“craft-y” mamas and C. Rylant

So all you mamas out there, yea you, there are those fun art projects that you know your kids will make every year at school for the first 5 years of their schooling.  And for those of us who are teachers, we know that there are those special art projects that are just more fun when they aren’t spoiled at home by art project lovin’ mamas.  (Just so you know, it doesn’t stop me from doing them. :o)

Well, here’s a craft for you moms that I came across and I have never seen done in a school setting.  Read:  it’ll be so awesome for your kids because they’ve never done it at school too!  It’s a paper bag fall tree.

Hudson, Anna and I decorated a bunch of leaves – colored ‘em, bedazzled ‘em with glitter glue, markered and stickered ‘em.  Then we took a brown paper grocery bag.  We stuffed recycled paper in the bottom of it and cinched it tight with a ribbon.  Next, Mommy cut strips from the top to the cinch-spot.  Hudson then twisted each strip into a “branch” and we attached our leaves.  We glued at first, but then found it easier to staple them on.  And the result?

An awesome tree to sit on your table (ours is our current center piece) or to give to a grandparent.  We had so much fun with these, we may make a forest.

Which brings me to C. Rylant.  Not really, it’s just what I want to write about today.  We got to visit the library today.  Yippeee!  But we weren’t intending to do, but when a wonderful friend calls you and asks if you want to meet at the library park on a gorgeous fall day, how can you say no? (When library and park are in the same sentence, the refusal rate for me is about .06%).

As we were browsing the aisles I came across a rockin’ C. Rylant book that I know because of the online world, but have never seen in the flesh.  I always let Hudson pick books that he wants, and then I pick books that I want to read to he and Anna.  This one has words that need to be shared with you, because they are just too good not to be shared.

Underneath that great big sky
the earth is all a-spin.
This day will soon be over
and it won’t come back again.

So live it well, make it count,
fill it up with you.
The day’s all yours, it’s waiting now . . .
See what you can do.

That’s my charge to you today. Live it well.  Make it count.  See what Christ in you can do! :)