Pipe Cleaner Crown

I've wanted to make this crown for a while, so I thought it would be a good activity for me to do on the way to our vacation spot this weekend. However, it was so quick and easy that I was finished before we even got to the interstate :)
My little princess was excited about her new, beautiful crown!







The idea and directions for making a pipe cleaner crown came from here. I mostly followed the directions, but I made O's crown bigger because I wanted it to fit on her head without needing bobby pins.

Contact Paper & Tissue Paper Collage

After the success of O's recent texture collage on contact paper, I decided we'd try a tissue paper collage again( we did this about a year ago and had lots of fun). In order to set this up, I had to move O's texture collage...

I had no idea what I was in for! Just a little advice...if you have a 2 and half year old who is totally immersed in her sensitive period for order, has had 4 days of disrupted naps and bedtimes due to a vacation, and it's 9 o'clock at night, don't move her artwork! O was DEVASTATED that I moved her artwork! I felt bad about it, and she eventually calmed down and we came to a solution that we were both happy with, but wow! If I'd known how devastating this would be, I would have waited until she was asleep to move it (she wouldn't have minded first thing in the morning after a good night's sleep).

Phew! Anyway...I taped 2 sheets of contact paper on the sliding glass door, 1 for O and 1 for my niece. Today while my sister and I were fixing lunch, I gave them a bag full of leftover tissue paper and told them to tear and place the paper to make a collage. They really enjoyed themselves, but O left her artwork before she covered her paper completely, and M took over! She was really into this activity!

Easter Bunny Handprint Cards

O, M, and I made Easter Bunny cards for their grandparents today. We had lots of fun, and the cards turned out really cute. I love handprint art, so we used their handprints to paint the bunnies. I let them each choose a color and a color of construction paper. Then I painted their palms, their pointer fingers, and their ring fingers. We pushed their palms onto the construction paper to make the bunnies.





After the paint dried, the girls glued on googly eyes and beads for a nose.








M drew her whiskers and mouths on her bunnies, and I drew the whiskers and mouths for O. This was fun and easy!








 

The Art Shelf...

seems to be in a constant state of disarray! We must do better!



I'm hoping this post will motivate me to get a little more organized :)

Making Easter Bunny Smores

After seeing this post, I decided that O and I would make these Easter Bunny Smores as a welcome gift for my sister and niece who are visiting us during their Spring Break. O loves candy (but doesn't get much of it), so she was THRILLED! First, we put in the m & m's (we typically avoid artificial dyes, but we make exceptions, especially for holidays). O reminded me so much of myself (and my mom and sister) when she picked up a broken m & m and said "Oh, I should eat this one since it's broken!" She also really enjoyed putting the peeps into the jar, and she made sure to lick her fingers after each one. I hope Mem and M don't mind a few O germs :) We poured 1 and a 1/4 cups of m & m's into the bottom of the jar, and then put 8 peeps on top of the m & m's.








 
Hammering the graham crackers was also lots of fun! The recipe calls for a sleeve of crushed graham crackers. After they were crushed, we put them in a baggie with a 1/3 cup of brown sugar.



Here is our finished jar of Easter Bunny Smores! O was SO proud and excited to present the jar to my sister and niece when they arrrived at our house on Tuesday afternoon.




The girls and I cooked the smores this morning, and they were yummy! Luckily, both girls fit in the Kitchen Helper, which makes cooking MUCH easier! They took turns pouring the m & m's into the bowl (I switched the mixture to a mason jar since it was bigger and looked nicer. However, I still couldn't fit the baggie of graham crackers and brown sugar into the jar).



They enjoyed pulling the bunny peeps into small pieces, but I had to watch them closely because they wanted to eat any peeps that were stuck to their fingers, and they ALL stuck to their fingers!



We added a 1/2 cup (1 stick) of melted butter and a tsp of vanilla to the mixture and stirred.



I pressed the mixture into a greased 9 inch baking dish and baked it at 350 for about 15 minutes. It came out crumbly, but delicious!!!

Her Obsession Continues...

O LOVES Obama! Her infatuation with him is hilarious :) It started when we watched the inaugeration. She knew it was a big deal since we NEVER turn the tv on during the day. Ever since then, she gets SO excited when she sees Obama on the news. She says "there's Obama. there's Obama!" Sometimes she waves at him and then sadly asks "why Obama not wave at me?" She obviously hasn't had too much experience with tv :) When we hear Elliott come home from work, she sometimes says "it might be Obama!" A few days ago, she continued to pretend he was Obama after he came in and called him "Obama" all night. It was hilarious! She insisted that Guh-guh help her spell Obama's name using the plush letters on Friday (while Ell and I were packing for our trip).

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes

Recently O has started purposely wearing her shoes on the wrong feet. She's says "it feels funny!" Ell was a little hesitant to let her walk around the hotel with her shoes on the wrong feet because he was afraid we'd look like neglectful parents :)

She also loves to wear "mismatched shoes." She thinks this is hilarious!

A Mini Vacation

We decided to take a mini vacation (using credit card points for 3 free hotel nights!) for my birthday weekend. The highlight of the trip was the indoor pool at the hotel! Every morning, O woke up saying "I'm ready to go to the pool!" It rained all day on Sunday, and we were glad since it gave us a good excuse to hang out at the hotel all day to swim and sleep. We took a 3 hour family nap, which was wonderful :) Elliott and I were glad for O to get more experience swimming since the lake will soon be warm enough for swimming.




On Monday we went to an art museum which had a children's section. I was glad to finally take O to an art museum, and we all really enjoyed ourselves. O and Ell are playing with the Kapla blocks. O enjoyed herself, but Ell REALLY enjoyed himself. I think he may get a set of Kapla blocks for his birthday!



Ell's masterpiece (with a little help from O and me).



My favorite part of the museum was this magnetic sculpture wall. O was very engaged in this activity. I'd love to somehow replicate this at our house :)