School Days

First days of school, new teachers, new friends, new shoes, yes that's a tag still on his shoe, and first times away from Mommy make for some very emotional, busy and exciting days. Not much time for blogging or crafting, I'll have some fun stuff here soon.

Just in Time for Labor Day!

Remember these ruffles? Well, my brother-in-law has become a huge fan of the game Cornhole. He got a set for his birthday last spring and the kids always want to play too. The bags are pretty big and heavy for the littlest ones and they're pretty plain and ugly and manish, so I thought his baby girl needed some of her very own.

Okay, the link for Cornhole, I just had to do it. who would think this silly, fun game would have such an official organization? I had no idea so many took it so seriously. Here's the Wikipedia a little more simple and straight forward for those of you who don't know the game.

Basically it's bean bags (or corn filled bags) tossed into a hole. Our kiddie version, frilly cute bean bags in 3 different shapes to be tossed into a wooded board with matching shapes cut out of it.

The game board was designed and constructed by my amazingly talented and creative husband. You get more points if the hole your bag goes into matches the shape of your bag. The kids were supposed to paint it all cute like a silly face, but, as usual, we ran out of time, we'll get to it eventually.

I Love the way it turned out and it was a big hit with the kids at the birthday party. The board is light enough for most of the kids to move around on their own and my little niece really enjoys playing with her bean bags.

Of course I couldn't stop there, no, as I said before every girl, no matter the age, needs bags and she had to have something to keep all her bean bags together so,

I came up with this bitty bag. I was really happy with how quickly and easily it came together, and the finished product is even cuter than I thought it would be.

It made sweet wrapping too, no paper or boxes needed.

Sharing Books

The kids and I met some friends at the park the other day, actually I think it's been like a month or more, time flies, anyway, each of the kids choose a favorite book (or two) to share and after playing on the playground equipment for a good hour or so they actually pulled out their books paired themselves up and read to each other.

Even the little ones who can't actually "read" got into it. It's always fun to see what others are reading and enjoying. So I thought it might be fun to share some of our favorites here. Something like Inchmark's weekly library book, I just love the way Brooke shares some favorite library finds with us. I've always enjoyed browsing the side bars of blogs that list favorite books, but it's so fun to get a sneak peak and hear what she has to say about the books. She always has a bit of background too, which I love. It's nice to head to the library with at least one or two books we know we want to read. So to start with I have a library book that has helped us out a lot lately. Shiver Me Letters A Pirate ABC by June Sobel and illustrated by Henry Cole.

With school just around the corner and #3 heading off to Kindergarten I've been a little worried about how prepared he is. It's been a lot more difficult to get this boy interested in letters and numbers than his big sisters, but boy does he love this book.

All the fun and whimsical pirates,

The treasure hunt for the letters on each page, which is not really too difficult, but I know he's looking at the letters.

And of course, it must be read with a pirate accent, "ARRGG me matey!" So fun. Any suggestions for our next trip to the library?