Valentines day activity

Austin goes to a Moms Day out at our Church on Tuesdays.   This year they had a Valentines day party and asked the kids to bring in Valentines. Thanks to Pinterest and the Dollar Store, here is my creative take on a Valentine for a 2 year old boy.

We brought Elmo along to help us make them.  I found the 4 pack of balls at the Dollar store and already had ribbon and colored paper.   I printed out the tags and cut them the night before.

Austin helped me take the balls out of the bags.

Then he worked to feed the ribbon through the holes in the ball.  I then added the tag and tied the ribbon. 

And my computer is being fussy and I can't figure out why this picture wont flip.....just tilt your head to the right for me...thanks

I hope his little classmates enjoy them.

Non Superbowl - Superbowl weekend

We had our first Tifton visitors come up for Superbowl weekend.    After we made plans for the four adults and three kids to come join us, we realized that if they stayed for the Sunday Night game, making the 2.5 hour trip back home would be hard on those working the next day.  So, they still came even though actually watching the superbowl was not part of the plan that weekend.   (And we are so glad they came!!)

Austin got to share all his toys with one of his friends who is a few months older than him...it gave me a little preview of what life might be like in a few years, when my two boys are old enough to play with each other.  Here they are building a train.

Then we went outside and made some Moon Dough.  Took us a few tries to get the consistency right, and learned I need some different toys to play and build better sand castles.

It was a bit cloudy, but the rain held off and the adults got to play a game of washers

And a game of Boccie ball in our back yard.

We played against each other in some real boardgames....

and in some electronic 'board games'.   

(You can tell you have good friends when a game is interrupted because nap time is over and you realize that the dinner table is now occupied.  They don't complain about eating dinner standing at a counter or taking turns at the small kitchen table so you don't have to ruin the Settlers Board that was set up earlier)

I had an excuse to use my new 'perfect brownie' pan.   They were very yummy!

The next morning the weather was still nice so the boys played outside with some water balloons that Bob filled.   15 min for Bob to fill all the balloons and the kids took about 2 min to break them all.   But they had a blast doing it, so thanks for the effort to fill them Dad!

Then we filled the water table and got out all the empty containers I could find for the boys.

 The adults decided they needed some exercise after eating the entire pan of brownies last night, so we put the boys in one of my Craigs List finds, and they got four different people to give them rides up and down the street. 

And we did watch a little bit of the Superbowl after they left....here is Austin waiting for a good commercial to come on.

All in all we had a wonderful time and are very grateful for good friends who made the journey!

Puff balls and rocks

I have been trying to find more things to work on Austins manipulation skills.  I figured if he gets better with his hands, he may not make such a huge mess at meals because the food will go in his mouth.  (Or I just have to admit the fact that kids are messy, you have to wipe/sweep/mop/scrub your floor a lot!)

On this day, I just poured a bunch of puff balls and rocks on the floor, found some containers to put them in, and some 'tools' to use to put said objects into the containers. 

Rocks, puff balls, and Tweezers

Austin working to unscrew the lid off this container

The empty vitamin container is much more fun than the fancy one you bought Mom!

 See his tongue?  Lots of concentration on this one.

The tweezers work much better on the puff balls then the rocks

How about I pour from one to the other?

I didn't really get an 'after' picture.   All these items were spread all over the floor by the end of the day.  Austin went back and forth to this project a lot throughout the day.  When dad got home from work, they added his DumpTruck to the mixture to pick up all the rocks. 

Fun with Kethcup

I scored big time at goodwill the other week.  One of my finds were these ketchup, mustard and mayo bottles.  

What on earth can a 2 year old do with these things to have fun? 

Just add water.  (With Austin, adding water to pretty much anything means a good time)

We squirted them all over the driveway 

Add in a spray bottle (From walmart travel section $0.97) and a target to aim at.  Bugs work great too as we learned ants can kinda tread water.

Then we found the Ikea Funnels and these were by far the favorite.  Spent about 45 min pouring water back and forth. 



Water Beads!

Our activity for this week was Water Beads.  I have been reading about them on other blogs, and really wanted to try them.   When you look at them in pictures, it looks like marbles, but let me tell you, they are much cooler!

Here we are getting ready.  I had two colors, Yellow and Green.  Austin Picked Green.   (We got the water beads at walmart in the floral section for about $2 a packet) They start out super small!

 

We poured them into a bowl.  Austin doesn't think they look like much fun at this point.

We added 2 quarts of water....and the water turned really green!!! The instructions said to let soak for 6 hours.  We set the timer for 2 hours so we could come back and check on them. 

They look a little bigger Mom, (And of course...much cooler on the light table!)  Can I touch them?

They feel slimy!  Lets set the timer again and come back when they are done.

They are Huge! 

They are fun to pour from container to container.

Lets fill up this smaller container....

And S...H....A...K...E    it up!

Then I hid swizzle sticks (75% off chrismas decorations) in the beads and let him dig around for them. 

 

Things we learned.

-Next time I'll use a little bit warmer water to start with.

-Stress with your child that squeezing them will break them. (they turn into jello if you smush them..not the end of the world, but not as much fun)

-Water beads bounce - a lot.   We spent a lot of time chasing them around the kitchen floor. 

-Austins hands (and mine) did get a little bit green, but it's all gone today ( I made sure we washed our hands after we played because these are not the 'toy' water beads)

-If you have long fingernails...you will puncture them when sticking your hands in so be careful

All in all, water beads were a huge hit.  We'll be playing with them all week.

What have we been up to?

When walking through the store the other day, Bob found an alligator toy. 

We soaked it in water for 4 days! 

I love splashing in water!

Yep...I think it grew to 600% its original size.

Oh yeah...I got a pre-baby hair cut chop!  

I actually am now saving money by using less shampoo/conditioner, and I cut about 15 min off my hair drying time!  It's amazing what 5 inches of hair can do! 

One of the new toys we got out at his Birthday was actually a hand me down.   My Godson gave us his Train set for Austin.  We got it out last week and it was a hit.  Thanks Mathew!!!

More Fun with Lights - Birthday gel and Smush Bag

Here are two activities we did recently with the light table. 

The window Gel clings work really well.  I found a birthday cake pattern at walmart on Clearance.   He enjoyed pulling them off and using some colored Gems as well.   It looks more like water, but you can see the candle sticks and flames if you look closely.

WE also made a smush bag.  (Again, got the idea off playathomemom3.blogspot.com)

We used a baggie, Hair Gel, Glitter, and Food coloring.

Squeeze hair gel into the bag. You're supposed to use clear, but I had the pink so we used that.  Austin enjoyed squeezing the bottle!

Then I added food coloring

And next we used Glitter. (Side note....this is the same glitter that Austin unscrewed the cap on and dumped all over the kitchen floor the day before when I was cooking dinner.  Good things he's cute!)

He was so speedy at unscrewing that cap!

Once everything is in the bag, you close it and start smushing.  (I then taped the top closed with duct tape to be extra sure it didn't leak, also want to make sure you use a strong bag, there will be a lot of rubbing on the plastic and this one ended up tearing so i had to resqueeze all the 'smush' into a heavy duty freezer bag)

And of course everything is more fun on the light table!   ( The lady on the blog said she used this for older kids to practice their writing skills. )

Lets add some colored Gems too!