Elsa Pumpkin

The 2014 holiday season has begun. Lane brought home a paper pumpkin project for school. I've helped create many paper jack-o-lanterns but this one was especially fun.  

The typical jack-o-lantern wouldn't do for Lane. No, she wanted a special one. As we looked through templates for pumpkins online, Lane was thrilled to see printable stencils   

She picked a princess Elsa stencil and we set to work. We cut a pumpkin out of orange paper and added our stencil.  She glued the green stem on top and added glitter for a finishing touch. 

Here it is -- our kindergardener's fall creation.  

Yy is for yellow yarn

I took Gabriel to JoAnns to buy some craft items. He was very helpful but I had to explain that the pricey scrapbook cart wasn't a great piece of luggage. He talked me into buying yellow yarn. He adores yarn and it was in sale for under $3, so it was an affordable splurge.
Gabriel and Lane wanted to do something with the yarn after school. While they snipped pieces of yarn, I decided to make another "y" art project with Lane.
I printed a letter Y and cut it out for her. We glued it to yellow paper and Lane had fun adding yellow poms and her pieces of yellow yarn to her letter Y.

Y is for yoyo

Lane wanted to create a project to share at school tomorrow. She transitions better to school when she has something to share with her friends. We looked through ideas and she picked "y is for yoyo"
We cut a circle out of a paper plate. Lane happily painted the circle purple. Then we glued the purple circle and yarn to a piece of paper. Easy peasy - we had a "y is for yoyo" project

Monday of Spring Break 2012

The day didn't start off as I planned. The kids and I slept in until 8:40. This is a rarity for us! Most days I would be thrilled I got to sleep in so late but I wanted to leave by 9 to meet a friend and her family. I had to cancel on her which was disappointing. I got the kids dressed in their swim suits rather than regular clothing because they had swim lessons at 1. They adore their swim coach/teacher but for some reason decided they did not want to go swimming. They complained for over an hour about going to the pool. Alex didn't stop complaining when we got to the pool and Lane claimed that she was scared.

Two hours later, no one would know our morning was filled with complaints when they were splashing happily in the pool with their friends. Ah, I thought the day was salvaged and we could move on. In my mind, this is a precursor to our humid and hot summer days. I took the kids to get a snack and headed home. The complaining started again. I told them that it needed to stop or they could sit on their beds until bed time. Up the stairs we went so the kids could get changed out of their swim suits. Alex said that he was going to to the play room to play with blocks. Gabriel followed him. Great, I thought as I helped Lane with her duplos. Not so great was when I heard Gabriel call my name followed by Alex telling him "Don't tell Mom. She will stop us." This is what I found on the wall:

My 5 and 7 year olds painted on the white wall. Lane chanted: paint on paper, not on the wall! Thankfully it was kids paint. Unfortunately, it took over half an hour to clean the wall. Gabriel was very angry that I didn't keep his painting on the wall. I patiently explained that if he used any of the paper in the bin, we could keep that art work. Please, please, please let this NOT be a prelude to our long summer!

Create Mai children, create

I posted about the fun chalkboard and magnet boards I made this fall. The magnet board has become a second chalkboard for the kids and that's okay but now I'm on a mission to figure out another magnet board that doesn't involve our refrigerator.
The kids playroom is much smaller than in our last home but it's just as adored as it's larger counterpart in Iowa I really like the way this wall section turned out. It's probably a good thing we are renting because I could go color crazy in their little space. The problem would be that I would try to accomplish more than is possible in my day.

Smurftastic

Alex's teacher asked me to purchase some items for his classroom. I wasn't positive what she wanted so we went to her room after school. It's awesome to get time with her without the class there.
The kids kept themselves entertained with snacks and coloring. When the paper got boring, they turned their
markers on me. They decided to turn me into a smurf
Tonight I'm still covered in marker especially blue and it itches. Yet, I will recommend this: if you want to talk to a teacher for two hours with only small interruptions, let your kids turn you into a smurf.
I hope the markers are truly washable in the morning, because it looks like a bad tattoo.

Crafts part 5 holidays 2011

In an effort to keep the children, busy I made snowflakes with them. I spraypainted craft sticks silver and used my hot glue gun to create snowflakes.
Each child was given their own glue. They had buttons, glitter, and paper shapes to create a masterpiece. And create they did. Lane was able to squeeze her glue bottle and complete everything on her own.