All About the Kids Archives - Page 4 of 6

Saying Goodbye to Our Home

April 16, 2013 By Erica Deuel 4 Comments

Matt has lived here going on twelve years and I’ve been here just short of nine years. Saying goodbye is hard. So many amazing memories. But for me saying goodbye to the house isn’t the hardest part. It is the backyard. My favorite tree of all time lives in our yard.

It is gorgeous and huge. I love to lay on the trampoline with the kids and stare up at it. Watching it fill out in the spring with the early morning sun shinning through its branches is one of my favorite things. I will be sad to say goodbye to it.

As we are packing and talking about our new house, we are getting more and more excited about the change.

You have seen a preview of what we are planning for Reagan’s room and our dinning room, and you know we are really excited about our new place. As excited as we are, I want to fully embrace the saying “goodbye well” stage and let the memories and sweet moments flood my head.

I had the idea that we could paint pictures of our house to stimulate conversation about what we love about our home. These moments and the paintings are something we can take with us to our new home.

Caleb wanted to paint the front of our house complete with the basketball goal and our car out front. J wanted to paint the backyard with all our play stuff, so we stared out the window at our tree and talked about its size and shape and he painted that as the first part of our backyard. Reagan just wanted to paint. 🙂 Matt actually did a painting too, but I forgot to capture him in action as I had already started dinner when he started his painting.

I have not painted a house tribute portrait yet, but I plan too. I love how all these came out and I know they will be something special to hang in our new house. After the paintings dried, I sprayed a clear varnish protectant on them.

One of my favorite shots of everyone posing with their paintings is this one…

I love my little family!

Have you had to move with kids? I know I briefly told you in our Packing Boxes (part 1) that my four-year old is showing signs of nervousness with all of this moving talk and changes happening. I was hoping this activity of talking, intentionally playing, and processing our life would help him.

Two more weeks! We can do this! I am thankful for my mom taking the kids for most of tomorrow, so I can run to Hobby Lobby by myself and attack packing this place up without cute distractions. I hope you are having a good week!

Spring is here!

March 21, 2013 By Erica Deuel 6 Comments

Spring is here! Yesterday was the first day of spring, and we welcomed it excitedly! We have a yucky virus circling our house right now, so we could not be more excited for some warmer weather and healthier days ahead!

In anticipation for spring, I came up with an easy paint project to do with my kids. I want to quickly share with you how you can make this cute spring decor and have fun with your kiddos at the same time.

Find or cut some wood blocks. My blocks are about 2″ x 2″ with a width of a little over 1″. Sand them real good and then stick stickers on them to spell out spring. Place one sticker per block (as you will see below). I also bought a bag of wood eggs at Hobby Lobby for a couple of bucks to have my kids paint.

Once you are ready to paint, get yourself a cute artist. My boys were busily playing with some new Legos, so only my little Reagan really wanted to participate. She loves to paint, so she didn’t mind painting everything. Paint right over the stickers.

After everything is painted, allow it all to dry completely.

Once it is all dry, peel the stickers off the blocks. You will see the wood color of the block and how the stickers acted as a nice stencil for your project!

I then stained my blocks. You don’t have to do this step, but I wanted my blocks and eggs to have a more muted color scheme.

I then sprayed everything with a clear gloss to create the shine and finished look. Once they were dry, we were done! Our spring blocks and eggs were complete!

This was such an easy way to incorporate my daughter’s artistic skills in our spring decor. Having special pieces of my kids’ art around our house is so important to me. If painting with a toddler is a new thing for you, it can seem crazy and overwhelming. Don’t let it be! Check out my ten tips on painting with toddlers, so you can enjoy and have fun with it! I know I will enjoy Reagan’s spring creations for years to come!

Happy spring friends!

**Linked up at Teaching Mama

Out of the Box Art Studio {+ a chance to win Summer Art Camp}

February 27, 2013 By Erica Deuel 22 Comments

I love using my kids’ art to decorate our home. I think it is such a special way to celebrate and applaud their creativity while capturing and appreciating this special season of them being little. I know I have shown you my art wall in a lot of posts.

There are only two pieces on my art on that I did. I’m sure you can’t tell which two they are ;). Most of the art on this wall my boys created at my favorite local art studio, Out of the Box Art Studio. Have you heard of them?

Although we do a LOT of art around my house, I send my boys to a summer art camp at Out of the Box Art Studio every year. They have the best projects and the kids always have so much fun. Most of the teachers are friends of mine and I grew up taking art from the Owner & Director, Juli. They are so sweet and encouraging with all of their students.

Caleb, in the summer of 2011, showing off all his artwork from camp.

This was two years ago. I can't believe how much he is has grown. Look at those curls! I miss them! — This was two years ago. I can’t believe how much he is has grown. Look at those curls! I miss them!

You can see my J and Caleb ready to present their artwork at the end of camp Open House. — You can see my J and Caleb (at camp last summer) ready to present their artwork at the end of camp Open House.

I worked at OOTB for a little while. I got to the genuine love of art from the owners and staff while I was emerged in this great environment weekly. I loved it. Now that I stay home with my kids, I love to send them there for a great experience.

Along with my art gallery wall, I used my boys art pieces from camp to help stage all my shelves while our house is on the market.

Their pieces are my favorites. I have already signed my boys up for a camp this summer, and I can’t wait to see what they bring home!

As well as having awesome summer camps, they have art classes all year-long. This studio teaches potters wheel, clay hand building, drawing, oil painting, acrylic, watercolor, and multi media. They have after school classes but also classes during the day for homeschoolers. I have got to get my boys in one for this coming fall.

If you fall in love with this place, as I have, you could use them to host a birthday party or any other special event as well. I had a bridal shower there years ago, where we all painted a piece of pottery for the bride. It was a fun, hands on, and a personal gift to give.

Their newest feature is to do mobile classes where they will come to you. So unique and awesome! I love how all this can be for ages preschool all the way to adult. Are you craving to do some art now?

I have some REALLY good news for three of my local metro Atlanta readers. Out of the Box is graciously offering up a FREE drawing or painting summer camp to three of my readers! The camps are registering right now. You can view them all on Out of the Box’s site here. You all know that I am that hands on mom, and I get nervous about leaving my kids in new places. I trust Out of the Box and am so honored to be able to help promote them to all of you.

Please let the rafflecopter widget load below, and enter in as many ways possible to win a free drawing or painting camp for this coming summer! We will be in contact with the winner (via email) on March 6th, to let you know how to register for your camp. Juli is offering up one free camp registration to a preschool aged child, one to an elementary, and one to a tween/teen. (Each camp is valued at $95-$135 depending on the age group) So, three camp spots are up for grabs! Please be sure to answer the question which age group camp you would want, so we can find three winners!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for entering and good luck!!

If you are new here, please feel free to browse around and check out my site. I love to write about my family, my crafts, and the outings we do. I feel if you add a spoonful of imagination into every area of your life, it will be a more beautiful life! If you would like to see a post about one of my crafts go here, one of my homeschool activities go here, or one about my family go here.

Preparing a House to Sell {with kids}

February 20, 2013 By Erica Deuel 2 Comments

I feel like I have been going and going. The house preparations to have a for sale sign out front on Friday have kept us crazy busy with lists of to do lists. I literally have four different lists going. The good news is we are making progress. At times it has felt like I don’t know where to start, since there is so much to be done. So, in the middle of working on one project I get side tracked onto another project. It all has to get done, so it doesn’t ultimately matter that parts here and there are getting done except that it drags out crossing something off as DONE. We all like that step.

It really has been fun to feel the change in the house in the decluttering and simplifying. To date, we have now taken 21 bags to Goodwill and filled two trailers of junk that have been hauled off to the dump. That is a lot of stuff. I’ll spare you pictures galore, but a few things we have done this week are:

switched out light fixtures
gone through more closets
found the boys’ room and brought it out of the dark pit state that it was in
cleaned out the kitchen cabinets
taken a picture gallery wall down, repaired holes from screws, and repainted
painted the front door
layed pine straw in the front yard
spray painted like everything (railings, mailbox, etc)…Matt said it was probably a good thing when my black spray paint ran out.
repaired rotten boards
painted most of Matt’s office
added siding to Matt’s office
created a Welcome Sign for back door
made a wreath for the front door

I know I am missing some stuff, but you can get a feel for what its been like around here. I have felt bad for my kids and missed hanging out with them as they have not gotten the quality time they are use too. I have tried to include them in as much as I can. They have helped sort through clothes and toys, and even helped paint their daddy’s office and trim the bushes. They are excited, but there is only so much they can do as well. This week, I have aimed to give them my mornings. I didn’t want to do anything but school and hang with them. It’s been fun to see the change of things we are talking about as we prepare to move.

Over the weekend, we took a good look at our front yard and door, and we decided that the dead plants in the planters on the front steps would have to be replaced. We talked about beauty, color, and life and what we would get for our pots.

On one of our many trips to Home Depot this weekend, we picked up some new plants and the kids helped me plant them.

We talked about the different parts of a plant and what they need to live. We got plants that required the right amount of sunlight for our steps, and I truly hope we can keep them alive for a little while. I don’t have a green thumb. All this talk lead to us looking through books and learning more about plants yesterday. We talked about the three parts of plants and all the variations of plants.

This led to us talking about stories we knew with plants, and ultimately we referred to Jack and the Beanstalk. Since I couldn’t find our book of Jack and the Beanstalk (hopefully it didn’t end up at Goodwill!?), I knew we could find some readings of it on You Tube. We went to the computer and spent a while browsing and watching different Jack and the Beanstalk videos. This was so fun. The boys were interested and were comparing and contrasting the different versions of the stories without realizing they were remembering/reciting details and doing so many other great reading tools.

Our favorite video was by Debbie and Friends and you can see it here. I think we watched it four times and the boys laughed out loud every time. After our videos, we painted our own beanstalks.

All of the sudden, I realized we had done a whole unit of study on plants and all because we were preparing our house to go up for sale. It is so fun to study and learn about life in what is the everyday manner and routine.

I love enjoying my kids, and I am very thankful for the gift of being able to step back and gain perspective. We all needed time away from the to do lists for a bit yesterday and just laughing together. Do you ever find yourself annoyed and irritated by the very things that ultimately give you the most joy?

Today, is our last BIG push on projects, cleaning, and packing up all the tools and supplies. We have our first showing tomorrow. Yes, the day before the for sale sign is out! Ahhh we are praying the Lord keeps directing us each step of the way. Thank you for your prayers! I am not sure if I will have a post ready for my usual Friday post. Please forgive me if I step away for a few days/little bit. I will be back and I will be checking messages. I spent a long time last night re-reading all your messages and ended up in a heap in front of my computer in tears. I have the best readers. Thank you for being in this with us!!

Ps. I am so sorry, but I am taking a break from my All About the Kids Link Up party. Please visit one of my favorite link ups from last week. Dollie with Teachers of Good Things gave a great list of tips on how to build attentiveness in toddlers and preschoolers.

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