Holy crafts, Batman....

Ahh, Bear has learned to love painting! A while back I babysat my nephew and Hunny wasn't going to be home, so in a moment of inspired domesticity, I decided to organize a craft (doesn't that sound ... organized?) for the over-2 crowd. I won't say it was a hit (there was some punishment and pumpkin-painting withholding going on at various points), but here were Bear's results.

And for yours truly, I got a much-anticipated box in the mail last week; I ordered some yarn from my friend Biz. The arrangement was I gave her the gauge and the pattern I hoped to knit, and she got to hand-pick not only the yarn but the color!!! I could not wait to see what she pegged me for, and I got heaven, y'all.... knitty heaven. See for yourself, though this picture does no justice to the milk/cotton blend that feels so amazing, and the color is gorgeous, and will look magnificent on me!
As I mentioned before, I saw my friend Brownie last weekend, and alas, I had made her daughter a little 2nd birthday present, which unfortunately got left behind (not in a Tim LaHaye kind of way, though). So, Brownie, here is LuLu's gift that is forthcoming:

Pretty aint it? :) In case you are awed by my photographic skills and have no idea what these are are not quite sure what these pretty blocks are, they are building blocks beautified for a young one, and for the older ones, a matching game as there are two blocks each of the different origami paper. I cannot claim this idea, but I need to look to see which blog I stole this from.

And last, but not least, in the early Montessori classroom, there is a work called smelling bottles (this is not the technical term, but I'm tired), which can be presented in many ways (matching scents, learning to identify scents, in general a sensorial lesson). Bear loves sitting on the counters (Thanks Daddy and Tio), and he discovered my spice cabinet. I have had the intention of making my own smelling canisters, but he kind of beat me to the punch. He LOVES sitting on the counter top, opening my spice cupboard and proceeding to open and close the jars and labeling smells as yummy or ewww (both highly technical terms). Vanilla is by far his favorite, and cayenne is his least favorite--he got a whiff of it in his eyes today (how NOT to do smelling). I love play that is learning and intuitive (I don't mean the pepper-in-the-eyes thing, just that by using his senses, he's learning: opening jars, putting lids back on, sweet, savory, he knows that Mommy uses spices in cooking, etc.) and so something that I will be implementing on the blog soon are some Montessori-inspired posts as I learn to encourage this environment in our home and prepare for home-pre-schooling.