Recent projects with Kayla

Forgive me for this post filled with tons of projects and very little organization. I have been working crazy hours in addition to my normal full-time job of parenting and being a wife, so I have not had time to post some of the projects we've been doing in the last few weeks.

My friend Kate posted a Lenten project that her little family did, and I was inspired. I have seen the project before (probably on Pinterest), but had forgotten it existed. We were totally late as the project is supposed to last the whole Lenten season, but it worked out better this way for us actually. Click here to get a full explanation of the project from my good friend Kate.

The basic idea is to make a crown of thorns and have your child do good deeds. Each time they do something kind, they pull out one of the thorns from Jesus' crown until, at Easter, it is a true crown for the King of Glory, our Savior, Jesus Christ. We changed it up by actually making it out of bread dough and then cooking it accordingly. Since our project only lasted from Good Friday-Holy Saturday, we were fine. Kayla really enjoyed pulling out the thorns to make Jesus "feel better". I even made a little crown for Elise, and Kayla helped her pull out thorns when she was a good girl getting her diaper changed and playing nicely with Kayla.

On Holy Saturday we dyed Easter eggs. Kayla was a huge fan of this as well. I had originally only hard-boiled 12 eggs, but she was having so much fun that I cooked another half dozen for her to dye.

We finished up letter G with a project using grapes. I cut grapes in half and let Kayla (and Elise, though she mostly just ate them) stamp them on paper using water dyed with food coloring. We have done variations of this project a lot using various foods. It's a great way to get the kiddos to eat fruits and veggies. Painting with them makes it way more fun to eat them.

We then moved on to letter H, beginning (as always) with our Saint for that letter. St. Helena. She is the mother of the Emperor Constantine who converted to Christianity. She is credited with having found the true cross of Christ in the holy land. Her feast day is August 18 and she is the patroness of new discoveries.

The next two projects sparked from Kayla's imagination. She found some art supplies one morning and asked to make a "hotel". We were on letter 'H' so I said, "sure, why not?" I cut up the supplies, drew a simple hotel and let her glue to her heart's content. After finishing the hotel she wanted to do more so I suggested a house which also starts with 'H'. She had a blast and got nice and sticky doing it.

Last but not least, I helped my grandma with a little project. Her ladies club was having an 'English tea party' and they were supposed to come adorned in a proper hat. I helped her get this flower assortment onto the hat. And I was able to do it without doing permanent damage to the hat, which she wanted to use for a sunhat when she's gardening. She looks very proper and very pretty!

Alright, I believe we are now up to date with projects. I still have a few hours till my next shift and the girls are still asleep....time to make some headway in Persuasian. Borrowed it from the library two weeks ago and am only at Chapter 5....