Splish Splash!

I forgot how much fun a water table is!  I couldn't find my bigger bucket that I usually use so we had to settle for a smaller one.  I brought in Little Monkey's train table (it was in the garage) and set a towel over it and bigger rubbermaid lid on top to catch all the water that somehow comes out.  Our train table isn't the best, so I wouldn't advise using yours if you have a really nice one.  The water will soak through the towel and you can ruin the surface.  I also couldn't find my plastic table cloth that I usually put under the table.  I think it might have been put in with our camping things.  We just put towels under and they worked fine.  I let Little Monkey pick a colour to make the water.  He chose green.  You can't really see it because it is a blue tub.  I just used a bunch of kitchen utensils and a few little object we had laying around.

I put old tee-shirts on the kids to keep their regular clothes dry.  I even remembered to take their socks off!  The shirts were pretty long and managed to keep their pants relatively dry.  

The kids had so much fun with this.  I already have an Easter themed one figured out.   

Less than a week until 18 Lucky Days starts!   

Move it, move it!

We have quite a few action cards around here.  I really like them because they get us up and moving and it gives the kids a chance to run around and act silly with me! :)  I noticed we didn't have any animal ones so I made some up.  Little Princess really likes animals right now and knows most of their sounds.  I figured it would be a great activity to keep her interest.
Animal Action Cards
The kids loved these animal cards.  We did them a few times through. I didn't get many pictures because I was participating.  It was too much fun not to! :)

Little Princess slithering like a snake.

Little Monkey slithering like a snake.

I should have done 'Walk like a crab' instead of 'Pinch like a crab' because they do a pretty hilarious crab walk.  

We also played in our water table today.  I will post about that after the kids are in bed.

Toddler fun

Today we had an extra Little Princess today!  So much fun.  My Little Princess was very excited to have a friend her size over.  It was great watching them run around together and play with the dolls.  Little girls and their dolls!
I was trying to think of something more geared towards the girls and I came up with pom poms and a muffin tin.  I used a circle punch and construction paper for the bottom of the muffin tins.

At first the girls were just excited to move them from the bowl to the muffin tin.  After a little prodding I got my Little Princess to match the pom poms to their right colour.  Little Monkey was quick to point out when the girls got them wrong.  We had a little chat about letting the girls have their turn and then he could play with them.  He seemed okay with that.

Little Monkey tried many different things with the pom poms.  He filled the back of his pickup truck and tried to take a jump and not have any fall out.  He soon figured out that the less he had in it the truck the more likely they were to stay in.  He then invited Little Princess over to slide them down his jungle animal house.  They played together at it for aver 30 minutes.  So much fun!

Tomorrow we have our extra Princess again, so more toddler activities tomorrow.

Fun at the park

The sun came out this morning so off we headed to the park.  I didn't get any pictures today because we were having so much fun playing, but I wanted to share all the fun things we did.  This particular park is right by the water and across the street from a great walking path.  We decided to go for a walk first to see if we could see any sea planes taking off.  We collected rocks and sticks to throw off the bridge (it is just a platform/dock that goes out in the water) when we got to it.  Little Monkey had lots of fun running around trying to find the best rocks and sticks.  Little Princess spent most of the walk in the stroller just chilling out.  She did get out to throw some rocks in the water and run around on the grass.  After we had decided that was enough rocks we headed to the park.  We lucked out and were the only family at the park.  We did lots of running and chasing each other around.  I was Captain Hook trying to capture Little Monkey.  The sand was prefect for making tracks in.  I made a long squiggly line for Little Monkey and Little Princess to walk on.   They were quite funny trying not to fall off the line.  Once Little Monkey dove off once Little Princess fell over and started giggling.  Little Princess is so funny because she loves to play outside but she hates to get her hands dirty.  It is one of the funniest things I have seen, watching her try and get up off the ground not using her hands so they don't get dirty.  While Little Princess was climbing up the big toy to go down the slide Little Monkey and I were playing in the sand making letters.  I would 'draw' one with my foot and we would step back and say what it was and then look for something around us starting with that letter.  Little Monkey would then walk on it and when he was finished he would erase it for me to make another one.  We did T (Tree), S (Slide), C (Caterpillar), B (Boat), and R (Rock).  I think I am going to make another scavenger hunt sheet for the kids.  It will be a park themed one.  When I finish it I will link it up.
We have another Little Princess spending a few days with us this week so we are going to be doing some fun toddler themed ideas to end the week!

Valentine's snacks

Sorry this one is a day late.  Little Princess is pretty sick so we have been having extra cuddles.
We had so many fun snacks and food yesterday.  Little Monkey loved the french toast first thing in the morning.  It was a preschool day so I had to get up a little early but it was worth it!  I just used a heart cookie cutter to cut out the centre and filled it with heart shaped strawberries.  I also put a little pink food colouring in Little Monkey's milk.

Up next was lunch.  I was a little stuck on what to do.  I had deli ham in the fridge and a block of cheese.  I have to say the cheese was the hardest to cut.  I had to cut a smaller size chunk and then cut in width wise to make it so I didn't end up with a lump size heart!  The kids loved it!  They were pretty excited that their food was all heart shaped.  I even managed to get the pickles into a (somewhat) heart shape.

Next up was dessert.  I did up sugar cookies for Little Monkey and Little Cousin to do.  They had lots of fun painting (decorating) them.  I didn't get many during pictures because I was trying to encourage them to put the icing on the cookies and not directly in their mouths! :)  

We were going to do cupcakes after supper, but Little Princess woke up feeling yucky so we settled for some books instead.

I did make a counting printable for the boys that we didn't manage to get to, but I wanted to share any way.  It is very similar to the Leaf Counting.  I did up envelopes instead of trees and we were going to add valentine's stickers to the envelopes.  Maybe we will do it next year.

Heart Counting

I am going to take a few days off before getting back at it.  I have 18 Lucky Days planned out already and I am almost done planning Easter fun!  I think we will finish off February with some cars and trucks themed fun.  Little Monkey and Little Princess will be very excited about that.

I hope you enjoyed my 14 days of Love, I sure had a lot of fun doing all the fun activities.  If there is something you like to see us try leave a comment, I would love to hear from you. :)

Crayons

I have done crayons lots with the kids.  I thought it would be a fun idea to do heart crayons for Little Monkey to take to all his friends at school for Valentines Day.  Little Monkey really likes to help with making crayons.  His favourite part is breaking them after he gets the paper off.  Today he told me ' I can break them because I have strong muscles from eating good food.' So cute!
I used new crayons because we don't have enough broken ones to make many new ones at all.  I would advise using Crayola crayons.  I have done them before with dollar store ones and they came out chalking and quite a bit of wax on the top.  I use a knife to get the paper off.  This is a Mommy job only.  :)  Heat the oven to 200 (F).  I put parchment paper down on a cookie sheet to catch any that might overflow.  Put them in for 25-30 minutes and they should be all melted. If they aren't just give them a few more minutes.  Let them cool for at least an hour.  I put them in the garage because it is cooler so they set faster. :)  Make sure they aren't still warm when you go to pop them out.  If they are still warm they will break coming out.

Now onto packaging.  This was my favourite!  I found the boxes at the dollar store.  They are so cute.  I had the shredded paper (also from the dollar store) for Christmas.  I found the printable labels here.  I cut off the to/from part and we stamped hearts with Little Monkeys thumbs on the back.  I absolutely love how they turned out.  

Tomorrow is my last day of 14 Days of Love and I am going to end it with one of my favourites, FOOD!  I have lots of fun snacks planned for tomorrow.  Oh and we have another Little Cousin coming over for the day.  Lots of fun!

Heart symmetry

Today we did some heart symmetry.  I found the idea on pinterest and I thought it would be a fun thing to try.  I was planning on doing it with both kids but Little Princess is under the weather so Little Monkey and I did it during nap time.  I used acrylic paint because it was the only pink paint I had.

Little Monkey had lots of fun making drops!  Eventually he squeezed a little harder to get more paint on the heart.  He got really excited when he started pulling it apart and there was paint on the other side.  

I really like how these turned out!  We are going to use them for Little Monkeys preschool teachers.  

Up next heart crayons.

Heart Butterflies

This is something I used to do with daycare/preschool kids.  It a fun quick craft.  It was nice to have something quick and easy so we could spend more time playing with Little Cousin!  

You also need you little ones little feet :)

I punched little holes in the top of the butterfly to push the antenna through.  Little Monkey did great with it.  I had to help Little Cousin and I had to do it for Little Princess.  

I can't believe I only 3 more days left!  I have more ideas than days.  

Up next is heart symmetry.