1) Our fairy house
The little guy and I worked on this project for babygirl's christmas gift. Well he mainly worked on painting the buckets (for the fairy beans) and popsicle stick siding while I burnt the crap out of my fingers hot gluing moss, colored stones, and butterflies and flowers. We picked up the house from M's for pretty cheap with a coupon and everything else was dollar store finds. Turns out there is also a super cool handmade fairy house in Tinkerbell II (another Christmas gift) which was super cool.
2) Space Shuttle
After putting the final touches on the fairy house the little guy said to me "I can't wait to see what you made me mommy!" Well that sent me in a panic trying to come up with something special for the little guy too (they ended up opening them both on Christmas Eve morning so they'd be a little special, you know before super cool commercial toys were opened). The wine tube was picked up at the dollarstore (do you see a theme here?) I tried spray painting it initially but it was too glossy and wouldn't cover well. I ended up using tin foil and black permnanet marker which worked well (the very top was just a rolled cereal box hot glued on). The control panels were online images and I added some details like bottle caps for a little more fun. And of course we need a place to store the moon rocks too (a small plastic container from dollarstore covered with tinfoil).
3) A Knight Party- It started with a little idea to have some of friends over to make pizzas (which were yummy!) and the new Castle from Santa and empty boxes from Ikea inspired me to help make it an extra special playdate. We spent the night before cutting out different shield shapes out of cardboard. To make them strong I hot glued a second piece of cardboard to the inside. It kept four 5-year olds and one 8 year-old busy for a good 45 minutes- each designed their own battle shield with paints (think lots of gold and silver) and gem stones. Once they were done we hot glued another piece of cardboard for the handle. We gave each kiddo a newspaper sword also made the night before complete with a cool handle. I have to admit it wouldn't work well for me but the hubby came to the rescue. The princess (complete with a cardboard tiara she also created) helped determine the winner(s) as they chopped off limbs in our livingroom.
4) Another fun little 'party' we had over the holidays was an 'ocean' party with my neice and nephew (both 3). We hung blue streamers from the ceiling above the kitchen table and taped a big piece of blue plastic (dollar store rain coat). Then we used glass stones, ocean animals, and playdough to create an ocean. I was amazed that they sat there a good 50 minutes happily playing. After we decorated fish using paper plates and ate lots of swedish fish and goldfish crackers of course. We are going to try to do a few more themed play dates I think. It is good for my inner kindergarten teacher and keeps the kids from screaming and fighting
5) Our Idea Jar-
Our latest project is our idea jar (and come on, so much more fun than a pickle jar). The little guy keeps making comments about it smelling like pickles :)
To make it easier I colored coded the strips with ideas for anytime,weekends, and ones just for them. All the ideas are things (or toys, games, etc..) we already have around the house. It helps them from killing each other while we are stuck in the house for the rest of the winter and also to make our time together after work/ school a little special too. So far it's been a huge hit! The rule is one per day although we went through lots this weekend having been snowed in since Friday! There must be 50 strips in there but here are some of my faves (in case you wanna make your own idea jar, there are also lots of examples online too which is where I originally stole this idea!)
ANYTIME:
Make some 'thumb print' animals
Read a book and draw a picture about it
Draw a picture of your family
Make a craft using items from the recycle bin
Make a rocket from lego
Make a boat from recycled stuff
Make a car using lego wheels
Have a go go crazy bones battle
Build an obstacle course for the mighty beans
Use your moon sand so astronauts can land on a planet
Make dinner using playdough
Build the tallest lego tower that you can
Play hopscotch inside with masking tape
Make a fort under the kitchen table
Use your playdough to make some bugs
WEEKEND:
Go to the library and learn about space
Have a scary movie night- don’t be scared!
Go swimming
Go to a playpark
Cook something special that you pick out yourself
Make your very own book
Make a puppet show for mom and dad- make sure to practice
Make your own pet store using stuffed animals
Build a fort and sleep in it
BABY GIRL
Give your baby a bath
Play with your dress up dolls
Let strawberry shortcake go swimming
Put on the music and have a dance party
Color a picture for mommy
Make a necklace
Have a tea party with your dollies
LITTLE MAN
Go to a cool science website http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/
Play your favorite Wii game
Do a new science experiment
Dissect some aliens today
Make something using popsicle sticks
and the list goes on.....................................
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