Category: boys

boys, craft, fall, gardening, mantel, november, orange, paper, thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Mantel

by casadeberry1 Comment on Thanksgiving Mantel

As you might have seen in my silly turkey garland post, our mantel has been de-Halloween-ed and is now ready for Thanksgiving. But last Thursday the boys and I made a little something to add up there.

I got the inspiration for this from pinterest, of course, but I decided to make this craft with stuff I had on hand.

I have been saving glass jars for the past few months, I’m trying to replace plastic food storage as much as I can, and I had a few pasta sauce jars that weren’t all the same size but they worked in a group.

Then I added a band made of scrapbook paper, created the letters and border on Photoshop, and added some curling ribbon. The contents of the jars are dried out corn husks and stems from my backyard.

I think it looks nice atop my dark mantel:

As you can tell, my boys have started to pick off some of the poor turkeys’ eyes and even one of the faces (look to the right end of the garland). As long as they don’t eat them, I’m fine with it 😀 The dried sunflowers on the right are also from my backyard, we got tons of seeds, so yummy!

Hope you have a great Monday!

Tip Junkie handmade projects

boys, craft, fall, family, november, paper, thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Craft: Turkey Garland

by casadeberry3 Comments on Thanksgiving Craft: Turkey Garland

I saw this cute place setting craft at my favorite paper store

and I’d been thinking of making a garland with my oldest, so I decided to make a variation of this cute turkey. I had all the materials except the eyes, so that was $1.99 spent.

First I punched out the body out of brown construction paper and cut tan triangles for the beaks:

Then my boy added googly eyes – we thought that would be a lot more fun! I asked him to go crazy coloring with oranges and reds on yellow paper, for the plumage.

Some of them looked silly, and my son said he wanted to make them all different because people are all different 😀

Then we taped the turkeys onto orange curling ribbon:

Et voila! Here is our beautiful, fun, and very silly turkey garland!!!

I love walking into my house and seeing this fun garland that my son and I made together. He loves doing crafts with me and I am planning more Thanksgiving fun – hope you enjoyed our Turkey Garland!

Thursday Favorite ThingsVisit thecsiproject.comThe Shabby NestWeekend Bloggy Reading

boys, costume, craft, family, halloween, husband

Costume progress – and a hint!

by casadeberry1 Comment on Costume progress – and a hint!

My awesome husband is almost done with our little man’s costume. Good thing because he has a parade tomorrow morning!
1030costumehint
The attention to detail keeps amazing me. Also, he helped with his cousin’s costume Saturday afternoon. I am not posting that yet, but it came out great. I think. Because I was a little creeped out by it and wasn’t really sure what/who it was. I looked it up and I’m still creeped out. Today my hubs is putting the final details on this costume and I can’t wait to see it finished!

Weekend Bloggy Reading

boys, fall, fashion, october, orange, outdoors

Fashion Friday: at the Pumpkin Patch

by casadeberry1 Comment on Fashion Friday: at the Pumpkin Patch

This time it was time for me to join my youngest and his class on a field trip. We went to one of our local pumpkin patches and had a blast. We’ve gone to Uesugi Farms a few times with our boys and we’ve always had a good time. They have hay rides, a train, a pumpkin lab to see the growth process, and my personal favorite, the honey booth. Not to be confused with a booth babe, the honey booth had lots of different flavors of honey grown in the farm itself. I tried two and they were yummy. My boy was less than impressed but I think it was more the texture of it that made him wrinkle his nose.

This morning was super chilly, so even though I love the cold weather, I brought along a knit scarf to keep my neck warm.

pumpkinpatch

Later on it was a bit warmer so I was glad to wear this super light chevron-stripe top. We each got a pumpkin and I bought some small white pumpkins at 3 for a dollar. We were happy to be home but had a wonderful time with our friends and classmates.

Have a great weekend!

boys, school

Field Trip with my oldest

by casadeberryLeave a Comment on Field Trip with my oldest

My son’s class went on a field trip to Villa Montalvo yesterday, to see a production of The Magic School Bus. I was very happy to go as chaperone and had a blast with my boy and his friends. I only had two kids to chaperone, my son and his BFF, so it was great.

While I had a good time, the trip was not all smooth sailing. First, the bus driver was taking us to the wrong location, although my friend A. said I should have gotten off there instead 😀

The show itself was a little underwhelming. I know I wasn’t the target audience, but the songs were not catchy, the pacing was dreadful, and you couldn’t even understand some of the words because the songs so convoluted and two of the performers didn’t seem to be miked at all. The kids were done about 30 minutes into the show and were super restless. I overheard a boy saying “that was a baby show!” which tells ya that they weren’t really hitting the right balance of education and entertainment.

It was the first time I chaperoned on a school trip and I loved it. Which is good because since my poor husband just hurt his foot (again) I am replacing him as chaperon on a school trip with my youngest later this week!

Here are a couple of pics of Villa Montalvo from pinterest – if you have the chance to go, it is a gorgeous place. I am planning on going back soon just to take some photos of the place.

Source: google.com via Susan on Pinterest

boys, craft, office, organizing, paper, school

Organization: A year’s worth of homework

by casadeberry3 Comments on Organization: A year’s worth of homework

With two boys in school now, there are lots of homework and art project pages filling up the bin I set up in the office. Now that the new school year has started, it was time to decide what to do with last year’s stash. Once I saw this, my decision was made:

One evening a couple of weeks ago, I sat down and photographed everything I wanted kept for posterity. I did save a couple of projects from each of my boys, and the memory books their teachers had made of the whole school year. I know, I’m a sucker, and we’ll see how those fare in a few years, but for now I am keeping them.

I got a coupon for a free poster print at Walmart, and I found super cheapo poster frames for $6 each, so my project ended up costing around $12 total.
0924boyswork

We are redoing this particular corner of the playroom/office, since my husband likes my computer better (better graphics card, yeah!) and now never sits at his desk, so this corner is going to be the media/recharging station/printer/etc. area, but for right now I really like my boys’ work up there.

autism, boys, sleep

When melatonin fails

by casadeberryLeave a Comment on When melatonin fails

I have to say that since melatonin entered our lives, things are mostly smooth. melatonin is a natural sleep aid that has greatly helped our youngest, who is autistic, regulate his sleep cycle. We started using it after a nightmarish week during which our sweet boy did not sleep. At all. For five days. On day 6 I was ready to kill someone, my husband talked to some friends with autistic children and, thanks be to the heavens, melatonin came into our lives.

However, once in a while – once a month or so – sleep rhythms still get messed up and this is why I have gotten 6 hours of sleep, TOTAL, since Saturday. I am writing this on Tuesday evening so I hope (fingers crossed) tonight goes better. My husband has been staying up with our boy as late as he can and then I take over.

Still, I will take once a month rather than every night, as was the case before we started using melatonin.

I am not advocating the use of melatonin, or telling you this will solve your problems, etc. I am just sharing my experience and how this has (for the most part) worked for us. My husband took melatonin for a week last year and he became almost sociopathic, to the point that I was ready to pack bags for me and the boys and take off until he was off it. So, yeah, not for everyone. But for our sweet baby boy, it’s been a great help.

I’m so sleepy . . .

boys, school

First Day

by casadeberry4 Comments on First Day

Monday was the first day of school for my sweethearts – my oldest is a first-grader now:

0822aidanfirstday

He chose a green-striped shirt, brown shorts, orange laced shoes, red-strapped backpack and bright blue jacket 😀

We are lucky in that he has some of the same classmates from last year as well as a friend he’s known since he was 4 months old.

My little one is going to kindergarten in another school:

0822alexfirstday

He’s all about dinosaurs. It’s a very rushed morning for us, dropping off my oldest first then racing to my youngest’s school, where there is virtually no parking. His teacher, thank goodness, understands it’s out of my hands and has told me it’s ok for us to be a few minutes late. Thank you, thank you, sweet understanding teacher!

I will be volunteering in my oldest’s class – I’m so excited!!!

boys, family, school, summer

Lazy days

by casadeberryLeave a Comment on Lazy days

We are enjoying these last few days of school vacation – we recently went up to a local park and rode on the train, it was wonderful. The day had cooled down and my three men were having a lot of fun together:

0811trainb

In a few days my sons are back in school. Is it just me or did this summer just fly by?