Working Mom: Do Not Disturb

I work from home, and am glad that I am able to.  I am able to spend most of my time with my kids, and then squeeze work into our crazy day.  Unfortunately, working from home with kids is not easy.  Sometimes, in fact, it is nearly impossible. 

Because my kids are accustomed to me being at home, they always need me. When my husband has a day off, they still run to me first to tattle, for help them find their favorite monster truck, or to grab them a glass of water.  I love being able to help, but sometimes I wish that it was easier to work from home.

I found this chalk board door hanger on clearance at Wal-Mart. It isn't anything pretty, and I'd love to paint over it, but I was feeling pretty lazy.  So, I sat down at my computer, and whipped up a little design. Cut my vinyl with my silhouette, and then less than perfectly transferred the vinyl to the door hanger.

I don't have high hopes that it is going to make it easier to work from home, but fifteen uninterrupted minutes of work a day would be a beautiful thing. Now I just need to teach my two year old, and six month old how to read.

Do any of you work at home moms have any suggestions for creating more focused work time?  A schedule that works for you?  Quiet activities to entertain your kids while you get things done?  I'm all about refining my process, and would love to know what insights you have.

Printable Sight Word Parking Lot Sheets

In an effort to work a bit more with Clark on his reading skills, I decided we really needed to start focusing on sight words.  

I saw the idea of creating a sight word parking lot here.  I thought it was a great idea.  Rather than take the time to email the creator, and wait for a response, I thought I'd just make up some of printable sheets of my own.

The idea is that you call out a sight word, and then the preschooler finds the word and parks the car on it.  Using cars really seemed to make the activity more play than work for Clark.  We made five sheets that we rotate through.  He's pretty good at guessing a word, based on it's beginning sound, so I tried to make some of them harder on/one, at/ate, just to help him really learn the words.  He's doing well, and still enjoys the activity.

You can find my printable sight word sheets pdf files here.  Enjoy.


Do you have any favorite early reading activities? I'd love to hear your suggestions.

I also found these printable sight word coloring sheets (1,2).  We haven't tried them out yet, but plan on it soon.

You can find a second file that includes 1st grade sight words, and a blank template here.

A blank parking lot template can be found here, plug in your own words, numbers, or colors.

For additional free resources on sight words and learning resources, check out Sightwords.com .

Kids and Holidays-Thanksgiving

Clark is now old enough that he is getting really excited about holidays.  He can't hardly wait for Christmas, to be honest, I can't either.  I really want him to understand and appreciate Thanksgiving for what it is.  I think that it can be really easy to skip past Thanksgiving all together.  We are already singing Christmas songs before bed, watching Christmas shows on Netflix, and reading Christmas stories during the day.

Today I decided that it was time I stepped up and helped Clark understand the purpose of Thanksgiving. My husband sat down and explained the history of Thanksgiving, and then Clark and I discussed some of the things that he was thankful for.  We filled a cornucopia with blessings.  The first thing that he said he was thankful for was holidays.  Yep, we are filled with the spirit.

I've decided that for the few days leading up to Thanksgiving, that I am going to take a little time to do a Thanksgiving activity with him.

Today we colored a Thanksgiving coloring sheet (courtesy of HP).

Fruit arranged, and cornucopia hung by Clark.

We made our cornucopia's.

I love that Miles' hands are nearly as big as Clark's.

And a couple of weeks ago we made some simple handprint turkeys.

So what am I going to do over the next couple of days? Any suggestions?


I'm thinking that we will probably write up some thank you cards for his relatives before we indulge in our Thanksgiving feasts.

I've also been thinking, that for some people, the excitement of Thanksgiving is probably trumped by excitement for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It is strange how scoring a good deal can cause such a natural high isn't it?  I love it though, not the crowds, but the good deals.  Accuquilt is getting ready for Cyber Monday by offering great deals all week.  Hop on over and score some good deals for the crafters on your list. Accuquilt holiday deals.

Birthday Boys

Within the past couple of weeks, both of my boys celebrated their birthdays.  I love them.

They make me smile.

Clark is such a bright boy. He just turned four.  He loves space, loves machines, is learning to read, and is bound to do great things.

Miles celebrated his first birthday.

 He's walking like crazy, trying to talk like crazy, and we love him to pieces

I can't believe that a whole year has passed since we welcomed him to our family.

Cake anyone?

Summer Parks Tour

School is out, sprinklers are sprinkling, ice cream trucks are parading up and down the streets, and it is summer.  I always loved summer as a child.  I enjoy it now, but am less enthusiastic about the yard work, and don't seem to tolerate the heat like I used to.  

I have fond childhood memories of summer.  I loved walking to the candy store with my brothers and sister, flagging down the Frito Lay man for overdue chips, sleeping on the trampoline, dodging the june bugs, playing softball and soccer, and of course running through the sprinklers.  

I love sewing.  I do it all year long.  I don't however, want my boys' memories of summer to involve watching mom sit at the sewing machine.  I hope that I can help them form fond memories that they can share with their children.  

My kids are still young, but Clark is old enough that he remembers what happened last year, and he's certain to remember quite a bit from this summer.  So, in an effort to make our day to day routine a bit more interesting, I'm trying to make a plan.  My husband's work schedule is different every day, week, and month. He rarely has two days off in a row, so unfortunately many of our regular camp outs and reunions aren't going to happen this summer.  So our plans, are going to be local, and achievable in a day.

I've started writing up a summer bucket list, little things that we can do each day.  I've also compiled a list of all of the local parks in our city.  I'm hoping that we can tour all of our local parks, and explore our own backyard. I printed out a little summer passport. You can find the printable passport here, courtesy of Heather Carson.  We are stamping the passport as we visit new parks.  It's just a little something that we can do to encourage exploration.

Heather provides little shapes that you can stick to your passport, but we are just using Clark's McQueen stamps.  

I've also decided that we are going to visit all (or maybe just the best) ice cream shops in our town.  Ice cream and summer time go hand in hand right?  Anyway, we are hoping to hit a different ice cream shop every week or two.  We're recording our ice cream sampling adventures in the passport as well.

It's not much of a plan, but I really think that it will get us out of the rut that we've been in.  We also signed Clark up for the summer reading program at our local library.  I've been pretty impressed with the incentives that they give the kids: ice cream coupons, passes to local play centers, etc.  It is also encouraging us to read books from different sections than we normally do.

So, what are your favorite things to do with your kids in the summer time?  What do you do in your home town?  I'd love some more suggestions for our bucket list.

Tutorial: Men's Shirt to Apron Refashion

Since we've celebrated Father's Day, we can now go through all of the worn dress shirts that have been replaced, and turn them into something new.  Dresses are great, a new top for yourself, an outfit for your little guy.  But if the dress shirts that you have on hand are stained, a bit thread bare, you can turn then into something useful...like an apron.

Clark loves to help me cook, and I usually love to have him help me.  It's a really good thing for us to do together, it keeps him entertained, and I feel like I'm teaching him useful things. Neither of us are really tidy cooks, so aprons are a nice thing to have on hand. We grabbed a couple of my husbands old button up shirts, cut them up, and made some nice cooking aprons for ourselves.

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Tutorial: Hooded Towel

Today I'm sharing a tutorial for a project that has been around forever.  I know that there are many many tutorials out there for hooded towels, but I can't help but share one more.  Hooded towels are really popular in our home.  I made Clark his first hooded towel right after I started this blog, and he wants to use it every bath time.  They're perfect for the beach, the pool, and the bath. The hood keeps them nice and warm. 

Miles not so recently outgrew his infant hooded towel, and I finally got around to making him his own big boy hooded towel.  This one should last him for several years, or until he wears it out.  Hooded towels are super simple to make, here's how I do it....

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Dress Up: Polka Dot Dinosaur Tail

Jess of Running With Scissors, offers a fantastic tutorial for a dinosaur dress up tail for kids.  Clark just celebrated his third birthday, and I thought that some imaginative dress up props would be perfect for him.  

I followed Jess's tutorial, and came up with my own polka dotted felt version.  I used only materials I had on hand, which made it very economical.  I used my Accuquilt Go! Baby with my circle die cuts to cut out the polka dots.  My Go! Baby definitely saved me lots of time (click here for the giveaway).

I personalized the dinosaur tail by stitching the year and love mom on a couple of polka dots on the inside of the tail.

One thing that I wish I'd done differently is the spikes.  The two layers of felt provide it with quite a bit of rigidity, but I wish that I'd topstitched the edges to hold them in position better.

I mentioned that I used only materials that I had on hand, and that includes the filling.  Rather than using a poly fill, which can be a bit pricey, I stacked up plastic grocery sacks and used my rotary cutter to cut them into strips.  I then used all of the plastic strips to tightly fill the dinosaur tail.  There is a bit of a crinkling sound when Clark straps on the tail, but he doesn't mind one bit and either does my pocket book.

Clark loves his new dinosaur tail, and if I don't happen to finish up his Halloween costume in time, this would be a perfect back up.  What dress up props do you have in your home?  I'm thinking that a box of props is going to help beat cabin fever come winter.

Remember that there are just a couple more days to enter the accuquilt Go! baby giveaway.  Also, starting Monday of next week I'll  be kicking off Top-toberfest, so gather all of the links to your top and tee creations so that you can link them up to the party.

Thanks for reading.