Organize

I love cute, functional things & it makes it even better if I can recycle something in the process. How cute is this for the kids art supplies or for your desk? Here is the link to find out how to make these. I need to start collecting so I can do this in the boys' room!

Robot Robot

My boys love anything Robot. Their room is actually decorated (& I use decorated loosely because it just has wall stickers) in robots. Here is a cute way to make robots & it is with stuff you usually have around the house. Hopefully we can make these this week (I already have one empty Jell-O box from our MTM lunch!)

Fun Ideas!

I just found this really fun blog. I went over to see how to make these:

YUM YUM


But, once I was over there...I started reading the other things that she has posted. She has posts about story time parties & fun theme nights...I can't wait to do something like this. A new library just opened up right down the street, so it is great timing to find this site. I will definitely be posting some fun story time activities soon.

She also has a recipe blog. I haven't tried any of the recipes yet, but they sound really yummy.

Under the Sea, Under the Sea

Today's theme for MTM is Under the Sea. We had fun with this one. Once again, the boys LOVED it. This has been so much fun to do!



Top to Bottom-Left to Right:

Eels (Carrots & Ranch), Fish (Fish Pretzel Crackers), & Water with Sharks (Blue Jell-O with Shark Fruit Snacks)

Star Fish (Cheese), Seaweed with Sand (Green Noodles & Parmesan Cheese), & an Octopus (Octodog--Hot Dog)

Check out all of the other MTM links here.

Just a reminder...

Tomorrow is Muffin Tin Monday! The theme is Under the Sea. If you join in...visit Her Cup Overfloweth & post a link to your MTM post. My boys love it & I bet your kiddos will too! Here is where the themes for each week are posted. They are on the left sidebar.

About May Day

I have been doing some research on May Day. Here is a simple explaination for May Day, but I will give you a basic summary.

May Day is celebrated on May 1st. It is to welcome spring into your home & is a celebration of the reappearance of the flowers in the spring. Many people celebrate by making crafts to exchange with their friends and neighbors. Flowers are frequently used in the different activities and crafts. The most common May Day custom is to secretly leave a basket of flowers or other small gifts on a neighbor's doorknob or doorstep.

How fun would it be to find a cute flower basket (real or fake) hanging on your door. I don't know about you, but that would really brighten my day!

Wondertime has a cute flower template & you could put a Hershey kiss, Rolo, or mini Reese's peanut butter cup for the center of the flower. Get creative with whatever you have in your house! Stick it on a popsicle stick or a pipe cleaner & there you have a cute flower!

This is all still pretty new for me, so I am sure I will be posting some more ideas that I have found on the Internet & also some that we actually make.

May Day

I love any excuse to celebrate. Skip To My Lou has been posting some ideas for "May Day". It is celebrated on May 1st. She has been posting about really cute flower gifts to give. Also I read that trees are popular May Day gifts. What a fun way to celebrate Spring.

I love this one.



Another cute idea would be to make cookie flowers. All you need is fudge stripe cookies, gumdrops, & bamboo skewers. Take a gumdrop & slide it on to the skewer (I did my gumdrop upside down). Then put your cookie onto the skewer & then put another gumdrop on top.

More Earth Day Ideas

I found a few more fun things for Earth Day.

To start out the day, I think that we are going to go on a nature walk & try to collect a few things like rocks, pine cones, dandelions, etc.

I am saw this around Easter, but it can be used anytime. You use dandelions to paint with.

Here is a cute idea for a water bottle maraca from Busy Bee Kids Crafts.



Here is a pine cone bird feeder.



I really like this Egg Carton Buggy Mobile from Kaboose.



I still haven't found the blog post about making the juice bottle bird feeder. From what I remember...you clean the bottle & remove any labels. Cut an oval shaped hole in the side of the bottle lengthwise, but high enough that the bird seed doesn't spill out. You could put a wooden dowel underneath it for the birds to stand on. Poke holes in the top by the lid of the bottle & thread string through the holes. Hang the bird feeder in the trees. I think we will try this tomorrow, so I will post better directions with pictures.

Earth Day 04.22.09

Tomorrow is Earth Day. I don't think that we are going to get any crafting done until tomorrow...so I will post a few ideas that I have seen.



I don't know about your house, but with two boys...we have a lot of rocks. Martha Stewart has a ton of cute ideas for rock crafts.



Just 4 Fun has a cute idea for painting the earth with a paper plate.



You could make a bird feeder out of a recycled milk carton, juice bottle, or soda bottle. I am going to look for the directions for the juice bottle bird feeder that I came across a couple of weeks ago because I think that is what we are going to do & I will post it tomorrow. (if I find it!)

No time for flash cards made one of our a milk carton.



If I come across any other ideas I will be sure to let you know!

MTM goes AWOL!!!

Today's MTM went AWOL. I thought that I had a great idea to have MTM go to the zoo, but as I was packing our lunches I decided that I really didn't want to carry around dirty muffin tins. I chose to do Plan B & we had our picnic at the zoo & MTM moved to dinner instead of lunch. We ate in the family room on a blanket.

Here is what we had:


left to right...shredded cheddar cheese, tortilla chips, black olives, mandarin oranges, thick & chunky salsa, & black bean & corn salsa.

I think it was a hit!


**Check out all of the other AWOL MTM Mama's head over to Her Cup Overfloweth.

Today's project...

Last week we rented "Bedtime Stories". The boys loved the movie. Normally for our bedtime story...we just read a book of their choice. Last night, Kaden asked if we could do a bedtime story like in the movie. We took turns adding to the story & it was pretty entertaining. I remembered a fun idea that I saw on another blog (I don't remember where...SORRY). This morning, we sat down & I typed the story as Kaden told it. I typed EXACTLY what he said word for word. Preston really wasn't into it, but Kaden LOVED it. His story was about Jack the Spaceman. After I printed out his story, he sat down to do the illustrations. We put some colored card stock for the cover & he decorated that too. I had hoped to tie the book up with some cute string, but my hole punch has eluded me...so I opted for the old stapler. I tried to get some pictures of the inside of his book, but the pictures were so light they wouldn't show up.

It's Monday & that means....

It's Muffin Tin Monday again. I love how excited the boys are about this! Today we didn't have a theme, but I would like to say my theme is "use whatever is in the cupboard because we need to go grocery shopping today". If you want to check out some other muffin tins here is the blog. Well, enough chit chat...here is our Muffin Tin Monday creation:



(left to right--top row): Scooby-Doo! Graham Cracker Sticks (thank you Easter Bunny), a chick peep (once again...thanks Easter Bunny), & raisins
(--bottom row): yogurt & a double duo of mac & cheese with hot dogs

The boys love to dip graham crackers in their yogurt.

Mmmmm...

***WARNING...WARNING***you may need sunglasses to look at these cookies!!***

My cookie jar has been empty for a while now & I have been itching to bake some cookies to fill it. I have been having a hard time choosing which cookie to make (...chocolate chip, snicker doodle, peanut butter blossoms, oatmeal chocolate chip....). Yesterday I came across some intriguing cookies. They are called play dough cookies. The recipe is pretty basic. Here is the post about it. They show pictures of most of the steps (hers are a lot cuter too!)...so I would check it out!



I wanted to turn this into a learning experience...so we talked about what happened when we mixed colors. The boys had fun figuring out what colors would make what. Our purple turned out a little interesting, but overall I think that it was a good experience.

It is also a very hands-on process. The kids can make the dough, mix the colors, roll the cookies into snakes, & coil the dough. My boys had a blast & though the colors we did are a little over the top...we had fun (& the cookies are really yummy)! They would even be fun to put on a stick.

The recipe:

3/4 cup butter (softened)
3 oz cream cheese (room temp)
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla (I added 2 tsp)
2 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1. In large bowl, cream together butter, cream cheese, & sugar until fluffy. Add egg & vanilla & mix until smooth.

2. In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, & salt. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture. Stir until soft dough forms.

3. Divide dough into fourths. Tint each with a different color of food coloring. Wrap each color of dough separately & chill for 2 hours.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take a small amount of each color & then roll into a snake. Coil the snake starting at one end. Place on cookie sheet & bake for about 8 minutes.

Paper Daffodillies

We made some cute paper daffodillies (as Goofy would say) from Busy Bee Kids Crafts. First, I started out with some yellow construction paper. I used a cookie cutter to trace the star shape & cut them out. Then I cut some strips. For the size of stars that I made I cut them 1 inch wide & just under 4 inches long. Then, you need some craft sticks & either a green marker or some paint.

We started by gluing the strips into a circle. I had to paperclip the ends together until it held. You could also use tape. Then we glued the circle onto the star.

While the flower part dried...the boys painted their craft sticks green.

Once everything was dry...we glued the flower onto the green craft stick. I found the cute mini flower pots at the dollar store & they came in a set of three. A little floral foam & some stones & they are done!! I love them in my window sill!!!

PrEsToN's

KaDeN's

Spring Inspirations

I have decided to try something new. I love doing things with the boys. I have been reflecting on the last few months & have come to one conclusion...we have been in a rut. From January until now....BLAH!!! With Spring approaching (depending on the day) I have been inspired. I guess the sunshine has opened my eyes. My new goal is to do something special with the boys each & every day. It doesn't have to be a BIG deal. Some days will be bigger than others. Not every day will be post worthy, but it will be worthy of my sweet boys. Stay tuned & we'll see how this goes. Today will be my first day & we are having a family movie night with an extra special treat (mini pudding pies).

Check this out...

I was doing my morning blog surfing & came across this website. It is called Busy Bee Kids Crafts & they have some really cute ideas to do with your munchkins. I love the daffodils.

Muffin Tin Monday

Today we did our first Muffin Tin Monday. Over the weekend, I took the boys to the store & let them pick out their muffin tins. Kaden has been asking for the last 3 days if it is Monday yet. He has been so excited! The theme for today was Easter/Spring. I found a few really cute ideas from family fun. They LOVED everything & ate it all. This will be a weekly thing for us now! Here is the website that does the Muffin Tin Mondays.



top row (left to right): flower cookies, pb&j sandwich, & yogurt.
bottom row (left to right): ladybugs on a stick (I cut the strawberries too much), deviled egg, & bug graham crackers.

Egg Animals

How cute are these? The directions are on family fun in the Easter Egg Menagerie section. I love the pipe cleaner egg stands.

Handprint bunnies

I found this today from a fun blog called just for fun. She is one of the "Muffin Tin Monday" ladies. The boys loved it!

First you paint your little one's hand with white paint. You only paint the palm, the ring finger, & the index finger. Then have them put their hand on the paper.


Then they stick their thumb in pink paint & put it on the bunny for the nose.


After the nose, then they draw some eyes, a mouth, & some whiskers.

The finished product. Kaden had me retake his original picture because he wanted to stick his tongue out. Aunt Amy, if you are reading this...the boys both want to send their bunnies to you for your birthday...so we are mailing them out with your cute cards they made!

Muffin Tin Monday

I ran across this blog
today & it had the cutest idea. I think meals (especially lunch) can get boring, but there is a group of moms that does "Muffin Tin Monday". They do themes...colors, holidays, shapes, etc. (The picture below is rainbow) I will be out getting some silicon muffin tins this weekend so that we can start "Muffin Tin Monday".

Here are the themes that are listed on the sidebar of her blog:

04.06.09: Easter/Spring
04.13.09: No Theme
04.20.09: MTM goes AWOL! (Take your tin to another location..park, bedroom, friend's house, etc.)
04.27.09: Under the Sea (Ocean, Sea Life, etc.)

**Check out her blog & the other people who do Muffin Tin Monday. They have some to the cutest ideas to do with your kids. Tonight we will be making hand print bunnies.

Jell-O Juice

This is an AWESOME joke!! I made the Jell-O this morning & poured it into the cups. I hid the cups in the back of the fridge so that little eyes wouldn't see. When lunch time came around, I served them the Jell-O juice. It took a while for them to take a drink, but when they did it was so funny!! They just kept trying to get the juice out & couldn't figure out what was happening. When I said "April Fools" & told them that it was Jell-O..we had a really good laugh together. I recommend this one!

Magic Milk

This morning I did the Magic Milk Prank from Family Fun. They LOVED it. Kaden even joked that our milk was turning blue when he got the milk out of the fridge, but it was really going to happen soon.