Thursday, February 4, 2010

A Set of Dinosaurs with Which to Travel

The baby is fully healed. Her 104-degree fever for much of last night earned her the day that she's having today, which she is spending in bed, watching children's shows on Netflix Watch Instant and being offered tasty delicacies by her mother--blueberry-pomegranate juice, vegan carob brownies from , fresh oranges, frozen pizza. I figure her body needs a day of rest, which it has to if my little hummingbird is content to just lie there and watch TV all day, and, frankly, I could use a day of extra productivity knowing that both girls are justifiably glued to the boob tube.

And that's how I FINALLY got that living room table nice and scrubbed (we've been kneading bread on it, is why) and made vegan carob brownies and wrote the entire About the Author section of my book proposal and finished the large craft for the Read to Me Mommy swap that I'm participating in on Craftster:

It's a travel felt board, made to accompany , a madly awesome book that would normally be far too expensive for me to purchase for a swap, but the girls were given a copy by an extremely generous mom friend, and then a second copy for Christmas by another loved one, so there you go! In my house, regifting is valid and encouraged.

Only Willow, likely, could tell you the names of all the dinosaurs that I included, but the ones in the photo above are, I believe, an apatasaurus, a supersaurus (which is either a baby or very far away!), and a dimetrodon, while an ichthyosaur swims in the sea and a pterosaur conquers the air. And yes, I cheated--using my last paycheck from Crafting a Green World for a while (more beauracracy changes, ick), I ebayed a most coveted copy of . It was a steal, and a bunch of bidders tried to snipe me in the last minute, but I stood triumphant!

The girls are thrilled, especially Willow, who drew an allosaur in honor of the occasion:Notice that she is in the camp of paleontologists who believe that predatory dinosaurs were highly colored.

For the felt dinosaurs, I cut cardboard templates with the Cricut, then hand-cut the felt. For the travel felt board, I hot-glued felt to the front and back of a Scrabble board. That one was a little tricky, so I'll likely post a tutorial for it when I make a second one for the girls. I made them their own dinosaur felt set, and I made a third set for putting into my pumpkinbear etsy shop as soon as I can squeeze in the time.



And now, while the girls watch what seems like an infinity of Caillou, I plan to do a couple of loads of laundry, write the book's table of contents for my book proposal, figure out what dinner I can make with all the pots and pans dirty (loaded baked potatoes?), blog for free at CAGW, change the bed that Sydney has been eating crackers in all day, read the girls another chapter from Bambi and hope that they'll still go to sleep even if they haven't gotten any exercise all day, get a little exercise myself, and maybe, just maybe, sew up a sock monkey baby bag.

Oh, and I didn't get much sleep last night, so there's always that.

6 comments:

  1. *giggle* at your colorful predators comment. ;)

    This post reminds me that a blog friend has a book called Dinothesaurus. It may appeal to both you and Willow: http://floriancafe.blogspot.com/2009/03/dinosaurs-hatch-tonight.html I've not checked if the library has it, but you could probably request them to buy it.

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  2. Whoa! New format? It's going to take some time.

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  3. Nah. You love it. It's the three-column blog of my dreams.

    Will DEF request this at the library. They buy everything that I ask them to, on account of I am probably their favorite patron.

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  4. The MCPL is really good about getting things that people request. I think our homeschooling would not be nearly as successful if we didn't have this library in town. :)

    BTW, I think the new format is fabulous! Love the header especially.

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  5. I love that she wrote all her letters and the word backward! My daughter used to do the exact same thing!! Personally, I think that takes talent to do. :)

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  6. So many people thought that I just scanned the picture backwards, but yep, that's my Willow! I'm wondering if it's the curse of the leftie?

    I'm glad to hear that someone else's kid used to do that and then grew out of it, and you're right--it takes immense talent, and is also a hallmark of genius.

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