Week two - Bee my baby sew along

This week was all about the cuddles. Blankets and sleeping bags, quilts or car seat covers . I went for a sleeping bag of my own design,  because tiny loves his sleeping bag, but he has almost outgrown it. 

Also, we usually sleep with the window open, even in winter, and little babies need warmth. I decided to forgo the zipper because I never use it and it ended up being a very quick project. 

Diese Woche ging es bei Bee my Baby um's drauflegen und Zudecken. Ich hab' dem Winzling einen neuen Schlafsack genäht, denn aus seinem Alten ist er schon fast herausgewachsen. Ausserdem ist es bei uns im Schlafzimmer eher kühl, weil wir bei offenem Fenster schlafen. Aber kleine Babies brauchen nun mal Wärme :-)

Ich habe mich entschlossen das ganze ohne  Reißverschluss zu machen weil ich den so selten benutze - damit wurde es ein sehr schnelles Project.

 

Pattern: my own, I basically traced around the old sleeping bag and made it longer and wider

Fabric: grey fleece outside, Giraffes and clouds on blue jersey inside, both from a surprise bag at "Michas Stoffecke" 

Schnittmuster: Mein eigenes, Ich habe einfach um den alten Schlafsack  herumgezeichnet und ihn verlängert/verbreitert

Stoff: Aussen ein grauer Fleece, innen ein Blauer Jersey mit Giraffen und Wölkchen, beides aus einem Überraschungspaket von Michas Stoffecke

It turned out super cuddly and he loves it! 

Der Schlafsack ist Superkuschlig!

 

I used CamSnaps to close it, all four in different colors. Mr. Smartypants told me so :-) And I posted this picture mostly because Tiny looks soooooo cute.

Als Verschluss habe  ich CamSnaps verwendet, in vier verschiedenen Faben. Mr Smartypants hat gesagt ich soll das so machen. Das Bild poste ich hauptsächlich, weil der Winzling so niedlich aussieht.

off to Bee My Baby with this post!

Ab zu  Bee My Baby damit!

Keep creating,

Vee

An afternoon for mother and daughter

Just the three of us yesterday afternoon - Smartie learned how to ride a bike and we made cupcakes :-)

Keep creating

Vee

Steam engine museum - we had a great time!

We did this quite a while ago and the kids had so much fun! We got to stand on a working steam engine, play with model trains - and the severe lack of visitors was a big bonus - no lines anywhere :-)

Day nine - all our bags are packed, we're ready to go...

We enjoyed ur last day at the farm, said our goodbeyes,  packed up all of our things and left the farm around noon. We added a visit to the MostBirnHaus to see the awesome playground tjaz friends had told us about. It ended up being a lot of fun and we spent a very hot afternoon sitting in the shade, watching the kids get muddy in the sand pit...

Day eight - pony express

One of the highlights of this vacation for me is interacting (and see the kids) interact with animals. I think i mentioned that i'm super allergic to everything that is even remotely hairy, so none of us have a lot of contact with animals at home, but since i'm taking high doses of antihistamines, i might qs well reap the benefits...
Katinka the horse is awesome - she's super patient :-)

Day seven - a day at the farm

Since this was a pretty typical day at the farm up until the point when we got a visitor, i thought I'd tell you how our days went by.
The kids wake up around seven and get dressed for breakfast while my husband and i still sleep...no wait, that was a commercial... so, the kids wake up around seven and then shout at us until we get up, need help finding their socks etc.
We have breakfast with veggies from the greenhouse,  cheese and homemade jam and feed the leftover cucumber to Maxi the goat afterwards.  We get some food for the animals (dandilion leaves, mostly) and feed the bunnies, guinea pigs, ponies and goats. We usually take some animals outside, a couple of baby bunnies and the goats, perhaps.
The kids play at the playgroung while my husband and i laze around for a bit, maybe on one of the swings. At some point, one of us will go and get our guitars down so we can practise, Mr. Noodles will ride around on a bike for a while and both kids will help the farmer get the food for the cows.
We spent most of the day like this - helping a little, playing more. I highly recommend it :-)
A friend drove down from vienna today to play Dominion with us - we had a great time.

Day six - awwwww, cute!

A very cold and rainy day led to us spending most of the day inside playing chess and boardgames,  but we went to a different farm in the evening to see where the milk comes from - the kids were very excited, especially since they got to feed a tiny calf - it was less than 24 hours old :-)  the kids got to hold the bottle...

Day five - learning to play chess - check :-)

Sunday as very, very hot. We spent the morning hanging around at the playground and rying out the pool  - but the water was still super cold, so nobody spent a lot of time in the water.
We headed to a public pool around noon and i swam over 1km at the pond.
We had a bbq back at the farm in the evening and finished up just before it started raining - and inside Mr. Noodles asked me to teach him how to play chess. He picked up all the rules right away and we ended up playing for quite a while ...

Day four - Strawberry fields forever

The morning was very, very wet, but the rain didn't keep us away from the animals. We fed the cows and the chicken, played with Maxi the goat and discovered that some of the chilli plants in the greenhouse have small chillis on them already.

We wanted to look at some street parties by local volunteer fire departments, but they were not what we expected.
We know them as teeny tiny parties that go on all day, have some stuff for kids to do, let you look inside a fire truck or handle the big hose... this wasn't anything like it - they only started in the evening with booze and music...

So we went to a huge bakery instead where they let you bake your own roll, let you look into the factory and give you some free samples. The kids whre at the kids bakery and got to bake some stuff, too. After the tour was finished, i went to the nearby strawberry field to pick our own strawberries. I picked almost 3kg - thats six pounds!

We had dinner at 'altes presshaus' where we where a bit surprised by the food - we expected rustic and got fine dining - but it was really, really good.
See ya
Vee

Day three - learn to ride a bicycle - check :-)

Mr. Noodles learned how to ride a bike today. He practised with his balancing bike, but he's never been on a 'real' bike before. It took him less than ten minutes...

Day two - so many animals!

And you know, as someone who is highly allergic to almost every animal, i have to say that antihistamines are an amazing invention...

Not all of the animals are allowed on the playground, but some of them are - right now we have two goats, three ponies, a bunch of guinea pigs and a couple of rabits out here - the kids love it! 

We had some heavy rain this morning, but now the sun is out and everything is awesome :-)

The kids are really getting the
free range treatment here - they run around as much as they want and basically come to us for food - this time there are more families here on vacaton and all the kids can play together.

We're here!

We have arrived at the Kerndlerhof for our farm vacation. The kids felt at home right away - i don't think we'll see much of them for the next eight days...

I plan to keep you updated :-)

vee

Homeschooling? Me?

I contemplated homeschooling my son - in this post i'm exlporing my reasons for it and how everything happened differently than i planned it

Hello there,

It looks like i’m not going to homeschool my son next year.
Let's step back and take a look at what happened and why I, who have NEVER considered homeschooling to be for anyone other than religious fundamentalists, seriously planned to do this in the first place.

1). The situation in viennese Schools isn’t the best overall, but our district is fairly catastrophic. I really don’t care where anyone comes from or where anyones parents come from, but i would like for all first graders to be able to speak the language that is used for teaching, thank you very much. If they don’t, they need to learn the language as quickly as possible to be able to understand their classmates and teachers. Yes, there should be a fund for that, that’s a good thing to spend tax money on. If there are a couple of kids that aren’t fluent in german, that’s no big deal. They will learn the language soon enough. But in the Schools that are closest to our home, there are perhaps two or three kids starting each year that ARE fluent in german, and no teacher in the world can teach 20+ kids in a language they don’t understand.

2). I know my kids need social contacts and the whole peer group thing is important, but i don’t like our district very much and i definetly don’t like its people. Is that really who i want my kids to hang out with and learn from?

3). I’ve seen with a couple of kids that the start of school stopped their fun they had with learning. My son is smart and interested in many things and i’m dreading the time where learning will become a chore for him. I would love for that point in time to be very, very far away. I have an examle of that – my friends daughter is very smart, but impatient and a bit of a wild child. She’s also very exact when it comes to coloring or glueing, so stuff like that takes a long time. The normal classroom situation is just not what she needs. She’s always behind and has to take work home that she didn’t finish in addition to her homework. She’s smart – it’s not like she can’t do the work, everything just takes soooo long because it has to be perfect and then she gets bored and distracted. It takes her two to three hours every day to get that stuff done. That girl is eight years old. She loves reading, but she doesn’t have the time to read much…

So, these were the main reasons for me to consider homeschooling, and i actually started preparing for it. I read so much, mostly things from mothers who homeschool, i had a couple of wonderful conversations with some fantastic people, and i was quite confident that i would be, in fact, able to pull this off. ’ So what changed?

1). I found a school that I actually like. It is fairly close and they have good tutoring programs for kids whose german isn’t too good, they start with english in first grade and they have a model class that i really, really liked. They teach the grades one through four in one classroom, with five to eight kids per grade. The kids have three to five years to finish the first four grades, and a lot of the work is Montessori based and the kids work things out for themselves.

2). My kids will have to learn to get along with all kinds of people, and while i would love to shelter them from all unleasant kids, i can not (and will not) do that. School is a somewhat controlled enviroment to meet these people and if things don’t work, there are grown ups to help.
3). I applied to the school, and even though there are only seven spots this year, we got one of them. My sons best friend is in the same class, she started last fall and their experience has so far been really good. The homework load is minimal and she can work at her own speed. I know my son will be really fast in math and slow when it comes to coloring, cutting or even writing. I hope he will not be judged on his weaknesses but his strengths in this class.
I am extremely happy we got in – but with a little bit of sadness mixed in. It would have been a great opportunity. I loved being there for my kids firsts – and now someone else gets to do this. We will continue our study time, i think – greatly reduced, maybe, but it’s not over completely.
Vee

Sweet strawberries

I did it - my daughter finally got the sweater I always wanted to make for her...
I  have wished for a while that my sewing skills would be good enough to tackle some bigger projects, preferrably clothing for my kids. Our son grows legs first - and combined with a desire to always slide on his knees and crawl into small  spaces, this leads to an extreme shortage of pants that  a) have legs that are long, b) a tiny waist and c) no holes at the knees... I already repaired/elongated lots of his old pants, but a couple of pairs of pants for Mr. Noodles are next on my list.

Anyway, I found this super cute Fabric - pink/red stripes and hearts in a nice cotton velour that I simply had to use for the Mouse Princess. I combined it with a couple of different greens I had at home and added some classic strawberry shortcake apliqué - vóilà, a new favourite :-)
She wants  to wear it all day, every day now :-)

keep creating, 

Vee

Frugal Family Fun Filled Friday

See what I did there :-D I LOVE alliterations *big cheesy grin*
It is time to plan your weekend, isn't it? As a stay at home mom who is trying to run a business from home I'm all about no or low cost fun...

To start this off, here is what we did last weekend.
Quick and easy picknick in the park:
I called up a friend with three kids (very sweet girls - it's them in the picture :-)) and we got together a spontaneous picknick. We went to a park that's not our usual fair with a really big playground, each of us grabbed some stuff from the fridge ( Anja made some sandwiches for the kids, I supplied waffles and sliced apple) and we had a fantastic afternoon.
DH and I even tossed a football around for a while and the afternoon ended with all of us watching a guy drive around his RC boat on the pond.

Idea: Picknick at the playground

cost: 0$

supplies: leftover food from the fridge, waterbottles, favourite outside toys

location: new playground

What are your plans? do you have an idea you want to share?

Vee

Top ten tuesday best boardgames for families / Brettspiele für Familien

We are passionate boardgamers, and since games make wonderful christmas presents I thought I could share some of them - maybe they are useful for some of you? My DH (darling husband) prepared this awesome list for you :-) Thank you, hun!

Wir sind mit ganzem Herzen Brettspieler und weil Spiele sehr schöne Weihnachtsgeschenke sind, dachte ich mir ihr wolltet warscheinlich gerne ein paar tips haben. Mein LM (lieber Mann) hat netterweise diese tolle Liste für Euch zusammebgestellt :-) Danke, Schatz!

A good family game for me is a game that has enough strategy as to offer

differnt strategies to win the game but enough luck so that the little ones

don´t get crushed. I also do not believe in holding back and letting children

win. I do not mind getting the outside track to make it harder for me, but

it is really important that children learn to lose, to win and to think.

 

niagara

Nice little game where too much greed leads to sunken boats. 8 and up

 

verflixxt

A game to be mean. Some kids like that, some don´t. No one knows your kids better than you do.

 

zauberstauber

A racing game to be played on a tabletop. It is great fun to learn to move you vacuum around.

Be prepared for your kids to get the hang of this faster than you are and you won´t ever win again.

 

maulwurf company

My favourite. It´s easy, It speeds up and it´s a challenge for young and old.

 

toru

A reaction game. The children should be older and you must make sure that players

do not get too competitive or this may lead to injuries.

 

ninja vs ninja

Kids just love to beat figures from a board. This game only takes 5-10 minutes and is great fun

6 and up.

 

robotics

Build little robots to order. It takes a little planning, so again for larger kids.

 

klondike

A very cool dexterity game from haba. You have a metal plate and put differently colored

marbles on it. Now you try to wash out all the rubble and keep the gold while the other

players bet on your abilities.

 

dixit

A very nice social game of associating pictures. Kids can play that easy as soon as they are in school.

 

zap zerapp

A race where you have to pick figures and listen closely on how much movement they allow you.

But get too greedy and you stay in your space.

Top Tip Tuesday Toys for Boys

Tweet Boys, huh? what should we give or make for them for the holidays? What to tell friends and family when they ask you and you don't want to end up with boxes full of shiny and new plastic toys that nobody ever plays with? I love the handmade suggestions I posted last week, but here are some more ideas, especially for a smaller budget

We love adding to toys that our kids already have - it keeps the toys fresh and interesting.

• Lego - there's still room in our lego box and Mr. Noodles gets better at building and constructing with it all the time
• wooden train set - you can always use mor tracks or bridges!
• Star Wars figures - it might be something different for your kid, but Mr. Noodles loves Star Wars and every new figure goes into the collection and gets played with. You know what your kid is a fan of - Dinosaurs, cowboys and indians, superheros or soldiers...

I don't place restrictions on these things (friends and family can gift this)

• Books (age apropriate and hopefully interesting) in english and german
• Puzzles
• Boardgames (people need to check with us first to see if we have something already)
• Art and Craft Materials

Vee

Mommy, can we go visit Mars?

Tweet My son asked me yesterday if he could go visit the planet Mars sometime - I'm still a little misty eyed! I so want to witness the first marslanding - looks like I infected him!

ein Sohn fragt mich, ob er mal den Mars besuchen kann. Ich bin noch immer ein bisschen gerührt! Ich wünsche mir SO SEHR das die erste Marslandung noch zu meinen Lebzeiten stattfindet - anscheinend hab' ich ihn angesteckt!

Vee

Space Sunday/Weltraumsonntag (good for untalented crafters and lazy people, too :-))

Tweet We've started our space unit and here is some of the fun stuff we did so far - complete with a tutorial for a super, super easy Rocket craft and a video!

Wir haben mit unserer Weltraum-Lerneinheit angefangen, und hier gibts ein paar der Highlights für Euch - mit einem Tutorial für unsere supereinfachen Ballonraketen - sogar mit video!

Mr. Noodles

We started our "Space" unit by looking at the night sky and painting one of my all time favourite pictures, "Starry Night"  by Vincent van Gogh - I got the idea for the Art Project from this wonderful blog - Nadene drew the outline we used and you can download it there for free :-)
We used the technique described on that blog, only we used crayons (worked really well, too!)
My Mom was there, so she got to color, too - it was a nice family fun activity!

Oma

Wir haben unsere Weltraum-Lerneinheit mit der Betrachtung des Nachthimmels begonnen - und dann machten wir uns an eines meiner allerliebsten Bilder, die "Sternennacht" von Vincent van Gogh. Die idee habe ich von diesem wundervollen Blog - Nadene hat auch die outline gezeichnet, die wir verwendet haben. Ihr könnt sie dort gratis runterladen!

Wir haben die Technik verwendet, die auf dem Blog beschrieben wird, nur haben wir wachs- statt Ölkreiden verwendet. Funktioniert aber genauso gut :-)

Meine Mama war gerade zu Besuch, also durfte sie mitmachen - es war ein richtig netter Familien-Kunst-Nachmittag!

Me

We all had seen the picture before, but I didn't wan to have the original (or rather a copy in a book - I wish I owned the original!) on the table because I wanted to see what the kids would come up with - the pictures where really creative!

Wir kannten alles das Bild - ich hatte es aber nicht als Vorlage daliegen, ich wollte lieber sehen, wie meine Kinder das ganze sehen - und die Bilder wurden sehr kreativ!

We watched "The moon rocks" (bubble Guppies episode), sang along and decided to go to space ourselves.
Wir haben uns die "Der Mond ist toll" Episode der Bubbleguppies angeschaut and mitgesungen und  beschlossen, Raketen zu bauen um selbst in's Weltall zu fliegen.

This craft is so easy, EVERYONE can do it. You need this:

• balloon
• cardboard/cardstock
• colored pencils or crayons
• double sided sticky tape

Das is so einfach, JEDER kann das schaffen. Ihr braucht:

• Luftballon
• Karton/Pappe
• Buntstifte oder Wachskreiden
• Doppelseitiges Klebeband

This is how we did it:

So haben wir's gemacht:

Draw a rocket on your cardboard and cut it out

Zeichne eine Rakete auf die Pappe und schneidet sie aus

Color your Rocketship

Malt eure Rakete schön bund an

Name your Rocket

Gebt der Rakete einen Namen

Double sided sticky tape goes on the back
Doppelseitiges Klebeband auf die Rückseite

blow up a balloon, stick on rocket

Ballon aufblasen, Rakete draufkleben

Let her fly!

Lasst sie fliegen!

And here is the Video of Mr. Noodles practicing counting down in english

Und hier ist Mr. Noodles und sein englischer Countdown: 

Vee

Cutest spooks ever! Niedliche Halloween Gesellschaft

Tweet I took Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, a ghost, a Vampire and Wiich Trick or Treating.
Halloween isn't very popular here, so we had a Party at our apartment and went out after dark to get some candy at my friends house. Fun!
Ich hatte eine kleine Halloween Party mit Darth Vader und Luke Skywalker, einer Hexe, einem Geist und einem Vampir.  Nachdem es dunkel war, gingen wir noch im Haus meiner Freundin auf Süssigkeitenjagd...

Yesterday I had a lot to clean up, though - my Mom arrived around noon for a visit. She doesn't see her grandkids that often, so it's nice to have her over for  a week...

Gestern hatte ich dann allerdings jede Menge aufzuräumen - meine Mama kam gegen Mittag an - sie sieht ihre Enkel nicht so oft, deshalb freuen wir uns besonders, dass sie eine ganze Woche bleiben kann :-) 

Greetings from grey Vienna,
Vee