Our littlest superhero.

I was inspired to make Zion a little superhero shirt to play in around the house.  It was super simple and super cheap.  AND she looks super cute.  The only thing that I had to sew was the cape to the shoulders of the shirt. The "s" on the shirt and lightening bolt on the cape are attached using iron on adhesive.  A fun and virtually no sew addition to the dress up bin.

Rocking out, Bijou style

I spent a few hours working on a drawing this evening.  Fortunately, the girls are really good at entertaining themselves.  A little Grooveshark and free reign over their closets and they are happy campers.  As usual, there was lots of singing, dancing and imaginary concerts.  During a short break from drawing, I caught Bijou just hanging out on the couch like this...

Notice the sweet tattoo (They all had them.  Gotta love birthday party goodie bags), vest and black tutu skirt.   There's nothing like being dressed up by your older sisters.

Yeah, I'll admit it...

We LOVE Angry Birds around here.  I mean, we really love it.  I haven't bought any merchandise or anything, but I will play.  A LOT!  And the girls love it too.  I don't mind them playing, but they will veg out in front of the computer forever if I'd let them.  Now I'm not a huge fan of them having tremendous amounts of screen time, so they don't get to play very much.  So, to satisfy their need for destroying questionably stable structures inhabited by pigs, I decided to make them a table top (or floor) version.  Actually, they started building their own Angry Birds games using blocks and dinosaurs and dollhouse people.  So, technically this was their idea.  I just spruced it up for them a little bit.  The pigs are just some little wooden balls that I had in our craft bin and the birds are rubber balls from the dollar store (they came three in a bag).  Total cost for this project?  $1 (plus tax) and about an hour total of painting.   I will post pictures of them playing when the sun comes up.  It's too dark in our house right now for my little point and shoot to get a good picture.  But they are playing happily, I assure you.

And completely off topic, I have been having trouble posting comments to my own blog (probably me doing something wrong), but I always want to respond when you all comment.  Know that I do read and appreciate whenever I get comments!

Cardboard Playhouse Makeover

I don't know if anyone remembers this cardboard playhouse that I made for Bijou and Zion a while back.  While incredibly economical (it cost me next to nothing to make) and easy to move, it did not get used as often as I would have liked.  It get HOT here in Mississippi and playing out in a cardboard house that's been sitting in the heat was no one's idea of a fun afternoon.  So the playhouse got retired to the garage and there it sat for awhile.  I decided that all was not lost for our little playhouse and with some tweaking, it could still be a really awesome toy.  So, I scaled the size down a bit and attached some Velcro (to stand up to rough play a little better) and brought it in the house.  I have this strange obsession with paint chips from the hardware store, so I literally have every singe one that Home Depot has (thanks to a very patient cousin who helped me collect all of them one afternoon).  I used one stack (of many, many) paint chips to cut apart and make "bricks" for the outside of the house.  I also added a little chalkboard (actually just a rectangle of chalkboard spray paint framed with wood grain contact paper) for them the draw or write little messages.  Now it's cheery and colorful and when I want to free up the floor space, I can just take it apart and store it under their bed.

Little Girls' Bedroom Spoiler

The big move hasn't officially happened yet, but redecorating the little girls' room is in full swing. (I will post pictures of the whole room once the bigger girls have moved out) For now, I thought I'd share a few completed projects. The little workbench had been successfully turned into "Little Monkeys' Farm Stand" complete with shopping carts and specials chalk board. If you need to drop off some mail on your way to pick up groceries, there's this little mailbox on the way! Once you've mailed your letters and picked up your groceries, it's time to head home to make dinner (or maybe vacuum or take care of the baby). I am still stocking the kitchen with canned goods and such.

We finally got a bookshelf back in the room (we moved it out last year because Bijou and Zion kept pulling ALL of the books off and throwing them around the room). Now all of the books that have been stored are sorted and shelved. The big girls' books went on the big book shelf in their new room. The little house on top of the book shelf is a super simple little night light that I put together for Bijou (who is afraid of the dark). It's just one of those papier mache houses they sell at Hobby Lobby (about $4) and a battery powered LED touch night light with an adhesive back (about $5). It casts great shafts of light from the windows and door of the little house onto the ceiling and walls of their room at night.

This is the little workbench as it was when we bought it. Notice the curious little one trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing.

A couple of wooden boxes we already had and a plethora of felt food later, they have a cute little market stand.

I painted the black sheep painting for Bijou when she was first born. I think it works well here.

In closet playhouse, complete with vacuum for tidying up!

I didn't really have anything to stock the kitchen pantry, so I saved a couple of cans and glued pictures from magazines to the outside. I just used up some stickers we had in the craft cabinet for the words.

The night light after dark. Looks a little creepy here, but it's not creepy in real life.

And finally, my very sweet little Zion in front of her newly organized bookshelf!

Jena's newest obsession

I know that a few years ago (and still today) there was a HUGE American Girl craze sweeping the country. Fortunately, we lived on an island then and our girls were still pretty little so they A) had never even heard of American Girl and B) were too young to care. Besides, I am not a fan of most dolls because I think they are creepy (that's my secret phobia). On top of the dolls being insanely expensive (to me), they did not resemble any part of my daughters, so we skipped the whole thing. Until recently. A couple of months ago, we came across a doll at Tuesday Morning that Jena fell in love with. She'd saved up some money so we let her get it. It's from a brand called Karito Kids. It's along the same lines as American Girl (they come with a book, and some other things), but each doll is from a different country and actually LOOKS like she would be from that country!! Jena's first doll is named Ling and she is from China. She loves her, but really wanted to get Lulu, the doll from Kenya (which really resembles her). So on our last trip to Tuesday Morning, guess what we found. So, my mom shelled out $30 to bring Lulu home. Now, I still think that these dolls are CRAZY expensive (they retail for $99), but Tuesday Morning is an awesome place to get stuff for a bargain. Of course, now Jena is busy everyday sewing clothes and making furniture for her dolls. Soon, she's going to have to build them a house in the backyard because I don't know where to plans to put all of this stuff.

Fun with playdough

I'd been promising the girls for months that I would get them some playdough when we got the art room together. It took months, but we've finally put our unused laundry room to use as the kids' art room. It has been a VERY welcomed addition to the house. I'm not sure who thinks that carpet is good for a house with children, but we have been blessed/cursed with a lovely house covered in carpet. Because of that, there has been very little paint or playdough used over the last year. So this morning while waiting F-O-R-E-V-E-R for Zion prescription to be filled at Walmart, I decided to finally get the girls some playdough. They played Ace of Cakes and Food Network Challenge (Cake Off) all day (except for when I forced them to do some math and reading). Jena created her own playdough island, complete with waves in the water. I'm sure some day soon I will have pictures of 8 tier wedding cakes draped in flowers.