The best intentions...

... always seem to get hit with a semi-truck.

I have had one heck of a week.

Our doggie is out of the woods concerning his eye, but there's still about a 30% chance we may end up with a one-eyed pirate dog. I spend more time giving that dog medication than I'd like to admit. Not to mention we found a needle in his leg that was a catheter that was supposed to have been taken out from his surgery on APRIL 30th. Yeah, I was not amused. Luckily, the vet's office was pretty on the ball and helped us out so that I didn't have to go crazy Jessi on them.

Next, we have Lily's last week of school. Tomorrow, my baby is done with the first grade. I swear it feels like I was wondering how the hell it was only September just a few weeks ago, but time flies. She's had pajama day, hat day, field day, water day, talent shows... man. It's hard to keep up with the end of school year madness. We've also enrolled her in tumbling and a ballet class for summer. I'm really excited about that because I really don't want a couch potato zombie child for the summer.

We also have the pleasure of Nic's mother coming to visit this weekend! Which means a crazy mad dash of house cleaning and organizing. She hasn't come to visit since Sagey Poo was born, so I'm excited to see her. I've lucked out and gotten an awesome mother-in-law. My sister is also coming home (YAY!) and so this weekend is going to be full of happy, family chaos.

Cleaning with a carbuncle that is otherwise called Sage makes for some interesting chore time by the way. It's quite funny to try and fold laundry when the baby in your lap keeps trying to eat it. I tried giving her a toy to chew on to distract her, but she's too smart for that. She wants to chew and slobber on whatever Mama has in hand.

I haven't finished teacher thank you cards, my rag quilt, or any of the other fun stuff I was planning for this week. Go figure. I should hopefully have some time tonight to get those cards done because, hey, last day of school tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Magical Melty Beady Bowls

I found out today as Lily and I chattered our way home from school that tomorrow is her teacher's birthday. She was pretty insistent that we get her a present and I couldn't disagree because this teacher has done amazing things with Lily and has been wonderful all year long. Every day as the first graders pile out of the room past her, she smiles and hugs every single one. Ever since I started working on my teaching degree, I pay attention to which teachers do things I would do in my, as of now, imaginary classroom. And while I would probably be labeled a weirdo if I hugged my high school students, the simple patience to take a moment to acknowledge each one every day is absolutely going to be filed away for future use.

Anyway, when I asked Lily what she wanted to give, she told me something that she had to make with her imagination. It took me a few minutes, but I thought of something. Please welcome what Lily named Magic Melty Beady Bowls.

It's a pretty simple concept. You take plastic beads, arrange them, throw them in the oven, shape and cool.

Handy for me, I still have a huge box of pony beads. When I say huge, I mean a tool box that unfolds and has tons of little compartments. I've had the box since I was younger and spent hours making candy bracelets with friends of mine. It refuses to empty itself of beads.

Since this was my first time attempting this, I wrapped my cookie sheet in foil. The plastic didn't stick, but I make a lot of cookies at my house and I need my cookie sheets. Lily and I each made our circles. I was stuck in pattern mode, but she just kind of went wild. She really liked the glitter beads.

I popped them in the oven at about 450 degrees for ten minutes or so. I kept checking them until they were totally melted. I've read lots of complaints about the fumes this creates. I opened my back door and had a fan going and it wasn't a problem for us. It also gave me an excuse to use my newest Scentsy scent. :) Once they were out of the oven, I shaped them with oven mitts on. They're pretty hot and harden quickly, so I put them back in the oven once or twice until the shapes were what I wanted.  I let them cool and that was that!

Lily wanted hers to more bowl shaped so her teacher could use it for paper clips or whatever. I love the random colors!

Here it is all wrapped up in fabric since Lily doesn't believe it counts as a present unless it's wrapped.

We kept the crafty going by making a card to go with it. I can't exactly remember where I got the general concept for the card, but it is made with an apple stamp.

Lily loved this one too. She adores painting and she was chomping at the bit to get to this part. She had a paintbrush in her hand for an hour waiting to get to it. Haha. She did a few practice runs and then we stamped the card, I added  the stem, leaf, and seeds, and the twine knot and message. I am so making more of these for a teacher stash. They are perfectly adorable.

I had an absolute blast doing all of this with Lily today. It was so much more fun than watching My Little Pony for the umpteenth time. I want to try and make bowls out of vinyl records or green army men. The pictures I have seen are awesome. I get the impression that if you have anything small and plastic, it works, but I'm a little hesitant to just try melting things in my oven all willy nilly. I hope her teacher likes the gift and I have to find a place or use for my pretty rainbow bowl. I'm sure this is another one we'll be doing again as Lily wants one for her room and I think they would also make cool coasters or light catchers.


I have linked this post to....

Lazy Weekends.

This weekend has been lovely.

Friday afternoon, Lily got "the biggest cookie dough blizzard there is Mom!" All year we have been struggling with her behavior in school. My daughter is strong willed, full of scary logic, and entirely too smart for a 1st grader. If she doesn't understand why she has to do it, or doesn't like the reason she's been told, she won't do it. Also, the reason "because I said so" doesn't work. Ha. It's one of the most frustrating and wonderful things about her. No worries about a lack of individuality or confidence with my Lily, she's got it down. So this week was the very first week in the whole school year that she got all stickers and met her HUGS goals for each day. Pretty much that translates to she did AWESOME. Though there's only two weeks of school left, I'll take it. So off we went to grab blizzards as a sweetie treat.

Saturday had us playing with blow pens (do you remember those?? So fun!) and coloring for hours. When that got boring, I broke out construction paper, scissors, and staples to make a paper chain.

A child after my own heart, she headed straight to a rainbow pattern. What was more surprising to me was that she was able to put the colors in the correct order from red to violet all by herself. Remember how I said the girl was smart? Once we went through about a hundred staples, I broke out the tape and we went through nearly a roll of that. She just kept going. I am totally remembering this one for the next time she's bored.

After we spent the day being creative, she went off to a sleep over and I had little miss Sage all to myself. We snuggled and slept only to wake up with the husband came home and then went back to snuggling and sleeping. Is there anything better than curling up and breathing in the happy scent of a baby? I can't believe that little girl is already 4 months old. It feels like I was still pregnant yesterday.

Today has been more laziness with which we'll cap off with dinner at Grandma's. There is no better place to eat in town, trust me. The husband even gets off work early so I won't have to wait up (or pretend to wait up) until 12:30 tonight. Win!

My goal for the next week is to finish a rag quilt. I WILL do it. I read 5 books this week, it's time to do something else. Wish me luck! Also, I've been playing around with the blog, so if you see anything wonky, let me know, ok?