Last of the Quiet Books

I have spent my spare time in the last 3 months diligently working on my quiet books. (I have completed a grand total of 5!) The ironing board has taken up semi-permanent residence in the living room, as has the card table, which is covered with fabric markers, 3 feet of felt and 5 books on how to make quiet books. Dan has been oh-so patient with me! I have had a very good time making my books. I really enjoy doing them and I am kind of sad to have to put my stuff away. But I think the time has come.

But first, for those who may care, here are some pictures of pages I haven't put up before:

I like a cute cover. And I thought this picture in a coloring book was SO cute! Plus, this book is going to some boys, so it seemed appropriate.

The signs are all velcroed to the page and can be changed up. I ended up putting an eye hook on the garage to keep the car from falling out all the time.

I finally gave in and did a page with a zipper on it. I fear zippers, so I was really happy that "The Quiet Book Tutor" Blog (link on the right) said she did her zippers by sewing the zipper to the felt and then cutting the slit. Wow! SO much easier! Marian saw this page and informed me that Indians did not decorate their teepees like that. I am glad that she is paying attention in school! (They are studying Indian tribes right now.) Anyway, this was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.

I wanted to try a different face. The face in the book for this page is goofy. However, it is nearly impossible to find a picture of a face in silhouette, so I thought I would try this. I decided I like the goofy face better.

I like the red hair better than the blond, and I did a pocket to hold hair stuff.

I took a chance with this one. Usually I only make pages that I know my kids will play with, but the girls told me this was a great page. It was more work than I anticipated, but that's because I had to make my cupcakes. And the oven stumped me on a few things. I guess I'm into the simpler pages!

I really liked this page, but it has some issues. I didn't quite center it properly, and after making it, I found a cuter gumball pattern. Still, I like this. There are 10 gumballs in there, behind plastic and they are numbered 1-10. So you can take the gumballs out and use them for counting.

I think this is just cute. I used the template from a book, but the star fish and jelly fish were borrowed from another QB blog. The fish are from a fish fabric. They all velcro to the page. Snaps would work also, but I hate sewing them!

This was in the Quiet Book Tutor book, but I couldn't understand how to make it. (I'm not that bright unless its all spelled out for me sometimes.) I saw it on someone else's blog and it clicked. On the blog though, she had a snap closure, but the template called for a lock and key. I married the 2 designs of the chest and it needs a lock. Who knew it would be this hard to find a cheap luggage lock?!! Until I find one, the ring is holding in the pirate booty! Oh, and there is a sting there to tie the key to the page, so it won't get lost.

This seemed like a cute, easy design. I had trouble with sewing the yarn on. It was thicker than I expected. I had wanted to go with 6 strands but I didn't think I could sew it on. I do like this one though. Its not so girly as braiding hair. My 9 year son has been enjoying it.

And there you have it; All the pages I have made! And I am done. So let it be written, so let it be done! And now I have to go clean up all my craft supplies and put away my markers and the card table......

Yeah, I know better

Dan brought home an entire carrot cake. 1/3 of it was sitting on the countertop this afternoon. I heard nothing but silence, so I went in search of Rylee. Here is what I found:

Fork or hands? She was using both!

And enjoying it thoroughly.

Hmmmm, plastic fork isn't goon enough. She put it back and grabbed a better fork. (It looks like I'll be washing ALL the silverware tonight. Sigh.)

Oh yes, much better.

Soooo tasty!

Sweet Times!

I may have mentioned that Rylee is too smart for her own good. She has learned to push the stool or chair around and she can now climb up on the chairs. This means that zones we use to consider out of her reach, no longer are. This was made clear to us the other night. Dan gave the kids some cake for dessert and left the last slice for me. As I came downstairs from tucking little girls in bed, I heard Joshua shout "Rylee!". She had scooted the stool over to the table and this is what she was doing:

And lest you think I never let my children do anything fun, or believe them when they say I never let them do anything fun..... Check this out!

Dan brought home a gingerbread kit from work. I would never condone the use of prepackaged gingerbread men, but Dan and the kids were all excited about them, so on Saturday I whipped up the frosting and let them have at it. It was actually a lot of fun.

The kit came with some stuff, but we supplemented. Callie was so cute and worked so hard on her cookie man.

This is Rylee's "Mom's caught me doing something I shouldn't, but can I get away with it" look.

Delaney put a LOT of frosting on her cookie. She put more candies in her mouth than on the cookie though.

Marian wanted to make a Luigi (from Super Mario), so she was very careful to frost him properly.

It was very serious business!

Except for this one! She kept running from chair to chair, trying to shove her sisters off. She'd climb up on the chairs and try to get the frosting, candy, cookie...... Such a cute age, but oh, so exhausting!

Check out Marian's cookie; it turned out super-cute!

This is Joshua's Mario. He had some trouble with the blue frosting not cooperating. And you can see that I had trouble with HIM cooperating!

Yum!

I'm getting tag-teamed at night

Last night I got up with Rylee, as usual. (She's back to 2 nursings a night.) When she was mostly back down, I went to check on her sisters and noticed that Delaney was very wet, as were her jammies and sheets. I changed her out and got her settled back into bed and tucked her in. I was ready to snuggle back into my bed, but Rylee was vocalizing unhappy noises, so I went back in with her and sat by the crib pat-patting her and shhhhing whenever she grumbled. She finally fell asleep enough for me to leave, and I walked quietly out. As I came out, I could hear Delaney babbling to herself. I was hoping to head off her nocturnal movie watching, so I went back in to her room to check on her.

I climbed into bed next to her and she looked over at me and said, "I'm going to have a pinata at my birthday party, and snacks. Hmmmm, maybe crackers." Seriously?! This is what she thinks about in the middle of the night?! I snuggled with her and then tucked her in again. As I left, Rylee was fussing again. She's been coughing, and I think it is waking her up. So I got to go sit on her floor some more. Sigh. I was up for an hour between the 2 of them.

And on a totally different topic, this was so cute.....

Yesterday we were in church and you can look out the window closest to the front and see some lovely landscape. It is very pretty and Callie looked out there yesterday just after church started. She grabbed my arm and whispered, "Is that the Garden of Eden?"

Dress Ups and Decorating

Delaney discovered the box of dress-ups that I had put under her bed. She and Callie have gleefully been trying on everything all week. I never know what they will be attired in when I see them. Although, to be honest, Delaney is usually wearing no clothes. The better to put on whatever dress up item she fancies. Lately, it has been the collection of tutus.

The 2 girls were in Pretend Heaven when it was time for Family Home Evening this week. I figured they were dressed, so it was good enough. Now that I am posting pictures, I wonder if perhaps I should have had them put real clothes on first. Still, here is what we did for Family Night!

Callie and Rylee helped pull stuff out of the Christmas box. It was so exciting!!

The lovely ballerina, Delaney is showing me her tree ornament.

Marian was so cute, decorating our tree. She was so methodical and carefully selected each spot each ornament should go.

As an aside..... this is the cheapo Walmart tree I bought 5 years ago when Dan was deployed and I was having my very first Christmas at my own house. Somehow, we can't make ourselves spend money to upgrade to a nicer tree, although every year I swear I will at the after-Christmas sales. (I never do!)

Rylee had a blast and was in to everything! Look at that face. Pure mischief!

Callie, in her flapper dress-up was a great helper with the tree. And then she wanted to put up all the other decorations. Unfortunately she doesn't have a sense of moderation and likes to put everything in one place. It is festive, but everywhere else gets lonely.

It was so fun to see the kids decorating the tree. I didn't put any ornaments on! They did all the work themselves, and it was so sweet to see. They also put out the Nativity set- unassisted.

While everyone else was putting things on, this one was deviously working on how to get them off!

Joshua was very good with the breakables and he made sure things were all over the tree.

My 3 best helpers in front of the merry little tree. Sigh. I guess it really is time to get a bigger one.

Rylee has a new ability. The clever little minx has discovered the step stool. She now carries it all over the house, to better reach whatever she wants. She has also learned to improvise and will stand on whatever she thinks will help her reach her goal. This is becoming a problem:

She is on the toy box so she can reach the Nativity. She had such a good time with them, and I let her do it, hoping she would get it out of her system. She did well and nothing is broken!

Later, Delaney shrieked, "Rylee's on the table!!" and sure enough, she was. She had used her step stool to climb on a chair and from the chair she scooted right up onto the table. You can see that she made a beeline for the glue stick and was busy snacking on it when I saw her. She's trouble! I just hope she grows up to use her powers for good.