Story Time at the Library - Bowen

We love our Story Time each week at the Library.  Of all the free things the kids and I have done over the past few years this one is by far the best.  The women that put it on each week put a lot of thought and energy into it.  They sing and dance around to 12-13 songs, read 2 books, and have a craft afterwards.  Their crafts are not easy ones either.  Lots of time is put into preparing them! I have made friends with one of the ladies there, Tania, and we agreed that a Halloween theme would be great to do!  For Australia this is kind of a rarity and it's not really celebrated.  The kids were all invited to dress in costume and the girls and I made goodie bags for them.  I was just going to make some cookies to bring at first, then they looked so nice that I wanted to put them in individual bags, but the bags were so large that it looked like it needed more stuff in them.  I added a chocolate bar, a row of Halloween stickers, a Halloween toy or balloon and the pumpkin sign needed for the Trick or Treat night.  I then made up quick and easy tops of the bags using Martha Stewart Halloween Paper, some stickers and staples. And Walla..........we have goodie bags!!

 Here they are all together.

 I love making up goodie bags and could have kept going and filled them up more, but didn't want to wrap up tons of money in them.

I made up two batches of sugar cookies because I knew there was no way I'd be able to bake them and be left alone to decorate them without letting the kids do their own batch.  It took me 3-4 hours to make up the doughs, icings, and loading the icings.  Then start to finish 3 hours for the kids' cookies.  It was fun and they really enjoyed it, but I was glad when I got it all cleaned up and could start on my own.

This is Lilah's cookie creations.  I helped her to roll out the dough after she selected her color and then she embellished them with other colors.

Here's Emmy's cookies. She said the orange cookie was her and did that one completely by herself.  Her favorite cookie was the bunny rabbit.  She rolled out her dough herself and selected her cutter and I helped her with decorating ideas and technical things.

And here's Mommy's cookies!  I must send a big thank you to Grandma Betsy for sending over the cookie cutters!  They made the whole process easy because they imprinted the styling lines on the cookie.  I made tons of pumpkin, ghost, spiders, and bats.

 I made ghosts in purple too but didn't get a picture of them.  I don't think I'll ever do them again in purple because they came out looking like Grimace from McDonald hhaha

 I still had some dough left and decided that I wanted to do a new design so I used the gingerbread man cutter but moved the arms and legs a bit to try and get the cookie out of the traditional shape.  I used a butter knife to indent where I wanted the icing to go before baking.

I think my Mummies turned out really cute!

 

 This is still a post about Story Time even though I have you thinking about cookies!  Here's Emmy in her Alice outfit that I made her.  I think it is absolutely adorable and I was extremely pleased with it throughout it's entire construction.  It was an older pattern from 1982.  It wasn't an "Alice" pattern so I had to modify and simplify it and make it more "Alice-like".  Lilah was in no mood to be photographed so if you look at the picture again you can just see Lilah's face in the bottom right corner.  She was wearing the Chicken Costume I made last year.  Everyone loved her outfit and commented on it.  I thought she was the cutest chicken ever!  Here's a link to the Chicken Costume Post from last year. You can click on it worry free ......it will open up in a new tab/page.

Here's a group shot of all the children at the Library.  The three ladies dressed up at the back are the ladies that put Story Time together each week.

  

 Lilah had taken off her Chicken Hat by this time and you can't blame her because it was so hot out.  In the picture she was too busy watching the other children and babies and wouldn't pay attention to smile for the camera.  Notice Emmy is cheesing it in both photo's hahahhaha.  Such a ham!!

 

At the end of the Story session the girls handed out our goodie bags to each child on their way out with their moms.  This was Emmy's favorite part of the morning and she asked me if she could do it about a million times!  They had a total blast and so did I!  Halloween is still my favorite holiday!!

What's Cook'n

The girls have been doing a lot of pretend baking lately. I ended up giving them some of their Christmas presents early that I had made for them because they saw me making them, so it wouldn't have been to much of a surprise, haha.

Here are a few of the felt doughnuts...

and I made laminated recipe cards with a real recipe for plain cake doughnuts and I used pictures for everything so little pre-readers can understand it too! It really works too. Right after I gave it to Emmy she was telling me, "Mommy, we need 2 cups flour!"

They also got pretty little frilly aprons and lots of felt iced sugar cookies with sprinkles. The aprons were made just a bit bigger that way they'll last a few years before I need to make them new ones.

Everyone wanted to try Emmy's cookies!

How cute are those cookies!?! I love them!

Lilah is feeding her "my pal: violet" some doughnuts. Yummy!!

I asked her if she loved her doggie and she said yes and then showed me by hugging her, haha,

Sitting on the job while her doughnuts are being cooked in the microwave.

It didn't take too long before she was back to her native state: nakie!

Queens

On this day they were letting out their inner Drag Qeen! hahha

Looking good Miss Diva!

I think she was having a good time :)

Lilah was really going for the evening look!

Is it just me or is this look very Joker'sque?

My Little Chickens

I remember this costume from years ago before I had the girls on the Martha Stewart show for quick costume ideas. I knew I wanted to make them someday and just the right opportunity presented itself last week. The theme for the last day of playgroup this term was Barnyard. I attached white boas to onesies (old stained up ones because it didn't matter) and I made a proper baby bonnet out of some white fleece I had laying around and I had my husband enlarge the pattern by 15% , then I added a red felt comb. The yellow jersey knit I already had on hand from another project and it worked perfectly for leggings. The original costume idea called for yellow dish gloves to go on the feet and legs which I think would work perfect for a baby that doesn't move much, but for children that are walking I think it's just a hazard. I could have made felt Chicken Feet that would attach around the ankle and lay over the shoe, but honestly I couldn't be fussed with small details. This was just a project I stretched out over several days doing a few minutes here and there on the machine and doing my hand stitching while watching The View & Days of Our Lives.




The kids were pretty pumped up about their costumes. They had watched me all week working on them and seeing them come together. I had fitted them once or twice so they had a good idea of what it would be like.

I like this picture....their looking for bugs like real chickens....lol

We had Grandma Betsy call before we left the house for playgroup so she could see just how cute they were. We all danced around the living room walking like chickens lol

Here's Emmy flapping her wings like a chicken hahha

Next minute, Emmy decided to lay down on the grass and have a little rest!

Lilah went up and laid down too, but then she decided to get up quickly, but notice how she's trying to get up with out having to have her hands touch the grass...wuss! When she stood up though there were nearly 200 black bugs all over her back feathers....I started ruffling her feathers knocking them out. Emmy didn't have one bug on her, so Lilah much have laid right down over their next/house. I don't think they were harmful at all, but nobody wants 200 of something on them.....ew!!!!


Next they each had a turn on their slide then it was time to jump in the car to head to playgroup!



This is probably Lilah's favorite thing to do when we're there. Swinging! She also really likes the big old piano they have there for the kids to bang on.


After the kids have there play time and the mom's clean up the mess it's time for a few stories and songs. Usually this is the time that the kids eat their packed lunches but today was a party day so we all went outside to have a picnic with lots of party foods! We brought strawberries dipped in white chocolate. Half of them were then dipped in sprinkles and the other half left plain. Yummy!


Here's Emmy sitting with the little girl dressed up as a Kitty having their picnic. I had a wonderful angle for the photo until the older lady sat down with her cute granddaughter....oh well! We had such a fun day. Now that it's school break time that means no playgroup until the end of October. She bugs me all the time "mommy, can we go to playgroup!?" at-least 2-3 times a week, and it's so hard to explain to them that it's not going to happen for a while.
I guess that means we'll be open for play dates the next couple weeks. :)

Last Day of Playgroup - Dinosaur Theme

This past Friday was our last day of playgroup until next term. They pick a theme and everyone is invited to dress up and bring a treat to share. I love any reason to dress in costume so of course I was super excited for the girls :) I ran by spotlight and got some green felt and about 2 hours later I had two cute Dinosaur Costumes. I made the hats, tails, and pants. The girls each wore the only all green shirts they had. If I would have had more material I probably would have made them tops too, but I didn't want to spend anymore money on something they probably wouldn't play with all that much. That being said..... Lilah LOVES her tail and when we put it on her she'll leave it on for hours and runs all around.... I think she likes that way it feels when it bounces behind her. I was pretty close to making them pink dino's since they are girls but then I decided to go with green because this is one thing that we can pass down to a boy when we have one :) *crosses fingers*


I'm so mad at myself. I forgot to take a picture of the treat that I made. I made mom's White Fluffy Icing but used less butter than the recipe called for. Added sprinkles.... rolled them into egg shapes then rolled them in green sugar. I laid them on a bed of green easter grass and made a cute little sign that said "BEWARE...DINO EGGS" They tasted great and I was very pleased with how the texture turned out. They held their shape but also stayed soft on the inside but it didn't get a hard or crunchy outside. Basically this icing is the best icing ever! Maybe I'll share the recipe with you if I'm feeling generous hehe.

Okay....now about our time at playgroup. The girls were super happy to be there like always and they started out with a little bit of playdoh play but Emmy quickly moved onto painting which always ends up being finger painting hahhaha such a mess!

While I was helping Emmy do that...Abby and Lilah were at the Glue Station making a "thing".


Later on they went outside to play and hardly anyone was out there because it was so cold out, but that didn't stop them. Emmy really wanted to play in the sand box and last time I told her that she couldn't that day because she had tights on but I promised she could play the next time.... so I was forced to keep my word. They had a great time despite me freezing my butt off. After that it was clean up time, story time, then snack time. Their favorites to eat that day were the strawberries, gummy bears, crackers, sugar cookies and jello. The best part of playgroup is when it's over and they crash for a LONG nap hahhahahha They won't understand why we won't be going for the next couple of weeks, but the next time we go back they'll be very happy!


Here's a picture of the other little boy that was dressed up. I was super surprised that no other children were dressed up. Looks like great minds think alike though :)