mary makes merry

Hello, little friends

Thursday and Friday were in the 60s, and we had half an inch of snow today. Yes, it is March. Ellie and I did some nature observations in the front yard yesterday, and here are some of the things we found.

 

 

 

 

 

The tree is our new Enkianthus tree -- the buggy-looking things are actually last year's flower caps (not the technical term). Cross your fingers that it thrives! The soil around it is like concrete, so I'm concerned. The flowers are bulbs that Ellie and Clark planted in the fall. How great to see them peeking their sweet leaves up above the mulch.

Tube o' the morning!

First, a flashback:

We had a party for the neighborhood kids on Halloween (just six and a half months till Halloween, by the way!). This was one of the crafts we did, and everyone loved it. It came from this blog, via The Crafty Crow, source of all kinds of fantastic ideas. (Scroll down about half-way on the page at the No Time for Flashcards blog for the original.) Ellie's Frankenstein is in the foreground above.

A friend of Ellie's came over last week, and here's how we tweaked the original, excellent idea:

This leprechaun keeps his treasure in his hat:

 

And here are the two Ellie and her friend made:

A final shot of Ellie in her Irish dance costume, practicing the jig:

  Happy St. Patrick's Day!
 
 

Another puppet theater!

Ellie's school's huge fundraiser is coming up on Saturday. A few weeks ago, three of her classmates came over, so I set up our great Bend the Rules puppet theater. Both of my adult guests that day (the kids' moms) are room mothers and thought a similar thing would be a good item for the silent auction the class project. Naturally, I didn't start working on it right then, but I did meet the deadline.

I made a nice hang-tag giving credit to generous Amy Karol -- I really appreciate that she and her publisher are OK with making items from the book and selling them as long as she is credited and the book title/publisher are acknowledged, which is certainly very reasonable. This isn't being sold for a profit, of course, but I'm all for giving credit where credit is due! Anyway, cross your fingers that someone bids $1,000 for it Saturday! Just kidding. But hopefully someone will bid something for it!