Earth Day Project 2011

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

This Week Around The Lawrence Table

A PART OF THIS WEEK AROUND MY TABLE

This was another crafty week for the Lawrence girls.  We definitely had Easter on the mind, and we were getting ready for Mom's (what my girls call my mom) birthday!  Queen E came up with the idea of making Mom her own handmade Easter basket with eggs for her birthday!  Again, this was another idea I had to really think through so we would come out with product that not only matched the idea in Queen E's mind but also be functional and last for more than 5 minutes!

This is how we did it...

I free handed an outline of a basket on the back of three sheets of thick card stock/cardboard - you can get this from Michael's.  The kind we chose just so happened to have a TON of glitter on it ;)!  Once we had all three basket shapes cut out we stapled them together.

We added a bottom (not my best work!).

Then we made the grass

While I cut the grass the girls decorated each individual egg!

Queen E wrote the card all by herself!

The final product!

This week we also baked Mom's birthday cake

Yes, this bunny looks a little evil!

Of course we decorated Easter eggs!

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Our Male Child

A PART OF KIDS ARE FUNNY FRIDAY!

Honestly, my human children were cute this week...but not that hilarious.  I decided to dedicate this funny Friday to the most neglected person (not really a person) in our family.  His name is Bear Cat Lawrence.  He is a 20 pound solid black cat who LOVES to cuddle! 

Bear Cat has been sleeping in some very precarious positions and locations lately.  Take this photo for instance:

all of this and he's laying on his back, in my bed with four people!

This is the same night notice how he's sloped head down?

Queen E and Little R like to put covers on him while he is sleeping

And this is my absolute favorite.  Bear put himself in time out at the end of the hallway and fell asleep!

He are a few old school pictures of Bear and Queen E 3 years ago!

Yes, it is slightly disturbing that I have this many pictures of my cat...but he is a big part of our family!

Wordless Wednesday

This Week Around The Lawrence Table

As I mentioned in a previous post, we are the proud owners of a new craft cabinet!  The location of the cabinet is in the kitchen right next to our table.  This was done purposefully.  Not only because this is the largest part of our house that is completely tiled and suited for spills and messes, but it is also the hub of our house where we spend most of our time as a family.  It's an area where everyone has a place to make their individual projects, yet be unified. 

Queen E has been learning about the solar system in school and was dreaming up an idea to make an elaborate mobile that would display the sun, moon, and stars. This would be an awesome first project using the supplies out of our craft cabinet!  It sounded like fun, I thought for sure we could throw something together that would appease her.  Then she said, "I hope the mobile we make looks just like the one in my head."  OH CRAP!  Mkay, so this isn't going to be a project we can just throw together, I'm actually going to have to put some thought into it.  It took me 10 hours to plan that I we would use sticky foam to make the actual sun moon and stars.

This kept Little R busy for the first 5 minutes!

Little R's moon face

Queen E's

Queen E getting frustrated with the cutting

I decided to make the shapes out of the sticky foam so we could put glitter on the back of them to make them shimmer like Queen E requested. 

 

Also, I thought the foam would be a more sturdy material to hang.  We punched holes in the shapes and added yarn to hang them from a hanger.



Tah-Dah!





Hanging in their old room that was too small for thier queen bed!



And in the new one...

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Craft Cabinet

For the past 2 years I have held all of my crafting supplies-be it for kids, sewing, scrapbooking, etc., in my guest room closet.  For the past nine months it's been kinda just thrown around in there with me being the ONLY person allowed to touch anything in that closet for fear of me not being able to find an item in the future, or simply just being afraid of another person getting hurt!

Recently Phillip and I decided that we needed a king sized bed and that the girls would then share our old queen bed [the rest of the story will be in another post on co-sleeping at a different time :)].  Once I moved all the rooms and beds around we quickly realized that the girls' current room was much too small for a queen sized bed and them.  Our guest bedroom is much bigger and would suit the girls needs much more effectively.  Where does the craft cabinet come in you say?  Right here:  I told my darling husband that I would not even consider the thought of switching the rooms around until we got a cabinet, a place designed solely for the purpose of storing- in an orderly fashion -all of the crafting supplies I hold so dear, and some of my teaching/homeschooling supplies!

So a few weeks passed, we did some research and found a cabinet we could live with, would suit my crafting needs, and most importantly that we could afford.  This cabinet came from IKEA.  Ever heard of it or been to one?  It's the biggest box store I have ever been to!  Literally, they have thousand upon thousands of parts in boxes!  I have always loved IKEA but we have never bought a large piece of furniture from there so we really didn't know what we were doing.  After making our way through the store we got to the children's storage area where we chose this cabinet!

We weren't done.  Once you have picked out what you want you have to go pick out all of he individual pieces from the thousand upon thousands of parts.  So we get down there and they didn't have the birch cabinet doors :(  easy fix...they did have the birch in the drawer fronts so we just switched it up! 

We got all the parts home and unloaded.  It was 5 pm by now-PLENTY of time to put this together!  At 6pm we finally finished getting the first part, the outer shell, put together and in the final spot we wanted it in the kitchen.  Phillip and I could not believe it took us an HOUR to put the shell together...I am really handy! (seriously!)  I decided that we should work from the bottom up- put all the drawers together and in, then do the shelves, and then the door fronts last. I open the boxes with the drawer fronts in them-I am so excited to see if the wood tone matches our kitchen cabinets-and it's BABY BLUE!!!!!  OMG!  I am so mad.  I look at the other drawer fronts...baby blue.  I can not even explain my disappointment...what do I do take my two kids by myself all the way to Tampa to return them and hopefully get the right thing?

After much deliberation, and 3 more hours of putting the cabinet together, we decided it would be too much work to take it back.  So I decided to paint the drawers with some leftover chalkboard paint I had! 

I LOVE how it came out!  It was worth all the hard work...even though it doesn't hold everything I wanted it to! [I have way too much stuff :)]

What do you think?

Kids Say the Darndest Things!

A PART OF KIDS ARE FUNNY FRIDAY!

Little R: 

After being bitten by a mosquito and hearing us say she had a bite she starts screaming, " IT EAT ME, THE BUG EAT ME, HELP!!!"  this scenario repeated through out the night and through the next day.

                                                                                *said bug bite 48 hours later*

One night Little R was trying to get her daddy's attention by repeatedly calling and then yelling his name.    When that didn't work she sat next to him rubbed his back and used mommy's words for daddy, "Babe, Babe!"





Queen E:   

After the whole bug debacle Queen E decided it would make things better for there to be a band aid on the bite...but she can't call it that.  She decided to call them bandages and say the word in her most proper voice...not just once or twice but like 25 time in any given 5 minute period!  "I  think a bandage would work for that, let me get you a bandage!"

After baths one night I told Queen E she had a booger in her nose.  She quickly shoved her finger up one nostril then looked at me with disappointed eyes that she chose the wrong one first and said, "It must be in the other EAR LOBE, right?"...right babe :)

   

This Week Around My Table

This is the first of hopefully many Mondays when I join up with my dear friend Tara at MommyHAHA.com to talk about what's happening in The Lawrence Life, but most importantly to bring a spotlight to the things that happen at and around the family table.

This week the Lawrence’s made their way to Miami. Phillip had some training to do down there so he decided it would be a perfect opportunity for his girls to get away too (VERY happy wife)! So, needless to say, we weren’t having any meals around our own family table this week, but we were having them around other s. Miami has a very diverse culture and I thought that going to different restaurants, especially those run by persons of different ethnicities, would be a wonderful experience for both of the Lawrence girls!

One night we had dinner at a Cuban restaurant.  We went in a little worried thinking the girls would not like it and that we wouldn't be able to understand our server.  We sat down and had a great experience.  Queen E was so excited that everyone there was speaking Spanish, she thought it was so cool that people were speaking a different language!  It was a bit difficult to order but we took our time and were able to show the girls patience and how to get around language barriers.  And, as you can see from the picture, BOTH of my girls found authentic Cuban food that they loved!

*I did have to text a friend who speaks Spanish to find out how to say flour so that I knew I wasn't getting any gluten*

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