Showing Growth

In order to show O's growth, I decided to take a picture of her each year in my wedding dress.

O in 2007

O in 2008. I think she thought I was a little crazy, but she was excited about wearing my wedding dress. She kept saying "too big, too big!"

The idea for this came from Family Fun magazine. A reader had her daughter wear an old fashioned bathing suit every year for a picture until it finally fit her at around age 15. I tried to think of something meaningful that O could wear, and I realized that my wedding dress would be perfect :) I'll eventually put all of the pictures in a book together to show her growth from year to year.

Texture Boards

I made a few texture cards for O about a year ago using old cereal boxes, fleece, bubble wrap, and aluminum foil. She wasn't very interested in them, and they fell apart quickly. I was disappointed, but didn't think too much of it. When I saw these texture boards, I decided it was time to try again! I bought 2 pieces of balsa wood from Hobby Lobby and cut each piece into 9 rectangles using a hand miter saw. I sanded the edges, and then got to work :) I made 2 of each board so that we can do a matching game using touch only (O will wear a blindfold). The boards in the picture are covered with hot glue gun swirls, craft foam squares, lentils, velcro, fleece, paper clips, bubble wrap, and toothpicks. I ran out of wood, but I plan to make many more of these boards. So far I'm thinking of using popcorn kernels, beads, pipe cleaners, pea gravel, mesh, aluminum foil, velvet, flannel, lace, noodles, pennies, etc. I'd love more ideas, so let me know what you come up with!

Bubble Wrap Fun

Our Let's Explore goodies came with LOTS of bubble wrap, which was thrilling for O and M! O immediately spread a long piece out in our hall, and we took turns hopping down it. Then when M came to visit, she made a "maze" in the den, and we all had fun hopping and popping! We also plan on doing more bubble wrap paintings, and maybe bubble wrap pillows (recently seen in Family Fun). I hope Amy will be glad to see that her shipping materials are being put to good use!

Decorating Another Present

We put our Let's Explore shop shipping box to good use! I put Elliott's birthday presents in it, and O and my niece had a great time painting it! M was especially proud of her artwork, and she described her art to Ell before he opened his gift :)

Making Crayon Letters and Numbers

I recently purchased the silicone number and letter ice trays from the Let's Explore Shop (among LOTS of other things!), and we are very happy with them. The first thing we've made were crayons! I shouldn't say "we" since I had nothing to do with it other than providing the trays and crayons :) Unfortunately, we used cheap crayons, so the wax floated to the top and the color sank to the bottoms. It was a learning experience, and we've gotten Crayola brand crayons to use next time :) My mom, sister, O, and my niece had fun peeling the crayons (right, Melanie?) and putting the crayons in the tray. I'll show the finished product after I make the next batch :)

Toothpicks and Styrofoam

Thanks to Montessori Mama for this fun activity! I handed O a sheet of styrofoam and a container of toothpicks and showed her how to stick a toothpick in the styrofoam. She thought it was great, but we quickly ran out of toothpicks. Luckily, our guests arrived at the same time that she ran out :) I'll have to find more toothpicks before I let her try this again!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

O and I made this sign for Elliott last year for his birthday, and I thought I should share it since it was a fun activity and a wonderful keepsake! (Elliott's mom just laminated it for us, so we can use it every year without worrying about messing it up. Thanks, Grandmother!) To make this sign, I took pictures of O holding each letter spelling out "Happy Birthday Daddy." My mom had the stuffed letters that worked perfectly for this project. I then printed the pictures as wallet sizes and glued them to a posterboard. I also traced her hands and cut them out for added decorations! Elliott loved it, but I think I love it more! O also REALLY enjoys looking at the sign and "reading" it :) I'm not sure where this idea came from, but I *think* that I saw something similar in an issue of Family Fun years ago.

At the Park with Daddy

O and Ell had a great time at a nearby park a few days ago. She was very excited to tell me that she saw an alligator!

Painting with Water

O and I took a few paintbrushes with us this morning when we went to the beach and painted the retaining wall (this has been on my to do list for MONTHS, but I always forget the brushes!). She had so much fun, and so did I :) We also made handprints, footprints, and lily pad prints.

Homemade Water Color Paint

O and I made homemade watercolors which were inspired by this post at Dim Sum, Bagels, and Crawfish.

To make the watercolors you need 3 Tbs cornstarch, 1.5 tsp corn syrup, 3 Tbs baking soda, 3 Tbs white vinegar, food coloring, and small containers. When you mix the 1st 4 ingredients, you'll see (and hear) lots of fizzy fun! This was O's favorite part of the activity. She was VERY impressed with the fizzing! We then poured the mixture into several small containers and added food coloring. This was yet another lesson in color mixing since we made orange and purple. She wanted to mix yellow and blue to make green, but since we already had green (and we didn't have enough mix to make 2 greens) we didn't make another.
O enjoyed painting with the watercolors, but after 4 paintings she said "O tired. Going to lay on the couch. Need blankie." I got her down from the kitchen helper, and she acted worn out and tired and laid on the couch with a blankie over her for about 2 seconds :) Here are her watercolor masterpieces. I'm planning on incorporating them into her color book somehow, but I haven't really figured out how yet. I'm hoping to finish her color book before she goes to college, but I don't know if I'll make it :)

Teddy Bear Bread

Yesterday I was thinking that I would try to make cinnamon bread with our leftover dough from pizza night, so when I saw Megret's post about Teddy Bear Bread I knew that would be the perfect way to do it! O was thrilled to make 3 little bears of bread...mama, dada, and O, of course! She had fun rolling the dough and decorating the bears with raisins.
We brushed them with olive oil and sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar. O and I thought they were delicious. Elliott thought they needed more sugar :) I think this might become a tradition along with our weekly homemade pizza night. Next time we might make garlic bread bears instead of cinnamon bears :)

Magic Folding Blocks

I saw this on Thingamambaby and since I had all of the materials, I decided to give it a try! The cube was surprisingly simple and fast to make. I think it took around 15 to 20 minutes, and most of that was spent trying to find the stickers. Elliott was very impressed, but I haven't shown it to O yet. I just hope she won't try to pull the blocks apart!
Here are the very detailed instructions that Thingamambaby linked to. Thanks to Thingamambaby for this great idea! I think this will make a fun, homemade Christmas gift!


Gracie loved it, too!

Feet Painting

O was in a painting mood after we finished the bubble wrap painting, so she made a painting for her dada for his birthday. She loved mixing the color on her hands and then smearing it onto the canvas. She was very excited that we were going to be making footprints instead of handprints. Although she did make a few handprints while she was covering the canvas with paint.
Here's her 2nd masterpiece of the day! Her footprints did not show up as clearly as her handprints have, and I'm not sure why. We used a different kind of paint so that may be it, or we might have just tried to make the footprints too soon (before the paint was tacky).

Bubble Wrap Painting

This activity has been on my to do list for a LONG time (at least 3 months!), and I don't know why its taken so long to get to it! You need bubble wrap, paint, and paper. I taped the bubble wrap onto a table, and O painted it. She was a little tentative at first, and she asked for paper. I assured her that it was ok to paint the bubble wrap, so she jumped right in :)

She tried to make handprints and seemed a little dismayed when it didn't work. She looked at me sadly and said "not work!"
I put the paper on top of the bubble wrap, and she loved pressing it (especially since she was making handprints on the back of the paper!).
Tada! Her finished masterpiece!

I've seen this activity on many blogs and in several books and magazines, so I'm not going to link to one particular place. Just wanted to let you know that it wasn't my idea (even though you probably already knew that!).

Rocks and Frogs Memory Game

When Amber commented on the Shell Matching game that she may make a similar game with rocks, I knew I'd have to try it! Thanks, Amber! I have lots of river rocks from our recent mountain vacation, and I knew they'd be perfect :) I planned on finding insect stickers, but I never found any, and I loved these frog stickers the 1st time I saw them (although I didn't buy them until the 3rd time because I was being indecisive!).

O was very excited when she saw the rocks. We started by matching them face-up. Then I decided to play Memory with the rocks face down. I was not really expecting her to catch on the first time, but she understood immediately :) I made a big show of turning over one rock and then was thinking out loud trying to remember where the match was, and she quickly turned over the matching rock for me! I couldn't believe it :) We had a great time, and it was great practice for learning turn taking skills. I had to prompt her a few times to only turn over 2 rocks at a time, but other than that she GOT it! I'm really looking forward to playing more memory games with her, and I guess I should have started sooner. Although, I think this game is the PERFECT first memory game since the rocks are not identical and the differing sizes of the rocks give clues as to which stickers are on them.