Another Reindeer Craft

Here’s another reindeer craft we made. The kids traced their hands and cut them out. They also did the same with their shoe. Then we glued them together to make the reindeer. The kids added eyes and a nose.

Reindeer Ornament for Kids

I made these with my preschoolers this week. Aren’t they cute?!

Here are the supplies we used.

I hot-glued three popsicle sticks to make the reindeer head.

The kids picked a glitter glue color and painted it on.

I attached the yarn to the back and then placed on the eyes. The kids picked the nose color.

Older kids would be able to do it all on their own with liquid glue.

Harry Potter Party

It’s been so long since my last post!  Getting married sure kept me busy. But now I have time for my creations once more. My latest baking was for my first get-together at my new house. And what better a theme to have on the premier weekend of The Deathly Hallows Part 1 than Harry Potter!

Follow me through the Hogwarts Express…

And check out all the treats!

We used Cream Soda as the Butterbeer and added a layer of whipped cream on top. It tasted exactly like the real deal from The Wizarding World…Which was our honeymoon destination, haha!

My husband and me!

We even had a Sorting Hat, which was a quiz on our computer. And I made badges!

I made the owls and signs, too.

I love seeing my house full of my friends surrounded by my creations!

Fishing

Fishing was a part of life growing up. My dad never had a little boy, so I filled in as his fishing buddy. I never remember a time of life when I wasn't bating my own hook or taking off the fish. That was one of dad's rules: If you want to fish with it or fish for it, you have to touch it.

My dad bought a little farm with a lake a few years ago, and it's been our fishing get-away since.




My friend, Justin, creates his own flies for fishing! Check it out in his new blog The Great Outdoors.

Puppy Pictures

My family was on our way to Indianapolis to hang out with family for Father's Day.

Here's Mollie trying to be comfortable in the back seat.

That's better!

Here are all the family dogs. Hehehe!

We're all dog people...if you couldn't tell...

Apple Butter

My parents went out of town this weekend, Andy went to a conference, and Mollie and I were left all alone...so we went on a little trip to our new family's house!

My wedding is in September and I've finally pinned down the theme. Elegant Fall Festival. For the wedding favors, I wanted to have jars of apple butter sitting on the tables along with the center pieces. Luckily, my in-laws-to-be both grew up on farms and canned for a living! So we spent all weekend making apple butter and jarring it:)

Look at all our jars! We first cut up two bushels of apples and cooked them on the stove till they were mushy.

We used a ricer to separate the good stuff from the skin. Being the curious person I am, I had to know why the ricer got that name. Andy's dad looked it up and apparently the holes of a ricer are not much bigger than a grain of rice. Interesting!

I then added tons of brown sugar and cinnamon. Unfortunately I cannot tell you how much exactly. We just kept tasting until it tasted right. With a different spoon each time, of course!

We poured the apple butter into jars, placed the lids on top, and put them all in a pressure cooker. It took about 5 rounds of this until we had all the jars finished. Here's how the pressure cooker worked: The jars sat in a bit of water under a lid until the pressure gauge showed 5 pounds. Then we removed a pressure cap and let it sit for five minutes. This sealed the flat part of the lid to the jars. Once the jars cooled, the flat part popped in. So when you hear the pop of a jar when opening it, that's the pressure being released. If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can place the lids in boiling water and then place them on top of the jars. However, the experienced canners felt that the pressure cooker would better ensure the freshness of the apple butter.


I cut out a bunch of circles on adorable fabric that I felt was perfect for the apple butter jars. The lid can screw off since the flat part of the lid is sealed. See, you may have figured that out already, but I went into this knowing absolutely nothing about jars and canning!

And here's our final product!

I think the jars are so cute! And I can't wait to share them with the people at my wedding:)

I love my wedding theme. It gives me an excuse to start fall crafting early:)

Favorite Quotes from Pre-K

My Pre-K kids make me laugh every day. It amazes me how funny little kiddos can be! So here are some of the best quotes of the year. Funny quotes are so common that I forget and they come back to me later. So this will probably not be the last post about this.

At Circle Time - Prior to my engagement:
Kid 1: Why aren't you married, Miss Lyndsay?
Me: I'm still really young.
Kid 2: So you're still a teenager?
Me: No, I'm just a young adult. Younger than your parents.
Kid 1: You're still a teenager if you're not married yet, Miss Lyndsay.
Kid 2: Do you have kids?
Me: No, I'm not married yet.
Kid 3: Uh Oh....
Me: What do you mean, Uh Oh?
Kid 3: (With head down ashamed) You should really have kids, Miss Lyndsay. Yeah, you're defintely still a teenager.

While watching Tarzan
Kid 1: Is Tarzan real?
Me: Well, it's just a cartoon movie.
Kid 1: (With legs crossed like a little lady) I really wish Tarzan was my husband.

At Circle Time. A child saw me at Target the night before with my fiance.
Kid 1: Miss Lyndsay, I saw you with your son last night.
Me: (Laughing like crazy) My son? That was my boyfriend! (My fiance is much taller than me!)
Kid 1: (With head down and face red) (Gasp!) Miss Lyndsay's boyfriend...

She repeated this comment over and over throughout the day, completely surprised she had seen me with him. I don't know why, haha. Kids are just funny about stuff.


I gave my kids a final assessment for Pre-K. One task was to write the ABCs. A certain child was doing really well. Then he stopped at K and looked up...thought about it...then looked at me:
"Miss Lyndsay, I forget how to write an eleminopy."
I must not have done my job! He thought L M N O P was all one letter! I tried so hard to keep a serious face when I said, "That's okay! Just move on to the next one."

An ongoing funny thing: No matter what is going on between parents at home, I hear about it. The most interesting comments to hear are, "Daddy slept out on the couch last night" or "Daddy decided to stay at Grandma's for a few days".

More funnies as I think of them!

My Writing

I found a group of bloggers that write. …This statement sounds kind of ridiculous because that’s what blogging is…But these people write stories.  And I was asked by Mr. Jon to share about my writing.  At first I was intimidated for two reasons.  Number one: I love to write, but I don’t consider myself very good anymore.  It’s funny. College kind of dumbed down my writing.  I look back on what I wrote in Jr. High and High School, and sometimes I’m blown away that it came from my pen!  Or if I only vaguely remember writing it, I google it to see if I copied from someone else.  Which has never happened, but is always a possibility in those “searching for myself” Jr. High days.  In my college Elementary Education program, I feel I was almost discouraged from feeding any creativity into my writing.  Just write the facts.  Although I did try to practice more creative writing when it came to taking standardized writing tests.  If only I had copies of the wild stories I made up just to keep from going insane. (I’m not a fan of standardized tests, even as an educator myself.  So I have banned all standardized testing from my preschool class.) Reason number two for my intimidation was a comment I heard recently.  When asked how he felt about authors like Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling, Stephen King stated, “The difference between Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling is that J.K. Rowling can write.” …I happen to have enjoyed both the Twilight Saga and Harry Potter.  I guess my judgment on writing is based on how much it captivates me when I’m reading.  And only once have I read a series of books where I thought the writer wasn’t as talented as most. However, even with that series, I’ve heard of numerous people really enjoying it.  Anyway, I am not a critical person and wish others weren’t either. 

 

But then tonight happened.  I’m least intimidated and most clear headed when my insomniac tendencies kick in. I became an occasional insomniac in college.  As I’ve grown older, a typical night for me is to fall asleep, wake up a few hours later, and lie wide awake in bed. In college, I’d use this time to study and found that I’m most aware of my thoughts at this time.  There are no distractions. Of course, this was acceptable in college because I could take a nap during the day. But now, if I have too many nights like these, I have a hard time chasing my preschoolers around during the day. I try really hard to fall back asleep during the school year, but summer vacation welcomes my sleepless nights so I can write!

 

Okay.  So here it is.  My writing. Or I guess I should say, a history of my writing.

 

Let’s start at the beginning.

Above you will see my “girnool” from kindergarten and 1st grade.  (My spelling has unfortunately not improved since then…nor my handwriting…)

Early poems…The top I remember writing in church and thinking it was really funny.  This is the first thing I ever remember writing and I felt quite a sense of accomplishment.  The bottom poem does not make sense, but I remember trying to be like Anne of Green Gables.  She spoke a poem in the movie, and I just wanted to sound like her. So I wrote it and walked around my yard reading it like I was Anne.

And finally, you’ll find a riveting tale of having to move seats in class.  Traumatizing, I know!

Throughout the years, I have always been a writer. I’ve always had a HUGE imagination, and I spent so much of my free time in grade school and Jr. High writing stories about being a princess or living on a deserted island. Here is some of my writing from those years:

And then I have the diaries…

Like I said before, college tried to kill my imagination in writing:(  I had an idea dry spell for about six months after college.  Then in a desperate plea, I cried out, “God!  I just want to write!  Please give me something creative and exciting to write about!”  And the result… is in this notebook…(cue choir of angels).

That’s right.  Five Star. This notebook contains a story I’ve been working for about a year now.  It’s details came after my prayer from a lesson I was teaching a third grade class about outer space.  And right then and there, I said aloud, “What if…..!”  And my mind has been planning and plotting ever since.  Most of my hesitation in actually writing too much of it has been who to write it for.  Children? Young Adults?  Older adults?…nah, too boring.  Finally my fiance and biggest supporter said, “Lyndsay, just write it for yourself.  Who cares what others think about it?”

 

Ta da!!!!  Magic!  Andy’s comment made me realize that I need to write like Little Kid Lyndsay again.  When I was growing up, I never cared what anyone else thought about my writing.  And I wrote and wrote and wrote. Maybe adults become scared to write because we care too much about the opinions of others.  When it really doesn’t matter. 

 

Therefore, I hereby create the new genre of Lyndsay.  It’s a genre characterized by fascinating plotlines and love stories that always end happily. Main characters will be a lot like me: enthralled with nature and determined to make the most out of life.  My genre may not be of interest to many others, but it will captivate me as I write it, and I refuse to write anything else! And when Stephen King says it’s terrible, I will laugh in his face and say, “You may have millions of dollars, but I have happiness!”  Hahaha!

That’s all…time to try sleeping.  Pre-K graduation is on Thursday! After that, bring on the sleepless nights!

Here’s Mollie sleeping by my bed.  I couldn’t resist sharing her cuteness.

“Really, Lyndsay?  Did you have to wake me up with the sound of your camera?”

Happy Mother’s Day!

I made this flower bouquet for my mom.

The flowers were really easy to make.  I’ll post a tutorial later:)

Here are the pups basking in the sunshine of this beautiful day!

“Woo hoo!  Something new to eat!”

Happy Mother’s Day!

A Little Bit About Me…

 

This is me in Hawaii on a trip I took last summer BY MYSELF…I flew by myself, went on a LOST tour by myself, spent most of my time reading on the beach by myself…

Don’t I seem so adventurous?  So independent?  Don’t I seem like such a perfect example of a young girl out of college ready to see the world???

Actually, these words do not describe me at all.  If I learned one thing in Hawaii, it was this: I’m not as independent as I’d like to appear.  I like the idea of being that heroic independent female in the books that I read…but that’s not me.  If I’m going to save the day, I want a friend to help me.  If I’m going to fly to Hawaii (which scares me to death!) I want the person next to me to be my best friend! …If I learned another thing in Hawaii, it was this: I’m in love with the Midwest.  I love living where the trees change in the fall, where it snows, where it gets super hot in the summer and makes my curly hair huge with humidity.  I love teaching preschool, eating mom’s home-cooked meals each night, and playing with my puppy, Mollie.

This is Mollie…so cute!

And now, almost a year later, I’m getting married!  I must share my love story soon…I’m excited to have my best friend with me on plane trips now.

 

Yes, life sure is lovely…

P.S. Mollie isn’t so small anymore: