Emma's 3rd Rapunzel Birthday

We celebrated Emma's 3rd birthday this month with a Tangled-inspired Rapunzel celebration.

Decorations included floating paper lanterns, 'Wanted' posters, a magic golden flower.

 

 The got to 'pin a flower in Rapunzel's hair' or 'break Flynn's smolder' with a frying pan!

 We had coloring pages and chalk for decorating the sidewalk!

 The kids searched for apples hidden around the park, and all got prizes!

 The food was all Tangled themed. We had princess punch, Pascal's fruit and veggies, Mother Gothel's hazelnut soup (nutella) fruit dip, ruffians and thugs' meat and cheese, and Rapunzel's tower cupcakes! Everything was served in frying pans, of course!

 We had a great time with the photo booth where guests could take their own Wanted poster photos!

Toddler Activities: 35 Months Old

One of the challenges of being a stay at home mom is finding activities for your little one to keep them  engaged, entertained, and learning throughout the day. These are a few of our current favorite activities:

Painting with Water: This is a great activity either indoors on paper or outside on the sidewalk. It is simple and inexpensive and I bet you have all of the supplies on hand! We did painting with water indoors because it was a rainy day, ironically enough. So I just had Emma use a wooden craft stick and construction paper. She had a great time and there was little to no cleanup.

Fireworks Paintings: With Music in Plymouth, Fourth of July, and the Aquatennial, there are a lot of fireworks in our area in July. This is another very simple and inexpensive craft that we did with things we already had on hand. I saved toilet paper tubes and paper towel tubes for a week or so then cut the bottoms and used finger paint and our tubes to stamp firework images all over a few sheets of paper. Emma had a great time and didn't want to stop!

And, of course...

Read: Reading is one of the best activities you can do with your child at any age!

A few of Emma and Bryson's current favorites are:

• The Deep, Deep Puddle by Mary Jessie Parker
• Road Work Ahead by Anastasia Suen
• Hogwash! by Karma Wilson

  
My 3 good things for today are: 

1. I just celebrated my sixth anniversary with the best husband ever!
2. My baby girl is turning three!! Somehow both a very happy and very sad thing...
3. Watermelon. Enough said.

Toddler Activities: 34 Months Old

One of the challenges of being a stay at home mom is finding activities for your little one to keep them  engaged, entertained, and learning throughout the day. These are a few of our current favorite activities:

Silky and Stretchy Play Dough: This was so easy to make, and only needs 2 ingredients! I've seen this all over Pinterest, but we followed this recipe. Start by pouring 1 cup of conditioner into a large bowl, then add 2 cups corn starch, and mix, mix, MIX!

Emma helped me stir, and towards the end, we mixed with our hands. You can also add glitter or coloring for more pizazz! This play dough is so easy to stretch and has a very unique texture.

Painting with Feet: My kids had so much fun finger painting our Mother's Day gifts, that I've been looking forward to more painting activities now that the weather is nice outside. Painting with feet is a unique art project! Roll out a long piece of white butcher paper.  Ours was about 10 feet long.  Be sure to secure it with some sort of weighted objects. We just used rocks. Drizzle a small amount of red, yellow and blue paint across your paper. Then let your little one walk and run and skip! Be careful!  It can be slippery.  Emma thought it was very silly and enjoyed mixing the colors. We even had fun washing up in the sprinkler! When your painting dries, it makes fantastic homemade wrapping paper!

And, of course...

Read: Reading is one of the best activities you can do with your child at any age!

A few of Emma and Bryson's current favorites are:

• Stuck in the Mud by Jane Clarke 
• Boot & Shoe by Marla Frazee
• Tap Tap Bang Bang by Emma Garcia (Emma really liked that the author was also Emma!)
• Hide-and-Squeak by Heather Vogel Frederick

My 3 good things for today are: 

1. Bryson has started to sign "drink" in addition to "milk."
2. Emma has started walking to the park instead of riding in a wagon or stroller - a great way to burn off some energy!
3. We were able to catch and keep a turtle at home for a week. The kids loved having him for a short while and also letting him go back into the wild!

 

 

Toddler Activities: 33 Months Old

One of the challenges of being a stay at home mom is finding activities for your little one to keep them  engaged, entertained, and learning throughout the day. These are a few of our current favorite activities:

Homemade Crayon Rubbing Cards: Bryson's birthday left us with an abundance of cardboard packaging, so I finally got to finish a craft I've been wanting to do for a while. I found the idea here, and I loved it because it is very simple and cheap to make, and would make a wonderful quiet busy bag activity. Plus, you can customize it to make any design you want. I am planning to make a set of alphabet and number cards for Emma to use. 

Simply cut some thick cardboard into whatever size card you want, then draw the shapes that you desire on the cards with hot glue. Once the hot glue is dry, go ahead and do some crayon rubbings!

Paintsicles: My kids love to paint, and now that it's getting hotter outside, I wanted to try frozen paintsicles! We used washable finger paint, and froze it in an ice cube tray with craft sticks for handles. I popped ours into the freezer overnight, and it was perfect for the activity the next day. 

We did some painting on paper and some outside on the sidewalk. The kids loved both! 

And, of course...

Read: Reading is one of the best activities you can do with your child at any age!

A few of Emma and Bryson's current favorites are:

• The Kiss Box by Bonnie Verburg 
• The Farmer's Away! Baa! Neigh! by Anne Vittur Kennedy
• The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson

 

 

We did an activity with one of our books, The Kiss Box. In the book, Mama Bear has to go away for a little while, so Little Bear and Mama Bear make "kiss boxes" for each other filled with 100 kisses so they will have plenty to share while they are apart. Derek has had four business trips in the month of May, so when we read The Kiss Box, I thought it would be a great activity for us to do. 

I made two origami paper boxes out of red cardstock and Emma decorated both of them with markers. Now we have a kiss box for Emma to keep at home full of kisses from Daddy when he is away and Derek has one that he can take on trips with him.

My 3 good things for today are:

1. I have a hot glue gun.
2. We have bright, cheery sunshine outside.
3. My wonderful hubby will be home soon!!