Good Night Summer

Good Night Summer, Good Morning Autumn...

Yellow the bracken,

Golden the sheaves,

Rosy the apples,

Crimson the leaves,

Mist on the hillside,

Clouds grey and white,

Autumn, good morning!

Summer, good night!

Hershey kisses, mini vanilla wafers, peanut butter morsels 
(held together with a dab of peanut butter)

To celebrate the season, Ella and I made some acorn cookies to take to her school tomorrow.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Few Steps for Ella, One Giant Mess for Momma!

We created our first glow-in-the-dark, sparkly, personalized stepping stone this afternoon.  Of course nothing went as planned, but Ella had a blast stepping in the mushy stone mixture and letting it ooze through her fingers.  The good news is...I was able to tidy up the finished product a bit when she moved on to splashing in the clean-up pail.

 

Always follow the stars home sweet girl!

Bubbles

Bubble Recipe: 

• Mix 2.5 cups of water with .5 cup of corn syrup in microwave safe bowl
• Microwave for 3-4 minutes 
• Stir in .5 cup of Dawn dishwashing detergent.

We even tried dipping different kitchen utensils in our bubble mix.  Some worked better than others....

Feet

Foot prints and paw prints complete the four canvas Christmas gift I received last year.

Better late than never...and a pretty cute addition to Ella's bathroom wall.

Hands

Ella's hand in ours -- what tenderness and power it creates.

The art of life is to show your hand.

E.V. Lucas

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Eric Carles's, The Very Hungry Caterpillar retold by Ella Grace...

Dag is such a good listener.  

Caterpillars made using an egg carton, paint, and pipe cleaner.  

Then, the bug tot spotted a large beetle...

She HAD to play with it--it tricked us by playing dead, but later crawled away.  I liked the cool fake eyes on the top!

Miss Ella Goes Green

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Ella's outdoor kitchen needed a little facelift after a long, hot, dry summer.  In the spirit of preserving our environment, we did away with any trace of plastic and revived her space with natural elements:  wood, metal, stone, and wicker.  

Plastic seems to be taking over the world and definitely has become plentiful around our house.  Slowly, but surely, we will continue to minimize!

Now, if the mosquitos would go away...she could play!  

Anyone have a natural recipe for mosquito spay that works?  

"I believe I Can Fly"

Good parents give their children roots and wings. 

Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away 

and exercise what’s been taught them. 

Jonas Salk

Saw this idea on http://www.prudentbaby.com/2011/04/how-to-make-beautiful-dress-up-wings.html.  My friend and I made three pairs this morning:  one for a gift, one for her grand baby, and one for Ella.  


Make that four...Ella loved her wings, but Miss Independent didn't like needing us to tie them on her every time she wanted to fly;).  My hubby had a great idea of putting a tee-shirt-type neckline so she could pull it on/off by herself.  For this one, I used old clothes she outgrew and sewed on the waste band from a pair of cotton pants.  Worked like a charm!

Happy Flying Ella!

Elmo's World...

La La La La La La La La Elmo's world...

A friend gave us an Elmo phone many months ago, and Ella immediately fell in love with the fuzzy red dynamo!  Since he's all about imagination, I thought I would create something Elmo related for dinner.  The result:  Elmo pot pies.

I used a recipe out of her Cook It in a Cup! cookbook by Julia Myall, which I purchased a while back on Amazon.com.  http://www.amazon.com/Cook-Cup-Quick-Treats-Silicone/dp/0811859568/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314732592&sr=8-1.

The cute little Elmo outfit came from a local resale shop, The Funky Monkey:  http://www.fmresale.com/.