Where has the time gone?

My little girl is growing so fast and learning a mile a minute. It's a little bitter sweet. While on one hand I miss my baby it's also very exciting to watch her grow and learn. She is so smart and she amazes me every day with the things she says and knows. We are expecting our second child, due February, and it's a boy! We are very excited and I guess it's a good thing that Addison is growing so she can be mommy's little helper. She is now 2 1/2, potty trained, sleeping in a big girl bed and talking up a storm. She can verbalize just about anything she wants or needs to tell me. Sometimes it may get tricky understanding her but most of the time I have no problem. She is very excited for baby brother. She has always loved babies so I'm hoping she adjusts well to the new addition. I just hope I can devote enough time to each of my children. I bet that is a fear of a lot of moms.

Quiet Book

I made my daughter a quiet book. I had no idea just how much time and work it would be to make. It took me about a week solid working on it. That may not sound like a lot of time but I worked on it as much as a I could during the day and several hours every night when my daughter went to bed. I made the mistake of making most of the book standing over the kitchen counter. My poor 6 month pregnant body was not happy with me and I was very happy to have completed the project.

This is my daughter holding her book. She was so excited and seems to love it!

I ended up using several methods to construct the book. I used my sewing machine, hand stitching and my trusty hot glue gun. The cover ended up being completely glued together since I couldn't figure out a good way to sew it. I think it turned out pretty good.

Each page has something for my daughter to do and each page helps teach her something. My goal was to make something that would entertain her and be educational at the same time. I did a lot of research on Pinterest for different ideas. I tried to take ideas I found and make them my own. There are some incredible quiet books out there!

Here are my pages and what I did...

The first page is a flower page. The flowers are hand sewed (2 layers of felt sewed together). The flowers are attached by Velcro to the page and can be removed and placed into the pocket the stems come out of.

The shapes page and number flower page have a combination of hot glue, hand stitching and machine sewing. The shapes can be removed by Velcro and reattached to their matching shape. The flower petals can also be removed and placed into the pocket created in the flower pot.

The tent and barn pages are my favorite pages and possibly my daughters favorite too! The tent has a zipper and can be unzipped to see the black bear hiding inside. The barn doors open to find three little finger puppet animals to play with. I used the sewing machine for most of the construction of these pages but hand stitched the finger puppet animals.

The piggy bank is another one of my daughters favorites. There is pocket with real money hidden inside. I attached some Velcro to keep the pocket closed. The Christmas tree has ornaments attached with snaps. These are a little tricky to take on and off but I think once my daughter gets the hang of it she will have an easier time.

Next we have Mr. Potato head and snow cones! Mr. Potato head's face comes apart by Velcro to play with. The snow cones are little pockets where the tops can come out. These will help my daughter learn her numbers and what they mean. I used a combination of hand stitching and my sewing machine with these pages.

The last page is a fish tank. The fish can be removed and placed inside the pocket created out of the tank.

I hope my daughter can enjoy this book for a long time and we can hopefully pass it on to our son when he is old enough. I can't guarantee how well it will hold up but I'm hoping with all my glue and sewing it will last through two toddlers. This was a very fun project but also very time consuming. So far my daughter really seems to enjoy it and even asked if we could go home and play with her book when we were out today.

Fall Leaves Craft for Decoration

This is a fun and easy craft that the kids can help with. It creates a cute fall decoration for your house as well. Give your child a bucket (I used a pumpkin Halloween bucket for my daughter) and take them on a scavenger hunt in your neighborhood for fall leaves. Let them pick up all the pretty leaves and talk about the different colors as they collect them. Once you get home go through the bucket and pick out the best leaves. Find an old book and place the leaves in between the pages. You can use wax paper if you are afraid the leaves will hurts the pages of the book. I used a large, heavy craft book but if you don't have a heavy book you can place a heavy object on top of the book to apply pressure. Once you have your leaves in the book set it aside for a few days (I did 6 days, only because I forgot about it). Then find an old picture frame or buy a new one (I used an 8x10 frame) and lay the leaves out on a white piece of paper. You can use a little tape rolled for the back of the leaves to stick them in place. Once you have the leaves the way you want insert the page into the frame and hang or set in your house. Let your child pick which leaves should be dried and they can also help arrange them on the paper for the frame. Your child will be excited when you hang up their leaf art.