In the past I’ve written about activities such as using scissors and winding bobbins that help build hand strength and dexterity in young children, an essential first step towards learning to write. Playing with stencils is another such activity, one that our three year old adores.

We picked this set of kid stencils up from our local resale shop — thrift store score!

Simple good fun with an educational purpose, an everyday learning activity!

A simple, fun decoupage project for a spring celebration or Easter craft. You could also use this technique to cover balls with blue and green tissue paper for a fun Earth Day project.

We covered these paper mache eggs with watered down glue and colorful tissue paper.

After we glued the tissue paper on the egg, we painted over the tissue paper layer with more watered down glue to smooth out the layer of paper and ensure that is was properly adhered.

The toddler wants me to add that “we got our hands all covered with stuff… with red tissue paper!” Translation: the color from the tissue paper may bleed all over your fingertips. This only happened with the red and pink tissue paper; the blue and green tissue paper didn’t bleed on us, so different brands and different colors may make a difference.

Our eggs, shown below while they were drying, have a matte finish. I may apply a coat of glossy mod podge to create a sheen, but for now we are enjoying them.

To no one’s surprise, both of these decoupage paper mache eggs have made their way into the play kitchen.

For more information about decoupage, see our Picture Frame Decoupage Project post.

We’ve been gardening! And by gardening I mean we’ve been weeding, weeding and weeding some more… yes, I know, we’ll be weeding ALL SUMMER LONG. It’s one of those perpetual cycles, like laundry or dishes, that can really bring you down. The good news is that 1) I get to work outside and the weather truly is gorgeous here in Sonoma County, and 2) I have a wonderful little helper to keep me company.

If only I could get her to clean up her garden tools. Ahem.

The Little Miss and I have started planning out and planting our front yard victory garden. Almost all of our perennial plants have resurfaced, so we’re focusing on cleaning up those beds and making room for our vegetables.

Last year we planted potatoes, chard, carrots and lettuce in the front yard:

This year we’re shaking things up, rotating the location of our crops, and planting peas, (keeping the same) chard, and tomatoes:

Last year the raised bed contained tomatoes, zucchini, herbs and strawberries:

This year we’re devoting the bed to strawberries, with a few leftover pea plants (that we couldn’t find another spot for) and some (yet to be planted) herbs:

Tonight the temperature is supposed to drop to freezing, so I’ve laid out our frost blanket. We’ll see if the crops survive! We’re all about the garden drama here in the wilds of Northern California.

For the several weeks I’ve been slowly sewing up a felt salad of mixed greens and baby spinach to add to our play kitchen.

First I traced the leaves (pulled straight from our garden/fridge!), then I matched the colors of the leaves to felt and found embroidery thread to match the leaf veins. I cut out the templates, cut the felt, and sewed up the veins.

I made baby spinach leaves:

Mesclun salad mix:

Felt mushrooms to match:

I sewed two pieces of felt together where you see the brown ridges, then we felt glued the rest of the mushroom together.

She may not be that interested in eating a real mixed greens salad yet, but she’s playing with her felt salad every day.

I figure we’re one step closer to the enjoying real thing and, for now, I’ll take it!

We’ve been abruptly catapulted from rainy Northern California winter weather into full-on 70 degree summer mode.

With a break from the rain, we head out into the yard, pull weeds, plant seeds. We tend the garden and watch it almost instantly respond. The perrenials, after being nourished by four months of rain, during which time they sent roots deep into the ground, show themselves and grow, grow, grow.

The bright California sun shines down. We put on sunscreen, deck out in hats, capris and fancy sunglasses. We seek out shade (at the playground, the farmers market) and wind (at the beach) to cool ourselves.

We go for scooter rides every single day.

We savor every moment outside and try to remember it’s only the beginning of April. I hold my breath as I wait for the rains to return. This week? Next week? The week after? The dry summer isn’t really here already, is it? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, we’re making the most of it.

I like to begin the week with a clean kitchen.

Every week I try to keep the kitchen like this but, alas, I find the task to be impossible.

So instead I start my week off enjoying this temporary sense of calm, reminding myself that the kitchen will stay like this for only few hours (minutes?!) before the dishes begin to accumulate and the clutter piles up. I try to take a deep breath and enjoy the moment.

Of course, the kitchen isn’t really clutter-free. There’s always this giant pile of things I need to attend to TODAY… but we can turn a blind eye on that corner and just focus on the cooking space.

Clean. Sparse.

Ready to mess up!

Time to get cooking…

In an attempt to make our daughter’s new room more light and airy, we swapped out the dark brown, light-blocking curtain on the east facing window and replaced it with the same curtain material as her bed canopy.

That simple switch has let so much more light into her room during the day. (We keep that window shade closed during the day because the view goes right to the neighbors.)

The old brown curtain was so drab! We still have two brown light-blocking curtains in her room, but we typically keep them open during the day and close them just at night. That south facing window is the one with the view.

We’ve also been hanging more artwork: a nerdy number poster (by the same illustrator who made the oversized alphabet poster hanging over the desk) and the embroidered portrait I made. We have more artwork that’s currently in-progress to hang up and share with you soon.

It’s starting to really look like a little girl’s room up there. She loves it!