Monkey-Man and Logey-Bear

Car painting

2012-08-07T14:23:00.003-04:00

So my daycare kiddos are starting to transition this week and Ethan has taking a trip to Grammie and Poppa's house for the week! The theme for this week is PAINTING! I love painting with the kids and it is pretty hard to find a kid that doesn't like painting!

Today we did painting with cars! When you have 2 boys that are obsessed with cars and one that isn't as obsessed with doing crafts, you need to be creative! I figured I could use his love for cars, and incorporate it with Arts and Crafts!

This one is pretty simple. All you need is Paint in small containers, Paper, a few cars, and a drop sheet to save your table!

I wanted to keep their attention, so I only went with three colours

Mr. Brody (not so arts and crafts interested) LOVE IT! His cars BRRRRRROOOMMMM and VVRRRROOOMMM all over his paper! At first it took a little convincing that it was OK that his hands got some paint on them...but once he figured that out he was good to go!

VRRROOOMMM

Adding colours

BRRRROOMMMM

(Yes my kitchen is bright orange! - yuck I know, but we will get around to painting it one day!)

CRASH! He started crashing the cars together and laughing because paint was splattering

Getting Brody interested was pretty easy today! And he had lots of fun painting!

Logey on the other hand...he would sit and paint all day if I let him!

He had all 3 cars going at the same time on his paper!

He started crashing his cars together too, after seeing Brody do it!

And of course, it started turning into a little finger painting by the end of it!

This was a great little activity to peak the boys interest in painting and get them ready for the other painting crafts I have planned for the rest of the week! Shockingly, not that mess either, if you have a cloth on hand for when they are done! I'm happy that my kids starting daycare because my bare walls are still driving me crazy and I need pretty art work like this to get them covered!

Once the boys were done, and I was putting the stuff away, I noticed they were sitting in the playroom having a 'conversation' looking like this.....

I just couldn't not take a picture of the two bucket heads!

Watch for more painting theme crafts this week! :)

Jello Sensory Bin

2012-08-05T16:00:00.003-04:00

I have been trying to get back into doing my messy sensory bins lately, because they are the most fun for the kids and because I would much rather do them outside that inside! I had a ton of Jello boxes in my pantry and had just been waiting for something to do with them. Alas, JELLO SENSORY BIN!

Grab all the Jello you have and different sized and shaped containers. Make all your Jello the night before!

I tried using ice cube trays too, it didn't really work, so I wouldn't waste your time!

Next, get the container you usually do sensory bins in! I suggest you make sure the bin is clean, because the kids will likely be 'testing' the Jello. Add all the Jello and utensils to play with it. It was 45 Degrees here again yesterday and I thought the Jello would melt REALLY fast, so I added some ice cubes too!

NOTE: my container is really big for this activity, but I know my boys and I knew exactly what was going to happen once they were getting close to being done with the bin!!

Next, give the bin to the kids and let them go wild! This was also a good time to go over the colours of the Jello! Monkey has his colours down pat obviously, but little Logey is just starting to learn them!

Logey was having trouble keeping it on the spoon at first! Notice the green/red piece falling down

Sooooo...he started using his hands! Exactly what I wanted. Fine motor skills and Sensory

I love the look on Logey's face here! I think he is seriously shocked that Ethan is attempting to taste the Jello!

"What are you doing E?"

Logey then realized he could taste it too!!

YUMMY!

Exactly as I expected, once the boys started getting bored of the Jello (which, by the way, was at least 45 minutes later) I introduced the hose! My boys love water, as you have seen in pretty much every other post! Monkey started filling the bin with the hose. We learned that when he sprayed the water harder, it made bubbles from the Jello. Who knew? And so, our Jello bin turned into a BUBBLE BATH! The boys started to wash all the utensils we were playing with....

And then....you guessed it....they got in the bin!

And you thought the cooler was small!

By the end of the activity the boys were soaking wet, I was pretty much soaking wet...but being wet actually didn't feel so bad since it was 45 degrees Celsius! This was a super easy Sensory Bin, and gave the kids at least an hour of pure joy to play with!

Two happy boys!

Logan Approved Food

2012-08-04T13:10:00.002-04:00

Well as many of you know, Logey has a very severe allergy to cow milk protein and still has trouble with soy on most days (although getting better with soy!! :)) I am always on the hunt for new recipes to makes yummy things that Logey can eat. I found this wonderful recipe on Pinterest for Peanut Butter Banana Quinoa Muffins, that I just couldn't pass up. I was hoping I could do some substituting to make it work for Logey. It turned out great... ALL the kids loved the muffins and I even liked them too! These will become something I will bake often and store in the freezer for quick snacks and car trips.

Here is the Recipe:

1 tablespoon Vegetable Oil
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1/2 cup milk (We used coconut milk)
1 tablespoon Peanut Butter (I used Organic)
1 cup cooked Quinoa
1/4 cup Sugar
Pinch of Salt
1 Egg
1/4 cup Plain Yogurt (I used So Delicious Coconut Cultured Strawberry Yogurt)
1 chopped Banana
1 teaspoon Honey
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 1/2 cups Flour
Cinnamon (Optional)
Sugar (Optional)

NOTE: The best way to cook quinoa is to bring 2 cup of water to boil and then add one cup of quinoa. Let everything simmer away until there is no water left and the quinoa is nice and fluffy. Be prepared that one cup of raw quinoa will make close to 3 cups cooked quinoa. So have something else ready to have with the left overs!

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375F. In a large bowl, add vegetable oil, vanilla, yogurt, sugar, honey, milk and peanut butter. Stir together to create a smooth batter. Add egg and quinoa and a dash of salt. Sprinkle the baking powder and baking soda and stir well. Chop a banana into chunks and add to batter. Slowly add flour and mix well. Grease muffin tins. I added a sprinkle of sugar in the bottom of the tins and then scooped the batter in. Then I sprinkled Cinnamon and sugar on to for more flavour! Bake for 17-20 minutes.

NOTE: I suggest not using muffin paper cups because the muffins were really hard to get out of them. the paper was stuck and kept breaking off in pieces, so I would suggest skipping them and just putting the batter straight in the tins.

So, I wish I got a picture of how great they turned out, but the kids absolutely devoured them before I even got a chance! I will add a picture when I make the next batch. But they were really great and super yummy and even Logey could enjoy them!!!

I am always looking for Dairy-free suggestions, so please feel free to comment with your own dairy free recipes!

Daycare Outdoor Play Date

2012-08-02T13:48:00.003-04:00

This week we invited all our old neighbourhood friends over to the new house for a play date! I got the pool set up for the kids, filled the water tables, cut up fruits, made homemade popsicles, and of course the sun showed up too! Here are just a few of the great pictures from the day! I know my boys were happy to see all their old friends come to the 'new house' (as Ethan still refers to it!)

Julie and baby Amelya looking like twins

Logan, Greyson and Brody chowing down on the fruits

"Greyson say CHEESE!" lol

Jacob and Annie playing in the water table

Ethan and his best buddy Addison eating Carleigh's yummy cupcakes!

Just a little messy!

WOW...I think he liked the icing!

Amelya in the pool with Ethan - it was really hot!

We forgot about the popsicles during the party, so the boys all got one after nap!

Ethan called them Shooting Star Watermelon and Blueberry ice pops!

Such a happy man, with his new daycare buddy Brody!

A New Adventure!

2012-07-25T21:19:00.000-04:00

We are on vacation this week! So far the boys are having a blast at Grammie and Poppa's house! We took the boys out to visit my late Poppa's house before it gets sold and that alone was a great adventure!

Turns out that my uncle is raising chicken and roosters! The boys got to go into the hen houses and meet all the chickens and collect the eggs!!

Uncle Paul showing Ethan Blackie

Isn't this one pretty??

Some of the chickens (7 got killed the day before because a coyote broke into the coop! These guys survived the attack)

This Momma had 8 super cute babies!

Ethan's blue egg he collected

I forget this guys name, but he could fly and Logey liked him!

They also got to have a nice swim in Poppa's beautiful pool.

Logey checking out the pool before his swim

Ethan checking the temperature of the pool

It is so sad for me to see this house being sold, because I have been coming to it since I was a newborn! I have so many memories at the house and was really looking forward to my kids creating memories there too. Tragically, my Poppa passed away last fall after a terrible accident. I can't even begin to list all the memories from his house, but to name a quick few: playing in his creek for hours catching fish and frogs, Standing on the end of the driveway watching the parade go by each summer and then heading to the fairgrounds after for rides and a demolition derby! Walking to the candy store well over a million times! Checking out the turtles and snakes in the quarry. Playing Nintendo (the first original one!) with Nanna and Poppa. Playing euchre well into the late hours of the night, and of course GETTING MARRIED THERE!

Today, we boated over to the beach for some swimming and sand play! (And to collect some stuff for a future daycare craft!!)

Mommy and Logey working on a Sand Castle

Ethan digging the hole for the mote

Logey filling the bucket with sand!

Another new thing that Monkey got to try was TUBING! I was a little apprehensive about taking him out on the tube, more because I thought he would freak out and get scared. Well turns out, HE LOVED IT!!! He was laughing the whole time and couldn't get enough of it! Grammie only has a pontoon boat, so I knew we wouldn't be going fast or would she be trying to flip us off the tube! Here are a few pictures to enjoy of mine and Ethan's rides!

Look at that smile on his face!

Almost lost him here!

Vacation is half over already and Monday I start back up with the daycare! (Which I am actually excited about!)

Home Made Bubbles = Epic Fail!

2012-07-21T14:20:00.000-04:00

So, Logey LOVES bubbles (Bubbies!) And we were completely out. I so quickly checked Pinterest for a quick recipe for home made bubbles. Well all the recipes call for liquid corn syrup, and I did not have any....so then I found one recipe that called for 1 cup of liquid dish soap and 8 cups water. The person said it didn't work very well, but I figured I'd give it a try. Logey was miserable and desperate for BUBBIES!

I filled a big jug with a cup of dish soap and lots of water. So it didn't work at all! Couldn't get a single bubble to blow! The boys started getting frustrated and I was annoyed it wasn't work! EPIC BUBBLE FAIL!

(Insert light bulb above head going off here!)

Due to the lack of rain here (been close to 4 weeks now!) Our rocks under the tree are very dusty and dirty! So first I gave the boys each a stick from the tree to stir up the mixture and get some bubbles going. Turns out, I should have just done this from the start because they LOVED it!

Then we started gathering rocks from under the tree. Monkey was talking about how sparkly they were, but they were not shinny because they were so dirty! Logey loved dropping them into the jug and Monkey gave them a washing.

We got the hose out and rinsed them off after and then watered the tree...and washed everything else that was in the little rock garden. (My camera died here, so I have no pictures, but as you can guess, the boys ended up soaking wet and so did I!)

So even though the BUBBIES were a huge fail, we still ended up outside for 2 hours having fun washing rocks! And we now have the cleanest garden on the block!

Logey saying CHEEEEEESE for the picture! I love this shot of him

Summer days!

2012-07-13T21:35:00.000-04:00

Well the heat wave continued here and we are doing all we can do to stay cool! Monkey has been away at day camp during the afternoons, and Logey and I have been keeping busy! The temperature has been above 32 degrees Celsius for over a week now, and today it was up over 42 with the humidex! The boys and I have been doing LOTS of water play to keep cool, although we are now in a level 2 drought in our city and if we hit Level 3 then we have a water ban! Looks like with the upcoming weeks weather, we could be hitting Level 3 soon!

So I have been letting the boys take turn "watering" the lawn to try and keep our grass green (ish). Our grass is by far the greeniest out of all our neighbours, but it sure isn't pretty! It feels like straw under your feet and you have to wear shoes to walk on it! As you can tell Logey is really into water (including our deck lol!)

Of course, they wouldn't be brothers if they didn't try and spray each other with the hose! Although Monkey was enjoying the cool down!

So somehow in the process, Monkey starting filling up the cooler that was sitting on our deck and said that it was his pool! I thought it was funny and just went along with it. Kind of surprised that he could even fit it in! But little did I know...

....They could both fit in it! They played in the cooler 'pool' for over an hour. Filled it up, poured it out, repeat! They were nice and cool and entertained!

Thankfully for the boys, Grammie came down for a visit and brought a real pool for them. It was much nice and MUCH more spacious!

Staying nice and cool in the pool!

Monkey was jumping in the pool and Logey was laughing so HARD! He couldn't get enough of him jumping!

Fun was had by all, we stayed cool and the boys were exhausted by the end of the day! Bedtime is never easy in this house, but after today it sure was!

IT'S HOT HERE!!!!

2012-07-07T22:02:00.001-04:00

Well, to say it is hot here, would be an understatement! It is SCORCHING here!! Yesterday the temperature was 34 Degrees Celsius BUT with the humidex it felt like 42 DEGREES!! We made an early trip to the park with the boys - They are really loving the new park here! Since we are right beside a school, there are 3 playgrounds within about 1 minute of each other! It is great because we can switch up the parks constantly!

ANYWAYS...before we left I whipped up a quick batch of coloured ice cubes! I grabbed all the trays I could find in my house (which sadly was like 8 or 9 trays!) Anyways, just added water and a few drops of food colouring, and re-arranged my freezer like 5 times to get them all to fit...without spilling any coloured water, I might add!

After we got home from the park, and were smoking hot already, I grabbed all the trays and quickly filled up the water table in the backyard. Here is a few frozen ones, with Logey saying that they were 'COLD!"

Then I just dropped all the ice cubes into the table at once! (Not my finest moment! But the boys didn't really notice that) I didn't really take into account how hot it actually was! The ice cubes were completely melted in less than 2 minutes! The water started changing all different colours right away though and it looked really neat.

Monkey got his hands in immediately trying to get the colours to change depending on what ice cube he was holding!

Logey was just trying as hard as he could to catch one! As soon as he got his hands on one, he had to test out the flavour. I don't think it tasted as good as he thought it would.

Since the ice cubes melted so fast, we turned our attention to colour mixing. The boys had one section filled with a yellow and orangish colour, one with a blue colour and one with green. They decided to mix the orange/yellow and the green one into the big blue one to see what colour they would get. Monkey guessed that it would all turn green (probably because it is his favourite colour) and cousin Jake guessed it would all turn blue.

So, it of course, turned BLACK!

We had a great time outside playing in the water and 'cooling' down a little with the ice cubes! Monkey has been asking to do it again all day today, so my freezer will be full tonight!

A Few Things You Might Have Missed!

2012-07-06T17:46:00.001-04:00

Since I had to take some time off from blogging to deal with Logey's health issues, a daycare over haul, a couple family health scares, a few funerals and a big MOVE....You might have missed a few things! Here are some photos to catch you up!!!

Monkey turned 4 Years old! I don't know how that even happened!

Logey LOVES the beach at Grammie and Poppa's house!

Monkey learned to swim on his own at the beach. He even jumps off the rocks alone too!

We adopted 2 kittens from a Cat Rescue. Monkey named them them Pluto and Jupiter. They are so great and great with the kids! And they love each other so much!

WE MOVED! I never want to move again! It was exhausting! Thankfully we had awesome friends help us out! This is what our playroom looked like 24 hours before we moved!

Logey Loves his new park! And we have SAND now!!

Monkey loves the park too! It is more age appropriate for him!

I spent some time watching a REALLY awesome little guy!

And some totally awesome and amazing friends tied the knot! Signed, Sealed, Delivered!

Lots more to come now that we are back on track!!

Driveway paint

2012-07-05T14:24:00.002-04:00

Since it is just me and the boys for the last few weeks, we have be doing lots of great activities outside. The other day we decided it was a great day to paint our new driveway! It has been SUPER hot here and I knew this was going to be messy, but the plan was to play in the sprinkler after!

Making the paint was super easy. 1/2 cup of water, 1/2 cup of cornstarch and food colouring to make your colours! If you have ever made goop, it is basically a runny version of goop! I made 5 colours for the boys and set them up outside with paint brushes. I knew Monkey would love this, but wasn't sure if Logey would try and paint or just stick his hands in and pour out the paint!

Started off great. They were both painting beautiful pictures all over the driveway! As you can see Logey was LOVING it!

Monkey was having fun too!

We stayed pretty clean which is REALLY shocking for my boys...but then of course, it happened. Logey stuck his hands in, and it turned into finger painting the driveway. Since it was a goopy type feeling Logey just couldn't get enough of it! And he was a MESS!

I forgot to take a picture of what the driveway ended up looking like when the boys where done...but there was one really cool thing they learned. We decided to pour out all the rest of the paint onto the driveway when they were done painting. Because of the cornstarch it had started to solidify and came out of the containers almost like a dough consistency, but as soon as it touched the warm (HOT) pavement, it melted down into a liquid again until it was completely dry. We got a pretty decent rain storm that night, and it is still all there on the driveway, completely in tack! Which makes me wonder....how long will it be there!!!

My Wish List....Please help

2012-07-04T19:56:00.000-04:00

Since I am off from daycare for the next month and a half, I have been working at getting things ready for when I start back up. It is going to be a little crazy in my house for a few weeks because I have all new kids starting, and have 3 one year olds starting on the same day!! (insert gasp here!) So I have been working on a wish list of supplies that I am always looking for. Thought I would post it on here, so that just incase you lovely people are cleaning out garages, bins, cupboards, houses etc you would think of me and save them! I will even pick them up from you! So please take a quick peak at my list and let me know if you have anything! My kids will be truly greatful!
Thanks

The List

large magnet (doesn’t have to be horse-shoe shaped, just nice and strong)
wooden clothes pegs (the old-fashioned kind, not the ones with a spring)
eye-droppers (or medicine bottles with a dropper i.e. infant Tylenol)
plastic syringes
aquarium stones
rotary phone
jewellery box
magnifying glass
jumbo calculator
silk scarves
milk crates
watering can
felt-board & pieces
flat sheets
plastic table cloths
steering wheel
mail-box
car mat (area rug type with roads or activities on it)
buttons
beads
sea shells
sea glass
costume jewellery
plastic “gem stones”
magnets
teeny collectibles & miniature sets of anything (animals, dinosaurs, sea-life, houses…)
scrabble tiles
board-game pieces
artificial flowers and leaves
tissue paper
bubble wrap
ribbon/fabric scraps
stamps/ink pad
spray bottles & squirt bottles
wine corks
feathers
pipe cleaners, felt, foam shapes/letters, pom-poms, jingle bells, sparkly stuff etc
stickers
paper plates, coffee filters,
crêpe paper streamers
card-stock
spools (wood or plastic)
paint brushes (any size)
white glue, glitter glue, modge-podge
tape!! (painter’s, masking, scotch, coloured etc.)
tempera paints, finger-paint
food colouring
Easel
sorting trays (wood or plastic)
muffin tins
wood baskets/bowls
plastic storage bins and containers
mason jars
tweezers (metal or plastic)
tongs
stethoscope
chopsticks
castanets
finger cymbals
maracas
tambourine
wind-chimes
jingle bells
triangle
harmonica

Oh yes, it is a long list! But if you know me, you know I am always working on crafts with the kids, and always needing new things!

Thanks for reading!!

Bead Decorations

2012-07-04T19:39:00.000-04:00

We recently moved to a new house, and I needed some serious time to put things away without kids hanging off my legs begging for me to play with them. After I put Logey down for a nap, I decided to set Monkey up with some pipe cleaners and beads. I knew this would keep him busy for a little while because he loves making patterns and this is something we had done awhile back with Cheerios for the birds! I made a few shapes out of the pipe cleaners for him to start with:

He worked really hard on threading them on perfectly. He had to do each arm of the snowflake one at a time. It is REALLY hot here right now (like 40C!) so we thought snowflakes would be appropriate to cool down!

Monkey ended up playing with the beads for over an hour! He made a really neat candy cane (again with the patterns) some snowflakes and a few other Christmas shapes...we saw a Christmas movie the other night and it got him thinking about Santa again!!!

Of course, once he was done all of them, and got me to take pictures....he pulled all the beads off, and started all over again!!

It was great practice for him, and good for me because I got a whole lot of unpacking done! And Logey got a really great nap too because it was sooo quiet in here!!

Catch Up From Christmas

2012-01-04T14:41:00.000-05:00

I thought I would share some of our great memories from Christmas this year! Logey loved his first Christmas, and it was the first one were Ethan was REALLY into it! Here are some great pictures!

Our trip to see Santa this was exactly how I expected. Ethan was excited and Logan freaked! This was the best picture we could get of the two of them with Santa!

Thankfully, we got a really nice one of Ethan with Santa alone!

Logey's first experience with opening Christmas gifts! As expected, he liked the ribbons, bows, boxes and paper the most! That is until his brother tried to play with his toys, then he was interested in the toys!

One of Ethan's favourite presents from his Aunt Laurie and Uncle Rick! You put the orange frog on the lily pad and then jump on the pump and it shoots the frog into the air! Notice how high he got that orange frog!

Christmas morning at our house was so nice. Ethan loved opening presents and Logan loved seeing what was inside. Worked out great...Ethan opened all of Logan's and Logan was excited to see what they were. I'm sure this will not be the case next year though

Ethan's other favourite present, a Buzz Lightyear Spaceship Tent! He really likes this one, but it is pretty big and takes up the whole room, so it stays in the basement!

Santa came and visited Emmy too! She got a lovely bone that she sat and chewed for hours (literally 4 hours until it was completely gone!)

Logey's favourite present was his Cars ball pit! It didn't come with very many balls, but we fixed that by buying WAY TOO MANY on boxing day! (it was a really good deal - and I have plans for some of them too!)

For our nephew Jake, my hubby pulled some major strings! His favourite hockey player is Alexander Ovechkin and when Washington was in town from a game against the Senators, we took his jersey (which he thought his mom lost and was VERY upset about) We managed to get the jersey to Ovechkin who signed it for Jake! He was pretty excited to see that on Christmas morning!

Then off to Christmas number 3 at Grammie and Poppa's. Ethan got a really cool train set that he had really wanted when he saw it!! Uncle Ryan and Daddy worked to get it all set up for the boys! This picture cracked me up because it looks like Logey is supervising the boys on how to set it up just right!

So there you have it! Just a few of the 500 pictures I took over 3 days! Tomorrow's post will be about a new hobby I have started! Lots of pictures to follow!

...And We are BACK!!

2012-01-03T13:16:00.000-05:00

Ok the last few weeks have been a roller coaster ride for us and I had to take some time off from blogging!

Most important was CHRISTMAS! The boys had a fantastic Christmas and Logey loved his first Christmas. We spent 4 days with our families and enjoyed every minute of it. I had the week off from daycare, so I got to relax! (haha...not really!) Daddy had a few extra days off, so the boys got some good time with him!

All the boys finally got over their sicknesses, and all the antibiotics are out of here! HOWEVER, Logan's health problems continued, and finally we got some answers! Logey is officially allergic to cow milk protein and Soy! This has created some chaos in my life. The milk protein is not the most difficult allergy to deal with - it is the SOY! I swear if you picked up 10 things in your kitchen I would guarantee 9 (if not all) of them have soy in them! Besides that fact, Milk and Soy have about 30 different names each that can be listed on ingredient lists! So my life no consists of reading labels until I'm blue in the face!

I have started to make a whole lot of my own food for Logey. It is super time consuming, but so much easier than trying to figure out what he can and can't eat! I spent 2 full days in the kitchen and made enough dinners and lunches for him to last for 30 days! Needless to say, my freezer is full now! Have I ever mentioned how much I HATE cooking!!??!?!?

On the plus side, Logey has finally gained some weight! His doctor is very impressed and I now have a 20 lbs baby! It usually takes baby's less than 6 months to double their birth weights. Logey opted to take 11 months!!! He has finally moved out of the 11th percentile and up to the mid 30's!! This is very exciting for us!

On to Ethan! Ethan started speech therapy a few days before Christmas! It took us an entire year to get him into the program, but now we are there, and I am so happy about it! Because of the Christmas break, he has only had one session so far, but what a difference that one session has done! We go for 8 weeks, and then we take 8 weeks off, and then repeat until he starts Kindergarden! Our therapist is really great and already agreed to work in the school with him as well!

Finally, my hubby and I assigned the Bell Capital Cup again this year, and it was CHAOS!!!!! If you have never heard of it, it is the biggest hockey tournament in the world. It runs out of ALL the arena's in Ottawa and surrounding areas! It is crazy big and the Ottawa Senators take part in it as well! It is really neat from the kids because teams come from all over the world to play in it. This year there was teams from Korea, China, Sweden to name a few!

All in all, we had a great Holiday season, and have lots of new activities to show off! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas holiday too!

Stainglass Christmas Trees

2011-12-18T10:05:00.000-05:00

Well, Christmas is one week from today and we still have so many Christmas crafts to finish up. Yesterday, I cut tree shapes into a pizza cardboard box. I, then gave Monkey the hole punch and told him to punch as many holes in the tree as he wanted. Next he painted the tree green on the non-printed side.

While the paint dried, I cut up green and red tissue paper into small squares. Monkey covered the tree in glue (I think a glue stick might have worked a little better for this but I was afraid it was going to rip the tissue paper)

Then he started to cover the entire tree with pieces of tissue.

Let it dry (for a long time if you used as much glue as Monkey did) Then I trimmed up the pieces of tissue that were hanging over the sides. And that was it. Really easy, but super cute. When it was completely dry, we hung it up in the window so the sun could shine through.

Looks like a little stain glass Christmas tree. You could definitely spice them up with a little glitter and/or decorations, but Monkey wanted to leave it plain!

Jingle Bells!

2011-12-16T12:06:00.001-05:00

Well after 6 days of antibiotics, I can sadly report that Logeybear is still not recovering well. However, Monkey is definitely starting to get back to himself.

While we were making our egg carton snowmen, I had Monkey paint a few extra single egg cartons. He had no idea why he was doing this, but I kept telling him he needed to wait a few more days to get to them. So I gave him green, red and white paint to get them all covered. It takes more paint that I thought to get those cartons covered - the paint soaks into the material.

So when I told him to really put a LOT of paint on them, this started happening! The paint would stick to the cartons and the paint brushes. We weren't using the greatest brushes either, but that was what I had grabbed the first time I went to get the paints, and I wasn't walking back downstairs again (sick Logey still in my arms 24 hours a day!!)

Once they all dried up, I got out a pack of bells (or Jingle Bells as Monkey calls them). We cut pipe cleaners in half, and looped them through the opening on the jingle bells. This was actually kind of hard so Monkey would get the first half in, and then I would have to get it back out. Then we pulled the bells tight and poked 2 little holes through the egg carton and attached the pipe cleaner at the top. It looked like this:

Then we finished up the rest of them, I think we made about 8-10 of them! Monkey likes to do things in bulk, so I always have to have lots of extras so he can do the craft over and over again!

So here they are all hanging on our Christmas tree. We are finally starting to fill in the voids from the poor broken decorations! We used sparkly silver, gold and blue pipe cleaners and some regular old green and red one.

Egg Carton Snowmen

2011-12-15T08:24:00.001-05:00

Well, the kids are still really sick and both boys are on antibiotics, but we are still doing some nice and easy crafts! Monkey was really wanting to make some snowmen (like I said, he is really into Frosty right now) I kept telling him that once we finished the eggs, we could make some really cute snowmen with the egg cartons. Well, yesterday the day finally came.

First thing I did was cut the cartons so that I had three in a row. Then I set Monkey up with some white paint and told him to get it completely covered in snow.

Once it dried up, I set Monkey up with some pipe cleaners for arms and scarfs, googly-eyes, pompoms and Sharpies. First thing we did glue on the pompom buttons, and the googly eyes. Monkey asked me to draw the mouth on his. Then we cut our brown pipe cleaners into 4 pieces (sneaky Mommy with those scissor skills). It turns out that pushing pipe cleaners through the egg cartons was more difficult than I thought, so I used the exacto knife and pushed little holes through first. Then Monkey was easily able to get the arms through. We then cut the sparkly pipe cleaners in half. He wrapped half around to make the scarf. As we finished, I realized (or rather Monkey pointed out) that I had forgot about hats! Monkey then suggested that we use the other half of the pipe cleaner. This was a great idea because the 'hat' actually served as a hat and a hook to put it on the tree. The pompoms weren't sticking that well the egg carton, we ended up hot gluing them to make sure they stayed put!

Here are Monkey's 2 snowmen, a Mommy and a Daddy snowman.

Here is the Daddy hanging nicely in the tree.

These little guys were really easy and I was able to do it with Monkey while holding Logey (who is just plain miserable!!)

Popsicle Stick Tree and Stars

2011-12-13T11:16:00.000-05:00

This was an EXTRA easy craft that was PERFECT for Monkey. I loved it because I did not have to prepare anything for it. I just grabbed some popsicle sticks and glue, and a few cut pieces of yarn! Our great friends over at Happy Hooligans gave me this idea (again!!!!)

Generally I would have got none-coloured popsicles sticks, but these were left over from our Thanksgiving turkey crafts (I wasn't blogging then so you can't see how cute they were) All we did was put some glue in the centre of the sticks and then stick 3 or 4 together! Like I said super easy!

Here is how they turned out! Monkey just kept wanting to do more and more, so I figured why not (Our Christmas tree is still looking a little bare due to half the decorations breaking last year)

Once they all dried we used the glue gun to glue some yarn to them so we could hang them up. I got Monkey to cut the pieces of yarn to size, so he could again practice those scissor skills!!

Here are some on our tree! (Side note: up in the left hand corner is our glue gingerbread man from last year. So easy to make, just glue and glitter and cookie cutters! We will be making some more of them this week too!)

When we were done, there were a few Green popsicle sticks left over, and out of the blue Monkey said it looked like a TREE! So we used the scissors again to cut them down a little bit more on each one. Then he said we needs a "truck"...took me a few tries to figure out what he was talking about and then I realized he meant TRUNK! (Side note: speech therapy FINALLY starts on Dec 22!) He picked up a broken piece of yellow that was sitting in the bottom of the box and said it was the Star. He glued them all on and VOILA a beautiful Christmas tree!

So, two really easy Christmas crafts which worked on great skills! We always need the scissor practice and anything I can do with scissors is great!!

New Look!

2011-12-12T21:28:00.000-05:00

Just in case you didn't notice, my blog has a new look! As we all know, I am VERY new to blogging and started off with a very generic header.

A super awesome friend whose hubby is an amazing 'graphic designer', whipped up this beautiful header for me! I love the monkey and bear. It couldn't be any cuter! It was so great that he had time to do this for me, and I am so thankful for it!

Also, SANTA came to visit the blog as well...Keep your eye out for him while here!!

Gingerbread House

2011-12-12T21:12:00.000-05:00

So today we had no daycare kids, since we were all on the mend from all our illnesses. So I figured Monkey, Logey and I would work on our Gingerbread house. Grammie bought us a nice and easy pre-made house. All I did was put the house together...

Here is all the parts laid out with a great tray that came with it (made it so much easier to build)

Once the icing hardened enough for Monkey to start decorating, I gave him the icing bag and let him have a free for all! As you can see, Grammie also stopped at Bulk Barn and got some (LOTS!!!!) extra candy.

It was great to watch him do everything on his own. I wasn't going for the perfect Gingerbread house, I was going for a 3 year old's version of the perfect Gingerbread house, and that of course I got! On one side he did straight lines with the icing and candies, and on the other side he tried to follow to pattern on the house! I think both sides turned out great!

Here is the final Masterpiece! He even made a perfect walkway out of the Lego blocks that Grammie bought. I didn't even show him how to do it, I was so impressed!

Ya, that is a whole lot of candy on there!! Logey tried to help, but by helping, I mean he helped himself to candy, so we set him up on the floor with lots of toys and books to keep him busy while Monkey finished up!

I have always loved building gingerbread houses for the holidays, but I love it even more now with the kids! Plus, I once again sneaked some skills in there too. Monkey had to squeeze the icing out of the bag and into the 'right' spot on the house, and well as some fine motor skills to place ALL that candy on there! Can't wait til next year when Logeybear can help us too!

Felt Snowman

2011-12-11T20:49:00.000-05:00

Been a few days since I have posted...the whole family is quite sick and each of us is trying to fight a different infection. Somehow, I had time to whip up this craft between wiping noses, holding a crying/miserable baby, cleaning up after a 3 year old with a nasty gastro virus, while being super sick myself! Not an entirely enjoyable weekend for us!

Monkey loves his felt Christmas tree so much that he asked if we could make another one. While I saw no purpose in having two Christmas trees, I came up with a better idea! He has been LOVING Frosty the Snowman lately, so why not make a snowman!!

It was super easy to do. I first took 3 of the kids measuring cups (1/2, 3/4 and 1 cup size) and made perfect circles on the white felt.

Then I cut out the circles, and used my scrap pieces of felt to make a hat, eyes, nose, coal mouth, arms, and lots of buttons. I used the left over white felt from the circles and made some snow hills for the bottom. I stuck it all onto a big left over piece of green felt from the Christmas Tree.

And then Monkey went to it. He took is apart and put it together over and over and over again.

This was the one he wanted me to take a picture of to put on the blog (he actually told me to take the picture lol)

We weren't letting Logeybear play with it because the button and mouth circles were pretty small and we knew from past experience that the pieces were going to go right into his mouth. So while I was playing with Logey, Monkey started to decorate one of Emmy's dog toys! And of course, told me to take a picture! I thought it was pretty creative of him!

These felt scenes are so easy to make, and can lead to hours of play! I hope to get lots of great Christmas activities done this week, if we could all just fell better!

Felt Play Christmas Tree

2011-12-08T14:33:00.000-05:00

Well, my tree is still standing, and has yet to come down this year, however, I have re-decorated it about 50 or so times! I can't keep the boys hands off the decorations!! I went to Pinterest to find something that could solve my problem! This is what I found! Play Felt Tree and Ornaments

So after a friend kindly made a trip to Michael's to pick up a big peice of green felt, I was ready to cut! Turns out I can't really cut a tree all that well, but the kids sure don't mind. I added a little trunk to the tree to make it a little more real for them. I cut bulb shaped ornaments, and some garland. and a little star for the top.

I left the tree out on the table for Monkey, so when he came down in the morning, it was a nice surprise for him to decorate! He got right to it

And re-decorated....

...and re-decorated...

We moved it to the floor so Logey-Bear could play as well. I was really close to him because I suspected that the peices would go right into his mouth....

..."What, I don't have anything in my mouth!!!"

..."Oh wait....yes I do!!!!"

So all in all, Monkey loves the tree and decorates it over and over and over....and Logey, well he likes to try and eat it, so not so great for him. Monkey has decorated it by putting all the same colours together in each section, and by mixing up the colours. It is amazing to watch him keep going back to it, to make it just right! HOWEVER, I have still re-decorated our REAL tree about 15 more times, so it really didn't solve my problem! But still cute nonetheless!

Home-Made Snow Globes

2011-12-07T21:52:00.000-05:00

I had been seeing home-made snow globes all over Pinterest, and really had no interest in making one. But when our friend from Suburbia Momma wanted to come over at 10pm the other night to make them, I couldn't resist the challenge!

I mainly didn't want to do them because it seemed like so much work and would take a long time to make, but turns out it is SUPER easy and barely takes any time at all!

The supplies you need are:
Some type of bottle (wouldn't recommend glass if you have to destructive boys like me!)
Decorations
Glitter
Glue Gun
Water or Baby Oil

First thing I did was glue a Christmas decoration to the inside of the lid of my bottle. I think if I did it again, I would put something down first and then glue the decoration on top of it. Maybe like a small lid of some sort - basically to raise the ornament higher into the Globe.

Then I hot glued some foam snowflakes to the inside of the bottle.

Then fill the container to almost the top with Water (or baby oil - I did one with baby oil and it looks kind of cloudy, so I did this one with water). Pour in a whole bunch of glitter! We added some floating foam stars as well. Take the jar over the sink to put on the lid because some water will likely spill out (learned that the hard way!) Once you get the lid screwed on tightly, use the glue gun to lock the seal! (don't put hot glue around the entire mouth of the jar and then try to twist the top on...seriously, we tried it -TWICE - you will never be fast enough to get the lid screwed on tightly!)

And VOILA! A perfect little snow globe for Monkey and Logey Bear! My jar had some ridges around it so it was tricky to get a nice picture of it, but you get the point! The boys love shaking it all around and seeing how long it takes for all the glitter to get to the bottom!

So, it really was that easy! I think I will try this again every Christmas with the boys. Since I now know how easy it was to do, next time Monkey will be doing it with me!!

Christmas Bingo

2011-12-06T14:24:00.000-05:00

I have been searching the Internet for a Christmas version of BINGO, but something easy enough for 2 and 3 year olds to understand. I was just about to give up and make my own, when I finally came across this site that you can pick your occasion and it generates the BINGO cards and caller sheet! I renamed ours SANTA (instead of BINGO) This was definitely be easy enough for Monkey and his friends to understand.

So I printed out a few cards on regular computer paper and then cut them out and glued them on to construction paper to make them a little stronger. I did the same with the Caller Sheet.

Next it was time to play. We used a block and rolled it onto the Caller Sheet, and whatever it landed on, Monkey and his friends searched for on their cards. We marked off the squares with left over construction paper from the backing of the cards!

Monkey was really excited when he got his first BINGO. I told him to yell BINGO once all his pictures were covered, but he so did not understand what BINGO meant! He pretty much thought I was crazy!

Once we played about a hundred or so times, Monkey decided he wanted to name each item on the caller sheet and then cover it up as he called it out. AND once again, this sneaky mom was a-ok with that because he was working on his fine motor skills to get those squares placed perfectly!

I LOVED playing BINGO with the kids today. Monkey really liked it and it was so easy to make. I love that DLTK has it set up that you can make the games for pretty much every occasion, season, event etc. that you can think of! I know we will be doing this one again soon!

Rainy Day Fun

2011-12-06T08:24:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a rainy December day (seriously, rainy in December!!) In the morning we decided to pull out the train set and make a big track using up as much of the floor as possible. Monkey built the whole track himself and player with it for easily 2 hours. He loves his trains.

I love how careful he is when he is playing trains. It is probably the only time he is ever gentle with anything!

Once Logey-Bear went down for nap, we got to some Christmas crafts! We have been working on BINGO dabber art for the past few months, and Monkey has a lot of trouble getting the dots right in the centre of the circles. Today, he did great!

I printed off these four Christmas sheets from DLTK

I got out green, red and blue dabbers. Monkey went to town with them. The present was his favourite.

He really likes trying to press as hard as he can and getting lots of the liquid everywhere (of course, trying to make the biggest mess possible)

Here is his finally projects! They will be going up on our Christmas wall of Art! Monkey did a great getting the dots inside the circles! Practicing fine motor skills again, and having fun!!