A Snow Post

November 28, 2014February 14, 2016 | Allison

YAY! Snow in November! And even 4 inches of snow in November! That was enough snow for a lot of fun. We went sledding, made a snowman (and not just your ordinary snowman), and just played around.

Here is the snowman we made – he is 16 feet around! (And yes, we measured.) We proclaimed him a Thanksgiving snowman because of his, well, stoutness from eating too much Thanksgiving dinner. ☺ His arms are tomato stakes, his nose is a corncob, his eyes are made from oreo halves, and his smile is some smooth stones.

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I also got some neat pictures of snowflakes. I zoomed them in a bunch so you can see the shape of the snowflake better. The snowflakes are all in a clump, but I circled some interesting spots in the pictures so you can see the individual snowflakes better.

♥Maggie in the snow♥

♥Diamond by the snow (or else it’s Rutabaga, it’s getting hard to tell them apart)♥

How much snow did you get? What did you do in the snow?

***Allison***

A Gift Made for Destroying!

November 22, 2014November 22, 2014 | Allison

(Sadly, this post does not have pictures, but you can just try to imagine it.) For my brother Jeff’s ninth birthday, the kids got him a bag full of stuff especially for him to demolish. It had 6 rolls of toilet paper, 3 bars of ivory soap, 1 box of tissues, 1 tube of toothpaste, and 1 can of shaving cream in it. He had a lot of fun with it, as you can imagine!

With the toilet paper, we wrapped Jeff and his friend up and they ran around until they broke free of their super-strong bonds (ha ha! ☺). We also wrapped each other to the tree and then broke free, and held the roll of toilet paper on the back of the 4-wheeler while driving it, which made the toilet paper stream out behind.

Jeff and his friend carved two bars of ivory soap (well, actually they cut it up into pieces instead of carving it), and the other one we exploded in the microwave. Have you ever done that? If you haven’t, you absolutely MUST DO IT. All you have to do is get a bar of Ivory soap from the store (I think ones that are the most recently bought are supposed to work best), and put it on a paper towel covered plate, and turn the microwave on for about a minute. If you watch through the window, you can see the soap puffing up into a huge cloud. It has a very interesting texture: even though it looks soft, it’s actually hard and sort of crumbly. (Note: You have to use Ivory soap for this, not just a random brand)

Anyway, back to the gifts. The tissues are just for pulling out because who doesn’t want to do that sort of thing, right?

The toothpaste was really cool. We took it outside and put it on a piece of cardboard (which later proved rather ineffective) and Jeff took off the lid of the tube and stomped on it really hard. The back of the tube burst open and the toothpaste squirted several feet away onto our, he he, porch door – *oops!* (Don’t worry, I wiped it up. Well, at least most of it ☺)

The shaving cream Jeff just squirted out all at once into a plastic tub and we had fun squishing it.

This was a fun and different sort of gift that left no toy behind that we had to try to fit into our stuffed toy cupboards. Do you know someone who would like to get a demolition-gift-package?

***Allison***

Hot Glue Snowflake Window Clings Diy

November 15, 2014November 15, 2014 | Allison

These really look like snowflakes (well, giant, oversized ones) because of the color of hot glue. They are very easy to make and just take a few supplies. Let’s get started!

You will need:

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Hot glue gun (with hot glue)

Parchment paper

Sharpie (optional)

snowflake pattern to trace (optional)

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There are several different ways to do this. You can either

1. Draw a snowflake directly onto the parchment paper (the sharpie lines will show up on the finished snowflake)

2. Print out a simple snowflake drawing from your computer and place it under the parchment paper

3. Just use hot glue to make a snowflake freehand.

What ever way you do it, the basic idea is to make a snowflake by squirting out hot glue onto parchment paper and letting it dry.

Since it is hot glue, it won’t take long to dry (YAY!). If you want, you can sprinkle some glitter over the snowflake before it dries. When you’re sure the hot glue is dry enough, carefully peel it off the parchment paper. You may need to remove those annoying hot glue strings too.

To activate the cling, turn it upside down in the palm of your hand and run it under water. Gently shake the water off, but don’t dry it off. Press the snowflake to a window.

The water helps it stick to begin with, but even when the water dries, the snowflake stays on. You can also make little swirls, dots, and other snowy doodles to go along with your snowflakes.

Make a whole blizzard!

***Allison***

Fall Walks

November 6, 2014February 14, 2016 | Allison

Here are some pictures from recent nature walks around our farm:

I thought this mullein looked pretty with the dewdrops on it.

We saw a lot of gorgeous bluebirds in one spot where we walked. I ♥ bluebirds!

This is sort of a random picture.A little brown moth sitting on a little brown leaf

Spider!

We also found some salamanders under logs and such in the woods.

Awww, isn’t he cute? (Sorry for the not-so-good picture, but I wanted you to see him☺)

We also found good-smelling things, not just good-looking ones. This is pineapple weed and it smells deliciously fruity.

Does anyone know what this is called? I call it peppermint weed because it smells really minty! I know it looks really ugly, but it smells sooo good. I wish I could send you the smell!

Fungus among us!I took this picture laying down in the woods with my camera pointing up. I like the interesting angle on this one.

Which is your favorite picture?

***Allison***

Computer Code Hieroglyphics

October 30, 2014June 5, 2015 | Allison

I’m pretty sure that’s not what they’re technically called, but it sounds neat! Actually, they are sort of hieroglyphs. There are all sorts of signs, symbols, and shapes like these: ☺,♥, and ▲.

Here is the super-easy how to:

1. Press down the “Alt” key on your keyboard (on the computer I’m using, the “Alt” key is just to the left of the spacebar).

2. While still holding down the “Alt” key, type in the number. (Example: if you hold down the “Alt” key while pressing the number “127,” you get this: ⌂)

3. You may need to use the top number pad on some computers.

Here are some fun starter codes although there are over 250 codes altogether.

To use this chart, just hold down the “Alt” key while pressing the number shown.

☺=1

♥=3

♪=13

☼=15

►=16

Explore and find way more codes by typing in any number while holding down the “Alt” key.

These symbols are fun to use. You can do something like: ♪ Happy♫ birthday♪ to ♫ you! ♪

You can also use these as borders and dividers for pictures and text. Like so:

▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲

If this worked for you, please leave some “hieroglyphs” in the comments. Have fun discovering!

***Allison***

Bunny Cuteness

October 23, 2014April 11, 2016 | Allison

I know, another bunny post – but I can’t help it! They’re too cute!

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This is Rutabaga with her ears down. Did you recognize her?

Do we have a walrus here?

Honeybunny doesn’t look too pleased. (My sister took this picture.)

And last, but not least…

“Friends Forever”

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Do you want a bunny yet?

***Allison***

Blog Award!

October 23, 2014June 5, 2015 | Allison

Yay! Megan nominated me for the Daisy Chain award!

These are the questions I’m supposed to answer.

Ana or Elsa or Olaf? Hmmm. This is hard. I like them all! Maybe Olaf, though – the movie just wouldn’t be the same without him!

Mac and cheese or pizza or hot dogs? Pizza

Tulips or daffodills or daisies? Daffodils. They are so cheery in spring!

Hedgehogs or giraffes or kangaroos? Hedgehogs. They’re so cute!

Blue or red or green? Another hard one. Either blue or green.

Thanks for nominating me, Megan!

Eeeek! A Spider!

October 18, 2014October 18, 2014 | Allison

While I was sitting at the computer, I saw this spider. He was actually pretty small, but I cropped the pictures so you can see all kinds of fascinating (and creepy!) details.

Look at his palpi (the little fuzzy feelers in front of his face)!

And look at those eyes – creepy, huh?

Do you see those little orange spots?

I hope you enjoyed looking at a spider for once!

***Allison***

P.S – If anyone knows what kind of spider this is, I’d be glad to know!

Make Your Own “Tumble” Game

October 9, 2014June 5, 2015 | Allison

There is this game called “Tumble” or “Kerplunk”, and one day I decided to make my own version, with a few tweaks to the original game. It’s fairly easy to make and it’s very customizable. This game could also make a cute gift for a child of any age.

To start with you will need the following: •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

♥ Some sort of cardboard roll (I used the roll from a roll of curling ribbon this time, but I’ve also used a toilet paper roll)

♥ Some sort of wooden stick that is longer than your cardboard roll (such as bamboo skewers or toothpicks)

♥ A hole-punch (a small punch works best)

♥ Marbles (or any small, round ball)

♥ Something to decorate your tube with (I used pretty tape)

♥ Markers (you can also use paint)

♥ Scissors (no parentheses needed, except I just used them…)

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1. Make sure both ends of the cardboard tube are open.

2. Decorate it however your heart desires! 3. This is the hardest part. Punch holes in the top of the tube, making sure to stagger their placement. (See the picture below.) If you make all the holes the same distance away from the top of the tube, the sticks will bump into each other and will block each other from fitting into the holes. Also make sure there are enough holes for the sticks.4. To make the sticks, color or paint the ends of all but one of them. It works best to have a lot of sticks divided into three or four colors. Make one stick stand out by coloring it all one color, making it a different color, whatever you like.5. Optional step: Cut semi-circles from the bottom of the tube to use as doors for the marbles.

6. Another optional step: You can make balls out of polymer clay to use instead of marbles if you like.

6. Play the game!

To set up, put all the sticks randomly into the holes, then sprinkle the marbles on top. If the marbles fall through, it means you need to add more sticks to fill up the gaps where the marbles fell. Punch some more holes for the sticks if necessary.

Here are the rules: Each color of stick is worth a different amount of points. The one that is different from all the rest can be the special stick. Make it give you, say, 10 points plus another turn, or something like that. Here’s a scoring chart that you can change to fit your game:

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Green-tip: 40 points

Blue tip: 30 points

Pink-tip: 20 points

Blue stick: 15 points + another turn

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Each player takes turns pulling out a stick, one at a time (unless it’s the stick that gives you another turn). If, while pulling out a stick, you make a marble fall, you lose 20 points, and you don’t get the points from the stick you just pulled out. Whoever has the most points after all the sticks are pulled out, wins the game!

Have fun!

***Allison***