Family Portrait

I've always preferred candid photos over posed. I love the reality that is depicted and the stories they tell. This picture in particular has always resonated with me.

We've stopped for a photo in front of the Washington Monument and nobody can look up because the sun is so bright. My mom is holding us closely and smiling as though all is perfect. A real smile. You can tell just by looking at her eyes.

That's the thing about my mom, she was always happiest just being a mom. She also happened to be a single mom serving in the military. We moved around, saw husbands come and go, but my mother's love swaddled and protected us from the harsh realities of her world.

We were such a happy little family that my brother and I never really knew things were supposed to be different.

Somehow my mom managed to carry out all of her roles in such a way that we never felt deprived of anything.

That's what I see when I look at this old picture. No, life was never perfect, but we were blinded by our happiness to that fact. We had each other, and we had a mother who was strong, confident, nurturing, and completely selfless.

About 10 years ago I framed this photo and gave it to my mom for Mother's Day. She thanked me and was happy to have received it, but she was puzzled as to why I chose this particular picture. Our albums were filled with better pictures of the three of us...professional portraits with us all actually looking at the camera. My explanation at the time was something along the lines of, "I don't know, I just always liked this one."

Well, Mom, only a decade later and you finally have a more complete explanation as to why this image of our family is so meaningful to me. Consider it the second half of the gift. :)

Our Mother's Day Gifts for the Grandmas

I didn't think it would be this long between my Mother's Day Crafts post and now, and I'm sure you've all been just teetering there on the edge of your seats waiting for me to present the silhouette card idea that I left as a teaser at the end of the post.

Oh...you didn't get that far? Just a skimmer, huh? Well, here it is anyway.

On the inside I included this poem (that I wrote so please be kind):

This is your day,

It's all about you,

Flowers and cards and how do you dos.

This one time of year,

We remember to say,

Thank you, dear Grandma, for your loving way.

We also made some hand flowers and taped the hands onto a pipe cleaner stem. One hand from each kid. Tis very cute. In fact, I think I'm going to make an extra one to keep for myself. :)

The silhouettes were VERY easy to do. The hardest part was getting a good profile shot of a kid who won't stay in one place for more than a second. Once you have the shot, there are just a few steps in Photoshop to go through.

I found directions here. Basically, you delete the background using the magic wand tool, desaturate, decrease brightness, and increase contrast. Very easy. Just make sure you have a good clean background...saves a lot of time with the magic wand.

I'm loving how mine turned out, but I think that someone who really knows what they're doing could turn this idea into something truly impressive. If you do try this, let me know. I'd love to see what others can do with the silhouettes!

P.S. A BIG heartfelt thank you to those who offered your kind words and prayers. The Lord heard you and every time I thought I had tapped out all my baby-watching resources, He would send someone else over to help keep an eye on my little ones so that I could go spend some more time with my husband in the hospital. Between the memorial services for Grandpa tomorrow and Daddy-O coming home, things should definitely start getting back to normal by the weekend. Thanks again for your thoughtful words.

Is it Over Yet?

Grandpa's funeral is Friday.

Daddy-O will probably be released from the hospital by then. Appendectomy.

Finally got some sleep last night, but didn't get to read any of the wonderful blogs I enjoy visiting everyday.

Will somebody please come over and watch my babies?

I'll be back soon.

Tuesday's Toddler Tornado #1: Mother's Day Toddler Crafts

This is the first of what will be a regular Tuesday post. We're gonna dish out a potpourri of toddler goodness, including craft ideas, child-rearing tips, product recommendations, and anything else that parents with toddlers would find useful. Please feel free to join me on Tuesdays and share your tot knowledge with others. I'll have a Mr. Linky up (yes, there's going to be another Linky widget hanging around the blogoshphere!). Since Mother's Day is coming up, I decided to do a theme this week. And, since I have nothing of my own to share, I'm going to give some link luv to those more clever than I!

The gifts that are made with love are always the ones we remember. In fact, that's what Mommies and Grammas often ask for when Mother's Day comes around. Rather than just have Little Bit scribble on some paper (which I've done in the past), I've been trying to find some crafts that she can do that are more "gift-worthy." Here are just a few of the ideas I've come across in my search:

Cards

• Use the dainty petals of flowers as stamps to make a truly lovely card for your child's sweet old granny, a la here!
• Don't just write a card, make a keepsake! I found this precious hand-print card via the Crafty Crow.

Flowers

Mother's Day + Flowers = 1 happy Mum.

• Check this out to see two great ideas of how to turn the "flowers" idea into a gift that will be treasured forever using hand prints and photos.
• If those weren't quite what you were looking for, you'll definitely find something here. There are several ways of making flowers listed using materials like cupcake holders, pipe cleaners, and tissue paper.

Miscellany

• Go here to learn how to make a stained-glass looking frame from tissue paper.
• You can find several hand-made gift ideas here, including a very clever dish towel gift. The one shown has writing, but it could be modified for toddlers by simply having them draw designs (aka scribble).

In addition to having Little Bit make something for the grandmas, I'm planning on making a silhouette card using digital photos and cardstock...more on that coming soon!

Have you posted recently about your ideas for getting your little one involved in the upcoming Mother's Day? Feel free to post your link (but don't forget to also leave a comment, just in case I lose my Mr. Linky widget again)!

Green Seek-N-Find

Green was the theme this week for Unplug Your Kid's weekly project. We painted a green apple tree earlier in the week, and today, we sent Little Bit on a green treasure hunt!

We gathered as many green toys as we could find and Daddy-O planted them throughout the yard.

Then we sent her on her way, armed with a handy-dandy green basket!

After much encouragement and several explanations as to what we were searching for, she began to look for the green .

Then she started to get the hang of it...

Here she is showing off her collection:

Once she had collected all of the toys, we talked about where else we could find green in our yard; the leaves on the trees, a blade of grass, the foliage growing in our flower bed.

She also found some yellow.

Check out what others did with this week's theme here!

Apple-Stamped Tree

I've seen the potato stamping done before and always thought it was such a cool idea. A couple days ago I was flipping through this book and came across an apple stamping project. It met our criteria for an excellent toddler craft (easy and quick!) and I just couldn't wait to try it.

So, since this week's Unplugged Project theme is green, I decided to stick with green paint and make an apple tree!

Just a few supplies were needed:

I cut out a tree trunk from some brown construction paper and let Little Bit do the gluing.

Then we dipped the apple halves into a plate of green paint and started stamping!

The only problem we encountered was that the apple was a wee bit too big for my toddler's tiny hands. Rather than stamping, her technique was more like: cradle the apple in both hands, dump it over onto the paper, then mash it down. But whatever...it still came out great!

Here's to quick, easy, and fun toddler art!

A Place All Her Own

In an attempt to provide Little Bit with more independence, we decided to give up some precious real estate in our kitchen (actually, it was only being used to hold the gazillion phone books that we've somehow accumulated over the past six months). She now has her own cabinet filled with her own stuff.

I didn't have any shelf-liner handy, so I cut up some empty cereal boxes that were just waiting to be made useful, and put some poster putty on the bottom to keep them from sliding around. Then, I cut about an inch off the bottom of an oatmeal box and used it to hold her forks and spoons.

Now, she can get her own dishes out at dinner time and put them away when they're finished being washed. She loves being helpful like that :).

My next goals are to teach her to fold laundry and dust. Don't you just love the "Mommy's little helper" stage?

Bird Watching with Binoculars

I had a flood of ideas going through my mind when I read that this week's Unplugged Project theme would be birds. There are so many possibilities when you consider projects involving eggs, feathers, seeds, or birds themselves.

I concluded that I could get rid of some of the garbage I've been collecting by making binoculars out of toilet paper rolls. From there, I thought it might be neat to gather a collection of photos of some of the birds who frequent our backyard and chart how often we see them.

Little Bit has gotten better about differentiating between ducks and geese and some of the other birds we see regularly, so this seemed like a great way to get her to start really looking for differences between the various bird species.

Daddy-O obligingly went around and snapped some photos of birds that were hanging around. Within about 45 minutes he had photographed geese, Mallard and Muscovy ducks, coots, several finches, a crow, and a woodpecker.

Once they were printed, we glued them onto our chart.

As for the binoculars, Little Bit got to pick out some wrapping paper around which to wrap the TP rolls. Not surprisingly, she chose the pink with polka dots paper.

We affixed the paper to the TP rolls, then roughly followed these instructions to make the binoculars. Once they were complete, I took Little Bit outside to show her how to use her new toy.

 

She caught on quickly!

Each day Little Bit will put stickers beside the pictures of birds that we see while we're outside. I will continue to add photos of birds as we come across them.

Thanks, Mom Unplugged for this week's bird theme! Come on over to Unplug Your Kids to see what ideas others came up with!

Flattery? Or Blatant Disrespect for Copyright?

So, what do you do when you find out somebody out there in Bloggy Land decided to copy an ENTIRE post off your blog; links, pictures, and all?

No credit.

No links back.

Absolutely no mention of your original post.

I have no idea either. The blog-keeper doesn't provide an Email address, so I left a comment requesting that they credit the "auther." Apparently I was in such a rage that my nostrils were flaring and I couldn't see what I was typing. So now I have this idiotic comment hanging around some plagiarizing blogger's site saying, "Hey, look at me. I'm the moron who wrote this to begin with and I want you to know it."

Yes, it is nice to know that someone had an interest in what I wrote. But I need props. I need recognition. I need a link back to my original post and ToddleBits displayed prominently either before or after the text.

So, Mr. or Mrs. Plagiarizing Blogger, if you're reading this, you should know that if you don't credit my work I will probably....do nothing- because I avoid confrontations like I avoid eating shrimp and chocolate during the same meal. But you can be sure that I think what you did is very, very wrong.

And that's all I'm going to say about that.

The Crafty Crow

Need some interesting new craft ideas for your kids? Go check out The Crafty Crow! This is one of my new faves. I found it while clicking around on Craftzine.com and I've been hooked ever since.

And...toot-too-la-looo...sound the bugles! Right now the Edible Finger Paints project that we did recently is being highlighted there! Go check it out and see what other fabulous ideas you come away with. I guarantee you'll be back again!