Intrepid Murmurings

After last year's successful joint project making handmade wooden people for the girls for Christmas, Lonnie and I knew we wanted to make more gifts this year.  One simple idea we grabbed from Teacher Tom's Blog: Tree Blocks.  

   

I had watched with interest Teacher Tom's various explorations with "tree parts", including this stacking one on pegs, that looks super cool but didn't go over as well with his preschoolers as he had expected.  I've always longed for these wooden tree blocks you can purchase, but spending money on simple cut, sanded wood seems a bit much, especially given our wealth of regular blocks! 

So, after showing Lonnie some pictures, he grabbed some wood (cherry from a tree we cut down years ago, rock maple and mystery wood from my parents place) and started sawing.  He used a Japanese-style pull saw for the little ones and an old-fashioned bow saw for the larger ones (yes, he's a tool geek as well as a computer geek).   He made a wide range of sizes, from small ones fit in your hand to big chunks of log for larger construction. Free is a very good price!

I have seen them treated with a wax finish to seal them up and make a nice shine (which is tempting! I am a sucker for beeswax!) but we opted for au natural.  Some have cracked a bit as they have dried indoors, but nothing that compromises the fun.  

I figured we'd have the most luck with blocks that were mostly playable freeform, combined with animals, people, and dolls  -- what our girls gravitate towards most often.  I hoped (and was correct) that they would pair well with some of the other things we were making for the girls, too -- tie dyed play-silks and little handmade fairy dolls (more coming soon on those!).  

 
 
  
I will admit to being the one to build this one, not the kids!  Though Elsie had a fun time playing with it and dropping things into the "hammock"...

So far (as I expected, given Teacher Tom's results) the tree blocks have been greeted with curiosity and some independent play, but are not something the girls take out and really get into on their own.  If I start setting them up or playing around with them, they do jump in and play with them too!  I think the larger ones are a bit big and heavy for them to manipulate easily, at least indoors (looking forward to taking them outside when the spring and summer).  When they are up on the play table and pushed down for a crash, for example, it's kinda scary -- these are heavy logs falling!  I've had to make a few rules about not crashing them when others are there, or how to crash them without injuring themselves in the process.  With the smaller pieces, I'm not worried, though!  

We have some plans to drill some holes in the sides of the larger blocks so the girls can poke things into them for "decoration" or to create fancier fairy homes -- things like pegs (perhaps to create tents or platforms for the fairy houses), feathers, glittery leaves and flowers (from the craft store floral aisle), and the like.  I have a feeling this will add some instant intrigue for them....stay tuned for pics when we finally get around to it! 

When I was trying to think up some new and interesting activity bags recently, I remembered a couple posts I had seen about shower curtain playmats.  They are so cool!  I first heard about them through Jen (I think?), who had linked over to Filth Wizardry's excellent how-to post about this.  I still have yet to actually do it for my girls, since the activity bags were for other people this time, but I am definitely still planning to! 

Part of the intrigue of course is the HUGE size, but for the sake of activity bags I cut them down to about 2' by 2'.   Not quite the same, but still fun and a lot more portable.  I bought an "eco-friendly" PVC-free shower curtain (at Fred Meyers, for PNW-ers) because I'm nervous about the offgassy regular ones. It was  a couple bucks more but still really cheap!  Then you take some permanent markers and have at it!  

Here is my first playmat.  I copied the idea from Filth Wizardry for the road-making tool -- taping two markers to a larger marker (for the larger ones I think she used a juice bottle).  I taped the edges when I was drawing to keep it from moving around.  It was a little nerve-wracking just jumping in freehand, especially since I was giving these away and not just keeping it for myself!  Sorry the images are not great -- I don't know how to take good pics of this kind of thing!

Playmat number two was a bit more detailed:  

Once you are done (or while you are working, ha ha) the kids can color the playmat with crayons or permanent markers.  We'll be sticking the the crayons here, unless the babies are in bed!  In the activity bags I added a couple matchbox type cars (though what I really wanted were some even smaller ones), some free people that I got from a toystore giveaway thing, and some little plastic animals.  

My kids were really interested in it and Emma helped a lot with ideas for the second one, but we have no action shots yet, since these were both packed up for other people. I'll post pictures of ours when we finally do it here, which will be soon because Emma keeps asking about it!    

Hey, I am a guest blogger today over at The Foster Family blog -- go check it out!  Thanks Jennifer!!!  Its a how-to post on pasta dyeing for sorting and beading.  Stay tuned for a post about a bunch of other ideas for Toddler Activity Bags -- I'll try to have it up this morning!  

Hey, things have been busy this week and I haven't had time or energy to blog.  Whoops!  Since being home from Vancouver (I promise, more pics are on the way) I've been under a deadline for creating some toddler activity bags for an auction and a friend in need.  Its a crafty thing, and fun to do, but I am finding that adding "extra" things to my regular routine is kind of rough!  

When I first started out figuring out how to juggle two and a half month twins and a toddler all day on my own, just getting through the day with my sanity in tact (and all kids fed and changed) was the goal (and NOT always accomplished).  Soon I included that plus decent naps for all. Then, I added keeping up with laundry and daily dishes to the mix.  For a long time, that was it, and it was more than enough!   It has made sense to just gradually add more, once the current routine is working and the kids are a little more self sufficient, able to play on their own, I am a little more rested (ha!), so thats what I've been doing.  

Shopping and cooking weeknight dinners came next (before that Lonnie would cook when he got home) and that was a big thing to tackle, but now feels totally manageable most of the time.   Eventually, I started adding things like organizing and cleaning up toys daily, and tackling housecleaning on my own (until then we had housecleaners come twice a month, which was AWESOME).  I am still working on that one, and sure do miss the cleaners, but the savings is so worth it for us right now.  I feel like I need to come up with a more organized way to tackle housecleaning, but for now its a do whatever is grossing me out today kind of thing.  At some point along the way, I also added outings for me and the kids (at least two or so a week, ideally exercise related) which we all need and enjoy.  

Now, though, I feel like I should be stepping up my game slightly, in order to get some projects done.  Some that really NEED doing, like organizing and purging our stuff, doing some home maintenance stuff or decorating, or possibly, creative projects!  I feel like photography and blogging are definitely creative projects for me now, but they are also a time suck that doesn't always make me feel like I've accomplished much.   

So this week, I've been doing this project for the auction and its been fun!  And I think I will actually get it done without too much stress by tomorrow, too.  But I am not keeping up with everything else (note MOUNTAIN of full laundry baskets sitting in my living room), and am really tired!   I think I need to streamline some things and maybe see if I can get these babies sleeping better at night so I have the energy to get to what I want to do during the day.

I keep imagining how things will be in a year or two, with kids who are (hopefully?) potty trained, maybe able to get their own snacks, able to get their own toys and play independently for longer and longer chunks of time, kids who sleep through the night.  Heaven!  Not that am I am wishing away the baby stage, either!  These are fun ages in many other respects, thats for sure!