Mama's Monkeys

While I write this, my 3 monkeys are asleep in the back seat :)

of my husbands truck because my mommy van is dead on my carport :(

but hey, it could worse, 2 years ago I had no carport and dreamed of the day I could get the groceries in the house on a rainy day without taking a shower outside.

These are the newest outfits I've made, and I am just in love with the Moda sock monkeys! Notice I bought the same print in flannel this week too. I'm putting together a pattern for turning a tank top into a dress like this. It's very easy and quick to do. It uses elastic to get a nice fit around the chest and still let's it be super comfy for playing or dressing up with bows, flowers, sashes, or whatever else you come up with.

I'm glad I got these pics when we I did because soon after, the girls were making these works of art at a friends super fun "half birthday" party. The snap-on flowers worked great because I could snap them off and they didn't get too painty.

I thought the half-birthday was a neat idea for kids whose real birthdays are in the dead of winter and can't play outdoors.

Have you ever done a party like this?

Every little girls' dream

We have a new neighbor across the street, and she had a big tree right next to the power line that needed cutting. So, the power company came out to cut it a little while back and they turned off our power during prime morning play-time without any warning. So, after we observed out the front door and window for a little while, I pulled out my stash of cardboard to entertain the crew of 3 little girls.

I encouraged them to stand the toilet paper rolls on end in the open top box to make it look like a castle. We arrange them all and then add craft glue to hold it all together. TwinA wants to add the castle door and explains where I should put it. We let it dry for a while and then work on the decorations. We start by making the turretts and flags out of pink typing paper. Each girl decorated their own flag with crayons and then I taped them onto a toothpick and dropped it into the hole in the top of the turrett because that is where twinA said they belonged. The last one I tapped to a roll in the back. They glued on Cheerios, which kept sliding down, and also stuck on heart stickers. Lastly, they wanted a princess to go inside, so I drew a prince and princess on paper and folded it so it could stand up inside. It took at least an hour to complete and kept us busy during our power outage. It could have been more extravagant, but the girls ages 3, 3, and 21 months did it themselves and loved it! I'm saving rolls and boxes again, so who knows what we"ll come up with next.

Our castle included:

• 10 toilet paper rolls
• 1 paper towel roll
• 1 stabilizer roll
• 1 small case box that held canned goods
• 1 cardboard flap cut from a small box
• 1 sheet of pink paper

What have you made using recycled materials?