Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! We hope you had a wonderful day!

The Easter Bunny visited our house last night, and left Little Guy a basket!  It had sidewalk chalk, animal crackers, bubbles, a Leap Frog music player, and a "Farm on a String."  (We generally don't give Little Guy candy, so he got animal crackers and yogurt melts in his eggs instead.)

He had fun pulling out the different items.  First out was the sidewalk chalk.  Then he found the animal crackers (I remember those little boxes when I was a kid, and couldn't resist getting one for him).  Next he found his music player.  We thought that this would be a big hit as he loves music and dancing.  He had a lot of fun dancing to the music!  (This music player was enjoyed multiple times throughout the day!)

Bubbles came next, followed by his "Farm on a String." Each animal has a hole, and you thread the long cord through it.  It was a success!

 After nap, we went looking for Easter eggs in the front yard.

Little Guy is looks like a little boy in those shorts and polo shirt!  Where did Mama's baby go?

Later, while I was cooking dinner, Daddy and Little Guy got out the new sidewalk chalk!

We had a fun Easter!  I hope yours was great, too!

Dyeing Easter Eggs

This was the first time that we dyed Easter eggs with Little Guy.  Last year he was only nine months old, so we did not dare to try eggs!

Getting ready to dye Easter eggs!

We dyed eggs outside since it was beautiful weather.  I spread a plastic tablecloth from the dollar store on the ground as our work surface.  I looked for some small bowls to dye the eggs in, but couldn't find any so I used some of our mugs.  Since they were tall, it was helpful to minimize splashing as Little Guy dropped the eggs in!  We had four colors, so we would just need to do two rounds of dyeing since we had eight eggs.

Little Guy trying to gently put the egg in the mug.

We tried to let Little Guy do most of the work.  He started by putting the eggs into the mugs of dye.  He didn't quite grasp that they were (somewhat) fragile and just dropped them in.  It did get somewhat better as we said "Gentle!"  Oh well, the cracks won't hurt us!

Here is my blue egg!

He really enjoyed having the eggs in the dye.  He liked stirring the eggs as they were soaking.  There was not quite enough liquid to cover the eggs, so this helped to completely dye the egg.  It also left white lines on the eggs, giving them an interesting look!  He did not want to take them out, which meant that we had very vibrant colors.  We had to convince him to take the eggs out.

Daddy, this egg goes in here!

Overall, we had a fun time dyeing the eggs!  Little Guy seemed to enjoy the experience, and it was not overly messy.  His fingers did get a little stained from pulling the eggs out of the dye, but a toddler with green fingers is cute, right!

Our beautiful Easter eggs!

How was dyeing eggs with your toddler?

Easter Egg Color Matching

We have many plastic eggs at our house, thanks to our Easter egg play table.  I wanted to provide Little Guy with a learning experience with the eggs, so I decided to make a color matching activity using an old egg carton and the plastic eggs.

First, I colored the inside bottom of the egg carton holes the colors of eggs that we had.  To keep it somewhat simple, I chose six colors and colored the two holes next to each other the same color.

Then I got the eggs out of the table, so Little Guy only had the twelve eggs from which to choose.  I sat on the floor with him for this activity, asking him to find each color.  This way he received immediate feedback on whether his choice was correct or not. 

Here are the yellow eggs!

These two are orange!

He did very well!  Daddy was watching, too, and we were both pleased at how well he matched his colors!

What activities are you doing with your plastic eggs?

3 fun things about oatmeal

We started a new sensory bin with oatmeal this week.  Oatmeal is very fun to play with.

Fun thing 1: You can easily scoop it with a spoon.  Little Guy was using a spoon to scoop it into containers.

Got my spoon, ready to scoop!

It can go in this big container!

Fun thing 2: It can go in a variety of containers.  Little Guy got down the bag that holds all the old food containers that I am holding onto, and poured and scooped oatmeal into several of them.

Twist on the lid, and shake, shake, shake!

Fun thing 3: Once it is in a container, you can shake it up!  It made a noise that is different than other sensory ideas.

It even goes in this square container!

For me, oatmeal is pretty easy to clean up.  Little Guy used his dust pan and hand broom to clean some up.  When he worked on cleaning, most of it missed the garbage can.  I easily cleaned it up with the broom and vacuum.

What is in your sensory bin with oatmeal?

Painting Fun!

Grandma A. recently sent Little Guy some paintbrushes.  These were not ordinary paintbrushes, but some with different textures.  Since we are home this week on Spring Break (woo hoo!), I thought it was the perfect time to bust them out.

Here was our set up: 3 new paintbrushes, finger paint (I have made homemade paint before, but thought it was easier to use store bought this time), big construction paper, a paper canister (to paint), and a sheet to contain the mess.

Trying out the new brush.

Taking a break from the paper to paint himself.

Looking at the pattern this brush makes, before going back to smearing.

Painting the canister.  He put it on his arm himself!

Little Guy seemed to enjoy the painting!  He used all 3 brushes and smeared away!

When he was done, he reached for the wipes so he could help clean himself up!

What do you do to make painting different each time?

Quiet Book: One page done!

I decided my latest project was going to be a Quiet Book for Little Guy.  We will be traveling a few times this year, and I wanted the book for when we are on the airplane or traveling far in the car.  A search on Pinterest turned up lots of ideas, so I even had to start a board just for Quiet Book ideas (see this board here).

Well, as you can guess, this book will take a lot of time to put togeter.  So here is my first page!

 I got the template for the dinosaur from Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows.

All the spots and spines have snaps.

There is a zipper on the dinosaur's back!  The dinosaur becomes a pocket to store the pieces in (or a fun thing for a certain little boy to have fun zipping)!

More pages to come!

Easter Egg Table

We are starting to get ready for Easter this week.  Saturday morning we went to the zoo for their Easter Eggstravaganza.  It was a cold morning, so we did not stay very long.  As part of the festivities, Little Guy participated in an Easter egg scramble.  He was in the zero to two age group, and there were lots of eggs scattered on a field.  Daddy took him out and they collected three eggs!  Little Guy wanted to investigate the eggs as he picked them up.  He seemed to enjoy opening and closing the eggs, and did not seem to notice as I spirited the candy away.

When we got home, we dug out our Easter box and found more eggs.  Little Guy seemed to enjoy playing with the eggs, and even putting other eggs or pom poms into them.  So the idea for the play table was hatched!

Wow!  Look at all those eggs!

We did not have quite enough eggs to fill the table originally, so I picked up some more as I was running errands.  Little Guy seemed to be really interested!

Here is a big one!

 I put an empty egg carton into the table as well, and we had a basket sitting nearby.  Little Guy spent part of his time putting eggs into the basket.

What's inside?

 Some of the eggs still had pom poms in them from playing earlier.  Little Guy enjoyed discovering the hidden treasures!

Working to close the egg.

 It is tough for him to close the eggs.  He is getting lots of practice signing the word "help!"

I'm going to fill my basket!

What are you doing to get ready for Easter?

Tote, Cell phone holder, and zippered pouch

I have been busy sewing.  I told you about the tote bag I made here.  Well, I like it so much that I have been using it for everything.  I had a problem with it, though.  My cell phone would get lost into the bottom, and I had a hard time fishing it out when it was ringing.  So I designed and made a cell phone holder.  It buttons so I can loop it around the handle of the bag, and I can take it out if I don't need it.  I also made a small zippered pouch.  I got the tutorial for the zippered pouch from Skip to My Lou off Pinterest.

Zippered pouch and cell phone holder.

It fits nicely!

Well, I loved these so much, I had to share them.  One of my sisters is getting married this spring, so I made her a set for her bridal shower.  I made one change to the bag.  I added a loop and button so it will close.

I wanted to put in a little personalization to my bags.  I used a tutorial from Kojo Designs to make a tag to go into my bags.  I had some extra material that had monkey faces on it, so I used that and wrote on the other side.  I think they came out cute!

Isn't it a cute monkey face!

My personalized tags.

Now onto my next project!

Cheerios and a Pipe Cleaner

So Little Guy and I had to stay home today.  I know, you feel bad for me, don't you!  He was running a fever so we we had an extra day together.  But the thing about little people is that they don't really want to stay in bed when they're sick.  Once they get the medicine that helps them feel better, they're off and running again.

So I was trying to do some activities with Little Guy that would keep him stationary.  One activity we did was threading Cheerios onto a pipe cleaner.  I got it started by putting one Cheerio on and wrapping the pipe cleaner around it so it wouldn't fall off.  Then I gave it to Little Guy to try. 

Getting started and trying on my own.

At first, he was having hard time getting the pipe cleaner through the hole if he was holding both items.  As long as I held the pipe cleaner and kind of directed it, he was able to thread the Cheerios.  After a while, we has able to do some completely on his own!

Mommy helping to hold the pipe cleaner.

Pushing the Cheerio to the bottom.

Look at all those Cheerios that I threaded!

This activity probably held his attention for about 10 to 15 minutes.  He seemed to enjoy it and when he would look at the Cheerios on the pipe cleaner he would get a big smile on his face!

All done!

We are traveling during the next few months, and I think this will be a good activity to take with us. 

What activities do you do with your toddler when they are sick?