President's day

We celebrated with a fun craft and snack day! We made Lincoln masks, ate flag cookies and pocket apple and cherry pies. I really think all the kids got a kick out of the day. Later that day my kids and I made Lincoln faces out of our handprints. Paint the palm with a peach colored paint (white with a little orange), and then paint their fingers, but not the thumb, black. Press onto a piece of paper and let dry. When dry, draw on a face, and glue a hat made of consruction paper.



The books we read were:
President's day by Ann Rockwell
President's day by Margaret McNamera
Jon, Paul, George,& Ben by Lane Smith

Our hand prints drying

 L and mine finished

 D's finished Abe!

 Some cute kids with their Lincoln masks.

 D striking her best Honest Abe face.

Our American flag cookies, and another mom made the mini pies.  I know the piping isn't the best on the cookies but that is what happens when you decorate at 12:30 at night.  Oh well!

Valentine's Party

We had our annual Valentine's party yesterday at the library.  Last year we had the kids bring in Kleenex boxes to decorate, and then use those to collect all their cards.  It worked great!  So we decided to do that again this year.  We had a bunch of different colors of construction paper, crayons, tons of stickers, and fun stamps for the kids to use.  The kids started the party by doing their boxes.  They looked fantastic!  We then moved to the stories so we could let the glue dry on the boxes.  The kids were too antsy and excited to really listen to stories so I cut it down to only 2.  We then dove into all the yummy treats that everyone brought to share.  There were heart shaped PB&J, jello, cake balls, Rice Krispie treats, brownies, muffins, bananas, string cheese, juice, coffee, and so much more!  We could have eaten for days!

After everyone was done eating, we had the kids help us clean up.  We then had the kids sit in a line with their boxes, and the moms went down and handed out all the cards.  This seems to work really well for us since we have kids from just a few months old, all the way up to almost 5.  The kids were all really excited to give out and receive fun cards, crayons, treats, and soaps!  What a great way to start the weekend!

I hope everyone has a very Happy Valentine's day!  It looks like this will be our first year not going to our normal White Castle meal.  Oh well.  My little family is actually going to celebrate the day the weekend afterwards.  That is when you get all the good stuff on clearance ;-)

The books we read:
My Heart is like a Zoo by Michael Hall
Clifford's First Valentine's day by Norman Bridwell
and the one we didn't get to was
The Biggest Valentine Ever by Stephen Kroll

Groundhog's Day!

Well, I was going to post pictures of the cute craft and snack we had, but my house was broken into and they took my laptop and camera.  So for now, please make do with just the description.  Thank you!

The craft we did was a cute groundhog puppet.  Adam drew up a little cartoon groundhog waving one hand.  Each kid colored him in, glued him to a large popsicle stick.  We then took large foam cups with a slit in the bottom.  Put the stick through the slit, and you can now make your cute little groundhog pop out to check his shadow!

The snack I made was just "dirt".  You take chocolate pudding, and fill a small plastic cup about halfway.  Crush up some Oreo cookies to look like dirt and sprinkle over the top. I topped it off with a Nilla wafer cookie that I decorated to look like a groundhog face with black frosting.

The books we read were:
Gretchen Groundhog, It's your day by Abby Levine
Groundhog Day by Margaret McNamara

Chinese New Year!

I know this is a little belated, but the internet connection out here has been horrible because of all the snow!!  This is the year of the Rabbit in case you didn't know.  We celebrated by making rabbits out of paper plates.  Adam designed them for us based on this one from Kaboose.com.  We had the older kids cut the pieces out and all the kids glue them together.  We then added eyes and fluffy cotton ball tails.  Each kid received a red envelope with a penny in it, and we snacked on fortune cookies and graham cracker rabbits! 

For dinner I was able to pick up some fried rice, egg rolls, and egg drop soup from the little place down the street.  The kids were really looking forward to using chopsticks again. 

The books we read were:

Dragon Dance: A Chinese New Year LTF: A Chinese New Year Lift-the-Flap Book by Joan Holub

Lucky New Year by Mary Man-Kong

My first Chinese New Year by Karen Katz

The pattern we used

 The dinner table all ready.  Check out the kid's rabbits in the back.

 Yum, pork fried rice!

 D really enjoying her egg roll.  Who needs chopsticks!

 Oh, sweet and sour is really nice!

Snowmen

First I would like to say hello to all my new Italian friends coming to check out the blog!  I was linked to by Homemademama, she linked to my marble painting, and now I'm getting hits from Italy all over the place!

Yesterday we celebrated snowmen with the moms group.  I was trying to figure out what craft to do, because since we are in a library we have to make sure the crafts are not too messy.  Adam offered to create a  print out page for the kids.  He made one that had 3 different size circles and a hat for the older kids to cut out, glue, and color, and then he did one of all the same images put together for the little ones to color.  We added the cut out to blue construction paper, add some brown coffee stirrers for arms, and some scrap felt pieces cut into scarves and you have a snappy little snowman!

Since this craft was at 4:30 instead of our normal 10:30, I wanted to make sure I gave the kids a snack that didn't mess up their little tummy's before dinner.  After searching the web, I came up with these!  A half of a mini whole wheat bagel, topped with whipped plain cream cheese, raisins for the eyes and mouth, and a half of a baby carrot for the nose.  The kids LOVED that they were snowmen and ate them up quickly. 

The books were a hit also.  The books we read were:
Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright
Snow Party by Harriet Ziefert

Snowmen bagels

 The kids kind of did their own thing with the snowmen.  D's is on top, then L's, and then mine.  I'm still not sure which way is up on D's.  The plus is that both kids cut out all the pieces by them selves!

Heart animals

Well as soon as Jan. 14th rolled around, I was getting ready to put up the Valentines day stuff.  I hung up the melted crayon hearts I made a few years back, and the construction hearts I made.  But I wanted something else this year.  So I pulled out some ideas from Themailbox.com.  And then Muffin Tin Mom had a link to the love birds.  Found here:  Moments of Mommyhood.  This was a great way to teach the kids about Heart shapes and how cut in half they are the exact same, but a different shape.  The kids LOVED doing these, and are proud to show them off on the walls.  Plus it adds fun color to the rooms.

Love Bugs

 Love Birds

 Heart Puppy

Hat and Mitten day

Today was Hat and Mitten day with the moms group.  We did this last year also.  We start by collecting new and slightly used hats and mittens to donate to the local battered women's shelter.  This year we did a hat and mitten coloring sheet, which I had gotten from The Mailbox.com.  I had the older ones try to make matching mittens.  My kids were acting a little crazy today, so I will try again at home with them.  I honor of the day I made hat cookies.  I knew I wanted to do this, and then lo and behold, Bake at 350 did just the other day also.  So I was sort of inspired by hers.  Last years craft was a mitten wreath.  I cut mitten shapes out of construction paper and had the kids glue them together to make a wreath.  They then were able to decorate the mittens how ever they wished to.  Everyone seemed to have a good time, and a plus was that we were able to do something good for someone else too!


The books we read were:
Under my hood I have a hat by Karla Kuskin
The Mitten Tree by Candace Christiansen
The Missing Mitten Mystery by Steven Kellogg

My hat cookie.  A lemon sugar cookie, topped with lemon royal icing, and cotton candy as the pom-pom.

 A whole slew of hats!

 Our coloring pages. Mine is on the left, L is in the middle, and D is on the right.

 My mitten wreath from last year