jump up and down

monday is play dough day

I've been trying to maintain some sort of after school schedule with the boys that includes things like time for reading, time for homework (if there is any - usually not), and time for an activity.  I haven't been doing a good job of maintaining that schedule since we started our extra day a week at speech therapy, but I'm still trying and the boys really enjoy knowing that there is something fun coming up in their day.  To make the planning easier, I designated different days for different types of activities (paper, cooking, painting, etc.) and Monday is play dough day.  

Can you believe that I had never made play dough with my kids before?  I grew up in a house with a carpeted kitchen and we were rarely allowed to play with play dough, so I'd like to blame it on my lack of experience.  Pretty pathetic excuse, eh?  

We finally did it a little while back and the boys loved it and I had a fun time with it too, so I think it's definitely on the list to do again when this batch goes bad.  I let them choose their color - Ned's was supposed to be red, but I was afraid to find out how much food coloring we would need to get red instead of pink and he was happy with it.  And Peter's was supposed to be blue, but again, after I few drops, I lost my nerve.   We used this recipe, minus the Kool-Aid packet, and also put some essential oil in it.  I recently bought some essential oil in mandarin and lemon from this Etsy shop for some cleaning solutions and thought it would be great in the play dough too.  I really love opening up those containers now and just letting the odor waft out.  Next time we make it I'm putting in a few more drops!

st. patrick's day catch up

Yes, that's a good question.  I put up my last post about a week and a half before opening night of the community play (the one I did the props for) and that's about when things got out of control busy for me. Then closing night of the play was the first day of Spring Break.  The weather wasn't very springy yet, but we did take a quick trip to see family and relax a bit.  Today was the first day back and there was an audible groan from Peter when we pulled up to the school.  I'm happy to be back to a routine and to have my nights more free, but I am itching for summer and its freedom.

We've been doing a few crafty kid things around here and I've taken pictures as we've gone along, intending to share them and then just not getting on here to share them.  I hope you don't mind seeing some St. Patrick's Day activities, just a bit late.I've been trying to do a painting activity with the kids each Friday, so two Fridays before St Patrick's Day, we made a heart potato stamp to use for these shamrocks and then we cut them out and sewed them together into a garland.   

And also from Family Fun (did you know they have an iPhone app?), we made this Irish Brown Bread. 

The best part was letting the kids mix it with their hands and get super messy.  The bread was pretty dense, but I think I undercooked it a bit.  I would just toast each piece to help cook it a bit more right before we ate it and spread on butter and jam - delicious!

fisted flower garden

This came home from preschool a few weeks ago (it was a Valentine card for Ryan and I) - I thought it was a fun idea and great for Spring (which is going to get here any day now, right?).  It looks like they had the kids make a fist and put the thumb end of their hand in some poster paint and then stamp it on white paper.  Cut out the hand stamp around it's outline, add construction paper stems and leaves and you've got yourself a flower garden!

head start on easter

Ryan showed the boys It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown a few days ago and then Peter started asking to make colored eggs.  He asked several days in a row, several times a day (see how much his language is improving?), "Mommy, I wanna make colored eggs," or "We make colored eggs tomorrow?" or "Look Mommy, it's the eggs (showing them to me in the fridge).  I wanna color eggs."  I decided he wasn't going to be able to hold out until Easter, so, we relented this weekend. 
It was a good activity to do while Grandma was here - she came to help out because the boy's babysitter is out of town.  We're excited to have her here next weekend too!  Hooray for Grandmas!

 We used a sparkle egg coloring kit - it had sparkle glue that was painted on and the color packets had a bit of oil in them that created a swirling effect.  The sparkle glue probably wasn't worth it - there was only a small amount in the kit.  I wonder if you could pull off a similar effect by just painting the egg with glue and using your own glitter.  The swirling effect could definitely be created with a strip-down dye kit - just add a couple of drops of oil to your cup of dye.  Re-dip in a second color for a multiple color effect.

And the best part is that Peter is enjoying eating the eggs too!

our valentines

The end of the week turned out to be a bit hectic - I had my first test on Friday morning, so I spent the last part of the week studying.  And then on the way to take my test, Peter threw up about two blocks before we got to the babysitter's house - ack!  I thought we were out of the woods - no one had shown any symptoms for two days. 

Ryan was already a work (an hour away) and had carpooled anyway, so I would've had to go get him.  Emergency mode!  Long story short - I took Peter with me to the test (yes - I did ask to take the test later in the day, but the response from my teacher and my thoughts on that are a whole different story!), he threw up once more, but we made it to the bathroom that time, and when I was about three questions away from being finished, my teacher brought me a note telling me that the babysitter had called to say that Ned had thrown up and I needed to come get him. 

 

I finished up my test, picked up Ned, and went home and did nothing for the rest of the day except eat saltine crackers and drink flat soda.  We've taken it easy this weekend too...we ate dinner in as a family yesterday and today I kept the boys home from church (since apparently this thing just comes on with no warning) and we made Valentines.  I bought the digital file for the animal ones from Up Up Creative.  Peter enjoyed putting them together...

and Ned loved taking them apart.

 

craft day: ch-ch-ch-chia

Today craft day was taken straight from the pages of the Crafty Crow.  When I saw this post a while back, I knew we had to do them for craft day.  The original idea can be found here, at Mayfly.  I always wanted a Chia Pet as a child, but never had one - probably more because I never asked for one than anything. 

We modified ours a bit by using chive seed (I hope this works - I just didn't see the need to buy a huge bag of grass seed when I don't even have a lawn, or at least not one that is my responsibility to care for) and potting soil instead of mulch.  I had some potting soil on hand, so I hope it works as well.  Only time will tell - I'll have to do an update on this post.

I love to see how all of these crafts translate into our under five population.  We only had a couple of "real" faces here and the rest more closely resembled a Jackson Pollock.  Ned was so careful about his painting - look at how he holds that brush!  And believe me when I tell you that every stroke was intentional. 

I'll let you know how this one turns out - it was fun to put together.  Hopefully, all of our heads will grow a bit of hair now! 

kid craft: a window to nature

Summer is half over (oh I'm so sorry I mentioned that, but really I'm just trying to ease the blow to me) and we are busy busy this week.  We are looking forward to the visit of some dear friends tonight as they pass through on their way to Canada and I'm not nearly ready.  We've had a full week already - lots of sewing and a little bit of running on my part, trying to make decisions about pre-school for Peter, a surprise visit to the doctor yesterday to check Peter's arm which turned out not to be broken (but he sure whined about it and then right after the x-rays were taken, of course he seemed fine), and today some cleaning to spic and span the house for our guests.  And yesterday, we fit in a craft day full of nature and fun.

First, we went off into the "woods" (aka edges of the park) to collect bits of nature in our paper bags.

Then, we came back to the picnic tables, laid out a circle of contact paper, and arranged our treasures on it.

Add another circle of contact paper on top, cut a small hole in the top, thread a ribbon through it, and voila, you have yourself a window to nature.  Perfect for hanging in your own window and reminding you the beauty all around you.

craft day: making pretzels

I seem to be way behind on posting about our craft days - we are having a lot of fun with them and are so glad our friends are coming to join us this summer.  I think it may become a summer tradition for us. 

So, this week we made pretzels.  I first saw this on the Crafty Crow, but the original idea is from Pepper Paints.  We made ours with only white flour and they turned out great - tasted just like a pretzel from your favorite mall pretzel shop, or better in my opinion.  Just make sure to make your dough an hour ahead of time so that you don't have to call your friends and tell them it's OK if they're late!

Peter and Tanner really got into the rolling.

Ned was more inclined to just squish the dough and then hand it to me. (Sorry this is out of focus, but it was the only shot I had that portrayed the true joy of squishing dough).

Here they are ready for the oven, covered in butter and then sprinkled with parmesan cheese or cinnamon and sugar.

and YUM!

This was a great activity for young kids, with a delicious end result!

still here

I'm not sure where I went last week - into a mess of changing appointments (Peter's original speech therapist is now back from maternity leave), one serious desire to thrift and go to yard sales (urge satisfied - thanks to Ryan for watching the kids while I just took off for half the day on Saturday - more to be posted on that later), a trip to the local pool on Friday afternoon that for some reason took all day to get ready for and then recover from, and a re-vamping of our church bag due to some crazy/slightly naughty Sunday behavior (not really naughty - they are 2 and 4 - can they really be expected to sit quietly through Sacrament Meeting?  I'll share more on this later too).

 
In case you were wondering, we did indeed have craft day for the kids last week.  My new friend, Cami, offered to host and I love what she put together for the kids - 4th of July place mats.  This was such a great craft for our young kids - they loved gluing all of the stars, stripes, and other embellishments onto cardstock.  Cami has one of those fancy paper cutting machines and she cut each of the kids names out.  And then we laminated them - so great!  We'll be using them all week;)!  And she had cookies and juice for the kids. Thanks Cami!

Did you know that home laminating using  9"x11.5" laminating sheets is fairly inexpensive, super easy, and way more fun than it should be for a person of my age?  I've been doing it for a couple of years.  The laminator that I have now is from Wal-Mart and I bought it for $25 about a year ago.  It's the Duck brand one.  Buying lamination sheets from the store can be fairly expensive, but you can find some great deals online - I have found the least expensive sheets at Lamination Depot.  I bought a couple of 100 pack boxes when they were having a sale a while back, so I haven't needed any in a while - there might be a place with better deals now, but a year or so ago, Lamination Depot was definitely the way to go. 

And on the agenda for this week - making sure I dont miss any of those newly scheduled therapy appointments, planning a little summer family vacation, not being such a blog slacker, and enjoying more of our fabulous summer weather.  It's getting a wee bit warm here, but I'm definitely not complaining.

p.s. thanks to my pal Mandy for the pics - I forgot my camera.

kids craft: a hand or two or three

Today we had another successful craft day - we put our handprints on towels.  I found the idea here.  Family Fun actually has a lot of great kids craft ideas.  I used acrylic paints and just put some of each color in a paper plate and let the kids spread it around on their hands.  

Our kids got a little more freelance than the example on the Family Fun website.  Something I'm really starting to enjoy about this is to see how the kids make these projects their own.  They are probably on the young end of the age spectrum (all of the kids that are coming are under 5, most are 4 and under) for most of the projects I've chosen and I think they aren't even thinking about how it "should be done" but about how they think it will be most fun for them.  They definitely put their own unique spin on this one!