music & fun!

Like every toddler Ella Maria loves music, dancing, and "singing"...is just great to see her have so much fun.  So my goal was to find a place to take her and just let her have fun.  When we lived in VT my sister always told me to take her to Kindermusik, for so many reasons I never did. Now back in Boston and being a full time mom I have the time to do as much as we have energy to.  In all my research I got some information from this place in Medford licensed by Kindermusik, and we got an invitation to attend one of their demo classes.

This is the break down to the different classes that Kindermusik offers:

http://www.kindermusik.com/Classes/Classes.aspx

We attended "Family Time"...fun for all!

At the beginning Ella Maria was not to sure about what was going on.  The teacher starts with a Hello song and has everyone clap, stomp their feet, rub their belly, well you get the idea.  And Ella Maria just sat on my lap watching and taking it all in.  If we would have been at home most likely she would had been dancing her little heart out...but not here.  I thought to myself this is not good, but we gave it a try.

The song was over, and the musical instrument came out.  Guess who jumped out and ran to the center of the room to get hers.  And that was all she needed to come out of her shell.  I guess she was just scouting her surroundings.

She found the Cymbals...you can see in her face how
happy she was!

Some singing, dancing, and a lot of bing, bang, bung...and the instruments had to be put away.  And being as good as she is...she was helping out get everything in order.  (Do not come to visit us without prior notice, all of her stuff will be all over the place...there is no helping Mommy put things away.) 

Now they where ready for the next activity... 

Scarfs of many colors come out of a basket to be used in many different ways...let your imagination guide you.  And this is how she looked...

Being a fashionista...she immediately turns her yellow scarf into a skirt (I promise I had nothing to do with it.)  Then she needed a scarf, they are so in style now. Last but not least she turns her scarf into a hat. If we would have been allowed to have shoes, she would have been wearing mid-calf boots. 

She had all the accessories needed for this season.

I need to get a new wardrobe to look half as cool as she looks all the time!!! 

Scarf time came to an end and it was time for a little bit of quiet time...they could sit, lay down, do anything as long as we were all quiet. 

And of course she decides to do the thing that whenever I ask her she refuses to do: lay down.

 Next activity was story time...about a little kid that misplaces her tambourine. She loves books, and she was very interested in this new story!

 After story time it was time to start wrapping things up, it was time to sing the good bye song.

We had a very good time.  A bit of an uncertain start but a very successful end! 

I think this will be a good thing for us to do.  Is once a week for 10 weeks, the new class will start in January.  So don't look for us Mondays at 10:15 am, we will be busy singing and dancing our hearts out!

Friday night out!

Don't get all out of shape thinking that you might be reading about me getting dressed up in my trendiest outfit, picked up by a limousine, getting in at the most exclusive club in the city, and dancing the night away. No, that is not the case. So far from it, I don't think I own a trendy outfit anymore, the most exclusive club I attend is any club that allows a 2 year old, and the only time that I might dance the night away is in my living room with Ella Maria.
So, this Friday night I decided to spend it at the Children's Museum. Every Friday from 5 to 9 pm you can get into the museum for $1.00...great isn't it. They have this special thanks to Target.
We were able to have dinner, get ready, and be there by 7:00 pm...I know what you are thinking, this is bed time! What is she thinking!?!? Well, we are not to good at this routine thing...things change, things happen, or we are just having to much fun. Having a set time for every activity in the day is harder than pulling teeth! We have a general idea of what nap or bed time is, so Ella Maria is in bed "around" the same time everyday.
Anyway...today is Friday night! We went out to have some fun!
As soon as we got there Ella Maria spotted the humongous Hood container of milk at the entrance and decided that she wanted chocolate milk. But play time was first, so decided to run in conquer every activity in the museum and finish the night with that well deserved chocolate milk.
Our first adventure was the "Arthur" exposition...and I have some pictures!

A women there was impressed on how Ella Maria knew of the importance of good seasoning (what can I say, it might be in her blood with parents that are chefs)...she shacked that container until everything on the table was seasoned to her pleasing! After that she decided to call Daddy and let him know how happy she was.
"Hello Daddy, Ella Happy!"

Then we played some more, some more, and then a bit more...

Then we danced a bit....and suddenly it was announced that they would be closing in 15 minutes.  Oh no, we ran downstairs got a chocolate milk, sat down and enjoyed!

It was a great night out...we had loads of fun. On our drive home Ella Maria asked if she could go night night.  That is big! Her asking me to got to bed, no fight for more time...this was priceless!

Can't wait for our next adventure!

Stars to hide the Street lights...

I have been working in many projects. Well, mostly in my mind! So many things I want to do and so little time to do so...in one word "toddler". There is so much I can do without feeling guilty that I'm not playing with her. While she was sleeping last night I started this. She needed curtains in her room. Not just to cover some light but mostly to avoid some of that breeze to come in. I don't know if is just me being paranoid but every time I go into her room I feel like a window is open. We just moved to this apartment in August, is a pretty new construction and they take care of it...(which I can't say the same about many other apartments in the Boston area). I won't talk about how much I dislike Landlords! Back to the apartment...So the fact that is pretty new makes it hard to believe that the windows are so bad. But I won't complain, I love this place and hope to be able to stay here until we get our own place (5 to 100 years from now). I had this fabric for the longest time and had no clue what to do with it. Well, now I'm proud to say I got curtains out of it. this is what I started with:

I got Ella Maria a new duvet cover at Ikea (love Ikea), and it has some stars. I decided to keep the "star" theme in the curtains. Made a stamp with a potato and got some golden glittery fabric paint.

It took me about 45 minutes to have both panels of fabric done. I used the sponge brush to spread the paint evenly on the stamp. And to add more paint to the fabric once I had removed the stamp, it was not a perfect print most of the time.
This is how the fabric looked once I was done:

I let it dry for about 4 hours. To finish them I sew a seam, and I was done. Not a fancy project but we are happy with the end result. Ella Maria expressed her approval with a "I like Mommy". I put them up tonight, this is how they look like:

One of this days I will invest in curtain rods...that will be when I know that we will be here for more than one year. In the meanwhile thumb tags will do the trick.