When I came across The Little Box of Knitted Gifts today, I just knew that I had to give it away to some lucky Green Wife reader!  It’s just perfect for my knitting readers looking for fun, quick things to knit up for the lucky people on their lists.

It’s a cute little box full of 20 patterns for things like scarves, mittens, hats, dishcloths and more.  The best part?  Each pattern is on its own card that you can toss in your knitting bag.  No more toting a big book along with you!

So, to enter the drawing just comment (one time only, please) and tell me when you begin to decorate for the holidays.  No entries after 5pm tomorrow, please. I will choose a winner randomly on the evening Wednesday, November 18th.

**The contest is open to anyone who can find a use for the prize and is not limited based on religious beliefs. The only person ineligible to win this prize is….me.

And the winner is…..#9!

Congratulations, Cheyenne!  Please contact me within 14 days to claim your prize.

The package that we received included two wonderful sets of felt stories.

Alex’s set was Aesop’s Fables.  It came precut, assembled and included an audio CD as well as a booklet so the child or parent can read the stories aloud as the felt scenes are used.  We instantly fell in love!

The book is bound with 3 rings and with each turn of the page, you discover lovely new scenes that serve as backdrops for several stories each.

Just look at the lovely detail and adorable creatures!

Opposite each scene, you’ll find a pocket that includes the felt cutouts of people, animals and objects that help tell the fables.

Don’t you just love all the detail?  Wow!

Elliott received a slightly different type of felt book and the Itsy Bitsy Spider collection.  It came in a tidy little zip pouch with a pocket to hold the felt pieces and a booklet with a couple of spider stories to tell in addition to the classic Itsy Bitsy that we all know and love.

The little creatures are friendly and appealing and the book can stand up or be flat in a lap for long car rides and such.

I look very forward to more peaceful road trips with these in tow.  Elliott has just never been a good car ride kind of kid, so peace in the car is priceless to us!

The kids even took their felt sets with them to enjoy in the leaf piles this weekend!  It made for such a lovely afternoon.

Now…this is where you come in!

The very gracious Karen at funfelt.com has given me the privilege of giving one of my magnificent readers a $25 gift certificate to use for their own felt goodies.  Talk ab0ut a great way to get a wonderfully unique Christmas present!

To enter, post a comment telling about your Christmas shopping.  Are you already done?  Are you a Black Friday die-hard?  What are you getting for your family?  Are you a Christmas Eve shop-in-a-panic thrill seeker?  Let me hear it!  One comment only, please!  Winner will be chosen Wednesday, November 11 at 12pm central time.

Sorry for the delay!  The winner is comment #14.  Congratulations, Jasmine!

Jasmine, please email me through my contact page and we’ll get your gift certificate information to you!

Thank you, everyone, for participating in the contest!  You guys are the best!

This past Saturday we spent almost the entire day just savoring every moment of an ideal day.  We headed out to rake the yard and moms, if you play your cards right, your children will beg to rake the leaves themselves.

Of course, anything that big brother does, little sister must supervise…

…and eventually take over.

While Elliott raked up a lovely pile, Alex snacked on some pecans he uncovered in his raking efforts.

Snack time was over when it was time to stomp the leaves.

Break time!  The kiddos kicked back and stared up at the many colors of leaves and tried to decide just which type of tree was their favorite.

I got down there with them and lost myself in the beautiful colors.

The guys headed inside for a bit while Elliott and I played some more outside.

We walked up and down our street no less than 17 times so Elliott could kick through the fallen leaves.

We ended our lovely fall afternoon with a little picnic and quiet time.

Tell me how you and your family are enjoying fall!  It’s my favorite season.  What’s yours?

The other day I was out shopping with Elliott when I got this feeling in the pit of my stomach.  That feeling was the fear that maybe–just maybe–I had become one of those moms who didn’t work with or stimulate their second child as much as she did her first.

I couldn’t live with that fear festering inside me, so we rushed to a teaching supply store in search of preschool teaching tools.  I found little to nothing that suited what I had in mind.  As we roamed the aisles, I tried to think back to my school days and dug deep in the recesses of my scattered brain for hands-on learning tools that I might have enjoyed as a kid.  FELT BOARDS!!!  I had to find a felt board and fast!

I did find one in the store.  It was small, plain and expensive for what it was.  It just didn’t feel right.

So, I ran next door to the craft store and gathered supplies.  And…enter the felt board tutorial!

What I used:

• 1   20″x30″ foam board (like poster board, but…foam)
• A large section of felt (I bought 1 yard of 72″ wide felt and had enough for 2 boards)
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun & glue sticks
• Trim & decoration

Spread your felt out on a flat surface.  Place the foam board on top and trim felt about 4-5″ larger than your board in all directions.

Take one corner and fold it inward, securing with plenty of hot glue.

Repeat with remaining 3 corners and your board should look something like this:

On 2 opposite ends of your board, fold the felt over and glue.  Make sure to pull it tightly and evenly so that your finished product will look nice and tidy.

Repeat with remaining sides.  Remember…nice and snug.

Now it’s time to make it pretty.  Flip it over and decorate!  Elliott chose green rick rack.

And it just wouldn’t be right without some purple eyelash trim…right?

Finished product and my little satisfied customer…

And the letters?

I got our felt letters in the scrapbooking section of the craft store, but you can find all kinds of felt cutouts on Etsy, Ebay, teaching supply stores and your local craft store.  I plan to cut some of the more simple shapes by hand when I have more time.  Also…I thought little families of felt stick figures would be fun!  And maybe a little felt house, pets and a car!  Oh man, felt boards are fun for moms, too!

(Green alternative: rather than using foam board, use a good sturdy piece of cardboard from a leftover box if you have one available.  Use scraps of felt and trim that you have around the house or find at a garage sale.  Reduce, reuse, recycle!)

They’re all the rage at conferences I’ve attended lately and I expect to see tons of them at Blog World Expo this week.  There are many fun little characters to choose from or there’s the newer Poken Pulse that simply looks like a flash drive.

Now…what makes me love these guys even more??  They can totally and completely replace business cards!  No more wasting paper and ink!  No more killing trees!  Love it.  These cute little guys are saving the world and they don’t even know it!

So…here’s the part that you’ll really love– I’m giving one away!  Your choice of any 1 Poken character or Poken Pulse!  Oh, the fun!

To enter, just comment and let me know which social media you use the most (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc…) and let me know what you think about these lil’ guys! Contest will end Tuesday, October 13 at 5pm CST.  Spread the word!

And the winner is….

#19….Helen!  Congratulations, Helen!  Please email me here to claim your prize!  Be sure to let me know which Poken you would like!

Thank you all for entering.  Keep checking back for more upcoming giveaways!

Since I’ve been ‘gone’, I have learned how to knit and am really enjoying making scarves for family and friends.  I’ve discovered the joys of really luxurious yarn, the fun of trying different types of needles, the friendship of my local knitting group and the satisfaction that comes with completing a knitting project.

I’ll start with sharing photos and then get to the fun of the giveaway!

This is Elliott’s scarf.  When she saw me knitting scarves for gifts, she decided she needed one, too.  This bamboo yarn is so pretty and soft that I cranked this baby out in just a couple of hours.

This next was started out to be a scarf for yours truly, but I quickly discovered that I hadn’t ordered nearly enough yarn, so it was turned into a shrug for my girl.

This blue one is for my step-daughter.  She hasn’t seen it yet, but I hope she’ll love it.  When I found that blue yarn, I knew it had to be hers. (Elliott had to model it. )

And then there is my true love that I finished this morning. This yarn just couldn’t be more ‘me’ if it tried.

Now…

Would you like a scarf?  Would ya? Are you sure?

Good.

I’m giving away a very simple but lovely wool scarf in fun fall colors!  It can be yours!

To enter: Leave a comment telling me what you would like to see in the future on my site or what you would like to see changed on my blog.  It’s that easy!  Tell your friends!  Tell your neighbors!  Tell your dog!

Contest will close Wednesday, October 7th at 5pm central time and the winner will be announced soon after.  Please be sure to leave a way for me to contact you in case you win!

We have a winner!  I used random.org to choose a number from the entries I received before time was up and our winner was comment #4….Amelia!!

Thank you all so much for you input!  It was really fun and interesting to hear your thoughts on my blog and I will work on these ideas.  Keep your eye out for another giveaway coming up soon!

It’s a white vodka cream sauce with sauteed asparagus and mushrooms.  It’s so delicious served over a good cheese-filled ravioli but will make any pasta be proud to be seen with it.

Go try it.  Now, please.  Recipe is here.

And yesterday, Elliott and I were dozing in and out at nap time and I had this idea.  I felt like I needed to hurry to the kitchen and combine my favorite pie crust recipe and the delicious fudge filling from my Fudge Puddles recipe.

This is the result:

Absolutely heavenly little bite-sized fudge pies.  I call them….Mini Mud Pies.  Stick a pecan or some toasted coconut on top and WOW.  Yum.  Recipe is here.

I found this Maya Peasant Dress pattern on Etsy and knew it was the one!  I’m thrilled with how it turned out and Elliott…well, let’s just say I was lucky to get it off her her long enough to wash it!

So here is her 1960s kitchen curtain dress in all it’s mushroomy glory!

This is Alex just before take-off on his very first flight.  The anticipation was almost more than he could handle and he was very nervous.  The second the plane left the ground, though, he was all smiles.  “That wasn’t so bad!”

First we had to stop through Raleigh, NC for a night so Daddy could speak at WordCamp. Here is Alex waiting for the cab to take us to the college where WordCamp RDU was being held.

He waiting patiently in the auditorium…

As soon as Shayne was done, we caught our flight to NYC and crashed at the hotel.  The next morning, we grabbed breakfast by the hotel.  Alex didn’t quite approve of the un-Texan breakfast.

Then we were off to catch our ride on the NYC Ducks.  It’s an amphibious vehicle that boards in the middle of Times Square, drives through Manhattan…and then off into the Hudson river to relive Henry Hudson’s journey.

Alex with the NYC Duck.

The duck gave us all quackers.

Alex wasn’t sure what to think as we entered the river…

As a rule, I don’t care much for being aboard boats, but this was a really enjoyable (and very chilly!) ride.  Here’s Dad taking it all in…

We had a great view of the Intrepid and the Empire State Building.

Once we were back on land, we stopped by a few places in Times Square….one of them, the M&M store.

Empire State Building time!  Alex was just adamant about going up in the ESB because he loves the scene in James & the Giant Peach when the peach lands atop the building and James has finally made it to New York.

The line wasn’t terrible and the time passed rather quickly while we visited with the people waiting with us.

Daddy helped Alex look through the binoculars.

Considering how crowded it was on the observatory, I was surprised at the almost silent atmosphere.  It was incredibly peaceful up there and we really enjoyed ourselves.

A view looking up at the needle from the 86th floor:

Another shot of my boy enjoying the view and the peace way up above the busy, noisy city.

And…me & my boy.

So, there are some highlights from Day 1 (and the Raleigh part…).  We have something like 850 pictures, but I’ll spare ya most of them.

Since I posted last, we’ve been staying busy with end-of-the-schoolyear activities and adjusting to our summertime schedule.  Alex finished first grade and is thoroughly enjoying being out of school.  He has a notebook for the summer that he writes a story in each day.  We’ll be working on handwriting, multiplication and division over the summer.

Elliott, well…she’s Elliott.  A fireball.  A handful.  A nutcase.  A sweetpea.  She is loving having big brother home and they keep each other entertained…and a bit stressed out at times.

Today is our wedding anniversary and we’ll be celebrating starting next Friday with a trip to NYC!  Can’t wait!

In the meantime, here are a few pics of my kiddos enjoying the incredible weather we have had!

Hope you all are enjoying your summers as much as these kiddos are!