Rainy Morning

Today is a dreary, rainy morning.  After soo many beautiful days lately it's tough to complain so we made the most of it and stayed inside to do a favorite project...homemade play-dough (see here for my recipe).  Millie has never made it before and they both enjoyed measuring, mixing etc.  I think they liked making it as much as playing with the finished product! 

Stirrin' things up - and being silly.

Millie squishing

(as you can see, she couldn't get by without a quick taste)

Noah deep in concentration.

This is a great learning project too...measuring, following directions/recipes, colors....and patience!
After naps we are planning a little puddle-jumping!
Hope you are enjoying your day, whether it be rain or shine! 

Noah the Builder

Beginning last December Jon and Noah started a monthly 'tradition' of attending the Home Depot Kids Workshops and have attended each month since.  If you aren't familiar with the program, on the first Saturday of each month HD offers a FREE workshop at all of their locations where kids (with an accompanying adult) can work on that month's project.  The program is recommended for children ages 5 - 12, but Noah does just fine...he just needs a little more guidance (and I'm sure a little more patience is also needed, hehe). 

Noah with his projects.

The wagon is a favorite, but the racecar display (Noah calls it his garage) definitely gets the most use!

He also loves the apron. 

After each visit they receive a new pin to add to their apron. Each pin is a picture of that month's project.

Noah and Jon both look forward to going and spending boy time together and I always look forward to seeing what they create and hearing the stories about how it came together. I highly recommend making a trip to the 'ol Depot some Saturday to find out for yourself...I mean, it's free, what do you have to lose (except maybe a couple fingers!...just kidding)!

Noah's Maps

Noah has been interested in maps for some time now. I'm not sure what it is about them that he likes so much, but they are something he asks for quite often when we are riding in the car. On long trips he always asks where ____ (insert person we are visiting) lives. I always find myself in the awkward, not-so-safe, half in the frontseat half in the backseat mom position trying to point it out on the map for him.

This was my solution:

Friends and family laminated map stickers!

When I finished making the stickers. He could not wait to look at them. This surprised me a little because usually when I work on something like this for him it takes him a little while to appreciate it...if at all. This time he carried them out to the car and looked at them all the way to our destination and back. Yeah!

The 'how to:'

1. I sized and cropped pictures of friends and family we visit often (and happen to have pictures of!) using Photoshop.

2. I laid out all the pics (sized to .85in circles) in Illustrator and printed them all at once on photo paper (I tried cardstock first, but they weren't clear enough to tell who some of the people were).

3. Cut out circles. I wish I could have found my large holepunch for this, but my not-so perfect hand cut circles work just fine (or so I am trying to convince the perfectionist side of me).

4. Laminate circles. I used GBC SelfSeal laminating pouches.

5. Cut circles out of laminate.

6. Put through Xyron 150 Create-a-sticker. You could use double stick tape here too. Or if you REALLY wanted to simplify the project you could print the pics on label sheets and eliminate step 4.

Now your stickers are ready to place on their proper map locations!

WARNING: After placing all 24 of my new, indestructible stickers on the map, I so proudly presented it to Jon to show him what I did at naptime that day...he quickly took the wind out of my sails by pointing out that the maps are no longer useable because the pictures cover up parts of them map...whoops! I was so caught up in the details of my project, that point didn't even occur to me. So if you decide to do this project, you might want to buy new maps :0)

You could also use this idea on a full size map of the United States (or world, or city) if you have family and friends all over and hang it in a playroom or bedroom!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Ok, so I am a little behind on this post. I have been busy with two invite orders (not including my own Valentine 'order' and haven't had as much time to write as usual.

Anyway...

Monday, January 29th was the first day of the Chinese New Year. It is the Year of the Ox. I decided to try to incorporate some elements of the Chinese culture into our day. Even if Noah doesn't fully understand, or even if he doesn't remember specifics, at least we did something fun to break up the monotony of winter.

Here are the things we did that day to celebrate (in our own way, of course)

For lunch we had chicken potstickers and Mandarin oranges (ok, so the oranges are probably a stretch, but Noah loves them and I was grasping at straws to find something else to add to the plate!) I laced two chopsticks together with a rubberband so Noah could try his hand at using them. He actually didn't do to bad, he did actually make it to his mouth with the food a couple times!

After naptime I planned a craft. The dragon dance is used each year at the Chinese New Year celebration because it symbolizes the coming of good luck and success in the new year...Noah likes anything that resembles a dinosaur, so I thought he would enjoy making one.

I had great visions of the potential of this craft...that is usually when Noah has the least interest. This was also the case this day. We had a decent start, but Noah quickly puttered out and I had to finish the dragon myself. He did play with it quite a bit once I finished it, so it wasn't a total waste.

The following Sunday was the actual Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown. We decided it might be fun to go check it out. We have been to Chinatown many times before (mainly to one particular shop where we buy inexpensive, live seafood (lobsters, crab, etc), wide rice noodles and spices, etc) but have never been to celebrate their new year.

Well, I underestimated the popularity of this event. Parking spots were not easy to come by, but we managed to find one not too far away. We found a decent spot along Wentworth Ave right where the parade would pass. It was a fairly quick, but good trip. A little cold, but fun.

Entrance to Chinatown - Wentworth and Cermak

Dragon Dance

Noah's Turkey Craft

Noah and I made this fun turkey today after his nap. It turned out to be a great project for him! For the tail feathers, we traced his hands on construction paper and he cut them out mostly by himself...I had to help guide his hand and the paper. We used bamboo skewers to attach the feathers to the pumpkin. Next we glued the face pieces on...I think his favorite part were the google eyes!!