library miscellany

If you are into The Hunger Games, then you know that Mockingjay - Part 2, will soon hit theaters! I had to get my library in on the action, of course. I stole this idea from a few similar bulletin boards floating around on the web, and made it my own. I was all sorts of impressed with myself for free-handing that Mockingjay emblem there. See it? Right there in the middle there? Yep, I drew that!

The final installment of the "Hunger Games" movies comes out in November!

In other library news, I've been offering Take & Makes for Teens, where I put out a different craft each month for my patrons to take and...you guessed it...make. If they bring back their finished masterpiece to show us, they get a Dum-Dum! I've had really good luck with Flextangles and my all-time favorite craft project, glass marble magnets, but my latest offering is just so darn cute that I had to share it. Plus, it came out of my very own brain (not saying these haven't been done before, but this little incarnation is all mine, at least as far as I'm aware.) They are flying off the shelf like spooky little hotcakes, people!

I love that the guy on the left looks a bit like a mummy minion!

skyler's visit

For the majority of July, we were fortunate to have our (almost-13-year-old!) niece Skyler here from Texas. Though I'm sure we bored her to tears, I think we were still able to show her some good times here in New Jersey. I have supplied some photo-evidence below for proof. (Sadly, I don't have any pictures of her bike-riding around town, boogie boarding in the ocean, or watching all four of the Twilight movies with Ryan and I, which were probably her favorite activities during her stay in NJ.)

Aquarium Day!

Farm Day!

Homemade Dessert Time!

Bowling & The Movie Theater!

(BTW, it happened to be Elliott's first time bowling and going to the movies. We saw Despicable Me 2.)

Beach Day!

Craft Time!

We miss you, Sky! The house feels a little empty without you - though my fridge handles feel far less sticky, ha ha!

a little christmas cheer

The Smiddleton Middlewartzes have been doing it up, Christmas-style! Check out some of our holiday adventures (ok, they're admittedly low-key, but that's how this family rolls.)

Last Friday, we visited Philly with some friends of ours to see the annual Macy's light show and to check out the Christmas Village. Ellie and Haley enjoyed entertaining themselves (and everyone around them) with their karate moves, though neither of them were fearless enough to take on the "scary" nutcracker.

This is about as close to the Nutcracker as they would get.

Ryan and Ellie take in the light show.

We also bought a live (like, seriously alive, in a pot!) Christmas tree to put in our little turret. This was our plan before we even officially bought the house. Even our real estate agent commented on what a perfect Christmas tree spot the turret would make. What we didn't plan on was that this baby tree would weigh over 200 lbs. and that Ryan would practically injure himself hoisting it upstairs. Hopefully we will keep it alive to use as a Christmas tree for a few more years before planting it outside, where we were told it could potentially reach Rockefeller Center tree heights. And yeah, hopefully we will also be able to relocate it outside without hurting ourselves once the holidays are through!

Our live Christmas tree!

Second Christmas, but first tree!

Ellie enjoys rearranging the ornaments.

This month, a number of holiday decorations were crafted by the preschooler of the house. She also lent Ryan a hand in baking Christmas cookies, which sadly turned out so bad even she refused to eat them!

I couldn't resist this little $1 craft I found at Target!

I was told that Ellie was disturbed by this menorah craft since flames don't belong on fingers.

Love this Grinch project from school!

At least the batter tastes good!

And last but not least, Elliott performed in a school Christmas concert earlier in the week. In light of October's Halloween performance, we weren't sure how she would hold up singing on stage, and I was a little worried when we arrived at the high school to find the auditorium packed. But as soon as the teachers called the kids up on stage (all 67 of them!), she ran up there and sang like a little angel. We were so proud of her for trying so hard and for having so much fun. Since she doesn't reveal much about school, I really had no idea how many songs they had been working on - their repertoire was truly impressive! As they were singing their last song, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, the jolly old elf himself showed up to bestow little gifts to all the kids, and Elliott was pretty excited about seeing him and receiving a coloring book.

Singing her heart out in the front row!

Ellie later told us that all her classmates got rectangles from Santa.

Here they are singing "The Grinch" and "Rudolph."

If you can make it all the way to the end, I promise it will be well worth it!

window art fun | first day of ballet!

I love the idea of Colorforms; for those not in the know, they're these old school vinyl "stickers" that you can rearrange a million different ways and theoretically make limitless pictures with. But after a few uses, they just don't stick to the glossy cardboard backgrounds provided, resulting in frustration and a whole lot of whining from your wee one (if she's anything like mine.) Yesterday afternoon, after the inevitable Colorforms downward spiral had begun, I started to pack them all away and  redirect Ellie elsewhere, when a brilliant mommy-moment struck. Would these things stick to a window? They should stick to a window. Yes, yes they do stick to a window!!!

What ensued after this cool discovery was over an hour straight of artsy fun (plus loads more time spent rearranging the pieces throughout the day). We pulled up a chair, and Elliott, as if hypnotized by the shapes and colors and the fact that they actually stuck, meticulously decorated one of our kitchen windows (we did pause to watch and comment on some passerby while she played, which was bonus fun!) I can't recommend this easy and creative activity highly enough (by the way, a mirror would work well, too, and would also incorporate the thrill of reflection!) Thanks to my wonderful Aunt Betty Jean for providing us with our Colorforms for Elliott's birthday!

Check out my cool window art!

Now, it's no secret that Elliott likes to dance. This mamma decided it high time to enroll her in a dance class. Yesterday was her first day, and though we parents weren't allowed to peek in the studio while our 3 and 4 year-olds "danced" the morning away, Elliott seemed to enjoy herself immensely. I can't wait until the final class when they let us in to watch them perform!

All dressed up and ready to go to ballet!

little picasso

Ellie painted for the very first time last week.  For her birthday, I had bought her a set of paints, a smock, and these awesome jumbo toddler paintbrushes.  Ellie was super excited to paint, and I was equally psyched - if not a little nervous about the inevitable mess -  to lend her a hand. I laugh now at how naive I was to set up a water cup for cleaning the brush between colors.  As if!  I think we maybe cleaned it once, between paintings.  Silly Mommy!

I stripped her down and put a smock on her. A little overboard? Probably!

 

Here she is just embarking on her painting adventure.

I love that she had to call out every color as she dipped her brush!

 

 

By this point, she was in a state of hypnotic concentration,

and was dipping her brush into a new color every few seconds!

 

All of her hard work paid off...

 

 See? Two finished masterpieces!

boredom busters & new words

Elliott and I have been trying to keep busy in this Arctic-like weather. It stinks not being able to play outdoors, but the cold noses and numb fingers are just not worth it! But we have been playing a lot with friends when possible. Elliott has a good buddy in the building named Dominic, who's about to be two, and we also have some little girlfriends who live in a building across the street. We go to storytime at the library once a week, with the added bonus of getting to see my friend Meadow and her daughter Lily there too. I won't lie, the TV comes on a lot more than it used to, but Elliott has pretty good taste in television shows; one of her favorites is Gilmore Girls, which I happen to wholeheartedly approve of!

Today, Elliott helped me make muffins by stirring the batter, sniffing the oven while they baked (don't worry, Mom, the oven was locked), and testing the final product.  Her assessment?  "Mmmmmm!" Then we did a simple Christmas craft to get us in the holiday spirit and to kill some time before naps. She was definitely aware that it was a "tree" she was working on and that she was applying "star" stickers, but I'm sure the whole Christmas aspect was a bit over her head!

 Getting ready to decorate her tree

 This girl loves stickers, but then, who doesn't?

Starting to break down from the pressure of too much crafting!

Showing us her magnificent work for the day.

(We decided this would be an ongoing project for the week, or until she destroys it.)

I also wanted to update our readers on 19 month-old Elliott's newest set of words.  Of course, many of them only Ryan and I can understand, but her cute pronunciation has become very easy for us to translate. (I always wondered how parents understood the gibberish coming out of their toddlers' mouths, and now I understand!) Here are a few new words of her's that I can remember:

sun
star
snow
Fudge (our cat)*
Chas (her cousin in TX)*
doll
house
circle (one of her few two syllable words)
fish
shell
hot
stick
dot
heart
tree
sit**
shirt**
walk
milk

*Fudge and Chas are the only two proper names she says, and then of course there's Dada. I am sorry to report that she STILL does not say Mama, at least not in my presence. And she is denying me on purpose, of this I have no doubt. So Fudge, Chas, and Dada, I hope you know how lucky you are!

**The words sit and shirt both come out sounding exactly like the "s-word" - you know, the swear? We try not to crack up when we hear it, but it's hard not to, especially since she LOVES to say shirt whenever possible!

i destroyed a book!

I confess - I'm a librarian...and I destroyed a beloved children's book classic! Here's the ugly evidence:

But it was for a good cause. I bought one of my personal faves, Madeline, for just a few bucks used and turned it into nursery wall art with a few $2 frames. Check it out!

Can't wait til the house is done(-ish) and I can actually set-up and decorate Elliott's nursery! Hopefully that will be before I actually give birth;~)

just checking in!

Hello! It's been a while since we posted anything, so I figured I'd check in and post some random goings on. Today is my Monday off since I work next weekend, and I am totally enjoying doing NOTHING! In fact, it's my goal not to leave the house at all today (and with a high in the 30's, it's a good day for that.) Let's see...

a) Did we mention that one of our chickens, Roo, started laying eggs about a month ago?

Roo, on the left, is an official egg-layer!

Yummy!

b) I'm now 19 weeks pregnant, almost halfway through!! As of my last OB appointment, I had gained 11 lbs. Here's me right now (in dorky sweats):
Lots of people have been asking if I feel better, and the answer is YES! Though I'm still not out of the woods morning-sickness-wise, I'm not actually throwing up as long as I stay on my Zofran. Lately, I've only been feeling really sick in the evenings. All I want to do is eat, eat, eat, which usually makes me feel a lot better!

c) I started knitting a baby blanket a few weeks ago with some really beautiful yarn I bought at purlsoho.com. Here's the "before" pic (the "after" one will come many, many months from now since I am a slow mo knitter!):

d) I found out just this weekend that two of my best friends from NJ are pregnant. One of them is three months along and it's her first baby. The other is about eight weeks and she has a son who turned one a few months ago. I'm so excited for them and wish I could be closer so we could all be together through our pregnancies!

e) Fudge has a gambling addiction and is resisting all forms of intervention by Ryan and me. I think these pictures say it all:

One of her favorite games is poker.

Maybe we wouldn't be so upset with her if she'd share her winnings.

I think that's it for now! I'll post again soon, and will definitely let you know the sex of the baby when we find out on December 31. (By the way, I voted that it's a boy!)