Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Lily Pad Leap and Froggy Fly eating!

 

Today at storytime we met two White's Tree Frogs and a Pacman Frog since the sloth was living up to her sleepy nature! W also read "Froggy Gets Dressed" all about a frog who gets dressed to play in the snow!  Great timing after all the snow we've had, all of the kids had played in the snow recently and knew all about dressing for the snow!  

When we got home we came up with two pretty fun froggy games!  

First we ate some flies (chocolate chips) just like frogs do!  With our tongues of course!  It took a few times but Evin got the hang of it and only snuck a few with his fingers!  Apparently it's pretty fun to eat with your tongue!

Then I cut some lily pads and flowers out of some foam I had in his craft supplies and we "lily pad leap"!  Tons of fun and great exercise too!


Flop!


Flop!


Flop!


This is the only picture that I could get where you could tell he was having a good time!  

Check out the blog next week, when "pirate week" ends and we post all our fun!

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Evin's Magnetic Wall Roadway








 Today's day off task was to complete Evin's road in his room.  We bought Rustoleum's Magnetic Primer.




On Friday night I hand sanded a path along the wall and painted the first coat, after a lot of deliberation, I decided to freehand it.  I did the main road with a 2" high density foam roller and then did the edges with a 2in paint brush.  It took a few hours.....then I tested a magnet out on it and it didn't even act like there was a chance of it ever sticking.......



I decided to read the instructions......weird right!  It said to mix well (oops I guess shaking it a few times didn't count).  Then I read some reviews online (just to make sure I wasn't wasting my time).  One was incredibly helpful.  She said that she mixed constantly and only poured a little paint in to her pan at a time.  I tried mixing with a paint stick and it literally felt like sludge in the bottom of the can, so I called in the electric mixer and tried again.  



After just two coats...magnets were sticking!  I did 7 total coats including my first waste of time.  


I didn't want to spend a ton of money on the paint for the dotted lines so I went to Lowe's and had them mix me up a sample size tub for just $2.98!  


I used a wedge sponge to make the dotted line and I like the roughness.  


I decided that I would try long strips of magnets and I found some that I had lying around in our theme week supplies.  I also found Evin's lightest, plastic, cheapo cars.  Some came from Dollar Tree and some from a multipack at Target.  I hot glued the longest strip of magnet that I could possibly make work on the underside of the car and made sure the glue was really thick so that it cleared the wheel base.  



Anything heavier than these cheap cars would not work, even some of my fridge magnets didn't work if there wasn't enough surface area to stick.  


Evin loved it and got BLURRY excited!





I'll let you know how it holds up!


Friday, February 22, 2013

Evin's Monster Bash



Evin turned 2!!!!  We decided that since we missed Christmas with my Kansas family we would head back in that direction for the bash.  We were also in the middle of moving so we let my mom, a.k.a. "Gram Cracker" do most of the planning.  Nicole designed the invitations and the shirts!  Check her out, she does it all!  NLS Graphics


Gram Cracker and Aunt Sheryl had already finished the pin the eye on the monster game.  


Nicole worked on creating the monster for the photo booth!


I made the slime! (click on the link for the recipe!)


With some monster sticky decals and the extra slime as a centerpiece our tables were done!


These were 2 year olds so the party had to happen on the floor!


Fun sugar cookies and yummy popcorn!


These cake pops and cake from Cake Face were delicious!!!



Nicole sewed these great felt monsters and made mouths to decorate them with.  A few 100 googly eyes and the party was complete!





We even asked guests to bring "monster themed" gifts!  They got super creative!



The kids had a great time making their monsters and the adults had a great time playing with the slime centerpieces.  



Happy 2nd Birthday Evin!



The aftermath!

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Porcupine Story Time Craft

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today at story time we read "Mr. Fine, Porcupine" and he fell in love!  


I thought I'd whip up a quick valentine day card for you guys to share.  This is Zuri the African Crested Porcupine and she's wishing you a Happy Valentine's Day!


I also found a great link to make your own playdough porcupine!  All you need is play dough or toothpicks, some noodles, and some googly eyes!  


If you need an excellent playdough recipe check out B Week !  There's a great jello playdough recipe that smells great!


Sunday, February 3, 2013

Arctic Week



This week lasted a week and a half!  Karl, Nicole, and I have been exhausted lately so it was a weak week......

Inspiration came in the form of a kiwi crate....if you don't know what these are you are missing out!  


Each month we get a Kiwi Crate in the mail full of themed activities, this month's was an antarctic adventure!




First up was penguin bowling, we decorated our penguins and put them together....still don't quite know where eyes go or that hats go on your head.  On second thought maybe we just don't know how to identify a penguin's head....



Then it was bowling time!  Karl was much better at this than I was.  I was running back and forth between setting up pins and helping him with the ball.  Karl had a much better idea of being the pin cleaner upper......



He got very good at celebrating his "wins" and then he even started calling out the pins that were next....."Marley penguin....you're going down!"


Tuesday: I had been working on this one for awhile.  I used one of his sensory tubs and made an ice flow with a little pool.  We picked up another toob from Hobby Lobby the "arctic toob" and had a great time. 



Then we tested out another type of snow.  This was a few cups of cornstarch and a TB or two of vegetable oil.......it was just as messy as it sounded. 


It was arctic week on the floor and in my hand. 



Wednesday was bathtime snow fun.  We painted with shaving cream and it was HILARIOUS!


Thursday: We went to toddle storytime for the firs time and he was enthralled!  He'd always seemed a little distant at babytime and now I think it was because he was bored!



Then we made some ice cream.  We found some great recipes over at Kevin and Amanda. 



It was pretty yummy!


Friday: We worked on more activities from our kiwi crate.  We used watercolors (that came in the crate) to paint the aurora borealis.  Mostly we were learning the pattern of water, paint, paper.  It made perfectionist graphic artist auntie Nicole...CRAZY!



We also made a snowman in a bag with foam eyes, carrot nose, and mouth.  We added some conditioner (maybe a little too much) and had some squishy fun!


Saturday: We tried a new snow recipe with cornstarch and shaving cream 2:1 recipe and erputing snow recipe which was just baking soda and we added vinegar.  We found both over at Growing a Jeweled Rose who was also having a snow/arctic/winter week. 


He had a great time making bubbles!



He LOVED the erupting snow and the way it felt!





My floor loved it too!

Sunday: We tried the last snow play idea of canned whipped cream....



Evin thought it was pretty yummy. 


Sunday: It was 60 degrees in Denver during "arctic week" so we headed to the park to enjoy the sun in the convertible. 




There was a brilliant dad at the park, who blew bubbles for the boys to chase for hours.....he was worn out!


Monday:  As always if you know your meteorology cold fronts push warm air in front of them so it was that warm air the should have tipped us off to the snow that was on the way.  Evin was excited!


So was I because arctic week finally had some snow!  We played outside painting the snow and having a grand old time cleaning off the cars. 



Tuesday:  Cousin Wade and his friend were in town visiting so we headed to Ruby Hill Railyard and watched the guys do some snowboarding and Evin did some sledding....it didn't last long because it was so cold. 




The rest of the week was spent obsessing over the loan which at this point seems to be moving forward again, all thanks to me making lots of phone calls to managers, filing a complaint with BBB, and what seemed to have the bank most nervous was Nicole complaining on twitter.  They're offering us a non-saleable loan serviced by them that actually beats the terms of our previous loan. 

Friday we headed to Kansas to celebrate Evin turning two!  It was an AWESOME party.  TONS of fun and you can expect pictures soon!