DIY Kids Camp: Ocean

Lane really misses the structure of preschool and getting to do the "fun" stuff there.  So, my plan this summer is to do "summer camp" with the kids once a week or so.  Each week (or every two weeks) I'm planning a day where we learn about something by doing crafts, games, reading books, and watching videos.

I started out with Oceans since there was a ton of ideas on Pinterest and there were so many different aspects of the ocean!  For this camp, I split it up in to an afternoon and a morning since we've been so busy lately.

Monday afternoon, Lane and I made sock octopuses while Katy napped.  The octopus is simply a knee sock stuffed with batting and then cut into 8 "legs".

Later, after Katy woke up, we watched Ocean Habitats: Shoreline and Reef.  It was a little advanced for Lane (lots of terms that I'm sure he didn't know), but he soaked it up anyway!  (I just grabbed ocean-themed videos and books at the library hoping for the best!).

After the video, the kids had fun "fishing" for Goldfish with a pretzel stick dipped in peanut butter.

I read them the book A House for Hermit Crab and then they stayed busy with a corresponding preschool and tot pack while I made supper.  This was Katy's first time doing a tot pack; she needed a little direction, but she loved it and did great!

Camp began again on Wednesday morning.  We started out by reading books: Mister Seahorse, The Snail and the Whale, and Trout, Trout, Trout.

Lane was super excited to do the "ocean craft."  We made an ocean in a bottle...I tried to find tiny shells or sea creatures to put in the bottles, but after searching Walmart and Amazon, I didn't find any!  I ended up taking apart the beaded necklaces they made at VBS last week since there were dolphins and whales mixed in.  

They look less than thrilled in this picture, probably because I gave them
strict instructions not to touch!  I didn't want blue food coloring
all over the floor!

Later in the morning, after I got some chores done and the kids worked out their crabbies by playing outside, we watched a few videos about sea creatures on the National Geographic website.

Since the kids have been obsessed with cushions lately, I made up a game called "Save the sea creatures!".  They had to rescue Nemo, the octopuses, and a duck from the couch by only jumping on the cushions and not landing in the "water"...otherwise sharks would get them.  Katy didn't get it, but Lane was so into it that he was running and jumping and out of breath.  He saved the creatures about 4 or 5 times :)

Finally, we enjoyed an ocean lunch of jellyfish hot dogs, a bread and cheese boat (that had a pretty sad sail!), and ocean jello.  Curtis and I were fine with regular hot dogs ;)

The kids had so much fun doing all this and even more fun when they got to tell Daddy everything they did!  I hope I have enough motivation to keep it going all summer....and hopefully we can make it a summer tradition.  (That's why I'm blogging about this...so that next year I can remember what I did!).  Next up: Space!

Busy Bag Exchange

First of all, thanks everyone for participating!  I've wanted to put together busy bags for quite awhile now, but it can be overwhelming to decide what to do!  I thought it would be much easier to just put together one type of bag and then exchange :)

Some guidelines:

1.  You can decide to participate in either/both the toddler swap or the preschool swap.  I think that most of us have kids in both age groups, so it would be fun if everyone did both!

2.  You will make one bag for every person in the swap.  So far, we have about 7-8 people which is great!  I think I will make the deadline for signing up (including choosing which bag you want to make) on April 11. So, after April 11 we will have the final number of bags needed from everyone.

3.  Definitely think about cost as you are choosing which bag to make.  The ideas that I will give are just that: ideas.  Feel free to change the activities a bit to keep costs down!  Some bags are going to be super cheap to make while others can get quite expensive.  I don't want anyone to go broke!

4.  If your bag includes paper/cardstock items, don't worry about laminating them.  Each of us can laminate the contents on our own if we want to.

5.  Put each busy bag into a gallon-size Ziploc bag and include instructions if you think it needs them.

6.  Deadline for swapping the bags will be in early May. Some of the girls participating I only see at GEM (formerly MOPS) every month.  The rest of you I think I see more often, so I will collect your bags from you so I can give out the bags at our May 8 GEM meeting.  This might get confusing yet ;)

Here's a spreadsheet that you can all look at different ideas for busy bags and sign up under the one that you want to make.  If you have another idea that isn't on there, just go ahead and add it!  And no, I didn't spend all that time making the spreadsheet - I actually got it from here.  Let me know if it's not working for you and I'll see if I can figure it out.

I think that's all!  If anyone has any questions or suggestions, let me know!  Have fun!

Valentine's Day Decor (using the Silhouette of course!)

Even though it's almost time to take down my Valentine's Day decor, I wanted to share it!

Curtis gets tired of cutting wood for me...but I really love him when he does!

I didn't make this file, I found it online, but I was amazed at how well the Silhouette was able to cut it out!  I just stuck it in a frame with some white paper behind it.

Can you figure out what these numbers are?  It took Curtis a little while to catch on :)

Gingerbread House FAIL

Last year Lane had a great time decorating gingerbread houses, so he has been begging to do it again this year.  I had big plans to have his aunts and uncles over to have a party, but - 1.  I couldn't find the boxes of little gingerbread houses.  2. I have a horrible cold and 3.  It started to sound like a lot of work :)

So Lane and I finally found a gingerbread kit while browsing Joann's the other night.  Lane couldn't wait - so last night we after supper we all sat down to have fun.

Lane was so excited!!  Katy was excited too - look at all the candy!!  I was just trying to get the frosting to work right.  And Curtis was not excited at all.

Katy saw Brooks doing "Touchdown!" a few weeks ago....and now she does it!  Candy in the mouth = touchdown!

We finally got it all put together - Lane did a great job decorating ;)  I squirted lots and lots of icing on it in an attempt to get it to stick together.

It didn't work.  Soon, the roof slid off.

Lane thought that was wonderful - he started licking it. We decided that it could just be a stable and it would still look ok.  We were still commenting on how Baby Jesus was born in a stable, when...

...the entire thing fell to pieces.  This is Lane's attempt at a sad face, but he and I were both laughing pretty hard.  Luckily, he wasn't heartbroken...just ecstatic that he now gets to eat his weight in candy and frosting.

Yep...gingerbread house FAIL.

Silhouette projects

Since I got my Silhouette Cameo in the mail, I've had lots of fun playing with it.  Curtis doesn't like it when I use it when he's trying to watch TV - it's pretty loud!  I got the vinyl starter kit with it - once I made a few things - I ordered a lot more vinyl.  I also am waiting on my order of heat transfer material to arrive so I can make Lane and Katy a few t-shirts.  So much fun!

Here are a few of the projects I've done - most are Christmas related!

I cut out lots of snowflakes, adhered them to a canvas, and then
spray painted the whole thing glittery.  Then I peeled off the snowflakes.
The lights behind the canvas are supposed to shine through just the snowflakes.
I guess my spray paint was a little see-through though - it doesn't quite look
how I intended!

This is about 4 feet long and on our dining room wall.

The treat boxes I made for the Farrall Christmas.

My front door.

I also finally was able to complete a project I've had in mind for a few months.  I tried using my mom's Cricut, but just couldn't get it to look exactly how I wanted.  I was so happy when I finally got it finished!

It's a series of wooden signs with the name of every town we've lived in and the year we moved there.  Curtis was skeptical, but admits that it turned out pretty cool!

I have a few more projects to do soon, but those are going to be Christmas presents, so I probably won't share them on here!  :)

Crafty stuff

Yep, I have been keeping up with my plan to actually do things that I pin on Pinterest (vs. just wasting time pinning more stuff).

I made a fall wreath for our front door:

Which will look a lot better (the door that is) once I paint it.  I'm just waiting for harvest to be done so Curtis can saw off all those little knobby things.

And I made these goldfish crackers:

I've also tried a few other recipes - a pumpkin cream bread and apple butter.  The apple butter is yummy...the bread...not so much.  I was planning to take it to bible study tomorrow, but I think I'll make a loaf of something else instead! I also put up a few fall decorations (mostly rearranging what I already had to make it look "new") but the M&M one had to be put away.  A certain little girl likes them too much :)

And of course, Pinterest is down right now so I can't even post pics or links to the recipes and decor ideas.  Maybe next time...

Crafts for preschoolers

First of all, I can't believe that Lane is a preschooler!  I almost titled this post "Crafts for Toddlers"...then I realized that Lane is no longer a toddler.  Crazy!

Anyway, we've kinda been neglecting craft time in this house.  We've been so busy with preschool, GEM, and Bible Study that it's been hard to find time to do crafts. The past couple days, I've made more of an effort to make something with Lane.

In honor of the leaves changing color, we made a cute "tree with falling leaves":

It's simply cardstock cut up into tiny little pieces (leaves) and put in a ziploc bag.  We then cut out trees and sky and sun to staple around it.

Then Lane got to shake it up and watch the leaves fall.  He had a lot of fun cutting everything!

Today he helped me make "building sticks".  We took a bunch of jumbo craft sticks and stuck velcro circles on them.

They can be connected to form letters, shapes, houses, roads, whatever.  Both kids really liked playing with them - Lane would build something and then Katy would tear it apart.

At least they are playing together :)

Pinterest love

I LOVE Pinterest.  I could spend hours upon hours just browsing the website.  I can definitely relate to the quote I saw: "Thank you, Pinterest, for helping me feel crafty even though I just spent 3 hours staring at the computer".

After all, where else can you find (in one place) ideas for your home:


{source}

your food:


{source}

 and your kids:


{source}

 But - sitting and looking at pretty pictures (while fun) doesn't decorate my house or feed my family.  So, here are two things I have done in the past couple weeks using ideas from Pinterest:

Melted crayon art was really fun and surprisingly relaxing.  It's now hanging the kids' playroom.  It's simply crayons hot-glued to a blank canvas and then melted with a blow dryer.

I saw this coffee table and realized that Mom had one almost exactly like it sitting in her basement.  After stenciling it and painting it a cheery yellow, it no longer screams 1970s.  Or maybe it does and I actually like the 1970s?? :)

I'm trying to challenge myself to do at least one thing I found on Pinterest every week, whether it is a craft, diy home project or simply a new recipe.  Now...off to Pinterest to find what I should do this week....

P.S. If anyone needs an invite to Pinterest, let me know and I'll send you one!

DIY Sidewalk Paint

With all this cooler weather, the kids have been spending a lot more time outside.  Lane could spend hours digging in his sandbox or dirt, but Katy doesn't quite get the appeal of that yet :)  She loves to be outside, but lately her usual toys (water table, push toy, the cat) get boring after awhile.

On Friday we decided to make sidewalk paint.  Both kids love "painting" and chalk so it was the perfect activity to keep them occupied for almost a half hour!

I found the "recipe" on Pinterest -

2 T water
2 T cornstarch
5 drops of food coloring

So easy (and cheap)!  And, best of all, easily washable!  I definitely plan to do this one again.

Katy ended up getting it all over herself, but I loved all the little stripes and splatters she made!