"We've Got Cabin Fever..."

    Ever since Thursday of last week I have been mostly stuck inside of my house.  This was due to the joint efforts of Mother Nature and Vicki.  Mother Nature has seen fit to bless us with all of the rain that she's been holding back for weeks now.  And Vicki...wait..."who's Vicki", you ask?  Vicki is my 2001 Crown Victoria that I've had for about three years now.  She is extremely temperamental, and she reminds me of a sullen teenager.  She even turns my radio down from time to time when she doesn't like a song, or she ramps up the volume so loud I can't hear my own thoughts.  She has character (to say the least).  As I was saying, Vicki's A/C clutch burnt up on the two-hour drive home last week when I went to return my brother, "Bubba" to my mom.  She's been in the shop since Friday (Vicki, not my mom hehehe) having the A/C clutch and compressor changed.  If it weren't for my trusty friend, "Tessua", I would have caught cabin fever and painted the dog purple just for kicks.

   Don't get me wrong, a couple of days of just Monkey and me in my house is a requirement every few weeks, but there's just something about knowing that Vicki is waiting in the garage if I need to get out.  Add to that all the rain and my lack of reading material, and it was not good.

   When it was finally time to go spring Vicki from the mechanic's I was bursting at the seams to go anywhere, and Tessua was having a craving for Little Ceasar's so off we went.  It was absolutely liberating to drive thirty minutes down the road and back again, and I was so excited I began to plan out tomorrow's trip.  First we'll go to Wal Mart, then the NEX, and then....drumroll please....The Commissary!    (Yes, that's how pent up I've felt the past few days.)

   This also means that I have no recipe for you tonight; sorry.

   In the meantime, though, Monkey and I have been crafting it up.  We've made a few things for her Daddy for when he returns from deployment.  (Unfortunately, I can't share those as he may be reading this...)  All I can say is that he's going to love them.  I promise to share as soon as he's home.

   What I can share, however, is a bit of our weekly letter crafts.  Each Thursday we go to the library for the toddler story time they provide, and we check out a new letter book.  Here is this week's book:

I love this series.  There's one for each letter, and each one is about a child who has to fill a box with things that begin with his or her letter.

   After we read the book, she always decorates a letter I've drawn out because we are making a giant alphabet to act as a border around her room.  I would insert a picture, but I don't have one, and seeing how Monkey is sleeping I'm not venturing in there any time soon, so you'll just have to make do with your imagination.  We also made a finger puppet in the shape of an owl.  She loves her finger puppets.  We've made a frog and a hog before, each for their respective letter.  It's really not hard.  All you need is scissors,  brown, orange and black felt, and a hot glue gun or tacky glue.  You start by cutting two U shaped portions, slightly bigger than your index finger (leaving room to glue the sides together), two wings, and two "ears", and two eyes from the brown felt.   Then cut out a nose, two feet, and two eyes from the orange felt.  Squeeze the hot-glue along the edge of one of the U-shapes, except along the bottom.  Press the second U-shape on top of the first, making sure the edges are lined up.  Glue the wings to the back, the feet to the bottom of the first U-shaped piece, the eyes and nose to the top. *I know this explanation was way more complicated than it needed to be, but I work better with step-by-step.  Next time, I'll be sure to photograph each part of the process.*
I got this idea from "The Fantastic Rainy Day Book".

Next we played a game of my own invention: "Pin the Legs on the Octopus".  It was very fun!  I drew the body of an octopus, and cut him out, but I gave him stubs instead of legs.   I cut out eight different-colored legs, and I  put one of the corresponding colors on each stub before letting Monkey give him a face.

Next, Mr. Octopus was taped to the wall, and Monkey was given one leg at a time and told to match it with the right stub.  (I put a piece of tape on the back of each leg so that she could just stick it on there and move on.)  She loved this game, and I was pleased with how well it went.  Not that I'm bragging, but she got every color right.  :-D Maybe next time I'll use numbers to make it more challenging for her.

  So even with the inclement weather and the cabin fever, these past few days have not been a waste.  If nothing else, I can rest assured that my Monkey can reassemble a color-coded octopus should the need arise.

   And, on that bad joke I'll say "Goodnight" :-)

Oh, and bonus points to whoever knew that the title for this is an actual song.