Let the party preparations begin! We've been busy crafting to prepare for Nathaniel's upcoming Snowman birthday party.  We made special homemade play doh - white with blue and silver glitter in it...Presto - Snow Doh!

This is the container - with Nathaniel's picture- for his Snow Doh creation!

At the party - the kids will decorate these mittens with fabric paint.  I created name plates with Shrinky-Dinks and sewed them on.  We will read Jan Brett's The Mitten before this craft!

The gift sacks for take home goodies. Nathaniel helped make these too!

See separate page for Nathaniel's birthday celebration

Nathaniel playing outside at preschool.

Annabelle performing in the school musical.

Annabelle at the mike for her speaking part.

Annabelle singing her part in an ensemble group.

Valentine's Day...Nathaniel's class party.  That's him with his back to the camera.

Annabelle's class party.  I did 2 games for it...this one is simply "Guess how many kisses in the jar".

The other game was a hoot - the kids raced to eat licorice strings without using their hands.  I had so much fun watching!

Annabelle making heart shaped pillows.

We made a special Valentine supper: hear shaped pink pancakes, steamed veggies with heart shaped carrots and strawberries!

Annabelle with our love flowers.  The petals are hearts filled with reasons we love each other.

A dinosaur presentation at Nathaniel's preschool provided by the Minnesota Science Museum.

2/19/06...We spent this Sunday museum hopping in St. Paul.  First we visited the Minnesota Children's Museum.  Annabelle is pictured here at the Berenstein Bears traveling exhibit.

Annabelle painting her face...

Nathaniel loved this exhibit - he got to operate a giant claw to load foam timbers onto this big rig.  Here he is at the controls...

...and here is the big rig.

Playing at the Waterworks station 

Annabelle and Nathaniel playing at the grocery store.

and climbing the anthills.

Annabelle with the traveling exhibit "Jump into Japan", which featured Japanese animation.

On to the Minnesota History Center.  Here they are at an amazing exhibit that showcased a St. Paul house through its 200 year history as a single family home to a run down duplex.  They recreated the house inside the museum and each room depicted a different era. 

Making cars in the transportation gallery at the History Center.

Making horsepower at the history center

and making some music.

Annabelle with the Rainbow jello we made for her book club meeting.  It was all about "Dorothy of OZ" a book in the OZ series (this one penned by Roger Baum, great grandson to Frank Baum).

The girls enjoying the jello a the meeting.

The girls crafted a 3-D model of one of the settings of the book - Candy County.  They used old candy and items salvaged from my recycle bin to craft it.

The finished project.

Nathaniel at pajama day at preschool.

Nathaniel with his good friend Claire.

More Pajama Day...

2/27/06...Annabelle was off school today so we celebrated Monday morning with a breakfast picnic upstairs.

Annabelle and Nathaniel had a stuffed animal decorating contest.  They spent the morning embellishing the critters with finds from Annabelle's hair and jewelry collection.

This duo won top prize for with a "Native American" theme.