December Photo Project

Last year I attempted the December Photo Project and only posted maybe 3 pictures? So I don't have far to go this year to see a vast improvement. I'm excited to do this again! It's always fun to think of new ways to capture the holidays.

Here's my little boy Titus' feet as he was sleeping tonight. We put lights up in the kids' rooms...they love it. Sweet dreams little buddy.

Thanksgiving Tree

Our Thanksgiving Tree!


















This year for Thanksgiving I made a Thanksgiving tree for the kids. I had them help me gather sticks from the yard and we put them in a vase and stuffed ripped up pieces of brown paper bag around the sticks to hold them up. I had these foam leaves on hand but you could cut out your own leaves from construction paper or cardstock. A quick tip: trace one or two leaf shapes and then stack a few pieces of construction paper underneath so you can cut multiple leaves at the same time.

I had the boys "write" what they were thankful for on the leaves. My 4 year old would say what he was thankful for and then he would write the first letter on the leaf. You could work on spelling shorter words out with them. My youngest would scribble on the leaves. It was cute to hear Roman ask Titus what he was thankful for. :) Then I wrote what they were thankful for and put the year on the bottom so I could save it for next year.

Christmas Card Time!

I LOVE Tiny Prints! I have ordered invitations, announcements and this year I will be ordering Christmas cards through them! In scrolling through their selection (which is AMAZING!) I ran across this totally awesome vintage card. Isn't it cute?! I love the picture as much as the card! I can't wait to order mine and send them out! You should check out their selection here. I know you will find one that you absolutely love. Happy shopping!

November Activities

Today we did some fun things. I had found some inspiration for November activities here so we decided to give one a go today. I took some plastic drinking straws and let the boys cut them into little pieces. Note: watch out - the cut pieces fly far! Which the boys loved. Mama...not so much. :)
After we had a bunch of little pieces I gave them a bit of yarn with tape wrapped around one end and let them string their "beads" on. It was a great find motor skill project. Especially for Titus.

As you can see it took his full concentration. :)

They were meant to be necklaces but the boys weren't too interested in wearing them.

Next up was a fun fall craft!

I saw this idea several places for a Halloween jack-o-lantern, but I decided to give it a fall spin.

Supplies: glass jar, tissue paper (we used red, dark green, yellow and orange), paint brushes, Mod Podge (found at any art store or Wal-mart), tea light.

I had the boys paint the glass jar with the Mod Podge, then we stuck on little bits of tissue paper. I had them help me cut/tear those up as well. This was a pretty messy project. Be sure to wear paint shirts to cover clothing and put newspaper or a paper bag under the glass jar to protect your table. I had them paint over the tissue paper with Mod Podge again after they had their jar covered just to seal all the little ends down.

They turned out really cute! We stuck a tea light in them and that finished it off. The boys were really proud of them and told daddy all about them when he got home. :) Happy Fall!

Fun with Marshmallows

My crafty friend Jana always comes up with the best ideas to engage preschoolers. Using simple building materials (marshmallows and toothpicks) the kids build shapes and strutures. They love it!

Little brother wanted to join in on the fun, too! There's no question why...

Have fun with your preschooler! :)

Giant Ice Cubes

My boys like to destroy things. It's in their DNA. I saw this idea on a couple of different blogs. You get a container (any shape and size) and you put little plastic toys in it and then fill it up with water and freeze it. It's probably better to freeze layer by layer of toys, but I just did it all at once. I took little green army men, some change (for their piggy banks) and a spiderman and froze them in some water. You have to think ahead a bit on this and fix it up the night before. I gave the boys squirt guns (we have ice cream cone squirt guns from their Easter baskets in case you were wondering what those plastic ice cream cones were) and hammers. The squirt guns were kind of a bust after the hammers came out. :) I've also seen where you can give the kids salt and let them spoon it onto the ice to melt it.

They thought it was totally fun and it kept them entertained for about 15 minutes before they had every last little piece of ice smashed.

Train Day

First of all, I've been gone way too long from this blog, and I can't promise that it will be regular postings for a while, but I am glad to be back! We've had a baby since I posted last and it is a GIRL!!! This fun little book arrived in the mail today. How sweet! Natalya Joy is her name. You will probably be seeing pictures of her very soon on here.

We've just been enjoying playing outside this summer and trying to adjust to 3 kiddos. Today, however, was so hot that we had to come inside to play after only being out an hour in the morning. I decided that it would be easier if we came up with a theme so we could think of things to do with that theme. Trains it was! So I pulled apart this cardboard box and let the boys paint it so we could eventually put it back together and make a train engine. It didn't turn out so well so I don't have a finished picture, but I'm pretty sure they were more interested in painting anyway.

We moved on to a little train set we have upstairs. You'll have to forgive the near nakedness. It's hot and Titus is potty training. And who am I kidding? This is the usual attire around here (for them!)

Then we went downstairs to play with their Thomas train set.

We have a Thomas the Train Memory Game that we played...

Except Titus doesn't know how to play Memory yet and Roman could really have cared less, so this is what ended up happening.

We got out their Thomas tent and tunnel. :) I know...it's a stretch.

Boys...do they destroy EVERYTHING?

I kept telling the boys that there was a surprise at the end of the day (usually to bribe them to be good!). One time when we were picking up the Memory game cards Roman asked "is this the surprise?" :) Boy was he relieved when I told him it wasn't. I'd be some kind of mom if THAT had been my surprise. We went and picked up daddy from work and drove to the zoo to ride the train right before closing. They loved it!