Catch up on Christmas stuff

I found this post that I had saved from last month and forgot to post it. I plan on making a book out of this blog one day and so I would like to have all the activities that we have done on here so that they can get into that book.

M&M is REALLY into puzzles lately and she is very good at them. The Dollar Tree and the $1 spot at Target are great places to find perfect-sized puzzles for 3-year-olds If I do the edges she can most likely do the inside all by herself. She just needs a little guidance once in a while.

We also made gingerbread cookies and decorated them. We had A LOT of fun decorating them and I loved to see the creations M&M came up with. (If you look hard enough you will find one that is very inappropriate.  My husband and I had a good laugh over that one.)

 

 

We made jingle bell bracelets and necklaces as well. These were a hit. Anything that makes noise is good to go with M&M. 

Thinking about the New Year

I stopped doing Tot School with M&M back in October and decided to just do holiday crafts and activities until the beginning of the year. I want to start up again on January 4th. This means that I need to be planning now so that I can be prepared. My problem last time was that I was trying to plan a week at a time every weekend. I've built up a stash of go to activities, and I have more I want to make and get supplies together for. I just need to organize them now and plan out which weeks I'm going to do what theme. I'll continue with the letter of the week because once I start something I can't stop halfway through. I'm took M&M out of the preschool she just had once a week and will use that money to get her in a dance class because I just think she would just LOVE that. She still goes to a preschool two mornings a week. I need to keep her in some sort of school until she goes to Kindergarten in two years so it's not such a shock to her to be away from home especially since where we live doesn't give us the option of going half day. It's an all day kindergarten.

I'm really excited to start up Tot School again! Since Bubba isn't sleeping as much during the day as he used to and he really likes to get into everything that we are doing now, we will probably end up doing Tot School during his naps. We'll also continue with holiday and seasonal arts and crafts.

Although most of this blog will center around activities for toddlers there will still be recipes, crafts and photography mixed in. I'm actually working on something right now, but I can't post about it until after Christmas. I'm just looking ahead because we will be out of town for Christmas and when we get back it will be the New Year and there will be new goals and resolutions to start up!

DIY Christmas Chimes

A few years ago my sister-in-law introduced us to Christmas chimes. We had a lot of fun with them trying to play the songs together. This past Christmas my dad made a set of chimes for each of us kids and our families. I've been so excited to use them this year.

What are they you ask? Well, I will try to explain them the best that I can. They are pipes cut to different lengths. When hit with a stick they make different keys. A picture may help at this point.
My dad has them labeled as to what key they will play. They are also labeled with a number.
Each sheet of music has the numbers on it that need to be played for the song. Make sense? I hope so. The picture below will probably help.


These are a lot of fun to do in a group even with young kids. You can either copy the songs and hand them out or I have seen them transferred onto one of those huge pads of paper that are used in classrooms. My dad even made the sticks with the red balls on the ends.

I have many Christmas songs to go with the chimes but there are also other songs as well. (See below)


Now, my mom sent the directions to me over e-mail, but I have never shared anything over the blog before and I don't know how to do it. Can anyone tell me what to do? I will update this post once I figure out how to do that. Then if there is enough interest I can see if my parents have a digital copy of the songs so that I can post those as well.

Our first advent activities

For our first advent activity M&M "wrote" a letter to Santa. Since she can't really read or write I gave her some old toy magazines for her to cut out pictures of things she wants. This was a great activity for her because she loves to use scissors. It was also great because she did it all by herself for a good amount of time! It was sweet because she cut out pictures not just for herself, but for mommy, daddy, and Bubba. She made sure Santa knew what we wanted too. After she cut them all out I gave her a gluestick to glue the pictures onto paper. She's not actually getting the things that she cut out, but I don't think she'll remember what she glued on, she just wants anything to do with princesses.


Our next activity were these swirled paint ornaments. M&M liked squeezing the paint into the bulb and then shaking them around. I really liked how these turned out. I might have to make some more of my own.


M&M loved doing these Santa handprints because I painted her hands and she said that it tickled. Anything that allows her to get messy is always a hit. Mmm, I guess I forgot to put mouths on them. I used acrylic paint for both of these crafts.


I need to go to the store to get more supplies for our activities for the next two weeks. I'm really excited about doing them, I hope M&M has fun doing them as well.

Our Advent plans

I am very lucky to have gotten a very cute advent calendar from my mother-in-law the first year we were married. In each pocket is a little ornament to hang on the tree.


I've added something new this year though. I made out a list of Christmas crafts that M&M and I can do each day (red words) and also a list of fun family activities we can do after daddy gets home from work (green words). One from each pile will go into a pocket with an ornament.


I don't have 25 of either of these lists because we are going to Grandma's house for Christmas. We'll have plenty to do when we get there!

In no particular order, our Christmas crafts:

1. "Write" letter to Santa
2. Handprint Santas
3. Paint swirled ornaments
4. Visit Santa at the mall (we'll see if M&M will actually sit on his lap this year)
5. Make gift bags
6. Cinnamon dough ornaments
7. Pipe cleaner/bead ornaments
8. Star ornament
9. Hands and feet reindeer
10. Foam craft kits
11 Craft stick Christmas tree
12. Stained glass Christmas tree
13. Jingle bell jewelry
14. Make cookies for neighbors
15. Decorate gingerbread cookies
16. Paper activities

Family activities:
1. Eat popcorn and drink hot chocolate
2. Make Christmas cards for family
3. Couples Christmas party (if we can find a babysitter)
4. Make graham cracker gingerbread houses
5. Tell Nativity Story
6. Walmart tree gift giving
7. Take gift bags around
8. Deliver cookies to neighbors
9. Family Game night
10. Go to Santa's village
11. Sing Christmas carols
12. Take drive to see Christmas lights
13. Read Christmas books
14. Play with Christmas chimes (more on this later, you don't want to miss it! I might actually have my own tutorial to share on how to make them.)

Quiet book pages

The past two weeks have consisted of trying to make a quiet book. I found many blogs that had pictures of the quiet books they have made, but not a lot of them had patterns for the pages I wanted to do. So I first had to draw out all of the patterns myself before we (my mom and I) could even think about putting it together. That's why it's taken me so long. I read other blogs where they say they see a cute idea on a blog and then whip it up that night and post about it the next day. I've decided I am not one of those people that can do that, which is okay. It just takes me longer to get anything done. And well, the fact of the matter is the quiet book is far from being done, but it is done enough to post pictures because I just couldn't wait. I will have to finish it when I go home for Christmas in a few weeks. But here are some pictures of 6 of the pages.

Color matching balloons and button on flowers

Clothesline with mini clothespins and dress-up people

Noah's Ark zipper, shoelace tying, and buckleAs you can see I still have some minor details like a face for the little people and a shoelace for the shoe, but it's getting there. The animal finger puppets for the Noah's Ark came from IKEA.

If anyone wants to put one of these together sometime and needs patterns or help, just let me know because the patterns were the biggest headache and took the longest time.

Here are the links that I used to get ideas from:
http://craftingchicks.blogspot.com/2009/09/quiet-book-ii.html
http://craftingchicks.blogspot.com/2009/09/quiet-book-i.html
http://craftingchicks.blogspot.com/2009/09/tiffanys-quiet-books.html
http://www.quietbook.blogspot.com/
http://itybtyfrogcreations.blogspot.com/2008/02/some-more-quiet-book-pics.html
http://itybtyfrogcreations.blogspot.com/2008/02/my-quiet-book_25.html
http://itybtyfrogcreations.blogspot.com/2008/02/more-quiet-book-pics.html
http://naptimejournal.blogspot.com/2009/05/quiet-book-pagesyou-asked-for-them.html

I was featured!

I was featured on Someday Crafts! I'm so excited! This is my very first feature and what a great site to be featured on. Check it out here.

Playdough mats

I found these playdough mats on the Sparklebox website and thought they were really cute. M&M likes to play with playdough as much as the next child so I printed some out, laminated them and we made these creations. There are a lot of them on the website, but most of them use up a lot of ink. There are some black and white ones though. There are a lot of other printables on the site, but like I said they take up some colored ink.

A little R&R

So it´s been awhile since I last posted, but I have good reason...a vacation with my hubby to Mexico for a little rest and relaxation and rejuvenation. I will be back to the blogging world next week sometime to start blogging about the quiet book my mom and I will be making. Also M&M has had a lot of fun making a dollhouse with grandpa this past week. I haven´t seen it yet, but I´m really excited! Be back soon!

The Princess and the Puppy

So Halloween's been over for a few days, but I'm just barely getting this up. I am so proud of myself for making my kid's costumes this year for Halloween. I never thought I would be one of those mom's to do that, but then again I never knew how easy it was!

Bubba was a little puppy dog. Since he's only 10 months old I didn't go all out for his costume (that's what happens when the second kid comes around). I cut "spots" and ears out of light brown felt and stuck them on a brown zip-up jacket using pieces of double stick tape. He was so cute! The best part is he needed a jacket anyway and the spots were removable!

I've seen so many posts done about no-sew tutus and I knew I had to make one for M&M because, well, it was no-sew! I got the tulle spools from the wedding section of Joann's. I used three different colors: light purple, dark purple and light blue. I didn't use any particular tutorial, but I got ideas about how to make it from several websites. I can't link to the tutorials right now because I'm not on my home computer, sorry. I wrapped a satin ribbon around the waistband and tied it in a bow in front for extra cuteness. I found that idea here. I'm sure there's a tutorial around that website for a tutu. M&M liked it. I was trying to get her to say she was a ballerina, but she insisted that she was a princess. Oh well.

I'll be shoe shopping tomorrow.....

I just saw this great coupon offer on another blog and I thought I would pass it on. It's awesome! It's 50% off everything at Payless Shoes. Check it out here to print off a coupon.

Boo sign craft

This is a Halloween craft that I did for myself. I used Mod Podge for the first time ever! I admit that I was a little scared at first because I didn't know what to expect, but now that I've done it, I'm hooked. If was so easy and I loved the result.

I made this Boo sign because it seemed really simple and I already had some of the supplies. I found the idea here. This is as far as I have gotten because I'm a little stuck.


The letters are just sitting on the plaques right now because I don't know how to attach them together. The blog doesn't say exactly how to do it. I'm guessing some sort of glue, but what kind? Wood glue, tacky glue? I also don't know what to put it on to hang it up. Does anyone have any ideas?

Soft Sugar Cookies

Last year I wanted to make sugar cookies for Halloween. When that didn't happen I said Christmas. That didn't happen either, probably because I just had a baby. My last attempt was Valentine's Day. Did it happen then? Um, no. So here we are to Halloween again and I finally made them! They aren't hard to make, just time consuming so I would always tell myself, oh I can't start them now, I don't have time to mix them up, roll and cut them out, bake them all and then frost and decorate them. This year I told myself If you want to do something, Just do it!


M&M and I made these cookies using this recipe: (from my sister-in-law)

Soft Sugar Cookies
1 c. shortening
2 c. sugar
4 eggs
1 (16 oz.) tub sour cream
2 tsp. vanilla
8 c. flour (reserve 1 c. to work in as you roll out and knead a few times)
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
3 tsp. baking powder

Cream shortening and sugar, beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in sour cream and add vanilla. Add flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Roll as thin as you can. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. I didn't count them, but I would say that they make about 4 dozen.

M&M really liked using the spatula to scoop the cut cookies off of the counter.


These cookies are SO soft. They aren't too sugary tasting, but the frosting that you put on them will surely make up for that! I made them Monday and they are still soft.

Halloween sensory/I Spy tub

I saw a few of these Halloween sensory tubs on several blogs and I wanted to try it with M&M. I just used dried black beans, but you could also mix in some orange colored rice like this one. To give it just one more element of fun I threw in some orange, yellow, green and purple odds and ends to make it an I Spy tub as well. I took a picture of all the things I put in so that she could have a reference of what to look for.


I'd like to say that she had so much fun with the I Spy part, but I have to admit that it was like pulling teeth to get her to finish picking everything out. Once everything was out she had fun scooping the beans into the little pumpkins though. It might have to do with the fact that we are all pretty cranky around here from colds getting us down for about 5-6 days. M&M is actually feeling fine, but the rest of us have no energy and we just feel yucky. We have a few more Halloween activities yet to do.

More Halloween crafts

We are having a blast doing Halloween crafts. Here's some really fun and easy things that we have been doing.

Hand/footprint ghosts. Saw the idea here. M&M really liked doing this one because she got to put her hands and feet in the paint.



Torn paper candy corns. This idea came from here. M&M didn't want to do this one alone. I usually have to do the things I plan with her. It'll be nice when Bubba is old enough to do stuff with us because then M&M won't feel so 'alone' when doing stuff like this when mommy needs a few minutes to get other things done.



Aren't these yarn and pipe cleaner spiders so cute? I got the idea for these guys here. M&M liked playing with them after they were done.


Tissue ghosts. Idea from here. We hung them from our light over our kitchen table.



Yarn pumpkin. This one I did on my own, but older kids would have an easy time doing it. I found the idea here. They did apples, but I just used orange yarn instead for a pumpkin.


I don't know if you've noticed a trend with these. They are all fast, easy, and affordable using things you probably have around the house. That's my motto when it comes to kids crafts. Stay tuned for more kid's Halloween crafts and activities.