Themed Toddler Time

       I am all about themed events for kids. Seriously, I don’t much care if it’s a minor holiday, major holiday, birthday, Sunday, or sunny day, I want to make a themed event for it. I enjoyed sensory bins and games, always, but, since I now have a 15 month old and a 4 month old—I’m even more obsessed! (After all, I have to find some way to channel the older one’s energy so I can tend to the younger one!)

        

    My preference falls into the “invitation to play”/”imaginative play” and sensory activities category. Whereas I think step-by-step instructions and games that require them are fun, since my kids are so young, I find it far more enjoyable to set something up and then allow them to explore it for themselves. Because of this, I’m not huge into scheduling, per se. Instead, I tend to select several themed ideas for large activities and a few smaller ones and watch how the event unfolds. That way, I can adapt to suit whatever the kids are enjoying the most—because, let’s be honest, it usually isn’t what you think it’s going to be. For example, I facilitate a monthly event for young kids called “Traveling Tuesday.” Each Tuesday, we (pretend to!) go someplace different. One week, we were going on safari. I planned and crafted different animals for the kids to feed balls to. There was a lion, a monkey, a kangaroo—in my mind’s eye, this would be the hit of the party! I also used a large cardboard box to make a safari jeep—oh, yes, I could see it in my head! Those two things were going to be the favorites.  At the last minute, I decided to make some toilet-paper roll binoculars. I tossed them into the jeep so as not to forget them, and away I went. Of all the activities, of all the crafts and games, above even the jeep—the binoculars were by far the kids’ favorite thing to play with. Instead of feeding the animals, as I’d imagined, we played hide and seek, allowing two kids(or me!) to be on the safari and find the animals. Each time the children posing as animals were seen, the safari goer would yell, “SPOTTED!” and we’d switch. Seriously. We played that for over an hour, and the kids were all about taking those binoculars home. This day taught me the true value of just seeing how things pan out and the need to adjust as the day unfolds.

         

 

  Obviously, doing a little themed mini-party every week(I started out weekly—recently, we’ve changed to monthly!) could get expensive. At first, I really was sinking my own ship, trying to build different things to suit wherever we happened to be travelling to. That’s when I discovered the GLORY of reuse. At this point, I really think anyone can make anything out cardboard. A cardboard box is a beautiful thing—it can be a jeep, a castle, a car, a ship. Really, whatever you want it to be. And, the wonder of it is this: it doesn’t have to be perfect! When we “traveled” to the Caribbean…geez, my ship looked rough! I painted it and, for my youngest, slapped a Bumbo chair inside. For two weeks, I could set my youngest in the Bumbo, and my eldest daughter would crawl in alongside her and chatter away, clutching little felt fishes tightly. (That’s another great way to theme on the cheap! Felt is like 3 dollars for 12 pieces, and a little can go a long way!)

            Finally, thanks to my aunt, the most significant way we save money is making your actual creation re-usable. In order to do this, it has to be something that is easy to store. This week, we travelled to Ireland. Our castle was huge. I mean, massive. With the moat, easily seven feet across. And, thanks to the wonder of Velcro, that thing, moat and all, became condensed enough to fit in the trunk of my car. The moat, made of dyed cloth and pool noodles, folded up. The fish, made of foam and magnets(the fishing poles had washers on the end, so the fish could be caught) went neatly into a plastic bag, and voila! The whole thing is ready to be played with again on some other rainy day! A whole other story waiting to be told(though, today, we mostly played the characters from the movie Brave and had fishing competitions!), this time, cost-free!

        

   This post was inspired by Eventbrite, who specialize in supporting self-created events with event management software. In my opinion, the key to hosting themed, cost-effective parties boils down to three things: flexibility(don’t plan super stringent plans. Toddlers will systematically dismantle them. Besides, it’s fun to see what their little minds come up with!), reusable play ideas, and cardboard. J Happy playing!

New Year's Resolutions!

     I know New Year’s Resolutions are so common as to be almost cliché. I’m sure blog posts relaying said resolutions are even more so. And, yet—here I go!

     I spent quite a bit of time thinking about resolutions over the past couple of weeks. Of course, when I first started considering them, about a million jumped to mind: lose weight, keep a better house, a thousand ways I could be a better mother to my children, a better wife to my husband. It felt a little like when I sit down in the morning to make my day’s To-Do list. If I give myself more than ten minutes to make it, I’ll wind up with a far longer list than I have hours in the day to accomplish. The more I thought about what all I wanted to improve on this year, the more things came to mind.

  Fortunately, at that point, I stumbled on a post by MoneySavingMom sharing her resolutions. I don’t know if you read her stuff or not, but that girl must stay hopping! I swear, she seems a little like Superwoman to me. Her post, though, shared how this year, for her, was going to be the year of “Rest”. That was the word she was going to live by this year. Still, she wanted to have some resolutions. So, she picked four “big” areas of her life, and then picked ONE resolution that would help her to improve on that area. These were attainable, measureable goals that allowed her to both see progress in that area, and to still not be overwhelmed by a whole list of things to work on. After reading that post, I decided to do something similar—after all, how depressing is it to get to the end of the To-Do list and still have a ton of things not marked off? How much worse to get to the end of the year and realize you’ve not stuck to a single resolution, and you’re about to have to start the process all over?

  The areas I chose to focus on were my personal growth, my marriage, being a better mother to my children, my health, organization, and my house.

  First, because, in the end, if I’m totally tapped, I won’t be able to really work on the others is my personal growth. I know I get so overwhelmed that I often neglect my quiet times. Without Christ as my rest, I PROMISE I’ll wind up too overwhelmed/tapped out/exhausted to improve on much of anything. So, my first resolution is to carve out time, preferably before my kids are even awake, to have a quiet time—with at least a portion of that being dedicated to memorizing Scripture. I think it’s so important to do that; the first psalm talks about meditating on the Lord’s law day and night. Hard to do that if I don’t know it. 

  Secondly, my marriage. My goal here is to spend more quality time with my husband—just my husband, no kids. I intend to dedicate at least one night a month to just him. Whether that is a game night (I STILL need to beat him at Battleship!) or a movie or just general hanging out, I want some dedicated “us” time. We were a couple before we were a family.

  Third is being a better mom to my beautiful girls. They’re charming and delightful and, especially Madelyn right now, so interactive. I know when I get tired or want some kind of outlet, I tend towards picking up my phone and scanning Facebook or blogs or what have you instead of taking the time to be really, really present with the girls. Not that Facebook, blogs, etc. are bad! (Obviously, since I’m writing one, I don’t feel that way!) But, I do need to be thinking about how much time I spend on them. My daughter goes to bed at seven. She takes two naps. When she’s awake, I don’t need to be scrolling Facebook. So, to be concise—my goal is to put my phone down when the kids are up.

  Fourth, my health. This is a two-parter. (I know, I know, getting frisky here.) The first is to drink 8 glasses of water a day. I know I need to. I know it’s healthy. I also know Dr. Pepper is my preference. So, there’s that. The second part is to walk at least four days a week. This one shouldn’t be too bad—I’ve been doing it for the last several months anyway, and I enjoy it. So does Madelyn. But, this resolution is being written down so that I remember to KEEP doing it, even on the weeks I really don’t feel like it.

  Fifth is organization. If you know my mother, you know she’s the most organized person on the planet. I, however, would lose my head if it wasn’t attached. (Not a handy trait for someone with a 1 year old and a three week old.) This year’s stride in organizational maturity (hopefully!) will be to start meal planning. I’ve seen a ton—and I do mean a TON—of blog posts by busy people who swear by this. I imagine that once I get started, it will make life SO much easier.

 And, finally ( I thought six resolutions was appropriate, since it’s twenty-SIX-teen…), my house. And, for that goal, I have one word: Laundry. I’m terrible at it. I detest doing it. And, funnily enough, Matt still wants clean jeans. So, I am committing to at least one load of laundry—all the way through the washing, drying, folding, and putting away process—per day. Wish me luck on this one. :P

So, those are my 2016 resolutions!! I encourage you to write yours down, too (and then show me, lol, so I know I’m not alone!!).

It's Been A Good While...

    So, it's definitely been a minute since I've posted. In my defense, my pregnancy got more complicated, and then the birth and afterwards were a little hectic as well. Happily, though, we are BACK! :)

This is our brand new daughter--the Duckling. Or, as her Daddy calls her, "Duzzy".
   

The Chicken loves our little Duck. I, for one, was super concerned prior to the birth that she would be extremely jealous, or that the transition to a two-baby family would be something that she would hate. Instead, she's surprised me by ADORING her sister. If anything, I have to watch to be sure she's not trying to wake the baby--one of her new favorite activities is to stand over Sister's swing or bouncer while she's taking a nap and "talk" to her. 

Her first few moments after meeting the Duck in the hospital, she was a little unsure. There was ample thumb sucking and snugging into me, her dad, and her grandparents. Then, she decided that this new baby wasn't too bad! We've been (mostly!) giggles and fun times since then!!

The Chicken especially loves to touch Sister. She likes to touch her feet and unfurl (with close supervision, obviously) the Duckling's little hands to look at her fingers. I'm delighted with how things are going between them!! I think my two little girls are going to be close! :) 

Rice Paint

  My Mom says that tidiness skips a generation. She is immaculate, well-organized, everything in her house has a home-a place it belongs. I hear that her grandmother was the same way. My grandmother and I, however, are a little messier--more cluttered, more tolerant of messes. (After all--a towel, a little cling-wrap, some kitchen/floor/multipurpose cleaner--looks like the mess never even happened, right? :P ). Mom swears that Madelyn is destined to be neat and tidy.

After yesterday's little adventure, I'm almost starting to believe her. A friend of mine--see her blog over at "A Little Piece of Paisley"--and I have decided to, through the holiday months (October-January), take a picture a day of our little ones. They grow so, so fast! So, yesterday, to start things off, I decided it had been too long since Madelyn had enjoyed a bit of sensory play. And, if I could make it Halloween/October/Fall-ish...all the better!

Now, we've done some home-made paint before. It was incredibly runny, however, and Madelyn was quite a bit younger. This time, I mixed some rice cereal and water together to create a sort of globby paste, then mixed it with food coloring. In the spirit of keeping it Halloween-y, I used green, black, and orange. Then, I took six sheets of plain white cardstock--an item my house is rarely without--and taped them together on the back to make one big canvas of sorts. I laid down some towels and globbed my sticky paint all around the page in different places so she wasn't trying to dig it out of the bowl and then get it to the paper. (Since she's in the pick everything up stage, I hoped this would save some of the mess--at least she couldn't spill it!  {See, I'm more mess conscientious than Mom might think!})

Then, I handed Daddy the camera, reasoning that I didn't want to be trying to control a project of that kind of messy potential, and brought Madelyn into the living room, where her new game awaited.  At first, the Chicken seemed smiley and excited.

Then, she touched the goopy rice cereal paint. And she froze. She wiped it on her leg, then stared appalled at the glop on her knee. She tried to scrape it off one hand with the other and was unsuccessful. She looked between me, her Daddy, and the paper in front of her several times with a slightly confused, slightly disgusted look. She does NOT like to get messy (a definite sign that my mother could be correct!)

 She scooted over to me, and I started swiping through the rice paint with my own fingers. Whereas she never really got into playing on the paper, painting Momma turned out to be a blast! She'd scrape paint off the paper and then put it on my hands. Then, she wiped it off onto her own again.

 That is, until Daddy let her taste it. Once he showed her that it was EDIBLE. Well...anyone who knows Madelyn knows that eating is one of her passions.  She loves it. After that, she really lost interest in playing with the paint and stuck, instead, to trying to get it into her mouth. And nose. And hair.

At that point, we decided a bath was in order. I'm not totally sure Madelyn agreed as we were trying to get her TO the bath....but once there--well, there's squirty toys, bubbles, and red cups to be had.  What else is there even to say about that?                                 

So, It Stains...

  I know it's been a hot minute since I've posted anything--but it's been an extremely busy time for our little family. Today, though, I had my nephew, Chase, along with Madelyn, and I pulled out an idea I'd been saving....a jello sensory bin. I love bright colors, so I had stood in the grocery isle for some time contemplating the various pros and cons of every color of jello imaginable. And, now, today, my time had come! It was finally the "right time" to break out the jello!!

 I tried putting it in a mold, but even after several hours in the fridge, it wasn't completely ready to serve. So, I popped one of the little jello cups out and tried that. At that point, Chase didn't have a lot of interest in the goings-on, and Madelyn struggled to pick it up. She tends to grab things very tightly, and it mostly squished through her fingers. Personally, I thought she'd like the feel, but it irritated her more than anything else, since she couldn't seem to get a good grip.

 Madelyn couldn't figure out what I was doing with the camera, so she patiently indulged my attempts to capture her interested expressions. (P.S., aren't our boys handsome in the background?? They were really just being vultures, in the hopes that I would look away and give them half a chance to eat the jello.) I finally decided that the jello in the mold didn't HAVE to be completely ready, since the intention wasn't to eat the jello anyway. Honestly, it turned out way better to still be partially liquefied. The thick, squelshy mess drew Chase's attention, and Madelyn loved moving it all around in the bin.

 It helped that there were some big, thick chunks that were pick-up-able--Chase really liked pinching it off in pieces, and Madelyn was into whatever Chase thought was cool!

Whatever he was doing HAD to be at least as much fun--if not more--than what she was doing. I had a little trouble trying to keep her from taking it out of his hands--and a little trouble convincing him that sharing his clumps was a good plan. But, overall, they played in the bin really well together. Especially considering this was Chase's first go 'round with the sensory bin at my house.





Overall, this was  great game and held their attention longer than I might have expected...one little caveat, though. The jello seriously stains the skin. Madelyn's whole bottom, from waist to toes, was stained bright red, even after a bath. After the second attempt to get it off, though, it was light enough to mostly not notice. :)

Hot and Cold

 Before I even get started--is this girl and her Daddy not the cutest pair you've ever seen?? I love how excited she gets to be with him. :) It's presh. And, an added benefit--she was standing up "all by herself", which always makes her so incredibly proud of herself. You have to kind of watch her when she does, though, because she gets so excited that she starts bouncing up and down and her balance goes straight in the toilet. Sweet baby.

Today has been an especially pregnant-feeling day for me; I've been tired and sick to my stomach and just wasn't feeling up to anything terribly elaborate. Thankfully, I saw on Pinterest that the simplest games entertain the babies, and so I figured a game of hot and cold might be just the trick. I got out our--admittedly Christmas--platter and threw a few ice cubes on it to start. Madelyn was immediately fascinated. They were cold and delightfully wet. She loved touching them, and, at first, even enjoyed how they scooted away from her questing fingers. After a moment, though, that got a little frustrating for her. She kept at it though, because I guess she just knew they'd be tasty if she could get them up to her little mouth. Notice the look of intense concentration on her face when she tried it!

Once that got a little old, we switched it up and put a bowl of warm water in front of her. Sidenote: we didn't put a towel down. Our oversight, I assure you. Thankfully, we have some kind of weird fake hardwood that's a cinch to wipe up.  I really think she preferred the warm over the cold; I'm not sure if that was because it was warm, though, or because it was splashable. Daddy did offer some ice cubes back to her at one point. Those were easier for her to grab, since they weren't trying to escape on a slippery platter. The cubes wound up in the warm water, where they, predictably, melted.  Madelyn really enjoyed trying to catch them in the water, and she looked for them for quite some time after they had melted away.

But, as all things must, game time had to come to an end. Partially because it was nap time. Partially because she was over it, and I try to wrap things up right before she gets bored, in case I need the game for a later date and time. I still loved her look of "Ok...now what do I do? I've touched it, splashed it, tasted it...hmmm." Funny girl!

The Obstacle Course--Sort Of

     So, I know it's been nearly a week, but it has been a happenin' one, and so I haven't gotten the chance to really do a whole lot with Madelyn other than basic care/play. There's been a lot of medical stuff going on in my family, and so, truthfully, she's done more visiting than even being with me. So, yesterday, since her Daddy is currently a gimp--we decided to try something that would be easy to make, easy to play with, and easy to take down with a torn hamstring. And, since the Chicken has been working on her crawling, I decided an obstacle course would be JUST the thing.

  It wasn't.

  Madelyn had zero desire to crawl through all of my carefully crafted ideas--from the Box of Beads over Pillow Mountain to the Laundry Basket of Mismatched Balls. It is my opinion that her desire to move forward failed her, since the first stop (the Box of Beads) was such a hit. We took an old cardboard box, opened both ends to make a tunnel and hung cheapy beads from the top. Since it was a tad dark in there, we went ahead and threw in a couple of glow sticks on the side, like runway lights. (They did not stay to the side.)

 Mostly, I think she thought the beads were wonderful for eating. Matt stood at the top of the box sometimes and shook it, yelling, "Oh, no, Madelyn! It's an earthquake!" She thought that was especially funny.



She spent a good few minutes trying to decide just what the purpose of the glowstick was. This, below,  is her, "What in the gravy sakes is this?" face.

When she got a little fussy, she went down for a nap, but thankfully, the whole idea was still somewhat novel to her when she woke up! (The difference in her hair between before nap and after is significant. Don't judge. :P )

 When she woke up, I made the executive decision to leave her next to the Laundry Basket of Mismatched Balls,instead of going back into box. Without the beads, the balls became far more fascinating.  She especially liked the blue with polka dots. 
Daddy had found a squishy, green, sort of ball with almost slimy green arms. The Chicken has developed a love hate relationship with that sort of ball. It totally grosses her out, so she will touch it and then make the awfullest face! She pulls on the arms, then wipes her hands on whatever is convenient around. And, yet, she couldn't seem to stop touching it!

All in all, the obstacle course as a course was not successful. As individual play stations, however, it was a great game! Definitely Chicken approved!