In which I establish my first resolution

Today is our second "snow" day of the week. I'm already sick of winter. No kids on Monday because of snow. Today it is ice. And my husband has been gone on business since Sunday. We are rattling around in this house, the kid and I. Thank God Joe finally gets home today.

We went out to "shovel" the ice off of the driveway, and both Olivia and I ended up on our backsides. Our driveway is not level...it is a gradual downward slope. The thin sheet of ice was just enough to require us to crawl back up the driveway on our knees. We could get no traction with our shoes.

So, we trekked out to the backyard (the grass was not slippery at all) with a bucket and chipped the ice off of the sandbox lid. We returned to the driveway with a full bucket of sand and two sand shovels. Olivia shoveled sand onto the driveway while I chipped away at the ice with an edging shovel (which worked infinitely better than the snow shovel). I think we may now have enough traction to make it out to go to the post office, but I haven't been back out to test it yet. We shall see...

Since last week, I have decided that the nap is, perhaps, to blame for many of our troubles. Too much energy = too much mischief. I have tested this theory only once, with today being the second try. On Tuesday, we went all day without a nap. By the end of the day, she was exhausted from her first day EVER without a nap. I was exhausted from entertaining the grumpy, whiny three-year-old all afternoon. But then came bedtime, which involved minimal fighting and a sleeping child in under ten minutes! Before 7:30 p.m.! And the angels did sing...

(Have I mentioned our recent sleep troubles? The fights at bedtime? The constant power struggle? Sitting with a not-so-tired child until she finally gives in to sleep at around 10:00 p.m.? No? Well, it has NOT been fun.)

Anyway, all this is to say that we've been avoiding nap today. And we are ice-bound. And alone. So we've been trying to find something crafty to do. We ended up with the scary angel,

and these wreaths. There was a lot of Mommy prep work to do on both, but Olivia enjoyed pressing bows and balls into the hot glue. And it killed an hour or so.
Oh, did I not mention the shiner? A product of Monday's snow day, I'm afraid. And it didn't even happen outside, on a slick surface. She was bouncing on her bed (a forbidden activity, as if it matters) and kneed herself in the eye. Yeah.

So, while I was searching my crafty boxes for something to do, I came across these almost-finished projects that have been collecting for years. YEARS. And I came up with a resolution. In 2011, I will finish or frame all of these. They include, in no particular order:

Irish blessing cross stitch. The pattern was a gift from my husband when he led a tour to Ireland a few weeks before we got married. We're not even Irish, so I'm not sure what to do with it. Frame it? Give it as a gift? Hang it somewhere?

I made this turtle cross stitch in high school. I am not even kidding. It has been languishing in my craft box for that long. Pillow? Frame?

Another gift from Joe, this time after a conference at this institution. I REALLY don't know what to do with this one. I'm not a fan. I love the campus, but kind of can't stand the school. And I'm not really a college sports fan. So...?

This is a sampler I did a couple of years back just because I was looking for something to do. It's too small to frame, really, except as a child's room accessory. It does have nice colors for a kid's room. Maybe I will frame it.

This one has been due for framing for about 13 years. I bought it while I was at Harlaxton College for a semester in college. It is in Lincolnshire county. So this is sort of a souvenir that I stitched myself. Never mind that I barely made it to any of these places outside of Grantham. We spent most of our weekends in London and points North. But still. The finished product is wrinkled and sized funny so will require professional framing, I'm afraid. But I spent so much time on it...I feel like it needs to hang somewhere in my house.

This is a pillow I made as a gift that I never ended up giving away because I didn't like the way the ruffle turned out. But Olivia and I stuffed it anyway (today) and I will stitch it together and let her throw it around in her room. At least it will get used.
I also have a box full of matching quilt blocks that do not amount to an actual quilt. Gotta do something about that this year too.

And I also resolve not to have any more snow days. Can I do that?

Advent projects

The weather has finally decided to act it's season, which means we are cold and stuck inside. Time for activities! We've been doing a lot of coloring, cutting and pasting this week. You know, the standard preschool activities. But since we have a seasonal excuse, I've decided that we are going to start doing crafts. Our tree is going to be full of child creations by Christmas break. And aren't the parents of my babysitting charges going to LOVE me! (Or not. I've discovered that a house can fill up with child creations pretty fast.)

Today we made bead trees. It's pretty easy. You get some of those tiny fuzzy sticks (we used to call them pipe cleaners). You'll need three for each tree. And pony beads. That's all.



Fold one stick in half and twist a loop at the top. Twist the halves together the rest of the way down. This is the trunk. Then cut one stick in thirds and one in half. Wind the smaller ones at top of the trunk, near the loop, and then the larger ones at the bottom. Hand them over to the children with a cup of pony beads. The kids string the beads on in their own preferred order. Add a tree hook and hang. The end.

I'd say it turned out pretty well. It might look more "tree-like" if you use brown or green fuzzy sticks, but all I had was white. Fun, easy, cheap. Go forth and make your own bead trees.