Maeve has started to draw people and kids drawing people may be one of my most favorite milestones! So, I was really excited for this art project - drawing faces on pumpkins. I had previously water colored the pumpkin shapes and then I gave the kiddos black pens and encouraged them to draw all sorts of emotions on their pumpkins. I was so satisfied with the end result!

Pulling out all my crafty skills for my kiddos! When Holly and Greta were little, I did crafts with them all the time. Now I'm busier (to put it mildly) and crafts are infrequent, but everyone sure loves it when I pull out the fun arts and crafts supplies! This past week, we painted little pumpkins and made pipe cleaner and bead pumpkins. Simple, yet effective!

Later this week, we leave for Oaxaca, Mexico and we will be there for a month! We're pretty excited and feeling pretty lucky that we have this opportunity. Homeschool perks for sure! We booked this trip only about 2 months ago and haven't had as much time to prepare for it as we did for Ecuador. After Christmas, I borrowed a bunch of books about Mexico from the library, and we did a bunch of cactus art. The art was so much fun, but my kiddos may be sick of cacti! We made cacti with white glue dyed black, watercolor paint and tissue paper flowers. We made cacti cut from construction paper and drew the prickles on with permanent marker. We made cacti with hand prints and used our fingers to make the flowers (Maeve did this one too!). And lastly, we made cacti with shaving cream and food dye swirled together and then pressed on watercolor paper. The shaving cream one was the favorite, but the black glue one was a close second! I love all this wonderful, vibrant cactus art hanging up at the back table! I can't wait to go to the Botanical Gardens in Oaxaca and see all the plants! We read a couple of great books about the Saguaro Cactus, and while I'm not sure we will see any in person, they are so fascinating! 

We're in the flurry of packing and getting ready for this trip. All the nerves and butterflies and worries about the flight are setting in. We're all pretty excited! One month is going to fly by! 

Maeve was very interested in playing the shaving cream and was pleased to swirl some around on a tray herself, but she doesn't like getting anything on her hands such as shaving cream. Crumbs and yogurt are also included in the list of things she doesn't like on her hands!

Here are the links to the different cactus art projects:
Black Glue Cactus
3D Paper Cactus
Handprint Cactus
Shaving Cream Cactus

Holly and Greta had so much fun sewing up these felt ornaments. We used this template (printed at 120%). I can imagine us sewing up these ornaments again next year too! 

The girls and I made art aprons together. Holly and Greta helped with a little of the sewing on these aprons. Teaching these kiddos to sew takes a lot of patience! These aprons were worth it, they are so cute! Holly and Greta both wanted to add pockets and so we did. I hope they chose to remember the good parts of my motherhood and not the impatient ones!