Kids Camp: Dinosaurs

Dinosaur camp looked a little different this past week, but the kids still had lots of fun!  Casey planned to bring Brooks over to my house for everything, but then we found out that some important work was to be done on the farm.  A crane was coming to move a small bin!  Lane couldn't miss that...so we moved dinosaur camp to my mom's house.

First, we read some dino books:

Usborne Discovery Dinosaurs by Rachel Firth

Really Big Dinosaurs & Other Giants and Flying Giants, both by Monica Hughes

Dinosaur Babies by Leonie Bennett

Our craft was making dinosaur fossils!  I stirred up a batch of salt dough, then we pressed toy dinosaurs into the dough to make indentations.  Lane and Brooks had fun coming up with different ideas!  We did the whole dinosaurs at first, but then got more creative and did just the feet or just the tail.

While the craft was baking, Casey fed Keely while the rest of us went outside to see the crane.  (I tried to tie this into dinosaurs by pointing out that some dinos were as tall as the crane, but I'm not sure the kids cared!)

That took up quite a bit of time, but it was pretty exciting for the little ones!  Curtis was mostly excited to have it finished before the sun came out from behind the clouds ;)

Next up was snack time!  Casey made jello "dinosaur eggs" (yum!!) and we ate them with pretzel "dinosaur bones".

By this time the kids just wanted to play, so we put in a dinosaur video (National Geographic's Dinosaurs and other Creature Features) and let them play with the toy dinosaurs.

At home, I made a lunch consisting of cheese sandwiches in the shape of dinosaurs, hard-boiled "dinosaur" eggs, Puffcorn "dino bones", and "prehistoric rocks" (peas and carrots).

We planned on taking all the kids to the Dinosaur Museum in Milford.  I called them a couple of days ahead of time to make sure they would be open...but when we got there at about 3:30 on Saturday...they were closed.  I had one unhappy little boy!!  I quickly remembered that I had heard about a place in Lincoln called "Lost in Fun".  Casey looked it up and luckily it was open.  I think by the time we walked in the door, Lane had forgotten about the dinosaurs!

Brooks is in there somewhere!

Lane had a blast running around to all the exhibits!  Katy was a little more reserved, but she definitely had fun.  I knew she liked it when she abandoned the swings for something else!

Lane was way more adventurous than I thought he would be!  This inflatable slide was actually pretty big, but he went down it with no hesitation!  He also loved the "space pit" filled with foam.  He's asked to go back several times already!

Although dino camp didn't turn out quite like I wanted, the kids still had fun...and we've been talking and playing dinosaurs all week :)

Kids Camp: Space

This past week we did space camp!  Once again, we did activities on a couple of different days since we were pretty busy!

One rainy afternoon, we painted Styrofoam balls to look like planets:

Our finished solar system wasn't very accurate, but the kids love it!  Lane made those "satellites" all by himself during quiet time one day.

The books that we read were The Moon, The Planets, The Sun, and The Stars.  They were easy to read and a good introduction to everything in the solar system.  We also watched a Curious George episode (Rocket Ride) and a silly video called There Goes a Spaceship.  I was really disappointed that I couldn't find any other cool space videos at the York library!  We also checked out some pictures and videos on the NASA website.

Our other craft was Puffy Paint Moons.  It was pretty messy and neither kid really liked using their hands to spread the "paint", so I ended up finishing them both.   Lane really liked the end result though - they are both hanging on our fireplace.

For a snack, we tried the freeze-dried astronaut ice cream that I ordered from Amazon.  I liked it, but the rest of the family thought it was pretty weird!  I also made a snack for the afternoon: marshmallow stars, "planet" Cheerios, and "moon rock" M&Ms.

Later that afternoon, we headed over to my mom's to do our two "games" for space camp: walking on the moon and flying a spaceship.

First, Lane and Katy played in this old spaceship that Bret had when he was little.  It has lots of levers and gadgets to mess around with.

Next, mom had made a "moon" to walk on - a large plastic sheet duct-taped shut and filled with water.  It was really fun!

The water inside felt nice and cool on a hot day and it was really squishy and funny to walk on!  They also had fun throwing "Saturn's rings" around.

The funniest part was when Lane was playing by himself...all of a sudden, the tarp started to slide down the slight hill towards the dog pen.  Lane was crawling as fast as he could to keep from hitting the pen!

Next up: dinosaurs!

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!

Today's project: Tree Fort

Lane has been asking for and drawing up plans for a tree house for the last few months.  Curtis finally figured out something that would work and he got busy today!

Lane and Katy had lots of fun building their own stuff too:

Curtis used some leftover decking that my parents had - it should hold up well!

Lane was thrilled to finally get to try it out; Katy, not so much.  She was pretty scared the first time she was up there.

All finished!  Curtis just needs to get some heavy duty screws to reinforce it a little bit and I'm thinking about making an awning for it.  Lane loves it!  So far he has just pretended to build a house up there, but he's already talking about it being a spaceship and a fire station.

I'm very thankful for a handy husband!

Playing together (finally!)

I often wonder if I play with my kids enough- doesn't every mom wonder that at some point?  I tend to think of myself as more of a "cruise ship director".  I am perfectly happy thinking up activities for them to do, but I don't necessarily want to play with them all the time.  We do play together at least a couple times a day; however, I'm starting to realize that the more I play with my kids, the more they NEED me to play with them.  It seems like they forget how to play on their own if I interfere too much!

Lane constantly asks "Can you play with me, Mommy?" - even if I am literally sitting on the floor building a Duplo tower for him to knock down or if I have just spent the last 30 minutes pretending to build a tree house with Growlbert and Kitty O'bey.

My latest response has been, "No, that's why you have a sister."  After hearing that several times in a row, Lane has started to ask Katy to play with him!

On this particular day, I had a headache and was super tired so I just wanted to rest.  Lane whined for me to play with him, but finally he realized that Katy was willing.  They had so much fun running around together and kicking balls.

Of course they still fight like cats and dogs, but I have noticed more and more interaction and actual playing between the two of them.  Lane has even started to ask Katy to play something without me having to prompt him.  The other day he made an obstacle course for the two of them and they can often be found playing construction site Duplos together.

Finally - a little break for this tired mommy!

Triking and Biking

I am so excited for Lane - he figured out how to ride his bike!  He tried and tried last summer, but couldn't quite figure out how to pedal.  Now that he grew a couple of inches, he caught on quickly!

His favorite place to ride is the tennis court - lots of open space and he doesn't have to worry about running into anything!

I bought Lane a new helmet last week and gave Katy his old one.  They love the helmets and insist on wearing them at random times...including during a trip to Walmart.  We got a few strange looks, but at least Katy's head was protected when she ran into the cart :)

Lane said that when he turns 4, he's taking the training wheels off...I don't think we'll be ready for that, but maybe he'll be ready to ride alongside me and Curtis.  So much fun!

Katelyn loves riding her trike and she is so cute motoring around!  She loves that she can haul stuff in the back and her baby has gotten more than one ride lately.  On this day, she was more interested in her big pretzel than she was in her trike, but she managed to ride one-handed for awhile!

*If anyone is sad about picnik closing down - I did all these photo edits in picmonkey and it seems to have a lot of the same features as picnik.  Hopefully it stays free!

Easter

Easter was a little spread out this year!  Casey and Blake had plans to go to Smith Center on the actual holiday, so we decided to celebrate with my family on April 1st.  We all showed up at mom and dad's after the kids woke up from naps (so about 4ish) and then started the Easter egg hunt.  

The kids found their baskets first...

And the hunt for the eggs began!  Katy caught on pretty quick and easily found as many as Lane did.  They had to check out how many the other one found!

Once Katy discovered that there was candy in the plastic eggs, there was no stopping her.  She opened the candy as fast as she could and stuffed it all in her mouth!  I let her have a little bit of fun before taking the rest away.

What is it about hard-boiled eggs and needing to throw them?  Years ago, us kids got in trouble at Grandma Jost's house for throwing hard-boiled eggs all over the attic (we think Bailey was the instigator!) and again, we just couldn't help ourselves (but at least we were outside this time!).  Katy thought it was pretty neat to throw the eggs and watch them explode.

We spent a little more time outside before going in for supper - ham steaks and lots of other yummy food!

Yesterday we celebrated with the Farralls at Brent and Christi's.  After a filling lunch of bbq'd ribs, we had another egg hunt where Katy ate even more candy and basically just hung out all afternoon.  The highlight for the kids was the trampoline:

I tried to get Katy to lay down in her pack and play for a nap, but she just kept saying "hop, hop, hop."  She just wanted to go outside and "hop."

Other activities for the week included me being room mother for Lane's preschool party and participating in the Henderson egg hunt (Katy got a TON of candy at that!).  We also did a few Easter crafts/activities to incorporate the true meaning of Easter.  Lane really liked the Resurrection eggs and making crosses to put in the window.  However, he still asked more questions about the Easter bunny than he did about Jesus/the cross, so we still have some work to do ;)

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!

6 dozen eggs...

Once again, we had to get together to dye Easter eggs!  What a difference a year makes - last year Lane was the only one participating, but this year Katy and Brooks were able to too!

We gave Katy her own dozen to do what she liked with...she couldn't quite get it that she was only supposed to dye one egg at a time and only one color per egg.

We had ALOT of eggs!  Lane really enjoyed it and dyed most of them.

After a little while, Katy figured out that she could break the egg open and it was a yummy hard-boiled egg.  She had no interest in dyeing them after that - only eating them!

Lane and Brooks both had colored hands - Brooks' were completely green!  A fun get-together!