7QT Friday- Bits and Pieces

Another Friday (or as I keep seeing all over social media FriYAY!) is here. 

1. Vacation Box- PARIS, France

You may recall that we found a neat way to involve the girls more actively in the works of mercy by making a vacation box to Hawaii for a couple near and dear to our hearts.  It was such a fun project and such a neat way to spread love to others, that we have completed another vacation box.  This one for a dear woman whom we decided would enjoy a trip abroad to the lovely, fashionable, and romantic city of Paris.  

The trip took her to Paris where she "visited" the church of the Miraculous Medal, Sacre Coeur, and even attended a ballet while enjoyign some French cookies of course and learning a wee bit of the French language.  

The girls also arranged for her to "journey to" the Arc de Triumph, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and they designed 3 very fashionable ensembles for her to wear on her trip.  And of course some macaroons.  One could have much more fun with the food aspect of a "vacation box" if you live near to the recipient, but we've had to make ours somewhat simple in that regard because our recipients live out of town.  

And a note to explain a little and just because.  :)

We already picked our next recipient and decided we'll be taking her on a trip to the Swiss Alps.  Stay tuned...and share ideas if you send a vacation box to someone you love.  :)

2.  Due Date

Today is Kolbe's due date.  It's so weird to say because he's been with us for a whole TWO weeks.  But this is technically the day that he was "due" to make his way into the world.  He chose a pretty awesome day to surprise us though (Mother Teresa's birthday). 

Happy two weeks, Little Man!  

3. Library trip

One of the first outings I ventured out of the house with 5 littles in tow for was a trip to the library to refill our bag with fresh titles.  The effort to make the trip was well worth the quiet and peace that comes for several days after a trip to the library.  We have many little "readers" in this house for which I am very grateful.  

I found these two like this just a couple days ago.  My heart melted.  Not even kidding.  

4.  Chapel Veils

My sister in law, also Laura, makes custom chapel veils and has just started up a shop on Etsy.  Check out her work and grab a veil for yourself, a loved one, or even your child making their first communion.  She has done some lovely work and she can work with you to make your veil (or a gifted veil) just what you want.  

(picture used with permission)

5. Little Bro

In case you were wondering the girls are still completely in love with their little brother and they ask me constantly often if they can hold him.  

 

Daddy loves his snuggles with Kolbe too when he returns from work.  

6. First Day of School pictures

We started nearly two weeks ago at this point, but it's been busy around here, so I haven't got all these cute shots up on the blog yet.  Enjoy. 

This one cracks me up.  I told them to squish closer together.  Sophie wasn't enthused about the idea.

7.  School

It's been a breeze so far.  Kayla has been so responsible and comes and takes care of her school work almost on her own each morning.  She reads like crazy in the afternoons and is gearing up for her first ever book report.  Elise (and Ava too) are working with me each morning and are doing a great job with letter sounds and numbers currently.  We are having a lot of fun and can't wait for lots more throughout this school year.  There have been some tantrums some days too, but that's to be expected.  I'd want to play all day too....

How was your week, friends?  

Link up with Kelly from This Ain't the Lyceum with your 7 Quicktakes for the week.  

Pinterest Project: Grill Time

I met Bobbi at a Catholic women's blogging conference in April, and I just discovered that she has a Pinterest Party link-up similar to an idea that I used to do every once in awhile here on my blog (no link-up) where I'd try things I pinned on Pinterest just to make sure that I actually used some of the amazing ideas I was pinning.  

This week at Sprouts, cilantro was 3 bunches for $1, so I grabbed some and went looking through recipes on Pinterest to find recipes that used cilantro.  First I found this pin for a Thai Cilantro Grilled Chicken that I'd pinned long ago. Here's the link straight to the recipe/website. 

I have tried the chicken recipe before and it was good, but I felt like it needed a sauce the last time we made it, so since we had a bunch of cilantro and strawberries were also on sale at Sprouts this week, I searched for a cilantro/strawberry salsa to top the chicken.  I found this pin. With the pin, it gives a very simple "Strawberries, avocado, red onion, cilantro, fresh squeezed lime or lemon juice, with salt and pepper to taste!" description, which I used to whip up my own quick concoction.  I never even opened the actual recipe, just chopped up avocado, strawberries, and cilantro (no onions) and squeezed half a lime into it with a dash of salt and pepper.  It was delicious and perfect with the chicken.  (Note* click here for the actual recipe which actually has more than that description noted. It's probably very delicious too, but I can't attest to that since I did not actually follow the directions).

Cilantro Thai grilled chicken with a strawberry avocado salsa. 

Served with zucchini and grapes. 

I also checked out this tactile pin that I had pinned awhile back this week.  E is really touchy feel-y, so I thought it would be the perfect way for her to work a bit more on her number recognition.  Straight to website here. I just used Elmer's glue and markers for mine.  The girls love them!  

What great finds have you pinned on Pinterest lately? 

 Join the link-up herewith yours or just add some fun links in the comments.  

Letter "S" projects

We have been busy bees this summer doing all sorts of things-but it has slowed our progress on our alphabet book.  We started letter S with Saint Sebastian sometime in June I believe, and we've only just finished the last of our "S" projects to finish this letter off and make way for letter "T".

1. Sun and Stars in the Sky

The girls had lots of fun with this one.  First step was working on coloring skills.  They grabbed all sorts of blue hued crayons to cover the page in blue sky. We added a little purple to the side that will be "nighttime".  For the older kiddo, you can have them cut out the rectangles for the sun and stars and the circle for the sun.  Then they go to town gluing their sun and stars on the page. 

2. A Snowman in Summer!

 

Cut out some shapes, draw an outline of a sandy beach area and some water and sky.  Like the last project, there is lots of coloring to start and then glue on the different shapes and pieces.  The girls drew crayon sunshines in case you weren't sure it was, in fact, SUMMER!  :)  This project was (or course) a hit because it has Olaf.  Who doesn't love Olaf?  Now, do YOU want to build a snowman?

3. Tissue Paper Snake

Draw the outline on the paper, let them tear up tissue paper and glue.  Easy and cute.  My 3 year old sort-of covered the snake's eyes, but it gives it the appearance of being even more sneaky don't you think?

4. Saxophone

 

I cut out the s-shaped saxophones and the girls glued them on the paper.  Next we read a library book about music and musicians and we paid special attention to the page with the saxophone player.  The 3 year old isn't really drawing people yet, so my 5 year old totally did that part for her.  But drawing people is a great skill for the kids to practice as they grow and develop.  It's rather neat to see all the details she puts in.

5. Toilet paper roll Sunflowers

 

Use toilet paper rolls (squeeze the edges to make the petal shape instead of a circle) to stamp yellow "petals" around a painted black circle.  Use a paintbrush to fill in the petals with color and also to add a stem and some leaves.  

5 year old

She needed no assistance other than verbal direction

3 year old

She needed assistance with each step and had a hard time stamping the petals in a circle around the black circle she painted.  I helped with that step and then directed her to paint yellow inside the petals and add a stem, which she did on her own for a neat 3 year old finished product.  

1 year old

I started out a black circle for her and she took the brush and added flare.  I had to do the actual stamping of the petals for the flower, though she did enjoy stamping all around the page on her own.  I tried having her paint in the petals, but she mostly just added more yellow to the page in various places and when I gave her the green, she did the same.  Very abstract, but still quite cool, I thought, and she got to have fun with paint.  

Letter Q projects

1. Queen of heaven pictures

The easiest thing to do if you have a printer at home is find free printables of Mama Mary.  In the Bible it talks about "a woman clothed with the sun, with a crown of twelve stars" so we made Mary a crown of twelve stars using glitter glue. If you prefer, you could make her a crown of flowers or one with jewels.

     

2. Queen crowns

We made simple crowns with paper.  Color and add stickers/glitter before you attach the two ends together. 

     

 

3. Paper Quilts

Just cut out squares using different patterned and colored paper and let the kids make a patchwork, paper quilt.  You could work on patterns if you wanted to and use triangles instead of squares for more detail, but I just let them make their own design for our alphabet book project.

4. Quail Mosaic picture

I made a simple outline of a quail and cut it into a few pieces.  You could just leave it as one if you prefer.  The girls used the left over green scraps from our St. Patrick's Day Shamrock mosaic to make some grass for our quails to walk on.  Then they glued on the quail and added brown paper and felt (you could just do paper) to make it look like the picture of the California quail I showed them. 

 

 

     

   

Have some fun with letter Q!