Monsters

Sorry it has been a long time since I have posted!  We have been busy.  Summer has hit and we are spending the majority of time outside enjoying it.  I am finding going to the beach or lake a few times a week makes the kids sleep so well! :)
Little Monkey turned 4 this weekend!  He was so very excited to have his birthday party with all his friends!  Everyone called him on his actual birthday but he kept telling them 'you know it's not my party today'.  When today finally came he was beside himself.  We decided to go for a monster theme this year.  He wasn't too sure about the theme (which he picked) until we got our amazing printables from Eight Hearts Design.  He was so very excited about them all.
It was a fun afternoon filled with lots of friends and family.  Of course there were a few games as well. We did a 'Pin the Eye on the Monster' and a 'Monster Toss'.  The Monster toss was the most played with game.  The monster cake was also a very exciting part of the party!  All in all it was a great way to celebrate being 4!
Little Princess' birthday is up next month and minnie will be making an appearance. :)

This was in the kids goodie bags.  A monster face crayon, build your own monster, and a monster ball.

Monster Pops

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! 

Easter fun

Well Easter is coming up really fast!  I am not sure how I feel about Easter at the end of March!  Little Monkey had his last day of preschool until after spring break today and it just sunk in that he is home all next week with no activities to go to.  I need to get planning! :)  We have already started a few Easter themed things around our house and I plan on doing many more before next weekend.  I made an Easter themed sensory tub last weekend and the kids have been loving it.  I did however underestimate how much of a mess easter 'grass' can make!  The kids really love it though, so it can stay until next weekend!

It worked out perfectly that I already had everything for it.  The bunnies hanging on the side are like A Barrel of Monkeys but bunnies instead (they are so much fun), the bunnies laying in the grass are stretchy ones, the picture of the bunnies on eggs are memory cards that are hidden throughout the tub, and there are also blue and pink dyed dried beans in there.  I kept the plastic Easter eggs out because Little Princess loves to stick them in her mouth and I don't want her to choke on them!

Up next we are doing letter and colour matching with plastic Easter eggs.

St. Patrick's Day Sensory Bin

I brought out the new themed sensory bin today.  The kids loved it.  I think I am going to add to it.  I added some rainbow coloured beads.  Little Monkey and Little Princess really liked the beads, but our extra Princess still likes to put things in her mouth....so we took them out for now.

Little Monkey really liked the beaded necklaces and tried to hog them for himself.  I convinced him he should share them.  He really liked wearing them and then finding places all over the house he could hang them from.  They hang really nice off the light switches.  That is the only way he is turning off lights today.  He went around and turned all our lights on and used the necklaces to turn them back off.

Little Princess really liked beading.  I think we need to do more of it.  Maybe I will do some beading and make rainbows.  Now I have to think about how to make that possible!  Weekend project :)

Tissue paper shamrocks round 2

We did tissue paper shamrocks again today.  Little Princess and our extra Princess got to join in this time.  They had lots of fun.  I let Little Monkey cut the tissue paper.  He really likes using scissors and I thought this would be great practice for him.  Little Princess couldn't be left out, so she got to rip the tissue paper.  We had lots of fun scrunching the tissue paper up into little balls.  Little Princess gave up on this pretty early on, so the kids had snack while I finished scrunching.  

I ended up putting the glue on the shamrocks for the kids just to make things go a little smoother.  Little Monkey ended up doing a few of them.  He did them pretty fast and wasn't interested in trying to taste the glue like the two Princess's!  Once they are fully dry we are going to string them up and put our shamrock garland on the fireplace.  Little Monkey was very excited that his work was going to be a decoration.  

Next week we are going to be doing lots of rainbows and pots 'o' gold!  

We got them up!  I think they look great :)