Silliness: Mustache Mania!

There are plenty of things that you can find at the dollar store to keep you entertained. Some of them are great and others not so great. Fake mustaches fall among the GREATS! And you can use the mustaches for all sorts of activities! Pretend that you are a notorious bad guy going to rob a bank, and let your child save the day. Or add them to your birthday party theme along with other dress up clothes. Or have a contest to see who can be the most creative with their mustache placement. The possibly activities are endless. Here's what we did....

Items Needed:

Dollar Store fake mustaches (I have seen the same ones at ToysRUs and I think even Walmart)

Camera

Giggles

They came in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Here is Mia before we started playing.

Mia was a little nervous about having things on her face, so mommy went first.

If I remember correctly, I was actually holding Mia's hands down in order to take this picture. She kept trying to pull off the mustache.

Next it was Daddy's turn.

Uni-brow!

This is my attempt to raise a single eyebrow. Although it felt like it worked, it obviously didn't.

We put a mustache on Kitty to help Mia enjoy mustache time, but not force her to wear them.

Here's Papa!

Kitty up close!

Momo's turn!

I don't even know what face I was trying to make here.

Winnie the Pooh! My, how you have aged!

Results

Alright, so I admit that I got this packet of mustaches for Mia, but when all was said and done, I had WAY more fun than anyone else. It's probably evident based on on the fact that there are more pictures of me in mustache glory, rather than other people.

Activity: Dance Party!

As the name of this post suggests, we had a dance party today! Mia's cousins, Brooklyn and Jenna, came for visit and asked me to put on some music. So then we all started dancing! It was a great way to get out some wiggles. Most of the kids tuckered out after about 10 minutes. Here's more of the details....

Items Needed:
Music (I vote for kids music, or whatever you feel is appropriate for their age)
Music Player (iPod/iPad, DVD player, CD player, Computer/tablet (for using Pandora), etc.
Your Voice (in case the power is out and you want to create music anyway)

Here's how it went:

I turned on the music and the girls just started dancing!

Results:

This activity was a lot of fun. And adults can do it too if they want. Mostly the girls just stomped their feet, twirled, and jumped with their arms in the air. 

Helping: Clean up, Clean up, Everybody, Everywhere!

I've noticed lately that Mia has been copying a lot of what she sees people doing. If you dance, she dances. If you read, she reads. If you clean, she cleans. So for Christmas, I thought she would enjoy a little play cleaning set (I found hers at ToysRUs). Here is what we did:

Items needed
If you don't have a toy cleaning set, get out some extra wash cloths, scrub brushes, or Clorox wipes (depending on the age of your kid).
Vinegar (or some other all natural cleaning products that is safe for kids)
Music (if you want)

 I had Mia help clean the side of the fridge, since that's where we do a lot of things with magnets.

Mia also helped clean off the chairs, since she had gotten finger prints all of them. Even after I stopped cleaning them, she kept going. It was very cute.

Results
For at least light cleaning, I think it works very well. Especially for all those little tiny cleaning projects that you've been meaning to do for months and months. Just remember to make it fun, and not worry so much about correcting their cleaning. They can learn to clean better as they get older.

Wednesday is Library Day!

It's no surprise to those that know me that I love to read. And happily, I have transfered much of that love to my daughter, Mia. As this is the case, we are usually at the library for one or both of us at least once a week, particularly on Wednesdays.

In our area, the libraries has baby story time, Toddler time, and Pre-school time, where the teachers uses songs, actions, and books to teach concepts. It's a lot of fun and the kids get to wiggle while the parents/guardians participate or talk amongst themselves. Sadly, story time stopped between Thankgiving and Christmas, but it will be starting up again next week. And since I knew in advance that the library would be closed here and there around the holidays, I decided to check out a lot of books in advance, so that we would'nt be scrambling for things to read.

Since it was Christmas time, we got books about Hanakkah, Santa, Jesus, and other holiday topics. My favorite books turned out to be the ones where a song was put to pictures in book form. Like "Away In A Manger". I ended up singing through the book slowly, and Mia couldn't get enough. She even started singing with me. :)

What are your favorite library or book memories? Do you and your family have any favorite holiday books?

The Thankful Tree!

Seeing as Thanksgiving is at the end of this week, I thought it would be fun to do an activity about being thankful. I got out my supplies and got to work. Here's how it all went down.

Items needed:

Constuction Paper (I chose fall colors because of the season)

A large paper bag (I grabbed one on my way out of the grocery store)

Scissors

Writing Utensels (crayons, pens, dark pencils, etc.)

Clear Tape (such as scotch tape, or masking tape would also work)

Large paper bag from the grocery store.

     I cut off the very bottom of the bag, and then along one of the side seams. Then I cut "branches". I don't think that there is a right or wrong way to cut the branches.

I taped the tree to the refridgerator.

  I cut out the leaves ahead of time so that I didn't have to deal with kids and scissors.

Here are Mia and her cousins. I'm getting the tape ready, and they are waiting to put more leaves on the tree.

We're just about done! I can't get them the tape fast enough....

     I think that this activity worked really well. Brooklyn (almost 5) was able to write some of her "thankful" words by herself, but the grownups had to help the littlest kids (2 and 20 months) . The only problem that I had was not being able to get little rolls of tape ready as quickly as the kids wanted. They were very good at waiting for their turns though.

Here is a list of some of the things we were thankful for:

Fishies (gold fish crackers)

House

Clos (This is how Brooklyn spelled Clothes)

Family

Mommies and Daddies

Bed

Love

Forgiveness

Church

Scriptures

Sun

Heat

Animals

Toys

etc.

Have you tried something similar? How did it go? What suggestions or ideas do you have?

Shaving Cream Art

I've been hearing from a lot of moms lately about "painting" without actually using any paint. It has been suggested that I use jello, pudding, water, soap, shaving cream, and other materials. In an effort to use what I already had at home, we opted this time to use shaving cream as our medium. Here's how it all went down:

Items needed:
Shaving cream (the cheap stuff would be great for this project)
Cookie sheets or 9x13 pans
Any small toys that you want to have the kids "search for"

Participants:
1 almost 5 year old (cousin)
1 just turned 2 year old (cousin)
1 20 month old (Mia)

Messiness/Clean-up?
Super easy to clean up. It can get a little messy though, so I would suggest having towels nearby and perhaps putting a plastic table cloth on the table.

I started by adding shaving cream and Cheerios for texture. You could of course add toys or something else to it.

I had to practically shove Mia's hands into the shaving cream. As you can tell by her face, she didn't like it.  Maybe it was because she had just woken up from a nap and was unusually grumpy.

This is Mia's 2 year old cousin Jenna. Apparently, Jenna didn't like this activity the first few times she did it either. But now she loves it!

In fact, she loves it so much that she gave her "baby" a bath in shaving cream.

This is Mia's almost 5 year old cousin, Brooklyn. Shaving Cream Art happens to be one of Brooklyn's favorite activities.

I definitely plan to try this activity again, but this time I will do it when Mia is in a better mood.

Have any of you ever tried an activity like this? Did you use Shaving Cream or something else? How did it go? What suggestions or tips do you have?

Yabba-dabba-don't?!

On Veternas Day, we also went to the LeMay Car Museum in Tacoma, Washington. It was awesome seeing all those cars beautifully displayed. Highlights included THE FLINSTONES car from the movie (not a replica, but THE actual car), and a 1983 Delorean (I don't think that this was the one from the movie. The sign said that it was made popular by the movie Back to the Future).

Official Flinstones car used in the movies.

1983 Delorean. This exact car was not in the movie, but it's still awesome to see.

I was quite surprised to find a car from 1899. I really didn't know that they had cars that early.

This car was from 1899 and ran on steam.

Mia was just fine in this museum. She had LOT of room in the aisles to run and wiggle and do just about anything. She did get a little squirrelly at on point, so I busted out the handy dandy stomp your feet as you walk, and kick your legs as you walked. It worked perfectly. I think that the best part for the older kids was the virtual driving area, so make sure that you plan in advance for that. You will need an extra ticket.

What kinds of car activities have you tried with your kids? What did you do? Did it work well?

Let's give a hand to the turkey!

With Thanksgiving coming up at the end of the month, my crafting thoughts turned toward my much younger school days. Many of you probably did a craft like this at some time in elementary school, or girl scouts, or something like that. I decided that I would give it a try with my 19 month old.

Items needed:

Fall colored construction paper
Scissors
Scotch tape (or masking tape would probably work)
Crayons, colored pencils, or markers (if you use white paper like I did)
1 paper bag (I used a small bag, but if you are doing this with multiple kids, then I would use a larger back for the turkey body)

I started by tracing her hands onto a piece of white paper. You could also use colored paper, I chose to let Mia color her own "feathers". Since she's so young, I also did the cutting. Older kids could probably do the cutting themselves, with supervision of course.

Once the hands or "feathers" were colored by both of us (we took turns), we took them all to the refrigerator. Where you decide to place the turkey is up to you (i.e. the wall, refrigerator, dish washer, etc).

I am adding scotch tape to the lesser colored sides of the hands.

And now it's pretty much like "pin the tale on the donkey", only without the blindfold. I handed the ready taped "feathers" to Mia, who then put them on the refrigerator.

I forgot to mention that I cut out the turkey "body" by just making a bowling ball shap on a paper bag that I grabbed on the way out of WINCO, along with my other groceries.

After the "feathers" were all up on the refridgerator, I arranged them around the turkey until it looked like this.

So there you go! How has it worked with your kids? Any tips, comments, or suggestions?

By way of further introduction...

This is my husband Jacob, and our daughter Mia.

And this is me, Andie, being very silly with Mia. We do that a lot.