Lorihadams-- hi guys...been busy!

lorihadams

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Honey, I AM tired...last night I made a GF pizza for dinner and told hubby that as soon as I finished the dishes I was soaking in the tub with some epsom salts, iced coffee (with our goats milk!) and a library book until it was time for me to go milk the goat again. Bless his heart he just said..."okay"

I honestly just did them freehand but googled halloween finger puppets for some inspiration. The pumpkins and ghosts were easy...so was the bat (Maddie picked out the colors on that one) and the spider wasn't too bad either...I did 2 pieces of black felt and glued the 4 pieces of pipe cleaner inside the two making a sandwich and added the pom pom for the head. Frankenstein wasn't too hard....or the mummy, that was just little rectangles glued on to the head shape and then I tucked the google eyes inside the "bandages" and did the mouth inside another one. The witch was more complicated and I used a picture for the model of her dress but the rest was freehand. The vampires were the hardest. I did the dracula one first and my daughter complained that we had to have "a girl vampire too, mommy, I can't play with the boy one" so I did maroon for the hair and glued the widow's peak on top of the head. I freehanded the dress/capes for them but made sure to do the high collar on them. I copied the cat and the skeleton from a picture I saw when I did the google search.

I did a bunch of finger puppets for the kids for xmas last year and copied the designs from a coloring book the kids had. I did sea creatures, aliens, woodland creatures, jungle animals, and bugs and butterflies. I'm very visual...if I can see it then I can usually do it myself or something close to it at least.

I'm thinking of doing a solar system model with space station/astronauts and a princess castle backdrop with characters for them for xmas this year. I try to do things that we can use with stories or poetry and act them out. I have been thinking of doing farm stuff for Old Macdonald had a farm and maybe The Lady that Swallowed a Fly. Felt is very inexpensive and easy to work with. If you want to do larger felt boards you can buy felt by the yard from a fabric store and mount it on a piece of wood or cardboard with a glue gun and the felt will stick to it or you can add velcro to the back of the characters. I like the popsicle stick ones cause they were no-sew and even the littlest ones can use them easily. I sewed the finger puppets on the sewing machine. I tend to stock up on popsicle sticks cause we use them for counting, math problems, fractions, etc. I liked the big tongue depressor sized ones...I'll probably pick up some more the next time I'm at the dollar store.

One of my son's favorite books is a version of The Three Pigs that came with finger puppets of the wolf and all the pigs. They love it! Mine just like to do stuff that is very animated and physical. I also like felt to work with cause it is soft and comes in bright colors and you can buy it by the sheet for like, a quarter so a little bit goes a long way. I have one of those plastic bin rolling cart thingys that I keep whole sheets, scraps, and all my glue sticks, glue gun, beads, sequins,jewels, googley eyes, permanent markers and tubes of fabric paint with the tips for doing detail work like eyes and mouths and pink for rosy cheeks. I also like the puff paints to add dimension to the felt characters....

Can you tell I like to do this kinda stuff? :D
 

sekinkead

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You can definitely tell that you love this stuff :lol: I have a 3 month old and I have already decided to homeschool him so I come on here for inspiration. You do so much and it seems that your kids are learning real things that they can use and I love that.
 

Quail_Antwerp

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K, Lori, I read all this and now - I NEED A NAP lol

Dang, girl, you are so busy!
 

hillfarm

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We made acrostic pumpkins today for writing.
Its a pumpkin with the word Halloween typed down the side. They use the letters in Halloween to make a phrase that is scarey. For H they wrote Haunted house. W was Wicked witch etc. Then they colored them and cut them out, along with a back side.
We glued the two pumpkins together and stuffed with cotton balls and hung our pumpkins.
Decorations and themed and educational.

LOL.
 

lorihadams

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Thats an awesome idea....totally stealing that one! I need to get some balloons cause I want to make some paper mache pumpkins with them!

Grandma is coming for a visit tomorrow afternoon and we are carving their real pumpkins...that's gonna be fun :p
 

lorihadams

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So we picked up the replacement chicks from Meyers from the post office this morning and they immediately started eating and running around and everyone is (knock on wood) alive and well this evening.

Maddie got increasingly clingly at story time and when we went into the library to look for new books she curled up in a chair with her knees tucked into her shirt and went to sleep. When I checked on her she was burning up so we went straight home and spent the rest of the day on the couch watching movies we got from the library and reading some of the new books. She napped off and on and then took a bath, I managed to get her to eat some crackers and drink some water and eat a few slices of red pepper for dinner. She just looks wiped out.

We've had really bad thunderstorms off and on tonight so I ran out during a break in the storms and milked and closed everyone up. I did manage to sneak out while Maddie was asleep and clean out the duck house and chicken coop from the summer :sick It was gross and long over due. The two new chickens are still bunking with the ducks....stupid birds. Oh well, at least they aren't in the trees.

Chad had to go check on the impoundment so he took Tonka with him and said he really had a good time swimming around the pond but now is passed out in the back of the Durango. He should be home in about an hour. He took the day off tomorrow to help me get the house presentable for his mother...we'll see how long it lasts :rolleyes: I have to go to the grocery store for a few things tomorrow while he stays with the kids so that ought to be interesting.

I'm looking forward to the safari park but nervous about being around my mother. She and Chad have had increasing tension the last few years and when his mom is around it seems to be even worse but I'm not gonna exclude her since she made the trip up from NC to be with us for the weekend. My mom is very controlling and she hates that Chad doesn't agree with what she wants all the time and is vocal about it. The rest of us tend to just let her do things her way cause it is easier than fighting with her.

She also hates the way Chad and I fight but we have always worked things out the way we do and yes, we yell and scream and cry and get angry but we always work it out and we try not to do it in front of the kids but I get emotional and yell in front of them anyway and I know I need to stop that. I just explain to them that sometimes we disagree and this is just how we work it out but that we always love each other and them. I'll probably scar them for life. :hide

Anyway...I'm off to get the kids in bed if I can tear them away from the tv....what can I say, rainy sick days are veg out in front of the tv days....guilty as charged. :hu
 

BarredBuff

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I hope Maddie feels better! I have been sick for a couples of days, its not fun :/
 

Quail_Antwerp

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I hope Maddie feels better soon! Sorry she's not feeling well.

I'll reply to your pm later...just got the news that the Florida inlaws arrived in town today :/
 

lorihadams

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Thanks, I hope you feel better too darlin', she seems to be better but we'll see what tomorrow brings....
 

Natalie's Nesters

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Lori, I feel for you, my Mom and husband are like oil and water! my Mother is very pushy, and my husband is stubborn! It is a tough call, where do I stop being their daughter and being his wife. It stinks being in the middle. We have our lives figured out, married for 24years, why can they let us be? sorry for the long rant, my parents just left. Hate to say it but, glad to see them go! Best of luck to you!
 
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