Halloween

This was our first Halloween that we happened to be in Raleigh. We went to E-man and Amy's and went trick-or-treating with their son AJ. AJ was spiderman and Grace was a snowman.

I did make her costume. The red tights, boots, and scarf we already had. All I had to do was stitch some felt black circles on a plain white long sleeve shirt, make a tutu, and make her hat/headband. I was really proud of myself! :)

A is for Artwork

Grace has been working on the letter A at school and at home. Can you tell?

Wedding Guest Bags

Back in June a friend got married. Together with some other ladies we put together these bags for out of town guests and the bridal party.

The bags consisted of different brochures of information about the area and some of the bride and grooms favorite snacks.

Starfish Bags were purchased from Jennifers Cookies on Etsy.

Infinity Love Knot Wish Bracelets were purchased from Made by Dina on Etsy.

Have you ever made out of town wedding favor bags before? What's your favorite thing to include in them?

Kiwi Crate: Lightening Bugs

Each month Grace gets a package on our door step! It's called a Kiwi Crate and there are two crafts / activities inside of the box for her to complete. In this particular kiwi crate one of the activities was to make a lightening bug!

It had everything, even glow sticks that we got to put inside of the bottle!

We had a lot of fun with it once it got dark! We went out on the porch and "flew" it around. There is a very long string that threds through the straw on the lightening bugs back. Grace would hold one end and I'd hold the other and we'd let the bug "fly" back and forth between the two of us! Thanks Annana for such a fun gift!

Kiwi Crate: Gardening

Annana gave Grace something called a Kiwi Crate for her birthday. Basically its crafts and activities that are delivered to your door once a month. Our first crate is a gardening crate. It came with two projects. A window garden project and a designing flower pots project. So far we've planted squash seeds and bean seeds in our window garden.

Painting

Fun with Finger Painting!

Wine and Design at Pocosin Arts

Wine and Design seems to be a big hit that is sweeping across atleast NC. Our local arts program, Pocosin Arts, hosted a Wine and Design but instead of painting on canvas like the one I've done before, we painted a silk scarf. So much fun!

My almost final project:

I did fill in the rest of the white area with navy blue. :)

Playdate

Scott spent one February, Saturday morning working at his office in Raleigh and needed one of his employees to work with him so her daughter spent the day with Grace and I. We started off the day downtown at the Marbles IMAX theater and saw Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2. After the show they put together a Barbie Bash that consisted of different stations where the kids could do mermaid / surfer crafts and activities.

Grace making a surfboard:


A balance activity:


Making necklaces like the one Barbie wore in the movie.



After the Barbie Bash we went over to the Museum. The girls even got to play in the outside area because the weather was so gorgeous!



The Splash! exhibit has a fun water feature at The Lighthouse, but you have to be prepared to get wet. Here children can test what floats and what sinks. Its a good thing they have aprons and hand-dryers!



Upstairs in the museum is the Ideaworks exhibit. The girls had a blast here in the "GoZone" building their own cars and racing them down the track.





There is another exhibit upstairs of the museum called Moneypalooza. This area is available to teach the importance of saving and smart spending.



I thought our morning at the museum would cover the time Scott needed to get some things done but I soon had to find more things for us girls to do. We ventured to McDonald's for lunch and some fun in the play area there, then I treated the girls to having their fingers painted. No full out manicures, just simple finger painting. Grace has never had her fingernails painted so this was definitely a first for her.





We had so much fun with Alyssa and the girls played so well together!

Wine & Design

Need a fun night out? Girls night or date night? Check out  Wine and Design! If you click the link, there is a video on the home page of their website that's really cool to watch and gives you an idea of what Wine and Design is all about. There are quite a few Wine and Design locations, so if you're in the NC area, I'd highly recommend taking a trip to check one of these out!

My friend Julia arranged a private party with her friends and friends of her friends. When you have a private party you can choose which painting your group prefers to paint rather than having to paint whichever piece of artwork is on the calendar for that night. Julia arranged a date that worked for the majority of girls as well as tallied up votes on which painting everyone preferred to paint. The hydrangea painting won.

Not quite complete:


Julia & I:


Me, Laura, & Julia:


Haley came with me:


Hard at work:


My final product:


I'm always amazed at how different everyone's paintings look:


Such a fun night! This is the second Wine and Design I've done. This one was at their Raleigh location. The first one I did was at their Wake Forest location and we painted a red lilly.



Seriously, I have no painting ability in my body. I can't even paint a wall one solid color, but this is SO much fun! When I brought my red lilly painting home Scott didn't believe that I'd actually painted it myself. :)