Between a dog and a hard place : M Week!

Sunday: Every since jungle week and painting with animals we have been REALLY into painting with things. So on Sunday Evin went in to the kitchen, pointed at the table where all of our funtime goodies are stored and said, "paint".

I freaked out with excitement! He communicated without grunts! YAY!!! So we painted and we painted with motorcycles!

Monday: We started receiving some of the mail that I had requested a few days before by putting a post on Facebook and by emailing the grandparents. We also enjoyed some macaroni and milk!

Evin had a great time reading his mail. His Gram Cracker sent him some Money in his Mail and Amy made him an M collage.

I thought I'd share a picture of what our binder looks like so you can see how I lay out the activities easily for me and for Karl and Nicole.

Each section starts with the list of activities, then there are recipes, materials, pictures, examples, etc though out the rest of the pages.

Tuesday was a busy day. We started off with story time at the library and checking out some M books.

Since I was off we made moonsand 4 cups of sand, 2 cups of cornstarch, and 1 cup of water.

We also made our monster feet, Evin had a fun time for about 1 minutes gluing on the tissue paper, then a terrible 2 tantrum where he didn't want to have anything to do with any of it.

We eventually came around and decided the Moonsand was actually fun.

We played with moonsand while our monster feet dried.

Then we decided the monster feet might be fun too.

We broke all the toes off but had a great time stomping and jumping and laughing a lot!

Wednesday: Some more great mail from some very creative people! Christine put together the most M's I've ever seen in one little story.

I gave Evin some M&M's just for a snack and when I came back he was color sorting them all on his own. Now we have tried this activity NUMEROUS times with pom poms, cars, and other items and I was starting to think he might be color blind because he refused. Now I'm sure he's not......scarier though is how everything has to be on his terms.

We also made our letter animal a MOUSE!

Thursday: We started out the day building a marble maze on the fridge, we used tape and poster tacky but you could probably use magnets too!

He had a good time putting the marbles in different places, trying to make them go backwards in the tubes and of course retrieving them from across the room when they missed the basket. We went back to this activity throughout the day.

The stock show is in town and we went to see the "moo cows" in the kick off parade and came home to find our Mailbox stuffed! There was a lot of great things:

- confetti that we shape sorted, color sorted, and lined up on our M from Aunt Sheryl

- some art and a Mini M book from our friend Jordan

- a few letters from our grandma and grandpa

- a postcard from San Diego from our dolphin trainer aunt

- M stickers, M&M's, and a motorcycle from our grandpa

While I made dinner I also made Monster Slime! Again we got this idea from Growing a Jeweled Rose! Her recipe worked GREAT

2 teaspoons borax

1 1/3 cup warm water

(combine together in bowl)

2 cups white elmers glue

1 1/2 cups VERY warm water

food coloring

(combine in large bowl)

slowly mix together until you reach desired consistency....see below!

We moved our shower curtain down and back a little bit, decorated some baskets to look like M Monsters and then put the slime in the baskets.

Evin was terrified at first and huddled in the back corner, whimpering.....but once mom started playing with it, he realized it was pretty cool!

He hates to have his hair washed and then stuff sticks to clothes and hair hard core. A quick wash and lots of screaming like it was the end of the world helped him get past it!

Friday: Nicole and Karl helped him make a motorcycle out of a cracker box. He had a great time playing with his handlebars and then his auntie came up with a flying motorcycle game.....way cooler!

We also got MORE great MAIL....this and the monster slime was definitely the highlight of the week. He got mail from California, Oregon, Florida, Colorado, and Kansas.

In the mail he got M collages, M stories, a manatee, a motorcycle, M&M's, confetti, foam letters, tattoos, stickers, letters, postcards, and MORE! Very fun!