Celebrating the 4th

With the 4th of July being on a Wednesday, we did a lot of celebrating last week!  We had family picnics and fireworks and all kinds of fun at home too!  I love it when we have a family day, although it did feel a bit odd having my husband home on a Wednesday.




Who knew pipe cleaners, paint and glitter could be so much fun?



I originally found this project on pint.erest then clicked on over to this blog to read the instructions. but basically, you just twist your pipe cleaners into a little handle and spread out the ends until it kind of looks like an octopus.


Then you let the kiddos stamp to their little hearts content!  Or at least what I did.  My secret to keeping the table clean is a garbage bag. Yup.  I just slap one down and squirt the paint right on the bag. 



He added a little glitter to the paint while it was still wet and it dried right in place.  After we glittered up the fireworks, I shook off the excess glitter onto our garbage bag paint mat and just picked up the four corners and wrapped it up.  That made the whole glitter and paint clean-up a breeze and we were out the door to the next Independence Day event!

One of our other activities last week was reading How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the USA by Marjorie Priceman.  While we read, we had Ethan’s electronic map of the USA by our side and he traced along our journey with his finger, noting what each state along the way is known for.





After we read the book, we got our ingredients together and we made a cherry pie.



While our pie was baking, we looked at some more of our Independence Day related books and talked about the US flag.  It was a really fun project.  An added bonus to being fun was we did a little geography (talking about the states), math (measuring the ingredients), history (the US flag and America’s Birthday), sensory play (making the dough for the crust with our hands) and art!

But really, even with all of that, what 4th of July would it be if we didn’t at least have a few small fireworks?  We were not under a burn ban, but it has been so hot and dry in our region, we were a little afraid and only set off a few fountains on the pavement and a few sparklers.  Of course, this was after a picnic and pool party!





What about you?  How did you spend our nation's birthday?

***

Linking up!

I snapped :-)

First off, I want to day hello to anyway who is visiting from the October followers fest!  Welcome to one of my little pieces of the internet!

My name is Mattie and I blog about a little of everything.  Crafting, family, homeschooling, marriage, faith, grief, books, scripture and plan on sharing my love for food soon.  I'm a daughter of the King, married to an amazing man and mama to one on earth, two in Heaven and a little girl on the other side of the world.
Thanks for stopping by!

To learn a little more about my family and I, just click HERE.

 

I've been busy, but been snapping photos a lot more with my iP.od to share with friends and family on fb and thought I would share a few here of the crafty things I've made and a few things we have done lately.

I pieced this little quilt top for Hope.  I cut two of my old maternity tops into squares and pieced them together.  I've been reading up on quilting tutorials and think I might actually take the plunge to hand quilt this one.  Maybe.  But I probably will end up just doing a simple machine quilt.  I have to mull it over.

Yay!  I love my new camera strap cover with pink minky on the inside!

I made one for a hunter I know with some camo and hunter orange fleece.  I also made a little lens cap holder and attached it to the strap.  Let's just say I've lost more than one lens cap while hiking in a leafy wooded area before and know from experience, this might be handy :-)

Next, I cut up several of Ethan's special baby outfits from his first year into squares and I plan on piecing them together for a quilt. Pray this goes ok...this mama is a little sentimental and would hate to ruin these little pieces!

Ethan has been earning money with our commission system and he decided he wanted to buy some glow sticks.  I had seen this idea to throw some glow sticks in the bath and take a bath in the dark.  Let's just say this four year old thought that it was the coolest thing ever and has talked about this for days!

Speaking of a sweet four year old I know...he read several PAGES of this book to me recently.  I'm one proud mama!

I covered a few shoebox lids with fabric and modg.e podge and now I have some colorful canvases to put on my mantle.

That's all the time I have to update at the moment!

I hope everyone has a beautiful weekend!

Saturday Snapshots from Snapbucket

My computer has been running terribly slowly and it takes forever to upload pics from my camera, so here is our week in review from the view of my snap.bucket app on my i.pod...

Made puppy chow on Monday.  Yum!

One very cute little guy was found hiding with his friends!

I got these little sweeties in the mail!  The larger one weighs what our daughter, Shyla Joy weighed at birth (1 pound 11 ounces and the little one weighs what Jakin weighed (8.4 ounces).  These are a product of the amazing work that Molly Bears does completely free for bereaved parents!

Finally used my jewelry stamps and LOVE them!  I definitely see doing some jewelry making in my future!

Went to see my younger brother/Ethan's favorite person in the whole world (and took this o-so-flattering pic of both of them...um...yea...its the only one I could find...)

Our doll from Baby be Blessed made it's way home to us!  Yay!  We won this beautiful custom doll in a giveaway from their blog.  I love it!  It even has a special scripture for our little Hope...

*LOVE*

I found some interesting things in our washing machine...

At least Hand.y Manny has some really clean tools now!
I absolutely LOVE finding little things like this.  It literally made me smile for at least five minutes.  I know how extremely blessed we are to have Ethan in our lives and I know how easily he could have not been here. We are undoubtedly aware of the fragility of life and both Ben and myself love finding little reminders that we are blessed to be Ethan's parents.  WE get the opportunity to reach into his heart and show him the love of God and raise up a Godly man.  We get to teach him scripture and sing songs with him.  We get to fix his supper, read to him, wash his clothes and find little jack hammers with big happy eyes in the machine.  We get to trip over shoes and talk about Heaven and laugh at the Lion King for the 5th time in a week...oh boy, feeling extremely grateful right now...I could go on forever...but, I will continue with this weekly review from my i.Pod camera...

I spent some quality time with my singer and got crafty...

I made this beautiful camera strap for my camera!  I love it!  The minky fabric makes it so cozy on the back of my neck...I will be making more of these!

I also worked on this.  I had the squares cut for a while and just got to piecing them today.  The material is from two of my maternity shirts I have worn in my previous pregnancies and the quilt (when I finish it) is going to be a cuddly quilt for Hope.

Lit candles for my babies.  Today, October 15th, is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness and Remembrance Day and there is a wave of light for all the little ones gone very early in life.

While We Wait: Crafting

I can't believe it's Wednesday again already and time to link up with other families who are waiting!

This week's topic...CRAFTING!


I know lots of moms that are using their crafty abilities to help raise funds for their adoption, so let's see it!  What are some of the things you've been crafting while you wait?  Be sure to link up below and invite others to do the same.  It also would be kind to leave a lovely comment for the person who linked up before you.

******************

Before I show something I've been crafting lately, I just have to say...if you've not signed up for Pinterest yet...you really should!  You can see my pins HERE. 

Now that I've done that, I can move on to sharing about one of my recent crafts for our home.  

When I saw this idea on Pinterest (see why I mentioned it before?)  I knew I had to do it to keep my make-up off our bathroom counter.  The best part is that we already had almost all the supplies!  

First, I found an empty frame and measured it.  I asked the wonderful hubby to cut a piece metal to fit it.  He found some and I then covered it with some scrap fabric I had purchased from the remnants basket at Jo.Ann's a while back.

We fit the fabric covered piece of metal into the frame and then I attached sticky backed magnets to my make up and found a locker organizer in the school section for a buck and sprayed it blue to match the frame (which I know looks purple in this pic for some reason).  

Now I can find what I'm looking for and hubby is happy my make-up bag is off the counter!  

What have you been crafting lately?