Kids’ Reads: Ducks Don’t Wear Socks

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

Remember when I went to the library booksale two weeks ago? I was so excited to pick up some more Mo Willems books and a few books I’ve never read before, but I was so super excited to find Ducks Don’t Wear Socks!!! This is a book we had checked out from the library once or twice before and we are big fans. And when hubby had seen that we scored a great book he was excited, too!!

It seemed the perfect choice for this month’s Kids’ Reads share. Have I ever mentioned Cupcake’s comfort toy is a duck? So, yeah, we kinda like ducks around here.

Ducks Don’t Wear Socks is a story about Emily, a very serious girl. And Duck, a very not serious duck. Emily tries to tell Duck that ducks don’t wear socks, but does he listen? Can Duck get Emily to stop being so serious?

I would find it hard to be serious if I saw a duck in underwear!

If you are looking for a funny story this one is kid, mom and dad approved!

Do you have any book recommendations? If so link up below and share with us! I’ll leave the link up open for 1 week, so feel free to pop in any time before then!

Disclosure: Post may contain affiliate links.

Color Sorting Beads

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

Cupcake has a fun new project. Actually, she’s been playing with her new color sorting beads for a few months, now, so I guess I should just call it a fun project. And I figured since she likes it well enough I would share. And by well enough I mean she wants to play with her beads every day. I picked up a bag of colored crystal beads at Joann’s (with a 40% off coupon of course!) and we were set for fun!

I dug out a muffin tin and set her up at her table for some fun.

It’s simple! She has a pile of beads. She sorts them by color into the muffin tin.

This bag of beads had 9 colors. So as she sorts colors she also says the color name out loud.

Sometimes she’ll just pick up a bead and sort it. Some times she digs in the pile to find all the beads of one color first.

Some times she just dumps all the beads into the tins because it makes a fun noise (and you have to make a fun face to do so!).

She really loves playing with her beads. It’s a great activity for color recognition, motor development and sorting skills. The beads are more for an older child who doesn’t put toys in their mouth, but if you have a younger child you can do this with larger items like pom poms or milk jug caps. Even if they don’t know the names of the colors, yet, they can start learning to recognize the difference in colors.

I’m sure we’ll be playing with color sorting beads on this rainy day!!!

Parties I link up with.

Kids’ Reads: Oh No, George!

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

Welcome back to another installment of Kids’ Reads. Do you guys like this series? The linking up has been non-existent lately, so I thought I’d ask. Should I continue this as a regular series without a link up? Does anybody even read my blog any more?

Anywho. This month I want to talk about a cute little book called Oh No, George! I Santa picked this book up on a whim from Amazon because it was on sale and it was on their list of popular kids books. It was a good choice!

We have a naughty puppy in this house and though his name is not George I thought Cupcake would enjoy a book about a naughty puppy. When I first cracked the book open I was worried that she wouldn’t enjoy the abstract illustration, but I was wrong! She loves the bright colors and can still see what is going on in the pictures.

The story isn’t too wordy, which is good for those kids that don’t like to sit still for too long to read. There’s a bit of repetitiveness within the story, which is great to get the kids interacting. I don’t know about your kids, but mine loves to memorize words to all her books, so a book like this is right up her alley. She can memorize it really quick!

There’s a bit of a lesson to learn, too. Good vs. bad choices. Temptation.

Spoiler alert! George’s favorite toy is a rubber ducky. It really is a cute story.

The author, Chris Haughton, has another book, Little Lost Owl, that I will definitely be looking into since we love this one so much.

So, what are you and your kids reading these days?

Magnetic Sensory Bottle

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

I’m on a roll here, people!!! Toddler activity time again. This time it’s a magnetic sensory bottle.

Gather up your materials.

You’ll need an empty, clean 2 liter bottle, pipecleaners, a STRONG magnet, a dowel rod and a glue gun.

Cut your dowel rod to a length comfortable for a toddler’s hand. I cut mine about 4 inches long.

Cut some pipecleaners into small pieces. I cut each one into about 6 pieces. I used about 5 pipecleaners.

Glue the magnet to the end of the dowel rod. Again, I stress, you need a strong magnet. The cheap ones from the craft store will work, but not very well. Try the office supply store.

Put your pipecleaners in the bottle, glue the lid on and let your toddler get to work!

It’s a great sensory and motor skill activity. Cupcake likes her sensory bottle. Though she seems to prefer just to shake the bottle instead of try to pull the pipecleaners up with the magnet, but that’s a toddler for you!

This post may be linked up with these parties.

Make Your Own Slime!

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

Just in case you didn’t find anything that was up your alley in my Indoor Activities for Toddlers post I have another idea for you. Make your own slime! I’ve been wanting to do this for some time, but I kept forgetting to pick up some glue. Yesterday we swung by Target (for the third time this week) and I grabbed two bottles of the cheapest glue they had. And today we made slime!!

All you need is glue, Borax and some water. A cute and inquisitive 2 year old helps, too.

Have your handy helper pour the glue into a bowl.

Mix 1/2 cup water and food coloring in with your glue and stir, stir, stir.

In a separate bowl add one teaspoon Borax and 1 cup water (I did the Borax measuring since I didn’t want Cupcake to inhale the powder).

Stir, stir, stir again.

Pour your glue mixture into the Borax mixture.

The mixture will solidify on contact! (Science is cool!!!!!)

You can start pulling the slime out of the bowl.

Or let your little helper do it! (There will be leftover water in the bowl and that’s OK.)

Squish!!! The slime will be quite watery at first, but as you play it will thicken up. (Feel free to mop up some of the water on the table, but don’t touch your towel to the slime or it will stick.)

Bathtub toys are great for playing in slime!!! Oh, no! The crocodile is stuck in the gooey goo!!!

And baskets with holes (from the dollar store) are fun, too!

Slime will keep those kiddos busy for hours! (or at least long enough for you to edit photos and type up a blog post!)

When you’re done playing for the day store the slime in a plastic bag in the fridge. Also, might I suggest putting a smock on your toddler since the slime does stick to clothes, though it will wash out.

Slime

Combine in a small bowl 4 oz glue + 1/2 cup water + liquid food coloring

Combine in a small bowl 1 cup water + 1 tsp Borax

Combine the two bowls and play!!

Have some slimy fun on this icy day!!!

Linking up with:

Indoor Activities for Toddlers

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

Winters around here are tough. It’s been cold and snowy and we hate being cooped up in the house all the time. We go stir crazy! We have to keep busy! Cupcake is a smart girl and she needs mental stimulation. Here’s some ideas for indoor activities:

1. Puzzles – she is so obsessed with puzzles. She started out with the chunky puzzles, then graduated to bigger peg puzzles, and now she has mastered “big girl” puzzles. We love the puzzle sets! She’ll do one, put it away, get out another, and repeat, repeat, repeat.

2. Painting – I love washable paint!!! Her favorite is the finger paint. I don’t let her use her fingers, but she has fun nonetheless. She always tells me she’s painting rainbows.

3. “Cooking” beans – I’ll give her a handful of beans, a spoon, a muffin tin, a small pot, and a bowl and she has fun stirring and pouring and sorting.

4. Pipe cleaners and pom poms – This is similar to cooking beans, except throw in a colander. This is a great sensory and fine motor exercise and it keeps her entertained. Threading the pipe cleaners through the colander, putting the pom poms in the bowl, sorting pom poms by size or color, these are all great ways to play (p.s. she was 18 months old in the above picture – so little!!!).

5. Driving cars – Cupcake loves driving cars, but sometimes she needs direction. That’s nothing a little tape can’t fix. She’ll follow that track and play with her cars a lot longer than when she’s without.

6. Play Doh – Sculpting and squishing and cutting is so much fun! You can make your own or use the store bought kind. When we first started playing with Play Doh I just gave her some old small cookie cutters I had on hand and a fork and knife. But now she has a great Play Doh Candy Jar set that has a roller, cookie cutters, an extruder and molds. There’s lots of pieces to play with

7. Baking – We love to decorate cookies or mix brownies, smash avocados or make granola. She loves to mix and pour and I love that she is learning how to cook and bake! I hope that she loves to bake as much as I do. But I really want to teach her to cook, but I also want her to be interested in it, so I’m starting her early!

8. Stickers – I love finding stickers on clearance. She loves to stick them all over herself. *fingers crossed* She’s never stuck them on kitchen cabinets or other furniture, so they’re a lot less messy than other forms of entertainment.

9. Playing dress up – As you can see in the puzzle picture above, girl loves her tutu. She also loves to wear necklaces. When hubby’s grandmother passed away I was able to go through her costume jewelry to pick a few things. I chose some pearl necklaces and Cupcake has had a ball wearing them! She loves to dress up and go to the talent show.

10. Get out of the house! – Some of our favorite things to do indoors, but out of the house are going to the library, the mall play area, playdates at a friends house, the indoor jumpy place, the Art Institute, the museum, and shopping!

Spring will be here soon and when the weather warms up we’ll be outdoors playing at the park, going for walks at the arboretum, and digging in the dirt. Well, unless it’s rainy, like it tends to be around here and then we’ll be back indoors playing dress up, baking cookies, playing Play Doh, and doing puzzles.

Linking up with:

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

We had our Valentine’s Day playdate yesterday since one of our friends has preschool on Thursdays. 5 mommas, 5 almost 3 year olds, and 5 getting mobile babies is getting crazy in my living room/kitchen! We had some delicious food including Chocolate Dipped Rice Krispie Treats, vegetarian chili (was soooo good I asked for the recipe), apple muffins, peanut butter bites, sugar cookies, chips and salsa, carrots and hummus, mmmmm……I ate too much!

The girls did a craft project. We made Love Bugs out of toilet paper rolls.

They loved the glue sticks! And Cupcake loved jamming foam hearts into my punch (and one of them will not come out!).

Messy face was pretty pleased with how her love bug turned out. And I love hearing her try to say googly eyes.

This ornery one is struggling with sleep since she learned how to roll over. She was so tired at the playdate. I got her to sleep, but it only lasted 10 minutes. The rest of the day was catnaps. She’s darn cute, though.

Playdates wear me out! Apparently they don’t wear Cupcake out any more. I think she’s done with the nap. I’m going to miss that nap from her, though she’ll still have quiet time in her room for an hour every afternoon.

She wanted to play with the craft supplies a little more, so she made a Valentine’s Day card for daddy. The plan was to stick it in his carry on bag since he had to head out of town for the day, but as soon as he came home from work Cupcake told him she made a special project for him. So she gave it to him.

Since it’s just me and the girls for Valentine’s Day today we’re going to play and read and snuggle and eat leftover pizza for lunch. We’re going to go to Qdoba for dinner to take advantage of their BOGO with a kiss deal (starting to become a tradition). And after the girls go to bed I will continue on my quest to ready this house for an influx of family this weekend!!

I hope you have a great Valentine’s Day with your loves!

Do you have any Valentine’s Day plans or traditions?

4 Months Old

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

Pumpkin is 4 months old!!! How is that possible? She just gets cuter every day!

She loves sitting in her Super Seat. She really wants to eat the ball. Check her out, rocking her newly dyed onesie.

She keeps stealing big sister’s maracas to chew on. Well, except it doesn’t fit in her mouth.

She’s this close to rolling over. Though she doesn’t seem to try very hard. My mellow girl, just happy to lay around. She’s too busy chewing on her fingers. Always chewing on her fingers.

UPDATE: She’s rolling!!!!!!!!!!

Borrowing other momma’s headbands at the park because we can’t find her hat.

Oh, those cheeks. I can’t resist them!

She’s getting more active. She loves playing with her animals and by playing I mean knocking the bar down every 2 minutes and laughing about it.

We made it past the 4 month sleep regression, thank goodness. Oy, waking up every two hours is rough. And by waking up I mean her, which means I was only sleep about an hour at a time. Ouch.

Poor thing has eczema, just like big sis. And her cradle cap. Oh, I’ve been moisturizing and scrubbing her head like crazy and I just can’t make it disappear for good. It keeps coming back.

She lets out the best giggles when you undress her. Should I worry that she’s going to be a nudist?

She’s still a happy girl and that makes me happy.

p.s. Don’t forget to join us next week for Kids’ Reads!!!!

A Day in the Life: Furniture Painting

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

The day started out with so much promise. Pumpkin woke up a little earlier than I would have liked, but at least hubby was up and out of bed. I brought her in bed with me (love side laying nursing in bed!) and Cupcake woke up and came in to snuggle, too. I was in a baby sandwich. And in heaven. We hung out in bed for another 10 minutes, the 3 of us girls, just snuggling and chatting.

We were expecting company this morning. We had a playdate planned. A perfect way to spend a rainy day. The girls played so well together. The mommas had fun chatting, picking out paint colors. We enjoyed some banana bread I had whipped up last night before going to bed. A good morning.

Nap time was nearing so the playdate came to an end. Pumpkin woke up from her nap. I returned from a diaper change to discover this.

Apparently she didn’t want her yogurt. Well at least not in her mouth. And this is why I want a new couch. I need something with a removable, washable cover. This one does not clean up well. Between two kids and a dog it looks like crap! And it’s uncomfortable. I’ve got my eyes on an IKEA sofa……maybe with a black, hides everything slipcover. And an extra slipcover. You always need two of those kinds of things. One to use while the other is in the wash.

I stripped her down to her panties, put her in time out, and scrubbed the cushions. And it was nap time. Upstairs she went.

Pumpkin and I hung out downstairs. I could hear Cupcake reading to herself on the baby monitor. And then she started calling for me because she “had to go potty.” She uses this excuse a lot. Of course once I put her on the potty she didn’t actually have to go. Back to bed.

Again, I could hear her reading, but then she got quiet. Ah, sleepy girl. Pumpkin and I got some good playmat time in as well as a good deal of tummy time. She doesn’t last long, though and it was nap time for her, too. I put her in the swing in the living room with me and curled up with my puppy under a blanket to read my library book (that was due today). Bliss.

And then I heard Cupcake coming down the stairs. I was surprised she was up from her nap already. I was even more surprised to see her naked from the waist down………….and covered in blue. I knew at once what it was. She was covered in bath tub paint. Cue the momma freak out!!!!!!!!

I ran upstairs, straight to the bathroom. No paint. I thought I was going to discover a blue mess all over her bedroom. Nothing. I asked her where it was. “Alyssa’s room.” She opened the door for me………….

Blue and green bath tub paint, made from food coloring, all over the beige glider. MADE FROM FOOD COLORING!!!!!!!! BEIGE FABRIC!!!!!!!!!!!! SOAP!!!!!!!!!!

She was not happy about the cold rinse she got in the bath tub. I was not happy about all the scrubbing I had to do. At least the carpet shampooer was already upstairs since we had an Oscar mess to clean up the day before.

Carpet shampooer + home made bath tub paint = foamy mess. It’s soap. Soap foams. There was a lot of scrubbing to do. As if the blue all over her legs and arms wasn’t enough evidence against her there was this, too.

As I was scrubbing every piece of the glider I looked over at the dresser. It had blue streaks down it, too. The white dresser. And the Boppy cover had blue streaks. The off white Boppy cover. Wait, back to the dresser……..the drawer knobs had blue….oh, please, oh, please, don’t tell me she got in the drawers. Thankfully not. And thankfully she didn’t dig in the basket full of clean diapers that was in the room.

The shampooer seems to be doing a good job. I think the blue might come out. I’m not sure if the soap residue ever will. And once again I am wishing I had a video monitor. Then I would have seen that she escaped and was quietly causing mischief in her sister’s room with the door closed. Or I suppose I would have discovered her sooner had I put Pumpkin down for a nap in her own room.

Thank goodness dinner was in the Crock Pot. I just needed to roast some broccoli for a side dish. Hubby had to work late today. That didn’t really go according to plan either.

I tried to eat it, but I kinda overcooked the broccoli. And the chicken ended up all chewy. It was a case of a pin gone bad. It was a dead pin. Clicking it didn’t link to the recipe, but the recipe was listed in the description. The picture looked good, though. And nothing like what you see above. Note to self: Don’t trust recipes listed in the description of a pin.

Plan B

A burger can fix that problem. Yeah, I loaded the girls up and hit up the Steak’n'Shake drive through. Pumpkin was fussy. She’d been awake for over 2.5 hours and refusing a nap. A car ride settled her down.

We ate our fatty food, I put an exhausted Pumpkin to bed a half hour earlier than usual. Pumpkin’s sleeping in my room tonight because her room is now a disaster and I don’t have a place to nurse her in the middle of the night. I put Cupcake to bed a half hour earlier than usual. And I’m about to put myself to bed earlier than usual. The kitchen is a mess, but I don’t care. I have a book to read, one that I now owe $0.10 on. I fully expect to be asleep before the hubby finally comes home.

Multicolor Crayons

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

Cupcake and I did a little project. She loves projects! You just tell her we’re going to work on a project and she’ll drop whatever she’s doing to work on it. Even if she doesn’t know what it is! She liked this project, though. We made multicolor crayons out of her old broken crayons.

She loved that I let her tear the paper off the crayons. I even gave her permission to break the crayons, but since they were mostly small already she needed a little help with that.

She loved filling the silicone mold with the broken crayons. We used a heart shaped ice cube mold from IKEA that we had laying around. She might have filled some hearts too full while not filling the others enough so momma did have to even them out a bit.

She was so proud of herself. I think she might have been happy just to keep rearranging the crayons in the mold, but alas the project had to go on! I set the mold on a baking sheet and popped it into the oven at 300 degrees for 15 minutes. In the meantime……

Cupcake and I had a birthday party. See, she’s wearing a party hat. And by party hat I mean silicone muffin cup. And being the nice girl she is she gave me 3 pieces of cake, while only having 1 herself.

She also invited Mortimer Moose to the party. I had to share my cake.

Time’s up!

Melty goodness! Oh, wait, those are crayons, not food. They’re pretty, though! Now they just need to sit and harden back up.

We popped them out of the mold and Cupcake went to town coloring! This was a quick, fun, toddler friendly project. And a great way to use all those old crayons. I think we’ll package them up and pass them out to her friends for Valentine’s Day!!