flying campers

our favorite sculpture on display in the park!

teacher totes

the little man is graduating from his pre-school program this week so with his help in choosing which fabrics were for which teacher - I made all four of his teachers fun colorful totes. I wish this program would continue for age 3. It's only a couple days a week for 3 hours, conveniently located and he likes it but after much pressure from all the parents , the program was unable to squeeze in an older class into it's schedule. It seems that our Brooklyn neighborhood has over blossomed with 3 year old kids and unless there is an older sibling in the school or you have a wicked amount of money to just donate to the place on top of tuition - you ain't gettin' in. We went through a ridiculous pre-school admissions process for the 2007-08 year which included application fees which mirrored my college app. fees, interviews and a long waiting process (tuition which also came pretty close to a university semester) only to be wait listed. We have a few alternative choices which are: 1) within walking distance, a 5 day a week, 8am-2pm, uniform wearing, strictly academic parochial school 2) travel via 2 subways or a long bus to a 3 day a week Spanish speaking class which sounds great but when I went to visit none of the kids were speaking - English or Spanish. I sent my Spanish speaking husband t0 check it out next and he was having trouble understanding the teacher 3) travel via 1 subway to Manhattan for a 2 day a week music & arts class. It's stressful to figure this one out...but I must remind myself it's all about having fun for him and try to chill out. Is it like this in your neighborhood or is this only a nyc thing?

sugar coated transportation

I do love this whole grain baking book. Parker and I made transportation shaped cut out cookies as it rained a couple days ago and they turned out tasty. I usually don't have patience for cut-out cookies but this batch was alot easier to deal with - minimal sticking and no crumbling or breaking. Parker was nice enough to take most of them to school for his friends so I didn't eat them all up. Here's the easy recipe for thin & crispy wheat cookies:

3/4 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup orange juice
2 teaspoons vanilla (Parker did this part so there was a lot more and tasted great)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

beat butter, sugar and salt in medium bowl, then add orange juice, vanilla, flour and baking powder and mix.
divide the dough into 2 pieces, wrap each piece in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Pre-heat oven to 350*
line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper
working with one piece of dough at a time , roll into a circle in about 14 inches in diameter and use your favorite cookie cutters. re-roll and cutting the scraps too. place on cookie sheets and can be close together as they don't spread much.
we decorated ours with sugar sprinkles before they went into the oven.
bake the cookies till they are brown around the edges about 14-15 minutes. switch pans half way through cooking time (top to bottom, bottom to top)
yum!

Lotta Sewing

Another Lotta Jansdotter inspired tote. I love the bird sitting on the tree - so sweet and hopefully Aunt Kate will like it as a very belated b-day present!

Even though half of our dining table has been covered with all things sewing for the past month - it's great to have the sewing machine out to work on fun projects. I really need to come up with a way to have a craft area in our wonderful yet tiny NYC apartment or work on talking to the family to move to a house in the burbs! Until then, I will continue to wish I lived in the Posie studio here!

Blastoff

Finally the wee wonderfuls spaceman has landed in our home along with a homemade rocket ship! I've had the space boy pattern for over 3 months and finally took on the challenge! He was actually fun and painless to make! Parker helped choose the color scheme, spelled out his initials and thinks they are both pretty cool. It's my first attempt at a "softie".

whole lotta love

I took out my sewing machine from the depths of a storage trunk a few weeks ago to hem a pair of pants and it's been on the dining table ever since. Once I actually use the energy to retrieve it - I have a hard time packing it back up and storing it away again. So I was super happy that domesticali started a flickr group to share photos of items made from fellow Brooklynite Lotta Jansdotter's book simple sewing. I do have to admit that I am terrible at following/understanding directions - whether it's for sewing, crocheting, computer manuals or toy instructions...so this was inspired by the pictures in the book. I also visited Purl in Soho and picked out the adorable tree & squirrel fabric. Thank god that I am not a quilter or I would have dropped some mad cash in that store. Since I started making fun felt decorated shirts for Parker & his friends, I've wanted to make something for myself so I was finally able to add a little felt applique that actually looks age appropriate :)

it's a book that turns into a...

Firetruck. very cool!

Wonder Pets Birthday Success

The Wonder Pets birthday party was a success and Parker had a great time. It was a homemade party because Nickelodeon has not yet produced any Wonder Pets merchandise. Not sure what they are waiting for - all of the other shows have a ridiculous amount of product. Anyway, we used red, blue, green & yellow plates, napkins, streamers, balloons, etc, had a craft area with WP coloring pages from Nick Jr & other animal stickers. I know there must be other parents out there trying to create a cool WP party so here's a list of some of the items that we created...
the "Tuck" pinata can be found here:
the fly boat:Parker's Dad made a flyboat out of the same stuff as the Wonder Pets...a red Frisbee, 3 purple marker caps, tinker toys for wheels & some other stuff from the toy tool box. very cool.
The fly boat cake & invitation:
The Games: "save the animals" Each partygoer got a chance to be like the wonder pets by searching into the tree to save an animal. The tree was stuffed with a variety of animals - from wind-up to plush. The "tree" started out as a cardboard box and I must admit it turned out better than I had imagined. I covered the box with brown paper and cut different size strips of various green construction papers & card stocks to make the branches. We also had a red WP cape and the idea was that the kids would line up and one at a time put on the cape and save and animal but it was more like a simultaneous rescue mission. Here's a peak at the rescue:
"Pin the wheel on the fly boat": We didn't even get to this one but here's a look and we printed out the wheels from the nick website onto sticker paper.The Gift Bags: Wonder Pet stickers printed from the official web site, a couple inside and one on the front of the brown paper gift bag, there is a cool little WP book binded together with yarn which I printed from the web site & the bubbles have a custom home printed WP label .
The decor: our building's community room always needs color. My friend Fran blew up pictures of each of the WP and made these cool portraits - which are not the decor in my little man's bedroom...It was an awesome party - Thanks to Teamwork!

a kite flys in brooklyn

and the little man controls the string....

86 degrees and no pedicure

Today's temperature high was 86 degrees and as I frolicked throughout the playground in my sweaty socks and sneakers - i really wished that I could have 37 minutes of alone time to get a pedicure. I think that my many single, child-free years really spoiled me with boat loads of free time to pamper myself with facials, manicures, hair cuts and happy hours. Now, when I do get the odd hour "off" - I go to a doctor appointment - and not the kind that can make me look younger, thinner or more beautiful. Those good ole days are fun to look back on but life with my boys is the best! For example, I did get these super gorgeous roses from Eric on our Boy's 3rd birthday last week and they get prettier every day.
Maybe I should cave in and buy some Crocs..no need for a pedicure & they keep your feet cool.

click...take a pic

Here's the man using one of his birthday gifts...a cool made for kids digital camera! He has been snapping pictures of everything and has been actually setting up items to be photographed!










Here's his first collection:
his beloved Mack red tulips
our building a crane barge
his shoe the sky daddy mommy cars on the carpet diego on tvThis is too funny. Thanks for the camera Grandma!

three

My little man is 3!

knockoff pinata

the one good thing about 2 days of crappy weather is alot of time to create Wonder Pets birthday party supplies! There are a few things in the works but here is Tuck the turtle pinata. I found a turtle pinata at the party store and turned him into "Tuck" by adding his homemade funky felt hat, cut out a cape from red fabric with a computer printed wonder pets logo and drew water shoes on his feet. I also added ribbons underneath and made it a pull string pinata - I think that's a little safer than giving a slew of 3 year olds a chance to whack me with a bat!
Tuck vs. the Knockoff Pinata!

will spring ever arrive?

To brighten up this crappy weather day, here are some colorful and cheery hair bands that we made for a friend. The rain is pouring as the powerful storm sweeps through New York. Please just let this be the last crappy cold weather of the season! This is the felt embellished shirt that went along with the hair accessories...

Wafer Madness

So a while ago I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this at Smitten Kitchen...an amazing looking ice box cake made with the notoriously hard to find Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers. Well, the Brooklyn Pathmark has loads of them in stock so here is my first attempt at this tasty looking pile of goodness. I think it looks cool but I have to say that Deb's original at Smitten Kitchen is a masterpiece and her photography skills are awesome plus it's nice that she has shared the super simple recipe. We will be doing a taste test tomorrow with friends who are visiting from Virginia Beach.
We are also gearing up for Parker's 3rd Birthday Party. He has requested a Wonder Pets! party...which is the super cool Nick/Noggin show about school house pets travel in their "flyboat" to save animals in trouble ... The show is fairly new so unfortunately there is absolutely no merchandise/party supplies available to purchase. It's gonna be a handmade b-day. Any and all ideas are welcome!

sneaky cupcake

I had to try this tasty looking cupcake which I found my way to last week at 52 Cupcakes! I was hoping that Parker would actually eat a strawberry if it was hidden inside the cupcake...but he just took it and gobbled up the cake. Very good and fun to make!
We also got inspired by the felt bunnies from someone's crafty blog. I thought that I bookmarked the location so I could link to it but I can not find the cute felt bunnies anywhere. But we used the pattern and cut them out of colored cardstock, added pom pom tails and they will be easter dinner placecards.
We had planned to color eggs today since it has been raining here in Brooklyn but a leaking pipe in the building led the crack smoking matinence team to our apartment and we've spent the day with hordes of men removing our kitchen cabinets, busting open the wall and making a mess of our home only to realize that the need to order a part and will need to come back tomorrow. My temperment hasn't been on the good side lately so it's an added stress that we didn't need - but venting here makes me feel a little better!

life is a highway

The latest addition to Parker's wheeled out wardrobe - Conte's Camion! This is the official unveiling of Eric's freezer paper transfer shirt that I mentioned over president's day weekend! It's pretty cool and Parker is excited to be wearing it today.Good job Eric!
Enjoy your weekend!

Cloud Coverage

Parker came home from his class yesterday looking up at the sky and talking about the clouds! They did a pretty cool activity that started with reading the book "It Looked Like Spilt Milk" which is a cool little book on what the shape of clouds look like. They followed up with an art project that started with a big blob of white paint on the center of a blue piece of paper. They folded the paper in half, pressed down and opened the paper to reveal their "cloud" formation. Then went around and each little one stated what they thought their cloud looked like. Parker said his looks like a butterfly. I see a bunny. I loved this activity so much that I had to share. I've tried to talk about the clouds and the shapes that I see in the past with the little man but he just didn't get it. Now he's all over it.
What simple kind of fun! Here's a cool photo of clouds that I took a few weeks ago in Pittsburgh...

No Sleep Till Brooklyn

Wow - it's been weeks since my last post! Parker & I went to Pittsburgh to visit my Mom who was going to have a "simple" medical procedure. Unfortunately, she has to have "serious" heart surgery and just 2 days later she was on her way home but suffered various complications which still have her in the hospital. The good news is she is doing better every day and is on the road to recovery. We did get to spend some time with her before her surgery, so Parker and Grammy made some tasty, colorful muffins! We got quite a taste of suburban life...I am now a pro at getting Parker in and out of the car seat without hitting his head on the car ceiling or the door. I was also surprised at how fun grocery shopping can be when Parker can sit in a cool red truck and "drive" the cart around as we shop!
There is also an awesome indoor playground at the brand new mall, which also has a carousel, a movie theater, his new favorite restaurant, Johnny Rockets, an indoor glow in the dark mini golf place, a chance to drive "Arthur" to school
plus he even learned about "self serve"...
No worries, it's not a real gas pump! If you are ever in Pittsburgh, Pa. check out the Children's Museum. It's awesome and blows Manhattan & Brooklyn Children's museums away. It's not so much fun being at Grammy's house when she's not there so we are back in Brooklyn and look forward to visiting her when she get's home. Parker is ready to go on the airplane again - much to my surprise he snagged the jet blue headphones!

rocket ship to the moon

We had a great 3 day weekend thanks to the celebration of Presidents Day. Parker loves the weekends when he can hang out with his Dad and an extra Monday off was a great treat for them...and me too. I got a little time to myself and looked at my Wee Wonderfuls space man pattern book. I've had it for a few weeks but haven't taken on the project yet - most likely because the sewing machine hasn't seen much but inside the dark corner of our storage trunk in the last few years. I couldn't dive in but just looking at it inspired Parker's new Rocket Ship to the Moon shirt.

I also made a funky felt butterfly for Parker's friend Chloe - who will be turning 2 this week. I just found out that she is having a Cars themed birthday party - had I known she was such a fan, I would have whipped up a pink "McQueen" shirt for her to wear.
Speaking of Cars, Parker was sporting his new "Mater" & "Lightening McQueen" socks last week and was slipping, sliding & falling all over the place. (by the way his pre-school teacher suggested the clumsiness was do to way too much Valentine's day sugar - and then she proceeded to feed his huge cookies covered with duncan hines jarred icing and sprinkled with full size hershey's kisses and about 20 million candy hearts - oh well) I did think that maybe his new socks were just too slick, so I used the trick I did on his socks when he was learning how to walk... Using puffy fabric paint - add dots or designs to

the bottom of the socks and it works like a charm.
Parker loves it when his Dad draws with him so I talked Eric into making a freezer paper stencil shirt for him. I can't unveil it yet, as he is putting the finishing touches on the 18 wheeler. He has a lot of time this week because Parker and I are visiting Grammy in Pittsburgh. Stay tuned...