Flowers everywhere

I found these flowers a few years ago at the dollar store.  They just resurfaced.  When I took them out of the container I realized that the flowers also included all the things to make necklaces.  YAY!  Little Princess has been taking all my necklaces and wearing them all over the place so I thought this would be a fun thing for her to do.  It turns out the string was really floppy and the holes were really small.  I ended up melting the end of string to make to go through the flowers.  It ended up being a Little Monkey and Mommy project.  Little Monkey really liked it and decided it should be a family necklace. Right now Little Princess is running around putting it on everyone.  I think I am going to do some colour matching with the flowers for Little Princess later.

Tomorrow might be a beach day so I don't think I will post anything.....unless I make a beach scavenger hunt tonight. :)

Ladybugs

Little Monkey has been on the hunt for ladybugs for a little while now.  So far no luck.  So I decided why not make our own.  Little Princess was napping so I made up some counting ladybugs for Little Monkey.  My printer decided to slowly run out of ink, so that is why the first few look a bit faded.

Little Monkey really liked using the q-tips to paint with.  They make perfect dots on the ladybugs.  Next time we do a counting activity I am going to cut them all out and mix them up so they aren't all in order....that seems too easy! :)  This one was a lot of fun and went quite quick.  You could also laminate them and use them as playdoh mats.  They could make the spots all sorts of colours.  

P.S. Have I told you how much I love that I finally got around to painting the kids table with chalkboard paint?!  I LOVE IT!

Little Monkey also made me a flower necklace today.  I will try and get that one posted tonight. 

Spring has sprung

I feel like I haven't blogged in forever and I guess it has been a while!  We have been doing lots but most of it has consisted of being out enjoying the sun.  It has been nice enough out lately that we have been to the beach a few times!  I love watching the kids explore and find new exciting things.  It turns out Little Princess has no fear.  She picks up crabs without batting an eye and also has no problem going into the water all the way.  It isn't that nice out yet!  I have learned to take many changes of clothes and let them have fun.  We also managed to make it to a Bug Zoo a few weeks ago.  Little Monkey got to hold a lot of different bugs and thought that was the greatest thing!  Little Princess was also very excited to see all the different bugs.  I thought she might shy away (I don't know why) but she was all over it.  I think I might have been the only one that was ok with not handling any of the bugs!
With that trip being so exciting I decided to try and do some craft and activities based around bugs and spring.  So far the kids are loving it.  I have quite a few ideas going on in my head right now, so hopefully we will get to them all!
Here are a few of the fun things we have planned to do:

Here are some of the bug pictures we got.  

Up next, flower necklaces and ladybugs! 

Umbrella's

Today we made umbrella's!  It is hard to believe it took me this long to do them by the name of my blog! :)  I have an umbrella template that I had no idea what to do with.  It had 3 circles cut out of it as well.  Then it hit me, why don't I put different colours behind it and do some matching!
Little Monkey has done this one before (probably over a year ago) so I had to step it up a bit.  I figured why not match by 2 attributes?!  His umbrella had colours and numbers and Little Cousin's had just colours.

This one went really quick.  Maybe tomorrow we will add some blue puffy paint as rain drops.  It is a great one to have laying out or on a felt board.  

Spring and sun

Today was going to be a post about shaving cream painting.....but the sun came out so we went outside instead.  I wasn't sure if it was going to be a long trip out because yesterdays attempt lasted 30 minutes and Little Monkey was cold!  The sun came out in full force and we had so much fun exploring.  Little Cousin came over to play as well.  As soon as Little Princess woke up from her nap she was out with us too.  We spent the morning drawing on the fence with chalk and digging for worms.  We have a good size garden that hasn't been touched all winter, so I thought, why not let the boys help me dig it out.  I knew if I just asked them to help me dig it up, it would never happen.  As soon as I mentioned that there might be worms, Little Monkey was over there so fast!  Little Cousin was perfectly happy watching from afar as we found more and more worms.  Little Monkey insisted on picking them up with his bare hands....ewww.   After I got over the initial shock, I too was picking up worms with my bare hands.  The mocking ('you don't need a shovel silly mommy') from Little Monkey probably helped me get over my squeamishness towards the worms.  We talked about what worms eat (dirt....and sometimes mommies veggies) and we also had to have a conversations about being gentle.  There are some wounded worms in our garden now!
It was so nice to get out side and run around and not worry about making a mess or trying to clean everything up right away.  I am going to start stock piling outside fun ideas this weekend so when the sun shows up again we will have new exciting things to try!

Tomorrow I have shaving cream painting on the to-do list.  If the sun is out in full force again, it might have to be put off until I need a Rainy Day Distraction :)

Tissue paper and beans

We stuck with the egg theme into today.  Little monkey surprised me and wouldn't leave the table until his whole entire egg was covered!  That doesn't happen often.  I think it might have been because I let him also add the beans (or as he calls them seeds), which he had been eyeing since yesterday, to his egg.
Materials:
Egg template
Cardstock
Tissue paper (a few different colours)
Beans ( I just bought white beans and put them in the bag with a little food colouring and shook them up)
Glue

I let the boys scrunch up some of the tissue paper, but they were more interested in sticking it onto their egg shape.  I really love the colours of the tissue paper....I may will have to go back to the dollar store to get some more.  Little Monkey filled up all the spaces he could.  I think I like this one so much it might have to go on the mantel.

Up next, shaving cream art.  I have never done this before so I am very excited about it. :)

Here is a picture of what I originally dyed the beans for: