Something old becomes new.

A few Christmases ago the kids got an easel. I can say it did not get nearly enough love when it was down in the playroom. I actually really disliked it in the play room. The chalk would get scattered all over and ground in the carpet or the lids would get left off the dry eraser markers and that would be their demise. It just didn't work. When we did our house shuffle we ran out of room in the girls' room and there was no way Titus was getting something he could use to mark on the walls with in his room. So I decided to bring it into our kitchen. (We had previously tried having the kids' little kitchen in my kitchen but it wasn't working out well either so I moved it down to the girls' room.)

I can officially say the easel has found a wonderful new home! The kids love drawing on it when I am cooking. Grace practices words. They draw. I occasionally leave Grace surprise notes while she is at school which she loves to see if she can read. Did I mention the draw for hours? Its wonderful. We also got some dry erase crayons which we are REALLY loving. (no lids to worry about!)

I LOVE when something old becomes new and wonderful again. This toy was in the danger zone of ending up in our next yard sale and now its our new favorite!

Making Valentine's Cards

This year for Valentine's day we decided to make our own Valentine cards from materials we had on hand. The girls both had a nasty virus the week before with a fever that lasted 5 days so it gave us some time during their bursts of energy to work on them. We started with cupcake liners. (I happen to have a whole supply of these that I buy in bulk for my business) We dyed them two different colors to make the flowers.

Faith did a lot of the dyeing while Grace wrote all the names of her classmates on hers.

I had printed the message "Bee My Valentine" on card stock. We had lots of pipe cleaners and pom poms on hand which worked great for the center/stem of the flower. We also found enough different bee stickers from our sticker collection to add them.
We even sprayed them with some perfume so they smelled good.
Overall the project was a success, however for next year we purchased some Valentine's at 75% off. Much simpler and Grace was feeling a little too different from all her classmates.

Book!

Titus has finally started showing interest in books! It started with him asking to take this "cho cho" book to bed. I was surprised he even knew to call it a book- that is how little interest he has shown in the past. So I was thrilled and readily agreed to let him take it to bed with him. After about a week of that he started crying to go in his bed when I would read to Faith before nap time. I had this "aha" moment when I thought to myself, "Why don't I read to you before bed?" Well, actually I know why. Its because he crawls all over and tries to rip the book out of my hand and then gets into mischief while I try to read to Faith. I found I enjoyed the time more with her if I put him down for nap first. But, I tried reading to him while he is laying down in his crib by himself and that works great. Now when he gets in bed he excitedly shouts over and over, "BOOK!"

He has even progressed to wanting to go get his own book if I am reading to the girls. Today he took my hand and drug me to the couch to look at a book with him. And I have a new resolve to include him in our reading time....even if he is a bit more rambunctious.