art group - marble painting

Our Toddlers, Twos, and Threes Art Group at the Pittsburgh Toy Lending Library is back in action for the new year.  This week we marble painted, which is always a hit with grownups and children alike.  

Dumping the marble from a cup into the paint.  We liked using the spoon to transfer the marble from the paint tray to the box - it adds for a little extra fine motor control to the game.  Some friends liked to use their hands.  Everything goes at art group.  

Shake, Rattle and Roll.

Some friends liked to make it go super fast.  Others liked to watch it roll slowly from one corner to the next.  It is always fun to see each child interact so differently with the materials.

 Well, really I have to observe super quick because Abby is in and out of the art area in one minute or less and Eleanor is usually leading the way to climb UP the slide.

merry christmas and a happy new year.

This year,  Christmas was a whirlwind of many of our favorite people, car rides to and from our two families, staying up way too late, eating way too much sugar, bittersweet moments, and an epic birthday bash for my dad.  All in all, it was a very special time.    

 

My genius moment:  Putting a large, red felted circle at the end of the lights so I knew where to start taking the lights down when it was time to clean up. I can never seem to find the end.  Problem solved.  

Here's to:

Refreshed linen drawers.  

New bins to keep us organized.

 A tidied art room with a new system in place to give some order.

Fresh starts.

Fresh ideas.

New fun to be had.

And a very happy new year!

an early gift

According to our Advent Activity Calendar, day four directed the girls to open an early present.  I have to be honest.  This present was as much for me as it was for them.  I have wanted this for years.  

 I wanted a creche that was beautifully made, yet functional.  And functional for a three year old means she can play hard and it won't break.

We put the creche together by ourselves, which is a feat in itself as I have a terrible time following directions.  You know it's bad when your three year old is looking at the pieces and the picture and telling you what to do.

We like to read The Jesus Story Book Bible.

Abby liked using the both the pictures from the story and the characters during play.  There was a lot of singing about the beautiful baby.  She has just started to engage in imaginative play contently by herself.  As you can guess, hearing a three year old retell the Christmas story is pretty awesome.  My favorite part was Mary and Joseph using their cells phones to call their aunts and uncles with the good news.  :)

christmas tree saga 2011

                                           

every year i make our family buy a live tree.  except for one year when we bought the cheapest, ugliest artificial tree from craigslist.  we did that because josh seems to be allergic to Christmas trees.  for the first three years of our marriage, i didn't believe him.  i'm such a jerk.  the artificial tree was so depressing we went back to live trees  - even though josh has issues with it.  please don't be offended if you have an artificial tree - there are some beauties out there.  both of our parents have gorgeous trees.  

finding the *perfect* tree consisted of shaking two trees and asking abby which one she liked.

coco was made. 

i get a little uptight about placing the lights correctly.  josh knows his role at this point.

planning and plotting the light situation.  we had to go to home depot TWO times in ONE night for more lights and a bigger tree base.  yes, they must be color lights.  one little lady insists.

 drinking coco late at night was too much excitement.

ornaments were dumped in a frenzy.  even the glass ones.  and abby jumped on one splitting her toe open.  and that ended christmas tree hunting fun day very quickly.

and we were out of band-aids so josh made abby a much needed cast from paper towels and purple tape.  if it fell off in the night so awoke screaming, "I need my cast!"

one night later the blasted allergenic tree is up and decorated.  and all is well.  as well as it can be if you have a fake cast and an allergy to Christmas trees.

but really.  all is well.   

salt dough ornaments

Salt Dough Ornaments

• 4 cups flour
• 1 cup salt
• 1 1/2 cups warm water

Mix ingredients in a bowl.  

The more the merrier.  Knead until soft and smooth.

Roll the dough flat.

Cut out shapes.

Place on cookie sheet.  Poke holes with a pencil/pen.

Bake at 325 for an hour or so.

Hang out in your new Learning Tower just purchased from craigslist.

When cooled and you can get to it - paint away!  We used acrylic paint and glitter.  The unicorn is Abby's most precious possession!

Eleanor enjoyed putting her finger in and out of the hole in the ornament.  

Clean up made easy with the handy dandy Learning Tower.  Seriously, this thing has changed my life.

Glitter explosion.

advent calendars

These are a few ornaments from my great aunt's handmade Advent calendar.  A few years ago, I tried to make my family a copy of it.  I promptly stopped after making the tree and three ornaments.  They were lacking in every way.  So I  will proudly display Aunt Joan's version until one of my brothers tries to steal it in the night.  

So I am going to use two Advent calendars this year.  Is that a bit overkill?  If I'm asking the answer is probably yes.  I literally threw this calendar together.  It consists of the felt tree I made a few years ago when I could not live up to Aunt Joan's craftiness and felted circles with a paper circle listing a fun craft or activity for the day.  Done and done.

Here is our list:
1.  Make salt dough ornaments
2.  Decorate ornaments
3.  Pick out and decorate Christmas tree
4.  Open an early present!  (Shh - it's a wooden heirloom creche that I the girls can set up/play with)
5.  Make coffee filter snowflakes
6.  Make a jingle bell sleigh (box + Christmas ribbon with jingle bells hot glued to it = lots of fun)
7.  Make snowflake designs with q-tips
8.  Make Christmas trees from styrofoam cones, felt circles, and pins
9.  Bake sugar cookies
10.  Go to Phipps and dance with the fairies (Pittsburgh Ballet comes to Phipps, dresses up like Sugar Plum Fairies and teaches a dance/movement class)
11.  Bake gingerbread men
12.  Make a wrapping paper station - load up art room with tape, old wrapping paper, and bows so Abby can wrap up toys for pretend play
13.  Make gingerbread baby houses
14.  Make peppermint playdough with red and white glitter
15.  Create a winter sensory bin - pine cones, nuts, coffee beans
16.  Decorate a contact paper Christmas Tree
17.  Make easy gingerbread houses
18.  Sew mittens from felted sweaters
19.  Play The Mitten Game
20.  Paint winter scenes using q-tips
21.  Sew Christmas bags - instead of wrapping presents with paper
22.  Create tissue paper stars with contact paper
23.  Drive around to see the Christmas lights
24.  Make cinnamon rolls
25.  Merry Christmas!

One day I will put numbers on the front of the ornaments, but this works for now.

Eek - I am so excited for December 1st!