Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to my dear friend Jessie!  She's the best a gal could ask for!

Halloween Skull Garland and Skeleton Costume

I made this crocheted skull garland to decorate for the skeleton-themed birthday party we had at our house last week.  Lucky for us, it also does triple duty as a Day of the Dead and Halloween garland.  Isn't it fun?  It wasn't too difficult, and only took a few evenings to complete - you still have some time to finish yours before Halloween!!  I found the pattern here and attached them together using these basic guidelines.

Here's a quick peek at one of the freezer paper skeleton costumes I made for the boys.  They wore them for their birthday party last week and loved being spooky.  Only A felt like getting his picture taken, but I promise there's another skeleton lurking just outside the frame.  


p.s.  Our fall challenge went oooookaaaaay.  Was that convincing?  It turns out that TV watching is a hard habit to break.  We did decrease our viewing time, but couldn't quite quit.  We're human.  Did anyone else try?  Tell us all about it!

Montessori Birthday Celebration and Fall Challenge

O and A celebrated their third birthdays this week.  In their Montessori classroom they celebrated by holding an earth marble and walking around a candle representing the sun.  The parent or teacher talks about the first year of life, and then the child walks around the sun.  This is repeated for each year that the child has lived.  It is a cosmic and magical representation of the time that the child has spent on the earth.  As they walk, the class sings this song:

The earth goes around the sun, the sun
The earth goes around the sun
It takes 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days

As a teacher, I have led many of these walks around the sun, but none was as emotional for me as O's and A's.  I am so lucky to have two happy, healthy, handsome boys!


p.s.  I am going to take part in Joanna's Fall Challenge this week:  To not watch TV for a week, or at least, cut way back.  Wish us luck, and feel free to join in!