Rapunzel Day

We just got back from an excellent trip to Cali!  We have family there =)  Yesterday was a total rest at home day to catch up and get back in the right time zone, so we had a movie marathon day.  I didn't take any pictures, because part of playing catch up is downloading the thousand pictures I took last week.  But I'll just tell you about the day anyway, because it turned out to be fun!

Serenity chose Tangled, and we ended up playing it three times yesterday.  She almost never watches a movie straight through, there are breaks for playtime.  Today, she asked to make a lantern like Rapunzel's, so I took a plain piece of printer paper, and added dots to it that Serenity could connect them to make the sun design.  Then we taped it up into a cylinder and I added one of those led tea lights, and voila!  It was quick and a big hit =)

Then she wanted to use her play-doh.  We have these fun little letter cutters for the play-doh, and she wanted to spell everyone's names from the movie.  So I helped her figure out which letters she needed for the names (She wanted to do two u's for Rapunzel, and who could blame her?  And what's with the Y for an I in Flynn? =)  Then she put them in the right order.  And she rolled out a long piece of play-doh and said it looked like Rapunzel's hair, so I made her a little doll out of play-doh to attach it to.  For some reason she loves the people I make with play-doh, even though they look like creepy voodoo dolls to me.  Oh well. =)

Then we played pretend.  She was Rapunzel, Papa was Max (the horse) and I was Pascal.  Just goes to show who the important people are in the movie. =)  If she gets really into dress up, I may make her a wig like Lier did on ikatbag: you can see it here.

Source: ikatbag.com via Chrissie on Pinterest

We also read this book to round out Rapunzel Day =)  Serenity can read it herself, but we usually take turns. 

Source: amazon.com via Chrissie on Pinterest

 

Flamingo Food

Flamingo Day!

Serenity has a new favorite animal… flamingos!  The last two times we went to the zoo she picked the flamingo as the animal she definitely wanted to see before we left (I always ask her to pick an animal, that way we have a goal since we’re zoo members and can go as often as I’m willing to drive out there =)  The zoo has been doing a Think Pink deal with huge flamingo posters, and when we went through the zoo gift shop she looked longingly at this soft little flamingo.  Then she looked up and told me that her flamingo that she has at home was missing her baby flamingo!  So I caved and got the flamingo.  The flamingo we have at home is one of her favorite things, she even took it for show and tell at school!  And it always makes me laugh, because I nearly didn’t get it.  It’s actually a dog toy that she found at Target.  It was just three dollars, and she has had so much fun with it! 

Here she is teaching Eric how to swing the flamingo by the legs.

So today, after a sandbox incident where Serenity found a piece of algae and ate it, telling her Daddy she was a flamingo and so that’s what she eats, I made some pretend food for her flamingo family.  I sewed some shrimp using a felt sushi pattern I had, making it extra pink.  (Did you know that flamingos are pink because they eat a lot of shrimp and things with beta-keratine in them?)

Serenity loved feeding her flamingo, and she made them a lake with one of our silk scarves that I dyed, and a nest for a flamingo egg out of my fuzzy brown sweater.  She put an Easter egg in it =)

We also watched Diego’s, A New Flamingo Mommy, which we have on tape.  This is the show that precipitated the algae eating incident.

Oh, and we practiced our flamingo dancing by standing on one leg. =) 

I’ve ordered several books from the library that have flamingos in them, including Sylvie and a couple about Miss Mingo. 

Source: amazon.com via Chrissie on Pinterest

Source: amazon.com via Chrissie on Pinterest

If this keeps up, maybe I’ll make a flamingo costume for her like I made her rainbow bird wings. 

Playing with Droppers

With the new baby, I am all about games and activities that we can finish during naptime... or that I can trust Serenity won't make too big a mess of if I have to run get him!  He's a mellow baby for the most point but no sense taking chances =) 

Serenity loves playing with the medicine dropper!  It's a fantastic fine motor skill activity, and with the food coloring it's great for practicing our color mixing as well.  Quick, easy setup and lots of fun!  (She named the water dropper Woody, and the ice tray Buzz.  She also gets a little more t.v. these days =) 

Organized for Preschool

My daughter started preschool this fall!  Just two days a week, and she LOVES it.  I was a little worried because she’s never really had structure before.  Most mornings she would just snack and wander around and play until she felt like doing something.  So I came up with a very short list of the things that absolutely had to get done to get ready for preschool:

1.) Pee (We just barely finished potty training in time for school!)   

2.) Get Dressed

3.) Brush Hair and Teeth

4.) Eat Breakfast (this was what I was most worried about getting done.  She’s a snacker and she needed to learn to eat in a timely manner on school days!)

5.) Pee again right before we leave

6.) Get backpack

Simple and easy!  That’s all it takes for us in the morning.  To make it even easier, I installed a hook near the potty she usually uses in the morning where we hang her outfit for the day.  We’re usually ready to go in five minutes, and then we just have to work on finishing breakfast!  No stress yet, although the day my newborn had a diaper blowout just before our scheduled departure made me happy we usually arrive early to school =) 

Playing with the Mail

Playing with the Mail

Serenity’s started showing some interest in the mail recently.  She loves to deliver presents that she wraps in whatever is handy, envelopes, scarves, bags, anything.  She also likes to check the mail in the mailbox.  So I made her a little mailbox out of cardboard that I then covered with sticky back foam (my favorite toddler craft tool =)  In the morning she woke up to a mailbox of her very own!

I wrote her two letters, and put a postcard inside that her grandma had sent her.  On one, I wrote out her address and drew a stamp so she could get used to seeing what letters really look like.  And I wrote it in letter format with a Dear Serenity, and a Love, Mama.  The other envelope just had her name and address and a little message telling her to use the stickers inside to decorate her mailbox! 

It was fun, and if she continues to enjoy it I will totally make her a little mail delivery bag, and maybe some fabric envelopes and Velcro stamps and oh, the possibilities are endless =) 

How to Adapt Adult Board Games to a 2 Year Old

How to Adapt Adult Board Games to a 2 Year Old

So last week my daughter discovered our game cabinets.  (I wrote about how we built them in under our stairs here.)  For some reason she had only gotten into the cabinet I filled with her own toys up to this point, but now she has discovered the joy of Daddy’s games.  We have a ridiculous number of board games, and now that she’s started she seems determined to try them all.  Surprisingly, a few of these games have turned out to be great fun for her!  So here are a few of our favorites, and how we adapt them for someone who doesn’t really follow rules yet.

Set:  This card game was the clear winner.  She nearly plays it right =)  The point is that there are cards with four variables, 3 different colors, shapes, patterns, and number of objects.  You make sets with either the same attribute, or all different, like one of each color, but all with two solid diamonds.  She loves to find sets!  She’s always been big on matching colors, and she’s in heaven when she can dig through the cards to find matches.  She even knows what she needs to look for, like if she has one green squiggle and the three green squiggle, she goes hunting for the two green squiggle.  It’s great for color matching, shape matching, patterns, and so much more! 

Dominoes:  We have the colored set of dominoes, and the games we have come up with for this are hilarious.  I tried to show her a basic Mexican Train, where you start with one domino and match the ends to make a long train.  She loved that, and had me count how many tiles were in her train over and over.  In Spanish, for some reason.  Then she decided that “Catorce” (the fourteenth tile in her train, ironically the 10/3) was special.  She pulled it out and said, “Oh no, my train is broken!  It won’t go!”  So we started doing a lot of role-playing with the dominoes, with Catorce as the star.  We made bridges, rivers, paths, houses, and boats.  And then she found the double seven, which we now call Pinky Pinky.  She needed her diaper changed, and food.  So much random, open-ended, creative playtime!  It was great! 

She loves all the card games we have, and even a regular deck of cards is great for matching.  We also have chess, and Chinese checkers.  Although I have to sit with her the whole time when she’s playing with the marbles, it’s great practice for hand-eye coordination, and she loves matching the colors to the diamonds.  So far she hasn’t tried to eat them, but I am not about to leave her alone with them anytime soon. 

She also likes the games with little figures, like our Star Wars game and X-Men. 

The day she pulled Apples to Apples I figured that she would look at the cards for two minutes and move on.  But no, she decided it was great fun to read the cards!  She sounded out words like Wicked and guessed Octopus for Outrageous.  So, Apples works as toddler flashcards as well. 

In the Jungle

In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle… the lion may sleep, although Serenity didn’t.  Today, I asked Serenity if she wanted a game with cars or with the jungle, and she picked jungle.  So while she “napped” (actually while she rolled around in her room singing) I cut out a bunch of leaves, made vines, and covered her princess tent with a green blanket to make a jungle.  When she got up, I gave her a pair of binoculars made from toilet paper rolls to search for jungle animals!  We wandered around, saving monkeys and bears and turtles and bringing them to our jungle!  Eventually, we got to the point that we were saving sheep and ducks, so we got a big red tub to hold the farmyard animals, and put the polar bears and penguins on the stairs.  So we started with the jungle and ended up with a nice little talk about what animals might actually live there. =)  It was a blast, and she loved saving the animals.  (She is addicted to Diego after all =) 

We also tried several games I found on a post at Totally Tots.  Basically we sang the Animals in the Jungle (to the wheels on the bus tune) and then acted out the animals.  The monkeys were by far her favorite, although we had fun walking around like Tigers too. 

Later we did a few jungle art projects.  We decided to color a jungle, and I thought it would be fun to try out the painting the marker with water idea I saw here.  So Serenity colored with greens and browns to make a jungle.  I was surprised at how much she colored, often she just does a line or two and wants to switch to crayons or actual paint.  The water was a bit messy as she ended up pouring instead of painting, but it was interesting to see what it did to the marker. 

She also asked for an elephant to color, so I printed one and she used her Do-A-Dots to finish it. 

Snow Bound

What to do when stuck in your house for more than a week because of the “Snow of the Century.”  Well, for me, it was clear out all the activities I’d been saving in my google reader.  Here they are:

Homemade Kazoos 

Snow Paint

Play-doh Snowman kit

Valentines (several different kinds, but my favorite so far is this shape bear from Ramblings of a SAHM which we just added several extra hearts to.  It was for Daddy.  Serenity would make Valentines for Daddy every day if she could =) 

Lots and lots of Do-a-dot activities

 

Baking Valentine Rice Krispies

 Serenity was actually helpful in the kitchen this time!  She helped measure ingredients, pour, and stir!  It was so much fun we did way too much in the kitchen this week.  Cupcakes and Rice Krispies and snow ice cream... not good for my "healthy" diet.  Oh well, we had a blast!  I just pulled a stepstool in for her so she could reach the counter.  Oh, and she even cracked eggs!  Of course, I was right there to make sure they landed in the bowl, but it's a step =) 

Snow Ice Cream

So far, I’m lucky.  Serenity doesn’t seem to mind too much that she hasn’t left the house in more than a week, and that she’s only played outside a few times with her Daddy.  She did get to have Daddy work from home all week, which was nice!  =) 

Our Snow Turtle

Our "sled"- A tub with a luggage strap for pulling around our yard.  Eric and I don't drive in snow =)  He's from Cali and I'm from Tulsa... not enough experience to make it worth it to get out!

As for me, I’m either nesting or just lacking in other things to do because I went on an organizing kick.  I cleaned and organized my entire downstairs, except for the office closet which is a major challenge that will need to be addressed at bedtime.  Of course, this means I reorganized things like the pantry which will probably need help again when I finally get out and buy groceries.  Sigh. 

You would think I would have had tons of time to blog, but instead I’ve been digi scrapbooking like a maniac at nap and bedtimes to take advantage of a great sale at Inkubook, where I buy my photobooks right now.  So I am finally finally caught up to New Years in my scrapbook!  I’ll post some of my favorite pages soon! 

Well, if you’re like me and expecting more snow this week, hopefully some of these activities will come in handy =)  I’ll be out looking for more to do!  Maybe this week will be a sewing week since last week was all scrapbooking. 

Bubbles!

We had a lovely day outdoors today in the crazy t-shirt weather we've been having this week, and I finally got a chance to try this bubble activity I saw on Family Fun.  It was so simple and fun!  You just collect several straws, I used seven, and tape them together to make a crazy tiny bubble blower.  It worked amazingly well, and the best part was, even my two year old could do it!  Normal bubble blowers she just doesn't have the control to blow evenly and get actual bubbles, or she puts her mouth on it and gets a mouthful of bubble solution.  It made tons of tiny bubbles or crazy clumps of bubbles.  Fun, quick, and cheap! 

How We Travel

How we travel…

The quick answer is, as light as possible.  Serenity always hated a stroller, and I hate lugging around a bunch of stuff, so I try to keep things simple.  Here are the must-haves:

For a two year old (where I am now)

1.) Dress her in pajamas (I wish she’d still wear footie ones, but we just do socks and shoes now.)

2.) Dress myself in something with pockets (must be able to quickly access pacifiers.  Although we are getting rid of them tomorrow so I won’t have this crutch much longer!!!)

In a backpack:

1.) Diapers, wipes, powder (or lotion, whatever you need.)

2.) A change of clothes if something icky happens.

3.) A sippy cup with juice (you can carry on liquids for infants and toddlers now I discovered on our last trip.  Plus the flight attendants will refill for you.)

4.) Simple snacks.  I take her favorite, pretzels, plus craisins for an option.  And then I have fruit snacks for emergency distractions. 

5.) Some sort of entertainment.  We have an ipad, which is the coolest thing ever for traveling with a toddler.  She is glued to the thing whenever we give her the chance.  (I don’t reveal it until it’s allowed in flight, or for long layovers.) 

6.) Non-electronic entertainment.  I bring several paperback books (because they’re light), and this trip our biggest success was a set of stickers.  I brought some simple colored circle labels, the kind you use for garage sales, and printed a few of the sticker sheets from this page on Simply Montessori.  She is in love with do a dot pages and this was nearly as good.  It entertained her for a whole hour in Denver, and for take-off!  We’ve also had some fun with word flashcards, and other flat things.  

7.)  Because I’m hopeful like that, I bring her small teddy bear that she sleeps with, and a blankie.  Sometimes she sleeps.  Usually as we’re landing at our destination.  But sometimes she just wants to snuggle so the bear comes in handy. 

And that’s it.  I carry my two-year old, a single backpack, and her car seat, which is more than enough.  If I ever get rich I’ll buy one of those wheeled cart things for her carseat and we’ll breeze through the airports. 

We’ve mostly been very lucky at airports.  People are usually helpful, and when she was an infant, the airport people would put us in our own row sometimes.  And the last trip that I flew alone, five different people offered to help me carry her car seat.  It made me so happy =)

For an infant:

We carried a few different things when she was tiny.  I carried infant Tylenol, which I gave her a dose of half an hour before flights the first few times in case she had ear troubles.  She never has though, so we’ve stopped that.  I carried more diapers and wipes and more like two or three spare outfits, because having to shop for a onesie in the airport because of a blowout sounded like no fun to me.  I carried a nursing shawl for feeding and a fleece blanket that was thick enough to support my arm and pad the airplane wall so I didn’t bump her head.  And then the front carrier, which I dearly miss.  But no toys, so it evened out pretty well. =) 

We have our favorite places in several airports... In Detroit, they have this awesome rainbow tunnel that's hard to leave behind, and an excellent fountain where Serenity completely soaked herself. 

Our reading list

Serenity is two and a half :). In case you are wondering what age range our book selection is.

Books we read

Mouse Paint
She loved this book!  she loves colors, and it was good practice for color mixing, which we usually do with tub paints.  And when the cat can't find the mice on the white paper, she is always happy to help the cat find them. ;)

Go Train Go

Crack in the Track
These are both Thomas books, and we must have read them fifty times easily.  She has a bizarre love of Thomas, even though she has never seen the show.  She has picked the books frequently.  We have a generic train, but I may have to break down and get her a Thomas.  These books were good, a little long for two, but she obviously loved them. Nice rhythm.

1 Zany Zoo
Hilarious, and colorful.  Counting.

Llama Llama Misses Mama
We have checked out this series several times, and this is our favorite.  Especially useful now as we are considering school two days a week this fall.  Although I bet that will be more, Mama Mama Misses Llama than the reverse. :)

Biscuit Finds a Friend
We check out a BIscuit book nearly every week, usually the I Can Read versions.  She loves the "Woof Woofs!" It is fun to see her try to figure out the words on her own!

Well, those are a few of our recent favorites!  If you have any recommendations to add I would love to hear them!

Valentine's Heart Path

For Valentines last year, when my daughter was just 19 months, we set up a simple, fun surprise for her to wake up to.  I cut out hearts and wrote the names of people that love her on them, like Mama, Daddy, Papa, and so on.  I scattered them going down the stairs and led her on a path to her Valentine's treat, a heart full of Skittles.  We love skittles because they have an S on them for Serenity.  Oh, and they are full of sugar. =)  I was happy to discover she recognized some of the names and was thrilled to find them!

This year, I think I'll do a variation of this.  Maybe find wooden hearts that I can paint the names on so that she can add them to her crazy pink tree.  I'll be sure to post what I decide to do! 

New Years Eve Fun with Toddlers!!!

We celebrate New Years Eve "Buenos Aires Style"  which means around 9pm for us.  We located a countdown on the internet, and enjoyed counting down, New Years kisses, and a Happy New Year toast with Sprite and tea party cups.  =)  It was a blast!  We spent the afternoon making silly party hats, and I made a set of poppers like these.  We even skyped with her Grandparents in California so we had more people to enjoy the moment with.  It was a blast, and we will definitely do this again next year!!!

It was easy to do some quick decorating with our silk scarves that we dyed ourselves, plus some party supplies we keep on hand (blowers, and a big rainbow ball that's not pictured)  We pull these things out whenever we decide we need a party, and we always enjoy the fancy details! 

DIY Felt Pumpkin Game

I saw this great pumpkin game at thecraftingchicks and immediately had to see if Serenity would like it.  She loves it!  All it took was a little bit of felt from my stash, cut into a pumpkin shape, and then a variety of shapes for eyes, noses and mouths.  Then I made several samples, took pictures of them, and then gave them to Serenity to see if she could duplicate the pictures.  She says "I will decorate this pumpkin!" And she managed to do every one!  It's a great reinforcement for shapes, and a really fun game.  Here are pictures of the pumpkins I made her, and one of her "decorating" her pumpkins. =)  It was a hit, and took me maybe five minutes to make!  You could do it with construction paper or craft foam if you didn't have the felt on hand. 

DIY Playsilks

Here's an easy way to make great toys for your baby... dyeing playsilks!  I found this tutorial here and it was quick and easy!  I ordered various sizes of scarves from Dharma Trading and used vinegar and kool-aid to dye them.  It takes three or four packages of a color to dye them.  I usually didn't end up with a very solid color, but I like the shaded effect!  

Now for the fun part!  We've used these silks for dancing, as a fancy tablecloth for teatime, as lakes and rivers and other landscape, and for superhero capes!  I've used them as sails for boats, as rainbows, oh they can be anything you or your baby can imagine!  Also great for peekaboo, and just as silky blankets =)  It was definitely worth the time and effort!   I love the open ended playtime and creativity you get from simple things like these. 

Oh, and in case you want to know the colors I used, they were Lemonade, Orange, Blue Raspberry, Cherry, Grape, Pink Lemonade, Lemon-Lime.  I also tried Black Cherry, but the colors aren't as clear and pretty with that one, or with the Grape but I just had to have the purple.  =)