Mothers Day Craft!

As a special Mother's Day Craft, Jack and I decided to make 'home-made' paper with wildflower seeds in it!  The paper can be planted later and after some 'showers of love', beautiful wildflowers should start to grow!  We made one for Grandma, Auntie Scoot, Namie and Auntie Mel!!

After blending some scrap paper and water in a blender, we poured the 'soup' into a baking dish....

Jack then added the wildflower seeds to the dish and used his hands to mix it all up!  It was really squishy!!

We then used a section of screen from an old screen door to gather up the pulp to form a little sheet of paper!  After pressing a lot of the water out, we left the screens with the pulp on a towel to absorb as much of the water as possible!  It took about 24 hours to totally dry.

After letting them dry, we added a picture of a flower, "Happy Mother's Day" and Jack signed his name!

Here's a picture of Jack giving one to Grandma!

You can tell she really loved it! 

Happy Mother's Day!!

Bunnies and more bunnies!

Jack and I decided to have a special Easter-week breakfast today!!  Check out this Easter Bunny toast with an egg in the middle!  It may be hard to see, but it came out pretty good!  Mmmmm!!  

Today was yet another rainy cold day....so we just hung out around the house.  We watched some cartoons, then did another Easter craft before Jack headed upstairs for his nap!  (By the way...today is the first time Jack isn't wearing Pull-ups to bed!  He said "I'm a big boy now, so I should wear underwear!"

Let's see how he does!  Keep your fingers crossed....not having to buy Pull-ups would be a nice little chunk of money saved every month!  :)

Anyway, back to our craft....I figured we'd do a fairly easy paper plate craft today....I think it came out pretty cute!  We borrowed some plastic Easter eggs from the ones he found at the egg hunt on Saturday!  Looks like the Easter Bunny is hiding in the grass with all of the eggs!

Bunny time!

With Easter next weekend, Jack and I wanted to do another Easter craft!  We got this great idea from http://funnydayswithmommyandmaddie.blogspot.com/ ! 

I just happened to have a toilet paper roll in Jacks craft bins, figuring I would need it someday for a craft!  I'm glad I did!!   We painted it white and put it aside to dry. 

While we were waiting, we cut bunny ears out of white craft foam, then Jack added purple glitter to it's ears!!  After everything was dry, we stuck the ears on the top, added pipe cleaner whiskers, a button nose, and used a marker for the mouth and teeth!  What a cute idea!!  Thanks Amanda and Maddie for sharing it with us!

And speaking of cute little bunnies.....

Check out Jack in his Easter bunny ears he got at the mall today...they were kind of like the consolation prize for the kids whose parents refused to pay $22.00 for a picture with the Easter Bunny.  Sorry Jack, I just couldn't see spending that much money on a picture...but at least he waved 'hello' to you!!  Besides, maybe  we'll get to see him at the Easter egg hunt tomorrow.....

More sick days.....

Jack has been sick the last couple of days, but we still tried to do some fun things to keep a smile on his face!

Yesterday, we made a GIANT cupcake!!  It was chocolate, with chocolate pudding in the middle and whipped cream frosting!!   YUMMMMMMMMY!!  (of course, Jack only eats the frosting & pudding!)

Jack made me a nice picture too....he's getting so good with his drawing and with writing his name!!  It's a picture of a flower with the sun shining above!  He wrote his name all by himself too!  I'm so proud of him!

We had some fun last night with Daddy too....we played with puzzles, and Daddy was intentionally putting the pieces in the wrong place to see what Jack would do!!  Jack was laughing so hard, it was funny!  Then our BIG dog Sasha decided she needed to be part of the family fun time too, and plopped herself down right next to her best buddy Jack!!

The big bag behind Jack??  Those were all of the clothes that Jack outgrew since last summer...my little guy is getting big!!  We're going to share them with a friend who has triplets!!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today, Jack missed out on going to the library toddler program.   He was too sick to go, but Miss Anne and Miss Kathy were nice enough to send home the craft for Jack to do!!  He was pretty excited...especially when he saw the plastic Easter Egg in it!  He loves those!

After having a pretty relaxing day today on the couch, we decided we better start making some Easter decorations for the house...Easter is in a week and a half!!!!

We did a nice simple one, seeing as Jack wasn't feeling the greatest.  I think it came out pretty good!  I cut  Easter eggs out of construction paper, and Jack colored them!!  We then got out the gluestick and stuck them on a paper plate with the center cut out....voila!!  An Easter wreath!!

We put it up on the french doors in the dining room so everyone can enjoy a little touch of spring!!

I think Jack did a great job!!

Lastly, Jack got a whole bunch of postcards this week from Postcrossing.com!!  He even got a mini calendar from a woman in Wales, showing all sorts of scenes from Wales.  Jack was so excited!!  Here are a couple of his favorite postcards from this week....

St. Patricks Day Party then rainbow cupcakes

This morning we had a St. Patricks Day playdate!  The kids had some play time first, then Miss Rebecca read a story about St. Patricks Day!  We then made a really cute shamrock craft before having rainbow cake and green juice!!

This is Jack and his friend having fun together in the playhouse!!

The craft was coloring a shamrock then putting on pieces of green paper with a glue stick!  It was a perfect craft, you know Jack and the gluestick!!

The cake was a bundt cake with rainbow colors!!  We thought that was pretty funny because we had planned on going home and making rainbow cupcakes!!

Jack did most of the work making the cupcakes...the hardest part was dividing up the batter between six bowls and coloring them all different colors!!  I then poured the colors into the cupcake liners and stuck them in the oven!!  I think they came out pretty cool, and Jack was VERY impressed!  He frosted them 'fluffy cloud white' and our snack was done!!

Check these out!!

It's our rainbow leading to the pot of gold...now where is the leprechaun??

Rainy day craft, and postcards!

Today is the fourth straight day of rain and wind....Jack is getting a little tired of being stuck inside, especially after all of that beautiful weather we had last week!  We decided to do a little spring craft today...a little baby lamb!  I thought it would remind us of warmer days to come!

I think it came out pretty cute, Jack thought it was fun using the cotton balls to make him all fluffy!

We've also been having so much fun with our postcrossing project!  Jack loves getting the postcards in the mail, and now he always yells, "the mailman is here!!" (well, it's really a mail-lady, but all I think he notices is the big white mail truck!)

Jack has received some really cute cards, many people send them with animals on it that he would enjoy.  We really appreciate that people pick out special things for him being only 3 years old!

He got this card in the mail the other day...it had a boar on it, knee-deep in mud with it's nose covered in mud!  Jack thought that was pretty funny!  As you can see, he really like that one!

saving money, and dancing like crazy!

On Wednesday, Jack had his toddler program at the library. They had a guest speaker, a woman who worked for Jewett City Savings Bank, who read a story to the kids about money, then gave all of the kids little ceramic piggy banks! Even the craft was a little piggy!!

This picture was Jack getting his piggy bank from Miss Anne, one of the librarians...he knew he was getting a bank, so he brought along some change and immediately put it in his bank! What a good little saver! (He must definitely get that from Daddy!)

Jack and Luke got to share a little table, because the big tables had too many people! Here they are making their piggy craft complete with a cute little pipe cleaner tail!!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday we had a playdate at McDonalds with Jacks playgroup in the morning, did a little shopping afterwards then relaxed for the rest of the day! (Well, mostly relaxed....Jack decided he needed to listen to Christmas music and dance around the house!)

(It looks like just a black screen but when you click on it, it will load up...give it a few minutes!)

Check out the little video I shot with my phone of Jack dancing!

After dancing around all afternoon, Jack decided he would kick back and read a Clifford Easter Book!! He likes to make up the story by looking at the pictures...(he also makes some really funny faces while reading!!)

(another black screen, but click it and it will load up...just give it a couple of minutes)

An airplane, shamrocks and a 'grass head guy'!

Last night when I got home from work, I found a nice little surprise on the table...Jack and Daddy must have done a little craft project while I was working!  I quickly hung this airplane up in the doorway for everyone to see!

----------------------------------------------------------------

This morning, Jack and I decided to start our St. Patricks Day projects....first up?  Potato stamp shamrocks!

I remember doing this as a kid, you make stamps out of a half of a potato!  We made one shamrock and a pot for all of our 'gold'!   After Jack stamped some pictures on the paper, he glued on some 'gold coins' and colored a rainbow!!  I think it came out cute, and he thought it was pretty funny we used a potato for this craft!  :)

 

(Jack also got some more practice writing his name!)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

One last project before naptime.....I picked up a cute little 'guy' that grows grass for hair, so Jack and I let it soak in water for a few minutes before placing him into his plastic 'greenhouse'.  Jack is pretty excited at the thought of giving him a 'haircut' in a week or two!!

A Craft with Daddy, Hide and Seek and Library!

Last night, Jack and Daddy did a craft together!  Jack pulled out our favorite craft book and picked a monster truck to make!  Daddy and Jack had a great time making this one!

Jack really liked painting the paper plates to make the big tires!  I cut out the truck, and Daddy helped with the mixing of the paint, painting, and with the star stickers!!  Another masterpiece!!

After making this really cool craft, Jack wanted to play hide and seek....it's his favorite game lately, we end up playing probably 3 or 4 times a day!  I thought some of the hiding spots Jack chose were kind of funny, so I thought I would share them with you! 

The first spot, was smack-dab right in the middle of the couch, he pulled the blanket over his head and yelled out that he was 'ready' to be found!  LOL!  Of course, I was just 5 feet away on the other couch counting, so needless to say, this spot was pretty easy to figure out!  The next spot he chose to hide in at least took him into another room, although not necessarily a hard one to figure out!  Jack went into the playroom and hid under his train table, probably would be a good spot, however, something didn't seem quite right when I walked into the room!  I think Jack figures, if he can't see you, that you must not be able to see him!   :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today, we went to Library, heard a Dr. Seuss story and a story about farm animals!  For our craft, Jack made a placemat with green eggs and ham!  Yummmmmmy!

Today is Library Day!

Every Wednesday morning, we head over to the library for the toddler story time!  Jack really enjoys this...

The kids got to listen to 2 stories, one about a snowman, and the other story about different animals when the snow comes...Jack liked the second one especially because it had a moose in it!  We missed Miss Anne today, she wasn't there to read the stories, but Miss Kathy was there!

Jack, of course, loved the last part of the class where the kids get to do a craft!  They put cotton balls and pom-poms on a mitten and colored it...it looked like the one from the first story!

After library, we met Auntie Mel and Luke at McDonalds for some lunch and play on the big tree house!  Jack really loves playing there, although usually if other kids are on it, he gets too overwhelmed to play on it, but today he was right up there with all the kids and had a blast!  He loves playing with his cousin Lukie...they are best buddies!

A quick stop to Target afterwards landed us some great deals...they always have tons of stuff on clearance...today we got a couple of pairs of Osh Kosh adjustable waist jeans for Jack....half price! 

Jack also spotted something in the 'dollar bins' at the front door...a ceramic egg that you plant seeds in to grow daisies!  He is looking forward to a garden this year...last years didn't work out so well! 

Jack mushed up the 'pellet' with some water...pretty cool  because it turned to dirt!!  We then put the dirt in the egg, and Jack planted the seeds....now we wait......

Mystic Village and another craft!

Yesterday, Jack and I met Auntie Scoot and Riley at Mystic Village!!  It was such a beautiful day, and we knew the next 5 days would be cold and snowy, so we wanted to take advantage of it!!

We went to some very nice stores, and of course, looked for POSTCARDS!  We purchased some duck food and fed the ducks at the pond too!!

Jack was a little nervous at first, he thought he would get hurt if he let them eat out of his hand, but I showed him that it tickled my hand.  Soon he had a lot of new duck friends!!

These ducks obviously are pretty used to people being around!!  As you can see...Jack had a great time!

Nothing better to top off our afternoon than ICE CREAM!  Jack enjoyed chocolate with sprinkles, and Auntie Scoot and I had some grasshopper sundaes!  Poor Riley, always missing out on the ice cream!!  Soon, pretty girl, you'll be getting your own big sundae!

Jack and I came home to SIX postcards in the mailbox!!  Three from Greece, and one each from New Zealand, Belgium, and Portugal!!  Our map will be filled up in no time!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today, Jack and I stayed home, really nasty weather outside, snow one minute, rain the next and mud everywhere!!

Jack wanted to add to his craft wall, so he decided on a sea star to put next to his submarine and jellyfish! Check out this great job he did, and he even wrote his name at the top (and made a sun!)  I am so proud of him, he'll be ready for school in no time!!

Jack also got 2 postcards in the mail today, one from Canada and one from Switzerland!  I thought that one was very cute!!  It has a bunny named Felix riding a bike and handing out mail and postcards all over the world!  How fitting!!