Keeping Ourselves Busy

Since Brian's been home recovering from his appendectomy and has needed more "quiet" than normal, we've been keeping ourselves busy!

On Sunday, we tried to spend most of the day out of the house so Brian could get some rest.

Before we left, we set up a little reading area
upstairs to enjoy while Mama showered!

And after I showered, we did a little after shower selfie.
#foxphotobomb

We ran a few errands and stopped at Petland to
see lots of pets!  Maya LOVED this little pup.
We visited with several pups in the play areas!

We dressed up quietly as Elsa.

And practiced using our powers.

And we also got warm and cozy in a bubble bath!

On Monday, we decided to get involved in some slime and rainbow art since we've still been on a rainbow kick and St. Patty's Day is this week:

Kate selected the green color and we made homemade slime!

After we cut up a bunch of tissue paper, Kate constructed a rainbow!

Select, crumple, glue, repeat.

Rainbow success!

We also dressed up as Cinderella, complete with
hair up and gloves.
Side note: I already know I'm going to miss these
dress up days one day...

When Maya got up from her nap, she got to play with some slime
too!  I think she also tasted it...

We also tried to teach Maya how to smile for the camera!  Love them!

On Tuesday, we let our curls loose for a little fun at the park and got lots of genuine bath time giggles:

That hair though!  The humidity does wonders for Kate's
gorgeous locks!

On Thursday, St. Patrick's Day, we saw what sort of shenanigans we could keep ourselves busy with at home:

We smiled our big smiles!

Played with some shamrocks on the felt board!

Picked out some fun toys to play with.

Tormented the dog.

And played in the playroom.
#bestillhersweetbabyheart
Those eyes.  Those lips.  That sweet baby perfection!

On Saturday, we once again looked into what sort of fun we could have at home.  Brian was feeling much better and actually went into work for a half of a day on Friday, so our "extra quiet/calm" enforcement was lifted!

Kate wanted to wear my sweatshirt during snack
because she was chilly.  She was dressed as
Princess Jasmine complete with belly showing.

And she looked so stinkin' cute.

I just love her to bits.

This picture cracks me up.  Maya sitting in her seat, Kate eating
Maya's puffs, and Jack watching her every move for any spare
pieces that fall to the floor...  This is my life.  And I love it.

Maya and her peas.  Don't let that face fool you.
She is NOT a fan of peas.

We are thankful that Brian is feeling much better and seems to be recovering quite quickly from surgery.  I imagine we'll still be keeping ourselves busy but that comes with the territory these days!

Heart Art

I found a cute tutorial online on how to make little heart suncatchers and I thought these would be fun to make for Kate and Maya's Grands for Valentine's Day.  I was wrong.  #youwinsome  #youlosesome

I found working with string and glue maddening.  And having to fit it to a pretty design is even more maddening.  You see, there's this perfectionist in me...and, well, that pretty much sums it up.

While I completed our annoying glue/string task, I was silently cursing to myself under my breath.  Note to self, projects that are going to take more than one day need to be seriously thought about...

These little guys turned out pretty and actually really cool but the frustration involved was not my cup of tea.  Add the fact that Kate wasn't nearly as interested as I had initially thought she would be and it was even more frustrating.  If we do make these again, I think we'll outline the design with glue and then lay the string down instead of soaking it in glue.  I'm not sure if this will work the same or not but it sounds easier than trying to manipulate a little string when your hands are sticky with glue.

The premise of this project involved printing the designs and
taping them on your table then taping a piece of wax paper on top
of them.

Then soaking a precut string in glue, squeezing
off the excess glue...

...And positioning the gluey string to your taped
template.

You then add a string for hanging later on.
This part was maddening too.  There was glue and
it was sticky and very challenging trying to make
it all look pretty.

You let this set up dry overnight and then you fill
in your areas with glue and color them with
watercolor paint.

This was the extent of Kate's interest.
[Cue steam coming from my ears now.]

You see, I don't push projects.  If Kate's not interested in doing something crafty, I don't force her to do it.  I don't want her to grow up loathing these types of things, but the fact that I had spent so much freaking time getting these strings set up and she only wanted to color two little tiny bits of one heart was challenging.  I ended up sitting down and putting the glue on, and asking Kate what color she wanted, and then I colored the rest in.

I only completed the two hearts.  If Kate wasn't interested, I didn't want to waste to much more of my own time.

We let these guys dry overnight again and then peeled them off of
the wax paper.  This project gets a 50%.  That's failing.

But they did turn out pretty against the window...and if Kate was
more interested and wanted to finish the other two hearts, I think
we would have used these for Valentines.

But she wasn't, and because her Valentines's to her Grands are going to be from her and not from me, we hung these two (three) hearts up in her playroom and called it a day.

Back to the Valentine drawing board...

The Doll House

I got some inspiration from Young House Love on how to build a doll house and loved the sleek look and simple design so I thought it'd be easy and fun to build one for Kate.  I consulted with my master wood worker, Tom, about the ease of said project and he seemed to think it was completely doable, he just needed some plans.

So I sat down and drew up some plans...

That year of architecture in college DID come in handy!

...that was three months ago.

Tom got to work, in September, and completely built this beautiful, sturdy doll house for Kate.  I, on the other hand, completely dropped the ball in getting it papered and lovely for a princess to play in.

He is a master builder.

Progress!

Tom even added this wonderful shingled roof!

Today, however, I got to work.  I NEEDED to get this done...for Kate.  (Especially since she had already found it several times in the basement and again in the garage.  #parentingfail  I must get better at "hiding" things.)  In my defense, I selected paper to use and when I asked Kate if she liked it she plainly said, "No.".  No.  She didn't like what I had initially selected.  So then I had a major complex about the wall paper.  I ended up taking her with me to the paper store and asking her what she liked to get a better feel for what she was looking for.  In the end, and with her assistance, we were able to compile a perfect combination of papers to complete this masterpiece!

It's a beauty, right?!

Kate picked the happy stripes and I picked the floral.

It's become a perfect princess palace!

I am so pleased with how this beauty turned out and Kate has been playing with it non stop!  I love an inexpensive, homemade project that will be used for years to come!  I know Maya will get plenty of use out of it too!

Thank you, Tom!

DIY Felt Board

I've made a couple of felt boards as Christmas presents this year because I think they are so much fun and they can be used for so many different things.  When I was searching online to purchase said board, I noticed they were all super expensive and super small.  Enter idea of doing it ourselves!

The most expensive part of this project was the board itself, but you can tailor it to any size you'd like!

Materials:
-(1) Dry Erase Board
-Felt
-Exacto Knife

My method is simple.  Cut a piece of felt to cover the BACK of the dry erase board.  Tuck the felt under the board lip.  The felt will kind of stretch so it is very forgiving and your cutting doesn't have to be perfect.  (Can I get an AMEN for not having to cut felt perfectly?!)

Once you've tucked all the felt in, you are done.  DONE!  And you have yourself a custom felt/dry erase board that can also be used as a hill for sliding cars down!

We selected this blue color to help our felt
pieces stand out.  I may go with a gray next
time though!

Using your exact-o knife to tuck the felt on the
backside of the dry erase board.

Felt tucking perfection!

Felt board story fun!

I have grand plans to create some fun felt "things" but have yet to do so.  I'll keep you updated when I do!

Crafty Pumpkin & MAYA ROLLS OVER!

About a week ago, we started working on a little pumpkin craft.  Kate and I glued several popsicle sticks together and Kate painted them orange.

Step 1: Glue popsicle sticks together.

Step 2: Set up children for painting.

Step 3: Paint pumpkins orange and glue a green pipe cleaner stem on.
FYI, I just accordion folded the pipe cleaner and hot glued it to the back.

While our pumpkins were drying, Maya decided that she was ready to roll and rolled from her tummy to her back several times!  So we put our pumpkins aside and applauded our littlest lady on her BIG accomplishment!

Just a few little people to inspire her rolling.

Getting her lean on!

And BOOM!  Just like that, completely rolled over!

So proud of her accomplishment!

Then, our pumpkin craft sat to the side for several days.  Each time I asked Kate if she wanted to finish it she was not interested.  At least, until today!  I hand drew a pumpkin face on each pumpkin and gave Kate some black paint to paint the face in.

Step 4: Draw pumpkin faces in.

Step 5: Set up child for paint again.

Step 6: Paint pumpkin faces black.

Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the finished product.  I could've sworn I did, but I don't, so you'll have to trust me when I say these turned out to be really cute little pumpkins.  We ended up giving one of ours to Kate's Mimi and Papaw, but you could totally add a magnet backing and plop it on a fridge or other magnetic surface.  For our purpose, we left them as we made them and just set them up against a backing.