52 Projects #33 - Fisherman's Bear's Friend

Arianna loves Fisherman's Bear from Little Bear.  He is Little Bear's friend and he goes to sleep with him.  I made a prototype which is not exactly like fisherman's bear looks, but the idea is there by using Fisherman's bear from the t.v. and a book that I have from Aranzi Aranzo. I still need to work some kinks and such, but I like my first try. Although the bottom part is a bit smaller than the top.  It looks like the bear is a body builder :)  Ari likes it though. 
On a side note, I'd been out of my crafty side - or fairy crafty as I was calling it, but my daughter's birthday is trying to get me back in the mood.  I missed it that is for sure :)

Soup and tea party!

Soup!  Arianna likes some kind of soups...especially the "Dora's soup", the "Little bear's soup", the "Blue's soup", the "alphabet's soup"...  and she is getting really good at feeding herself!  (The bowl used to be Mike's when he was little!)

Playtime!  Our play time involves lots of tea parties... and more tea parties...and the farm... with lots of little pet shops animals and...

 We have a new friend in our play time.  His name is Charly! (not Charlie or Charley)  He comes to our tea parties too!

WPP #23 Tea Party!

This post brings the child on me totally :) This is the first tea set that Arianna loves.  She wants to "Tea party" all the time.  I loved (and still do) tea sets.  I used to get one tea set every year for the first 12- 14 years of my life.  Now, I wish I could had kept some of them.  But, hopefully I can keep this one for her.  After all, it is the first one!

What did you love when you were little?

I love my swing!

We had bought one infant/ toddler seat to replace with one of the ones that came with the swing and it so happens that we don't need it.  She learned to swing in this one!  Here are some pictures to remember :)

WPP#18 Stars and Planets..

When you were a little girl did you want those fluorescent stars on your ceiling?  I did.  Arianna loves her turtle (when it is all dark you can see the stars) that her Ann gave her so long ago now.  I found this planets that light up as well.  So now, we are going for the whole Universe for her :)

New Swing set and more...

So here are some pictures of the swing set.  We are still looking into what we are going to put as floor... maybe plastic mulch (made by tires?)  She loves the swing set and Mike made a really good job building it!

Arianna started to draw faces.  She does a circle, puts two small "circles" inside for eyes, a dot for nose, and a line for the mouth.  She says "A smile face".  She was so in "the zone" when I was taking these pictures.  You can see the sequence when she realized that mommy was at it again with the pictures ;)

What is more fun than drawing you asked?  Well, play-doh!  She loves to make a mess with that one.  Remember Alma all the play-doh stuff we gave you, now I know the reason for your faces (sometimes) but still is very entertaining. 

In a moment...

Here is a picture of 2 of my gerbils - Esmeralda and Sophie.  Arianna likes to look at them for time to time and tells me that they are either eating or sleeping.  " Gerbils are sleeping"

 Then, after looking at the gerbils, Arianna went to the dining room and told me that "Jack and Betsy are looking at birds".

"Mommy the squirrels are hungry"

"Oh, I love to feed the birds".  After we refilled the feeder and then she saw the Cardinal.

 Then, she said " You want to play balls? "

When we went inside, she said " All done".  "Coat off"

 "Let's draw!"

 And that was just a moment in our lives :)

Bourbonnais!

It is just amazing that just last weekend we went to Bourbonnais and we did not have about a foot of snow! But, it was cold!  Still, we ventured out and went to the antique store that we used to frequent long time ago.  At least, it feels like that - Arianna was not here then.  The place is really nice and very cold - I think they don't have any heating system (well, they must have some- but it feels like they don't). So, you have to leave your coat on if you don't want to freeze especially in the back room.  But, the back room is full of interesting junk!  And we found some cool toys in there.

I found some cool books! Just check the 1988 or 1982 edition of the Audubon Birds of America.  According to the reviews this is one of the best editions of this book.  I loved the drawings anyway (whether it is a good edition or not).  I took pictures of 2 pages so you can see how beautiful the book is.  It is a very common book and it sells in any bookstore, but this is an older edition and cost me about 6 dollars.  Arianna found another Red Velveteen Rabbit.  It is one of her favorites and the Cinderella book I bought for the front picture. Maybe I can make a doll out of this one eventually and the maps that Mike found.  He has a nice entry about it in his blog at www.quasis.blogspot.com

We also found an alphabet apple.  Arianna liked it because it played music.

Ari and the slinky.  She found out that her " treasure box" was in reality a slinky!   I know it looks like I am not having fun, but I was!  I just don't like my picture taken ;)

Oh, some pictures of the maps!  I love how the buses looked then and how Mike gets excited explaining to us where the routes used to be and the changes.  Always comparisons :)

How about this bus?  It was 5 dollars with full cargo of little people, something that Ari still likes quite a bit.

We were so hungry that we went to Crackle and Barrel.  It has not disappointed us so far.  Of course, I forgot to take a picture once our food came, but trust me we devoured our food.

This is something new that she is doing at restaurants.  Take out the sugars, put them back, take out sugars...

So, this is a bit out of order since it is still the antique store, but she loved the guitar and the horse!  Maybe next time we can get one.

And that ends our very nice day!