Busy Fun Weekend!

2 weeks ago we had a crazy, busy, fun weekend!!! It started Friday night when we took the kids to see Riders in the Sky on Notre Dame's campus. Never heard of them, well I'm sure you have! They sang Woody's Roundup in Toy Story 2! It was a fantastic show, and the kids along with us adults really enjoyed it. I was able to get each kid a real (metal) sheriffs badge, and a red kid's cowboy hat. My favorite part was seeing their faces light up when they saw me carrying these back to the seats for them. The guys even set up a table and signed programs for everyone. D just had to have hers signed and was so excited to meet them. She looked just like Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl that night!

The stage all ready to go

 A cute cowboy and cowgirl

 The Riders

 Then on Saturday, L had a friend birthday party at Chick-fil-a. D was encouraged to join in. Well she must have been having an off day because she ended up having about 4 big fits over silly stuff like where she was sitting, and that someone fell on her in the play area. The best was when she ran out of the play area, threw herself on my bench seat and loudly proclaimed that this was "the worst birthday party ever". Thankfully everyone there laughed at her along with me, and hopefully no one was offended. Boy what a long day that was!

Sunday was a very exciting day! My brother-in-law got us all passes to Chicago's Field Museum and rented a mini-van for us all to go in. We have been wanting to make this trip for some time now, and L was in heaven. He has now decided that he will be a "sky-diving Palentologist" because in his words, "Even Palentologists have down time." Gee, I love that kid!  We got to see just about everything the museum had to offer, including having lunch at the McDonalds in the basement. the weather was fantastic, the kids were extremely well behaved, and there were very few people there, so it made for the perfect day. We came home with tons of fun goodies. L picked out a Sue the dinosaur pencil and postcard, and then an excavation kit, D picked out a Sue the dinosaur pen, dino glider, and dino chopsticks. My brother-in-law bought us the set of dinosaur cookie cutters, which we can't wait to use, but for now have been cutting pb&j sandwiches for a little boys lunch box ever since. Adam and I also bought the book, The Field Mouse and the Dinosaur named Sue since L was talking about it on the way up. Apparently they read it at school recently!

Heading into the museum

 We found Sue!

 We had to stop at all the Mold-A-Ramas, only problem was that I was burned by hot wax in between my fingers. It ended up blistering before we even left.

 All our goodies!

 Heading back to the car. The parking garage was under Solider Field!

Flower Making

Have you seen the cherry blossom stamped project all over pinterest? Well we have, and I knew that D and I needed to do it. They did theirs with a 2 liter, but since we rarely drinking pop and just happened to have empty little bottles, that was what we used!

Supplies needed:
White construction paper
empty plastic pop bottle
disposable bowl
paint brush
red, white (or pink if you have it!), and brown paint

We started out by mixing a drop of red paint into some white paint in a foam bowl. This was a great way to talk about mixing colors, and I had D guess what color we were making. We then painted our tree trunks and branches on our paper. D always is very creative in her interpretation of trees. Next I pulled out our plastic bottles and showed her how to stamp a pretty flower on the page. She LOVED it!

And since we had all this out already, we decided to paint a whole garden on another sheet of paper. This time we mixed up additional colors, added white to all of them to make them more pastel and spring like. We also found an empty water bottle, a different pop bottle, and an empty fruit cup. We wanted to see if they all had different shapes when we printed them. After stamping some flowers, we used our brushes again, and painted stems, and grass. The weather was perfect, and we had a fun time!

painting trees, happy trees

 stamping cherry blossoms

 now onto stamping a flower garden

adding the stems and grass

 D's flowers

 my flowers

A fun book to read along with doing this project would be Planting a Rainbow!

St. Patrick's Party!

Sorry this is a week late, but it has been a very busy March for us over here!!! The mom's group had their party on March 15th at the library this year. We were expecting tons of kids so I made sure everything was very simple. We read just a few stories, did only 1 craft, and had tons of yummy food!  We had 25 kids age 3 and up, and then 14 kids 2 and under coming so treat bags were interesting. For the little ones I put a handful of banana puffs in a snack bag, and then added Caramel .  The older kids each got a little treat bag. Inside each bag was a themed pencil, themed ring, piece of gold chocolate coin, 2 stickers, and a handmade scratch-off. This was all placed inside a cellophane bag, tied with a piece of gold yarn. I then made a small pot of gold our of black construction paper and wrote names on them with either yellow or white crayon. They turned out very cute!

For the craft we made leprechaun men. It was inspired by this craft by AllKidsNetwork!

Supplies needed:
paper plate
orange paint
paint brush
green construction paper
black construction paper
yellow construction paper
pencil
scissors
glue stick
markers

I started by painting an orange "beard" all the way around the bottom side of the plate along the outer ring. I went ahead and did this the day before since we can't have paint inside the library. I also cut a hat shape out of the green construction paper. Next up where black strips and a yellow  buckle out of construction paper. That way, at the party, the kids just glued all their pieces together, and then drew on faces.

Waiting for story time, in all their green!

 D making her little guy. He ended up looking evil with red teeth. Very scary!

 Friends all lined up and happy to wear green!!!

Seuss Part 2

The kids and I have really been working on Seuss inspired crafts most of the week. It started on Wednesday, when the kids were home sick with me. I told them to draw me pictures of the Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2 while they were waiting for lunch. I was very impressed with what they came up with. They also asked to hang them up, so we did on the bathroom door. I am of the belief that why not hang up the kids artwork all over the house! We use masking tape and just tape it up. We have done this for years now, and the kids are always proud to show off what they have done to anyone that comes over.

Friday, L's teacher always has Magic Hour. It is an hour and a half of crafting stations split between 2 teacher's classrooms. They combine classes, and I love helping out. This week's theme was of course Dr. Seuss. L brought home his projects to show off. There was a print out of Things 1 and 2 on red paper. The kids were able to color it in, and glue blue Easter grass as hair. Very fun! They also made Lorax mustaches. They then made Truffela Trees out of a pom pom and a half of pipe cleaner. And lastly they made the Who's from Horton out of a pom pom, candy stick, and a micro pom pom. L felt the need to make a sign for it that said Help as well.

Then yesterday, the kids and I were by ourselves with no car. So what to do....why more Seuss crafts of course! We found this great Sam I Am hand and foot print idea from Classified: Mom. We changed ours up a bit.

Supplies needed:
red and white washable paint
yellow construction paper
foam paint brushes
bowl for paint
wet washcloth
black marker

Each kids painted both hands white, and placed them on the yellow paper. This is Sam's side of his face. Then they painted one foot for Sam's chin and placed it in between the two hand prints. Now paint the other foot red, and put it at the top of the hand prints for Sam's hat. We did this in the bathroom for the easiest clean up. We let these dry overnight, and then this morning, traced the outside of Sam's face and hat and drew on the rest of his face. They turned out pretty cute!

Our finished Sam I Ams.

We also did this fun Cat in the Hat footprint that I found at The Mailbox.com.
Supplies needed:
red and black paint
foam brushes
bowls for paint
white paper
black marker
wet washcloth

Paint the ball of the foot black, and then paint red stripes up the rest of the foot. I helped the kids with this one! While I was painting one of the kids" foot, the other one was taking the pictures. After placing the footprint on the white paper, we also left these to dry overnight. This morning we drew faces on them and added them to our Seusstastic wall of crafts.

 A cute pic of L that D took!

 And last but not least, we made a Lorax scene with Truffela trees. This one we found on Momstown Arts and Crafts. I pulled up her image and showed the kids how they made a scene using crayons, and pom poms. They started doing just that, but L was inspired by his sisters do-a-dot stampers. He wanted to add some color to his pom poms. I also loved that they both drew their own version of the Lorax. They both love that story, and have watched the old 60's version of the movie. We are so excited to go see the new movie!

 And here is our wall of Seuss. Can you tell we love to do arts and crafts!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

We had our 4th annual Dr. Seuss play date at the library this past Thursday, and it was just as fun as always! I had searched the web for a few weeks trying to find some great crafts that we had not done before, and that didn't involve paint (not allowed in the library), and you know, that is harder than you would think. We usually buy pre-made hats for the kids at the local teacher store, but I had a tooth pulled and 2 sick kids earlier in the week that prevented me from heading out to any stores. Now with the dilemma at hand, I thought about how we could make hats for the kids. Light bulb, just like our heart hats from the Valentine's day party, we can make them out of paper plates! Easy! I just cut the hat shape out of the plates, and all the kids had to do was color the red stripes. They all had a great time making those.

We also made Lorax mustaches inspired by this post, but instead of making felt ones, I had the kids cut out construction paper mustaches and glue them onto Popsicle sticks.

We then moved on to Ten Apples Up on Top! I was inspired by this post by LitLad, but had to figure out what to do without paint. I have a large circle punch, so I just punched out green and red circles for the kids to glue on top of a picture they drew of themselves. It was so much fun to see the different versions of themselves they came up with!

And last we came to Put me in the Zoo. I found a great printable here at Little Wonders.  They used foam circles, but I didn't have any, so I just used regular construction paper in all different shapes and let the kids go to town with their spots!

Overall, it was a fun, busy, hectic at times day. We had all sorts of fun colorful snacks as well.