Cotton Balls!

First you have to go here and check out this picture of the girls. We got all the kids pictures taken at The Red Door Studio, and they posted a picture of Adra and Farrah on their blog (under Sweetness)
Below is a picture of Dax (I already have it in a frame, that is why there is a glare) isn't it just beautiful! What a handsome little guy.

I found an old bag of cotton balls, and decided they would be fun to play with and do crafts with...so that is what we have been doing the last couple of weeks.
First we cooked with them. The girls have their own play kitchen with tons of accessories to go with it, but it is extra fun for them when I let them play with the real stuff.

There was a little fight over the tongs. Adra loved transfering the cotton balls into the pots using the tongs....Farrah noticed how much fun Adra was having, and wanted tongs too (so I gave my salad tongs, which were just as much fun!). This ended up being their favorite cotton ball activity.

These are a bit out of order....these next pictures are from this morning. Farrah woke up this morning and told me that she had a dream about a snowman, so I asked her if she wanted to do another snowman craft, and of course she did. I quickly got all the supplies needed to make cotton ball snowmen.

Farrah did hers all by herself! Adra still needs help with the gluing, but she did a lot of it by herself too!

We added googly eyes (Farrah's favorite!) and the used pom poms for the buttons and nose.

Earlier in the week we decided to paint with cotton balls. I cut out a snowflake for each girl and taped it to a piece a paper. I then gave them a little bowl of white paint and a cotton ball and let them go to town. This craft was really messy, even almost too messy for Adra. It required several cotton balls each, and they started losing interest, but...

they were very excited to see their picture when I lifted off the snowflake.

I printed off this picture of Santa here and we used glue and cotton balls to give him a beard. I was then going to let the girls color him in, but they didn't want to.

All of these were done with one bag of cotton balls (and I still have some left!).....lots of fun for not much money!

Cutting is fun

Farrah cutting some paper. She loves these scissors that cut different patterns.

My mom has been clearing out her upstairs to get it ready to paint, (her upstairs is her craft room). So she has sent a ton of stuff home with me. I had organized a lot of it already and below is a picture of what was left. Mostly pictures and scrapbooking stuff. One day I decided I would tackle it.

Midway through the organizing. I was ready to give up, the kids were starting to get a little whiney. But I couldn't leave it like this.....so I persevered and now it is all neatly (well sort of) organized and placed in it's new homes.


We got to travel to the BC and Hope's house last Saturday to celebrate Sam's first birthday.

Sammy about to attack the cake!

Dax and Josh taking a nap on Papi. (Ok Josh is pretending)

Farrah in a pretty dress Grandma bought for her. We did a mini photo shoot....she just loves getting her picture taken!

Here is a gingerbread matching game that I printed somewhere (I can't find the link now). Farrah especially likes this game, and she is really good at it!

We had some friends come over this week, one has a two year old boy, and the other a nine month old boy....so I dragged out the only boyish toys we have, which are these little Tonka trucks (you really can't see them very well in the picture.) Dax got ahold of one and wouldn't let go....he loved it and played (well chewed) on it all night long!

Dax after his first experience with squash.....he loved it!

We did a little activity one morning using popsicle sticks that I glued previously into shapes (I will post this next time we play it....my camera was momentarily lost). Anyways to continue on with the shapes theme, I cut out a big triangle for a tree and a small rectangle for a trunk. The girls had fun decorating their Christmas trees!

Farrah and I were blog surfing this morning looking for some fun activities that she would want to do. We printed some off, and while I was cutting the pieces out, she had fun cutting too. She kept saying she was my big helper!

Dax just being his cute self!

This is what I was working on. It is a counting game that I found here. Farrah and I played a couple times, and she won both times. I have been trying to work on numbers with her, and this is such a fun way to work on them. She LOVED it!

Santa Claus is coming to Town!

Untitled from Chelsea Childress on Vimeo.

What's for dinner?

The chore chart is working great. Farrah is starting to clean up after herself, without me having to remind her. Farrah has earned two prizes, and Adra has earned one. They are so proud of themselves every time they earn a star. Farrah and Adra both love to vacuum the kitchen now, whenever I get out the sweeper, they ask if they can do it!

We had an interesting lunch yesterday. I found the "recipe" here. Farrah had fun making them. I cut up the a couple hot dogs, and gave the girls some spaghetti, and told them what to do. Adra decided to munch on a piece of hot dog instead.

This is how they turned out. I don't think I could eat them, but the girls enjoyed them. Farrah pulled out all the noodles and ate them first and then ate the hot dogs.

We FINALLY painted our applesauce ornaments. They were so easy to make. Mine were 1/2 cup of cinnamon and 1/2 cup of applesauce. Roll out the dough on wax paper and use cookie cutters (the girls did that part). I let them air dry for 3-4 days.

I love making bread, but have yet to find the "perfect" recipe. When I do I will post it. This was a classic white bread. And it was good, but I know I can find better.


Turned out a little lopsided, but still delicious.

We had Chicken and rice soup for dinner, which paired very well with the bread.

The soup is really easy to make. I got the recipe here, I added a small chopped onion to the chicken before I cooked them. I didn't serve it with the tortillas (I had bread), cheese and sour cream like it suggests. It was delicious!

I am trying to get a little more organized....and here is one of my attempts. Below is a picture of how I had my fabric stored. That tub weighs a lot, and is placed on a shelf above my washer and dryer, so it was very hard for me to get it down.....Joshua was usually needed. Also, I have to empty out the tub usually to find the fabric I need. So I found a solution...

It is kind of hard to see but there are better pictures here. They used these shelves for scrapbook paper, but I modified it to work for my fabric. It uses those storage "blocks" that college kids use a lot (they are from my college days). Using zip ties I "installed" shelves.

Now here is my fabric all organized and easily accessible. Instead of having to take down the entire tub, I can just grab whatever fabric I need. Now if only I had time to do a little sewing! What I love about these shelves too, is that I can expand it if I need it bigger. Click on the picture to make it bigger.

Decorating the tree

We decorated out tree this week. The girls tried to help but the tree was very prickly, so they didn't like it much. We got the cheapest tree at Home Depot, because honestly we liked it the best, and because it was the most prickly (to detour little hands from taking ornaments off the tree!).

decorating the tree from Chelsea Childress on Vimeo.

My sweet girls!

Shortly after we finished decorating the tree, Farrah gave an ornament a little tiny tug while she was looking at it, and the tree fell over! Luckily no one was in its path. We realized that the base that we had was for a 5-7' tree, and our tree was 7.5' tall. So Josh tied the tree up to the window and ran went and bought a bigger base. Now it is very stable. A couple important ornaments bit the dust, but mostly they were just the colored bulbs.

We painted this week, and Adra always decides it is more fun to paint herself then the paper.

We wrote letters to Santa. Joshua wrote Adra's and wrote Farrah's and they told us what to write. (Joshua wrote this using his left hand to make it look like Adra wrote it)

You can't really see but Farrah signed her name on hers.

We fed Dax peas, and although he ate all of them, he made some funny faces.

peas from Chelsea Childress on Vimeo.

The girls and I made jingle bell bracelets using jingle bells and pipe cleaners. Farrah then had to make a necklace and a ring.

My mom bought the girls this package of foam ornaments to decorate. I thought it would be a little hard for Adra, so we tackled this project while she was sleeping. Farrah loved using all the glitter glues! We found it was fun to put glue on one ornament, and then squish it with another ornament, to make a new pattern.

Monday night we went to the Big Tree Plantation where my parents bought a tree for their house.


Dax slept the whole time and stayed nice and cozy warm.

Yesterday we started on the letter D and made ducks. I get ideas for transforming letters into art here.

I made these a couple days ago, using ducks from a book that got destroyed. Being the crazy person I am I ripped the perfectly good ducks off the book before trashing it. The girls love the song "5 little ducks went out one day", so I thought this would be a good visual. It worked perfectly for out "D" day, and the girls loved it. (I do have 5 of them, but the girls got a hold of them and one is still lost"

My smiley boy

Now that the ornaments are dry, Farrah surprisingly really liked threaded the strings through the tiny holes and then I tied them together. She did all 24 of them!

Here is an advent calander that is a work in progress. I started it last year with Suzanne. I would like to add more things to it, plus I need to make more ornaments (I think I only have 16). But I like it a lot. I also have to cut the dowel rod down to size.

I have been trying to get the kids to clean up after themselves. I not too strict about it, but they often find pleasure in going around the house and emptying every bin of toys then can find - this makes me insane! So I made this chore chart for them. The reason Farrah's row is empty is because she had already filled it, and I took the stars off to start again. Every time they pick up after themselves, or put their dishes in the sink after they are done eating they get a star. It is actually working pretty good. Farrah has tried to start cleaning up a set of toys before getting out another. Then at the end of the day we usually only have a few toys scattered throughout the house instead of destruction! Once they reach ten stars they get to pick something from the prize bowl, which contains little jewelry, tattoos and stickers.

At an effort to stay a little more organized with the activities we do, I made this chart up. Nothing is set in stone, and we are flexible, but it helps me get everything I need prepared the night before. Nothing frustrates me more then starting an activity or craft with the girls then having to get up from the table and gather more materials. I have a basket tray that I put everything I need for the day or a particular activity and then I just grab the tray and bring it to the table and I don't have to get up. It has worked pretty good.

Here are some tracing cards that I found here, I printed them out and laminated them. I have only done A-D, because those are the letters we have worked on, and also because my laminator is getting low on paper. Adra just colored them in....

but Farrah did a great job. I want to print out her name, so she can work on that, but I don't know how to do a dot to do font.....any suggestions?

Funny things the girls have said.

Adra told Daddy while he was changing his shirt, "I like your tummy." Strange child.

Adra got a hold of one of my dishwashing soap packets, and here is the conversation Farrah and Adra had:
Farrah, "Adra is that poison"
Adra, "No, its ok."
Farrah, "Ok, lets open it!"

I am sure there are more, but my mind as usual is blank!

Oh, Adra decided on her own this week to potty train herself. She has been having lots of naked days, and has only had one accident since Sunday!