Butterfly Wings

I've had these beautiful butterfly wings from This Mama Makes Stuff bookmarked for years... and I finally made some for my girls this summer.  The tutorial was easy to follow, and the girls were so happy with the results.  I just wish I had ordered more scarves!! It was the perfect follow up to our visit to the butterfly garden.

Easter Bonnet

Well... I kind of fizzled out on the photo-a-day challenge, but it was fun while I was doing it.

Now Easter is here, and I thought I would share this cute Easter Bonnet our 4yr old made at preschool. Every holiday they have a parade around the school (for all the parents and such) and they always dress up.  Our class made easter bonnets for the girls and top hats for the boys.  

To make the bonnets, they use a paper bowl, a thick paper plate, and some construction paper.  They cut a hole (a little smaller than the bowl) in the plate and glued those together.  The picture below explains it better-- the point is to get a nice rounded shape to fit on their heads.  Then they glued pieces of construction paper to form the brim, and trimmed into a wide circle (with a hole in the middle a little smaller than the plate).  They painted the outside of the bowl and plate, and decorated the brim with ribbons, stickers and glitter.  The final step was to staple some elastic on for a chin strap.  So cute-- and surprisingly sturdy.  

Coming up tomorrow, an alphabet/pre-reader game...

Day 24- Photo Challenge

"Animal"

We have some new fish in the house, courtesy of the Keiki Karnival we went to yesterday.

Day 23- Photo Challenge

"Moon"

Ok.  Pictures of the moon never turn out on my cellphone camera.  So I was trying to be creative and think of other moons I could capture... and the only thing I kept coming back to was the naked-butt-kind-of-moon. I think I'm just going to skip this one. :)

Day 22- Photo Challenge

"Kitchen Sink"

ahem.  Clearly I should have looked ahead before I posted my "Corner of my House" picture.  Instead of posting ANOTHER picture of my sink, I decided to take a picture of the view outside my kitchen sink window. Unfortunately that window is covered in water spots, which makes for a terrible picture.  Sooo... here's a picture of my lanai, as seen through the open doorway, instead the dirty window.

Just go with it....

Day 21- Photo Challenge

"Delicious"

Egg Fried Rice-- yummy!

I love to make this because I usually have all the ingredients 

(rice, eggs, ham, edamame, peas, carrots, soy sauce) on hand.  

Day 20- Photo Challenge

"Before and After"

Dinner time! Mmmmmm... love that Costco Margherita Pizza.

Day 19- Photo Challenge

"Funny"

My girls are BIG into jokes.  They especially love to make up their own jokes.

This one is from The Joke Book.

Day 18- Photo Challenge

"Corner in your house"

The kitchen sink.  

By far, the most dreaded and neglected corner in my house.

Do I get points for keeping it real?? 

Day 16- Photo Challenge

"Sunglasses"

This girl LOVES her accessories.

Day 17- Photo Challenge

"Green"

How about some clovers for St. Patrick's Day?

Day 15- Photo Challenge

"Cars"

This picture doesn't get across just how happy baby boy was, to have his hands on a steering wheel.

Day 14- Photo Challenge

"Clouds"

Day 13- Photo Challenge

"Sign"

This sign actually means "ouch".

Day 12- Photo Challenge

"Fork"

a la Rene Magritte...

Day 11- Photo Challenge

"Someone I talked to today"

See this face?  

This is the face of an almost-7yr old with some serious attitude.  

This is the face she was making while I was talking to her.

Looking forward to the next 10 years :)

Day 10- Photo Challenge

"Loud"

1 four year old + mini trampoline = Loud 

Flowers That Don't Die

Finally-- a plant I can keep alive!

We had fun coloring these flower & butterfly wood sticks.

We 'planted' them in our front yard...

watered them...

 and watered them some more.

The girls never get tired of decorating these sticks.  Our other favorites are these stick people.

Here are some other (much grander) fake flower fun links:

Flower Shop from Inner Child Fun

Foam and Felt Garden from Ikat Bag

Day 9-Photo Challenge

"Red"

Red Hibiscus

Day 8- Photo Challenge

"Window"

Sun rising over Koko Crater, through my car window, 

on my way home from dropping the kids off at school.

Day 7- Photo Challenge

"Something I Wore"

My favorite green slippahs.  

Day 6- Photo Challenge

"5pm"

This isn't a typical shot of our daily life at 5pm. Usually I'm starting dinner, homework is being done, baby is getting fussy and things are a bit chaotic.  But we've had some CRAZY weather the past couple of days, so today at 5pm found us making our way home in a major downpour.  We had to stop and check out the storm drain that runs along our street.  Usually it's got some puddles at the bottom, but today it was a mini-raging river!  

Day 5- Photo Challenge

"Smile"

Watching my oldest read to my youngest makes me smile!

The belly button poking out makes me laugh. :)

Day 4- Photo Challenge

"Bedside"

Yep.  We have a tiki lamp in our bedroom...

Day 3- Photo Challenge

"Neighborhood"

So grateful to live in a neighborhood where the kids can run and play safely, 

surrounded by friendly neighbors!

Day 2- Photo Challenge

"Fruit"

These strawberries look super shiny in this picture... and they tasted great too ;)

Girls Day

Girls Day is tomorrow... but I had to share this cute craft the 4 yr old brought home from preschool today.  What's Girl's Day? It's a Japanese holiday to celebrate the girls in the family (boy's day is May 5th)- and it's celebrated here in Hawaii.  You can read about it here, here or here.

To make these cute dolls, they cut out the hair piece, and then glued on the u-shaped face piece.
Then they wrapped a toilet paper roll with a solid colored piece of construction paper.  They cut out 2 sleeves and taped them on.  Most of the other kids picked fancy origami paper to make the waist sash and bow (mine wanted hers to be all pink).  Then they taped the head onto the inside of the roll, and added decorations to everything.  The mini fan is taped on to the back of the sleeve.
Easy, quick and fun. I love crafts that you can make with materials you have on hand.

Day 1 -Photo Challenge

"Up!"

Baby boy loves to climb up the stairs- as fast as he can, squealing the whole way up.

Photo Challenge

Trying to get back in the blogging habit-- and I thought this might be a fun way to do it: Fat Mum Slim has posted a photo-a-day challenge for March:

Thanks to my cellphone I always have a camera on me... let the fun begin!

Stay tuned for my first photo!