Maus und Elefant (69 animations)

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB8223A92D3EE5474

 One clip "onion soup"

Die Maus

Lenara's favorite... it's just her humor... the only "TV" (she doesn't know the difference to Youtube yet) we are watching so far... :)

Chestnut Fun

We got sooo many. All week it's been the big "thing" to play with. We count them, we sort them by size, we put them on the couch, in the bathtub, on the floor, we made fall decoration... simple and so beautiful! Truely my style of playing...

Our new neighbor(s)

Since we changed the time to summer time last week, it's really light out, when we go to bed. So I decided to reinstall our window cover - some "thing" I sew last summer consisting of several layers of newspaper covered with a fabrique that matches our bedroom and which is attached to our window frame with velcro. While redoing the velcro tape on the frame, I spotted a dove in the rain drain (or whatever it's called). She is having a nest there with eggs (or at least one I saw). We hate those doves on our roof top - or basically always around the windows of our apartment under the roof. Dove poop everywhere. And I'm always scarred one day, I'll find one in my living room, bc I left the window open. Anyway... she was a big attraction to L. I had to put her up in the window spot several times and she almost wouldn't go to bed. I'm hoping we'll see the little birdies also. It would be a fun wild-life-real-life-outdoor-right-outside-of-our-window-project. We hate those doves in general. But we kinda welcome our new neighbor (gotta name her).

 

Getting ready for Easter

We loved being creative today. L was so into it and she did so well. We covered plastic eggs from the 1 € Store with wrapping paper and newspaper (using glue paste).

Awesome Easter Decoration!!

Find some awesome Easter decoration here: so leb ich

Nice Scarfs to play with or decorate

I recommend this ebay-shop: http://www.ebay.de/itm/250923528350?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2648.
I just bought 9 colored (Waldorf) scarves to either decorate the season's table or for L. to build caves, houses, rooms, wrap her babies... whatever. This lady has them in all colors and for a really good price. I had been looking around for a while, but all I found from "real" Waldorf suppliers (catalogues etc.) were quite expensive, I thought. So I'm happy I found these... I can't post pictures yet, because the set of rainbow scarves is going to be my birthday gift for L. ;)

Jen's Artisan Bread recommendation

recommended!

Gone Fishin'

...something for O to play with on rainy days. It rains all the time here. It's made from a simple magnet and some washers all from the hardware store. The fish are from scraps of fabric with button eyes. I started to get lofty about the pretty and elaborate fish I wanted to make but I decided to just make the fish so the playing could begin.


In exchange for my homemade bread, a lady taught me how to make our own yogurt. It's really easy, basically heat it and then cool it, then let it sit. Its so much better than all the sweetened yogurts here. And, Olivia liked it! It even worked with the lactose-free milk.



Other than these things, I'm trying to 'get out of the way' more and let Olivia play but be the warm presence at the same time. There's been rain, snow, and intermittent flower planting. Olivia picked the colors of the primroses (which are frost durable) then she helped dig and cover along side.






It's funny really because we've done more mommy-daughter things but I've made it a point to not have the phone/camera with me. I feel like I want to not rush the product but focus on the process more...which leaves only product pictures though.




Thinking about a hair cut...but we love the bed head.

Story of the Root Children (Etwas von den Wurzelkindern)

This book by Sibylle von Olfers (amazon.com, amazon.de) is a classic.

While I was doing a bit of research on the season's table, I realized that especially the spring sceneries often are based on this story - the root children being awakened by Mother Earth and then they turn into flower children in spring with new colorful dresses and each of them representing one kind of flower. Until after summer and fall they return to Mother Earth and sleep through the winter.

Today was a really mild almost spring type of day. I took down all our winter decoration and cleaned my living room window (I don't clean any other windows as this is the only window we actually look through, the others are not worth it... hehe). And then Lenara and I got all excited about creating our own little root children. I made one today. And once again it felt soooo good creating something with my hands. While I was making it, Lenara took out her finger colors and colored her entire table - no, she didn't want a sheet of paper to paint on. I knew it was going to be a mess eventually, but I could tell she was enjoying it a lot - as much as I was enjoying my work. So I let her do what she had to do. And after all, I did what I had to do... clean. ;)

Since Lenara enjoyed the Christmas play on our winter table so much, our spring one will be the root children. We'll collect natural things like little flowers, stones, etc. outside during our walks and I will continue making more children, mother earth and the spring and summer dresses. We already collected little oval stones to paint them and use them as ladybugs and all type of bugs that appear in the book. I can't wait! A project in progress. And one we definitely both enjoy as much.

Purzelbaum - Somersault

I have no idea, who taught her this. I don't think I've even mentioned the word before. Must have been Daddy, cousins or kids at the nanny's. I was so suprised when I looked over to her and she was doing a really good one. The ones I videotaped weren't as perfect - but still funny. ;)

Making Play Dough!

Rainy Day. Tea. Pretzels. Erykah Badu blasting from the web radio...
We made some play dough for the first time today. So fun! That's going to be something we'll do a lot in the future.






RECEIPE:
What you need for making this non-toxic play dough, which will last a couple of weeks in a plastic container/bag in your fridge:

200g flour/Mehl (type 405)
100g salt/Salz
2EL/table spoons safflower oil/Distelöl
2EL/table spoons tartaric acid/Weinsäure (Apotheke/Pharmacy)
200ml boiling water/kochendes Wasser

optional:
(dry or fluid) food coloring/Lebensmittelfarbe (Pulver oder flüssig)

Take 2/3 of the flour. Mix it with salt and tartaric acid (use hand mixer). Slowly add the boiling water while mixing. Add oil. If the dough is still too greasy add the rest of the flour bit by bit and start working with your hands until dough is perfect. If you use food coloring powder add it to the dry ingredients in the beginning. If you use the fluid, add in the end. We separated 3 parts and used 3 different colors.

NOTE: The dough is non-toxic, yet NOT edible! Children shouldn't eat a larger amount. So please watch your kids when using the play dough!

Some more examples of our work. We loved the table soccer part:

Cozy Cave

Mayday, mayday

I saw those nutshell boats in a book just recently. So I was going to make some for Lenara today. Bad news: they all drowned! Still we had fun. Is that bad?

YouTube Fun

We have just been watching some funny YouTube videos. Lenara doesn't get to watch TV yet (hopefully for a while). But sometimes we look at photos or videos of other kids (my friends kids on facebook or YouTube). Just small scenes, that I think she can relate to. There are also funny and good children's songs animations. But not all are recommended. I'd recommend to review them first and make a little collection before showing them to your child. For example, I don't like the flashing bright colored ones. I've also researched finger games in the past. Also something Lenara liked and I thought was appropriate to share with her. I'm trying not to skip or switch videos (like we grown ups switch between window browser all the time and interrupt videos) and not show many in a row.

Here are some examples we liked:

Dancing Baby


Laughing Baby


Father in crib (ohhh, how I can relate!!)


Alle meine Entchen (Lenara knows the words to this song):


Hoppe Hoppe Reiter (Lenara knows the words to this one as well):

Sporty Spice

Noise making toy

Made at Mini Club today. Beans inside. Fun.

Public Library

I've always loved your pics at the Library. So today, we went to our local public library for the first time (I used to go to another one in the next bigger city) - it's so sweet, I mean small but tempting. 10 Euros for unlimited books throughout the year! I'm very happy! I took home so many books today, I almost had to make Lenara walk and take over her stroller. ;)

They have a perfect diaper changing place, clean toilets, heated rooms, lots of books, CDs, magazines.... I didn't spot a coffee machine, but except for that it seems like a perfect place to hang out in the afternoons. Those are some of our riches:

2 cooking for children books like "quick things for mother and child", just what I need!
2 knitting for kids books (including really cool shoes, hats and a teddy bear I will copy)
1 how to use different wet packs for healing (comes in handy, as I just do potato packs on Lenara for her sore throat and chest, but I wasn't quite sure, if it was the right pack to use)
1 decorating kids' playareas (I already love the idea of painting a whole wall with special chalk board color - so the entire wall is a chalk board! I just wish I had a bigger place... we don't really have free walls to turn into chalk boards).
1 novel "mother mafia" - sounds amusing

Oh, and I almost forgot, some children books as well. ;)

Cleaning our muddy shoes

I never clean my shoes. Meaning N-E-V-E-R. Less than I clean my windows or my oven or my car to give you an idea. As we have been wandering around in mud a lot lately, we couldn't help but clean our shoes. Lenara keeps putting her shoes on and off at home - which always spreads a lot of dirt and makes me angry every time she does it (like 10 times a day). So I told her (and myself!) that we'd have to clean them now. Surprisingly it turned out to be great fun! Each of us did her own shoes. She watched me doing it very closely and seriously she cleaned her own shoes perfectly. My not-even-2-year-old! I'm so proud. Of her. And myself. For cleaning our shoes. And the sparkling thought that I might never have to clean her shoes...

Involving the little ones in all task is the way to go - I'm more than convinced - once again!