were almost a bit frightening, and if we weren't surrounded by Pediatricians I might have raised a cry of protest.

No one was injured thankfully and the crowd got quite the chuckle.

Rowan included.... whom insisted on hooting and laughing at quiet moments when everyone else was silent...

That's my kid for you..... just ever so slightly off haha



The Hill



Now I know why people ski, I guess the views are pretty nice.



These kids were adorable with their pirate ship box.. they all dressed as pirates and had swords lol


I could totally use some bronzer or something... pasty!!!

More New England Spring

It is very warm in New Hampshire today which is such a blessing after a cold long winter.

I dragged Rowan's pink princess bike out of the shed, and went for a lovely spring mud filled walk.

Spring hasn't arrived unless you have new rain boots!


Nothing makes a child more happy than a mud puddle


The top of an old inn at the end our road.


Riding!


Streamers and tiny hands


Behind every child on a bike, is a Mother watching, protecting and photographing!

Abacus!! Abacus!!!!

(say abacus like the guy in Monty Python says Albatross, it makes me giggle hehe).

I made this! With my bare hands and power tools and stuff! I'm so stinking proud of myself I can't even put it to words!

Total cost 8 dollars in wood supplies from a craft store... way cheaper than the ones you can buy online!


Supplies gathered



Unfortunately they didn't have beads with holes as large as the dowels I was using, so I had to drill them all out to a larger size... all 50 of them!



Measured, pre-drilled, and ready for painting/assembly



I just couldn't stomach the thought of pain stakingly painting every single bead, so instead my daughter and I threw them into sandwich bags, added a few drops of food coloring an rolled them around. They got the coolest looking tie dye effect!



TA DA!!!!

Getting my dollar store craft on

Who doesn't love the dollar store! And when I saw this cute little box, the educator in me had to turn it into a fun number game!

A little paint, a magic marker and some dollar store foam squares.. Voila!

Rowan an I are sure to get hours of enjoyment out of learning math and counting practice!



PS head on over to Sevin Family and check out what my friend Katrina did with the same box! We went shopping together and its amazing how two crafters can come up with such totally different things to do with the same object. (hers sort of puts mine to shame lol)...

Weigh in Wednesday

I had a much better week this week!

I've stepped up my game quite a bit as far as work outs go. I've only been able to do the elliptical as we've gotten tons of snow here in New England, but instead of just going with the two 1/2 programs I use, I've been bumping up the resistance on them as often as possible and ending the workout with ten minutes on the hardest level.. which is insanely difficult and it nearly kills me.

Lastly, because of I have to take breaks from the elliptical to let my feet un-numb (common elliptical problem) I have added some crunches and stomach toning Pilate's moves to my breaks. I can feel my abs getting tighter already (under the baby flab of course).

Today I am down to 209. Only a 1 lb loss but considering the amount of strength training I'm doing, I'm not surprised... its also that time of the month again! gotta love it lol

Thinking spring...

Tapped one of our little maple trees today, look!! The sugar is flowing!!!



Rowan even gave it a taste..



Or two....

Maybe 3




Gramps is working on a brush fire... to clear some trees.



We even explored some moss..




and of course, Rowan had to conquer the mountain.




Oh Spring, Please come faster!