Fun “background” for some baby photos

Posted on April 12, 2013 by roguemama80

The handsome Sprout

About every mom goes camera-crazy with their kiddos and I am no exception. I wanted a fun, bright, portable ‘background’ for some photos of The Sprout – something that would add the dimension that his fuzzy blankets just weren’t living up to. I scored this rug at Ross for $18. It is apparently made of recycled tee shirt strips in variegated colors. Neat-o!

Love the texture and rich colors of this rug

My oldest sneaked his ukulele into his little brother’s shot and it worked great!

Sketch of the Day: Wuzzie the Flying Rat

Posted on March 24, 2013 by roguemama80

Wuzzie the Rat

The Bean has a best friend – an imaginary best friend: Wuzzie the Rat. Wuzzie became a member of our family about 5 months ago. The only rat Beans had ever seen was a dead one a cat had put an end to. It must have made quite an impression on him. When he first started talking to me about Wuzzie I thought it was a phase that would quickly pass – I mean, come on, a flying rat?!?. However, the Bean’s relationship with his imaginary friend has only grown. My son will talk to Wuzzie for hours at a time as he plays with his toys, we have to wait for Wuzzie, Wuzzie sits with us as restaurants, Beans shares his meals with Wuzzie and the best – I can threaten to send Wuzzie home as an effective form of discipline. No kidding. So I figured it was only fitting that I sketch what *I* imagine Wuzzie the Rat to look like. When I showed Beans the sketch he recognized Wuzzie right away. He then asked me why I didn’t draw him riding on Wuzzie. I guess thats the next sketch….

Kid Crafts

Posted on February 23, 2013 by roguemama80

Fun and easy projects

Today was a quiet day. It was Shabbat, so it was perfect for a low-key indoor activity. The Bean is finally on the mend from this nasty sickness and the baby is just super-easy, so I though some painting would be fun. Beans painted a wooden “J” with a hook, a kitty cat that I had primed black and some garden plaques. When he was done with the garden plaques I painted the names of his respective grandmothers and great-grandmothers. We will send them off on Monday. Once again, a cheap, easy pastime for a three-year-old.

Garden plaques for the grandmas

Letter hooks for the boys’ rooms

Rainy Day Art Project

Posted on January 31, 2013 by roguemama80

The Bean’s finished painted horse

The Beans and I are usually pretty active. We love to hike and garden and go on grand adventures as well as undertake all sorts of projects. But lets face it. I am one LAAAAAAZY pregnant lady. So even though my precious, active son really, really wanted to go somewhere and “do” something today, I just couldn’t bring myself to get us going. So I pulled out the bag of “rainy day” projects. This is a bag of easy, fun art & crafts material I horde for days such as this. Beans decided that he wanted to paint a birdhouse and a horse. Awesome. Plant the kid at the kitchen table with his little wooden (and did I mention cheap?) items and let him have at ’em with some (equally cheap) acrylic paints. It had been my intention to prime these wooden paintables and then spray paint them with a solid color BEFORE the Bean got to them…but I just never got around to it. I promised him I would take him to Michael’s and let him pick out some more things to paint tomorrow – I’ll try to get right on top of those and paint a base color on them as soon as we get them home – It just tends to make them look so much more finished…. So, Beans painted a horse and a birdhouse: it killed an hour, cost less than $3 and satisfied my son’s desire to “do” something. Win, win, win. AND he’s going to give them away as gifts. Whatta sweetie!

Beans with his birdhouse

Real Food Snacks – DIY Trail mix

Posted on January 30, 2013 by roguemama80

Organic pumpkin seeds, almonds, date pieces, raisins & dried apricots

With a preschooler you always have to have snacks on hand. You never know when they are going to get hungry, and a healthy, energy-giving snack can mean the difference between finishing your errands and having to deal with a DEFCON 1 meltdown. In my family we LOVE trail mix. Nuts, seeds and dried fruits produce a tasty pick-me-up that never fails to make my Bean happy. We have found that by purchasing our trail mix ingredients separately from the bulk natural foods section of our local supermarket or co-op we not only get to customize what goes into our trail mix – but we wind up paying a lot less. The trail mix we blended in today’s pictures are made from all organic ingredients and cost less than $5/lb. The only prep required was cutting up the dried apricots. The next time you want to stock up on portable snacks, consider making your own trail mix blend.

Beans loves his trail mix!

Juicing in January

Posted on January 20, 2013 by roguemama80

Refreshing Juice Blend

Its a freezing but beautifully clear January day here in the Rogue Valley. The Bean & I thought we’d share one of our more mild tasting, refreshing juice blends. Using a cucumber and an apple as a base we add a handful of carrots, several stalks of celery, small bunches of both cilantro & parsley, several large kale leaves and a few beet stalks & greens.

The Bean helping juice

I use an oldie-but-goodie- ACME juicer I bought used last year off of craigslist. We love it. I’m pretty sure it cost me $30. There always seems to be just a ton of reasonably priced used juicers on craigslist. – I love craigslist (if you haven’t already noticed) –
Beans loves “helping” with the juicing process. His participation usually guarantees that he will drink a glass of juice (no matter how tart or bitter) because he feels an ownership of the juicing process. I’ll throw an extra apple or half beet in the mix if the juice is just too potent for the kiddo.
So grab some veggies and get to juicing. Its a real pick-me-up in these winter months…

Give your body what it needs

Interpretive Art – Mixed media with a preschooler

Posted on January 18, 2013 by roguemama80

A Man and His Horse

Ever look at the clouds and pick out the “things” that you see in the billows of white & gray? Sure, we all have. Today’s art project isn’t far removed from a cloud watching exercise. This morning my three year old asked me what we could do “together”. I’m feeling pretty pregnant and pretty lazy so not a whole lot of adventures came to mind. I remember seeing a blog not long ago that featured these “blob” paintings – where the artist would paint a “blob” and then interpretively sketch a character out of the near-formless painting. I figured I could tailor the project to me and my pre-schooler’s particular needs. I set him up with some watercolors and let him paint till his little heart was content. Then we talked about what he saw in each painting. It was interesting that we both saw many similar “things” in the paintings. Under the Bean’s directions, I’d sketch in what he interpreted his brush strokes to be. Lots of fun – AND he’s very proud…

Dancing People

Rogue Mama

The lifestyle and discoveries of a quasi-crunchy Southern Oregon mama

Category Archives: Things to do with your kids