It’s the time of year for Christmas crafts. Buddy always makes a gift for his grandparents and other family members, and I’m always looking for new inspiration. Buddy made these two years ago, but I didn’t blog about it at the time so as not to ruin the surprise for our family.
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We started by buying blank wooden ornaments similar to these. I also bought Sharpie paint pens and acrylic paint. The package of ornaments came with the wooden circles with a prepunched hole and some twine for hanging. The only thing Buddy and I had to do was paint them.
I painted the background of the ornaments white and let them dry completely before asking Buddy to help. When Buddy was ready to work, I put some brown paint in a paper plate. Buddy dipped his finger into the paint, and then he did three or four fingerprints on each circle. Then we let the ornaments dry completely. Once they were dry, Buddy wrote his name and the date on the back of each ornament. Then I used the paint pens to decorate the fingerprints to make them look like reindeer. We had two fingerprints that ended up smearing together, so I made that one to look like a full reindeer instead of the head.
The great thing about this craft is that it is very easy to do, and it doesn’t take a long time for kids to complete. Another great thing about these ornaments compared to others we’ve done in the past is they aren’t fragile. Since we usually mail our ornaments to family out of state, it’s nice to have the peace of mind knowing they won’t break. I thought they turned out well, and I love to pull mine out every Christmas.
Buddy loves to build and be creative. So he was very excited when I asked him if he wanted to build his own boat.
I gave him a variety of foam base materials for the boat. He had parts of a styrofoam egg carton, a foam cup, a foam plate, and a couple of cut up pieces of pool noodle to choose from. Then he had a bunch of other materials to use to finish the boat including wooden skewers, straws, popsicle sticks, play doh, construction paper, coffee filters, and rubber bands.
Buddy decided to make two different boats. For his first, he used the top of the egg carton and a pool noodle slice for the base, and play doh, popsicle sticks, and a coffee filter for the sail. For his second boat, he chose another pool noodle slice, part of the bottom of the egg carton, a couple wooden skewers, a cup, and a straw.
Once both boats were built, Buddy was excited to try them out. Our water table wasn’t quite big enough for them, so we decided to test them in the bath tub. After a few minutes of playing on the side of the tub, Buddy decided he wanted to throw on his bathing suit and get in to play.
Buddy had a great time putting his little toys in the boats and pushing them around. Unfortunately, he quickly learned that play doh and the coffee filter weren’t very durable in the water. Buddy decided that he wanted to use the large egg carton boat as a balance to compare the weights of two things. He also was interested in seeing how much weight his boats could hold before they start to sink.
Buddy had a great time, and I’ve put the rest of the unused materials aside to do this again. It was so fun and I’m sure we will do it again some time soon.
Buddy loves to cook, and I’m always looking for fun, new recipes to try with him. This year, my husband requested a Chocolate Chip Calzone for his birthday instead of cake. It is a favorite dessert of ours, which used to be made in the Claimjumper Restaurant. I used this recipe to make the calzone.
To make the chocolate chip calzone, you need:
A can of pizza dough
White chocolate chips
Milk chocolate chips
Vanilla ice cream
Chocolate syrup
Whipped cream
We pulled out a can of pizza dough, white chocolate chips, and chocolate chips. Buddy and I unrolled the dough on a pastry mat. Then I had Buddy add a handful of chocolate chips in a line, and then he rolled the dough a bit. Then we added white chocolate chips and rolled the dough some more. We did this a few more times until we had rolled up the whole piece of dough.
I put the chocolate chip calzone on a greased baking sheet and then baked it at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, once it started getting a little brown. Then I sliced it into 6 slices and topped it with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. It is so gooey and delicious, and so easy to make! It’s a hit in our household, and I hope we have it again soon.
Buddy and I are home for spring break, and I’ve been looking for fun ways to help him work on his reading and writing. He particularly needs to work on writing lowercase letters. So after doing a regular Easter egg hunt with him, I realized how we could work on his literacy skills while having fun at the same time.
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We started by pulling out some magnetic letters and putting them into empty Easter eggs. Then I hid the eggs around the house. Buddy had a great time looking around our house for the eggs.
I had suggested that we write down the letters we found, but Buddy had the idea to make words with them first. So we decided to open all of the eggs up, pull out the letters, and then make a word. Then we recorded the words on a piece of paper.
I could have limited Buddy to using sight words or specific words that he’s been doing in school. But I let him do whatever he wanted, since my main focus was just getting him to work on his hand writing. So of course, his first word was t-rex. We did take some time to form magic e words to practice a skill from school.
If you have a younger child at your house, you could always do this the way we did a few years ago when Buddy was 3. We just found the letters and matched them up to letters written on a cake pan. You can read more about that activity here.
We had a lot of fun doing our Easter egg hunt, and I’m so happy Buddy was willing to work on his handwriting. I know we’ll be doing this again at least once before the end of break.
This time of the year, I start thinking about small things to buy for Buddy’s Easter basket. And one of the things I always look for is travel games. We’ve traveled a lot less in the last year due to the pandemic, but we still have taken several very long car trips. And sometimes, we’ve brought travel games to with us when we’ve had to wait somewhere like a restaurant or a doctor’s office. Here are our favorite travel games.
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Travel Yahtzee
My family loves playing Mickey Mouse Yahtzee Jr., and we made our own version to play at home. (Our original is from the 80s and is at my dad’s house.) When we decided to do a 18 hour road trip last summer, I wanted to make a to-go version. I looked at the current travel Yahtzee available, and eventually decided to get a vintage one off of Ebay. I had that version as a kid, and I knew it would be easier to keep the dice contained. They way we play it is you have three rolls to get as many of the same kind as possible, with the number 1 being wild. If someone else has the same score already, you get bumped down to the next lowest score. I printed and laminated a score card and put it on a little clipboard left over from our Disney trip.
World of Disney Eye Found It Card Game
We’ve loved the World of Disney Eye Found It Card Game for a long time. It is a staple to play at home, and recently we sent a set to my dad so we can play it on FaceTime. To play the game, you have to be the first one to find a certain object on your card. Then you can discard your card and a new item is chosen. It’s great because it doesn’t take up much space, so it’s great to throw in a purse or carry on.
Spot It
There are so many versions of the Spot It Game. The one we have is Planes Spot It, which has both images from the Planes movie as well as letters. To play the game, you put down two cards and you try to be the first one to find the one thing they have in common. It comes in a heavy duty tin, so it’s really great for travel. We kept this one in the diaper bag for years.
Magnetic Bingo
We bought Take and Play Anywhere Bingo for Buddy when he was 3, and almost 3 years later, it continues to be a favorite game. This version of bingo has 24 different animals and a spinner to use to select the animal. It was a great game before Buddy knew his letters and numbers, and he still really enjoys all of the different animals. This one also comes in a magnetic tin that is very durable. The Take and Play Anywhere game series also includes hangman, memory, and fishing, which all look fun.
Road trip Scavenger Hunt Game
I bought the Briarpatch Travel Scavenger Hunt Card Game last summer before our 18 hour car trip. The box says the game is for ages 7 and up, but Buddy was able to play it at age 5 without a problem. We started playing it with a card holder, but then Buddy discovered that he can just prop the cards on the edge of the window. I modified the rules a bit from how they were written. We each choose 5 cards, and then we discarded them as we find the thing. I go through the cards before we play and pick things that I think are more likely to be seen depending on where we are driving. It takes awhile to play, and it makes a long car trip pass more quickly.
Spin and Play Board Game Book
I bought the Spin and Play Counting Games board book before our trip to Bogota in 2019. This board book has five different board games with two dice in the middle to spin. I liked it especially for that trip because it was easy to take in our carry on, and we played it both on the plane as well as in the hotel room. It’s also a great way to practice counting and simple addition.
Cars and Trucks Card Game
Cars and Trucks is another card game we’ve enjoyed on trips as well as at home. It’s not currently available online, but this war game is similar. We have played it on planes, and we like to bring it as a game to play when we arrive at our location.
Melissa and Doug Flip to Win Memory Game
Buddy likes to play memory, but it takes a lot of space to set up, so it’s not a great choice to play while traveling. So we got him the Melissa and Doug Flip to Win Memory Game last Easter to use for trips. It’s great because there are a lot of different game choices, so it’s nice to use even at home. The flaps are a little loud, so it’s probably better as a car trip game than a plane game.
Mental Games to Play While Traveling
While it’s great to be able to buy games to take with you on trips, it’s also helpful to have games you can play without anything else. We play these a lot while waiting in lines at the store, as well as when we travel.
Animal Game – One person chooses an animal and the other people ask yes and no questions until they guess it.
Alphabet Game – You look around at signs, license plates, labels and anything else you can find and look for the letters one at a time in order. We’ve found this to be a great game to play while sitting in slow city traffic where there are lots of lisence plates and billboards to see. We play this in grocery store lines as well.
iSpy – One person picks something they can see, and the other people ask yes and no questions to guess it.
Color game – We play this two ways. Usually we play it like iSpy, and one person says the color of the thing they see. Then the other people guess what it is. But we have also played it by picking a color and then seeing how many things you can find with that color. The person who finds the last thing of that color wins.
If you have any other travel game suggestions, I’d love to hear about them in the comments section.
Happy new year! This year has been crazy with teaching both remotely and in person, but I’ve made a goal to start blogging more. So hopefully I’ll be putting out content more regularly in 2021.
Last weekend was a long weekend, and I used it to go through and declutter the house. I’m sure I’m not the only mom who struggles with toy and mess everywhere. I spent some time looking through organizing ideas online and going shopping to find things to help me. Here’s the best of what I found.
*Disclaimer – This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*
Hanging Closet Organizers
One of my biggest struggles was a towering shelf of games and puzzles. They were all on a shelf where Buddy couldn’t reach them. And after Christmas, we literally didn’t have enough space to add the new ones on the shelf. (And believe it or not, that wasn’t even all of our games and puzzles! There are three bins of rotated out toys and games in our crawl space as well.) I saw the idea of using a hanging closet organizer, and it was perfect! I actually got a 6 shelf one and a 3 shelf one to hold everything. (They are similar to this one and this one.) I also bought a couple of smaller baskets to slide into the 6 closet organizer to hold card games. This morning, I found Buddy playing with a logic puzzle game on his own while he was waiting for me to wake up. He wouldn’t have been able to get it down on his own before.
Clear Bins for Large Sets of Toys
We already have bins for our wooden trains, magnatiles, and duplos. Buddy is starting to get into Legos, so I bought a new bin for that. It’s great to have a place where all of the same type of toy can stay together.
Under Bed Storage
When Buddy went from a toddler bed to a full size bed, we lost floor space but gained a storage space. Buddy’s stuffed animals take over our whole house, so I bought a plastic rolling under bed storage container for them. At the end of the day, they can all be rolled away until Buddy is ready to play with them again.
Zippered Envelopes for Small Sets of Toys
We have always kept Buddy’s Duplo sets in their own box in his closet, and we’d rotate them out so we only had a couple out at a time. But now Buddy has added several Jurassic World Lego sets to the mix, and he won’t let me rotate those. To get rid of some of the boxes and clutter, I got these zippered envelopes. Each set when into an envelope with a picture from the box and the building instructions. Then they all went into a plastic bin.
Several years ago, I blogged about using plastic envelopes from the dollar store for wooden puzzle storage. I added some sticky velcro dots to help it close. Then I could store the puzzles vertically on the shelf. We’re past the stage of needing wooden puzzle storage, but I thought it was worth mentioning again. (You can read the whole blog here.)
Cube Shelves
When we set up Buddy’s nursery, we bought cube bookshelves from IKEA. I knew I wanted to have plenty of space for books and smaller toy bins that Buddy can easily get to by himself. I thought when we changed Buddy’s bed we’d have to adjust this bookshelf to be vertical, but I was pleasantly surprised that we still have space for it to be horizontal.
Clips for hanging art work
Now that Buddy is in kindergarten, he is constantly bringing home pieces of artwork. I’ve been using sticky tack to hang them, but that’s kind of a pain. I have to find the sticky tack, it falls down a lot, and when I’m ready to switch it out, the construction paper ruins the sticky tack. Then, I ran across these 3m wall paper clips. They are amazing! Now Buddy can hang things himself and it’s easy to change out the art work.
Baskets for toy storage
The last thing I got to organize our toy clutter is a large basket for our living room. During the last year we have brought our Little Tykes basketball hoop inside to give us something active to do inside when it was cold outside (and we were stuck at home due to a pandemic anyway.) At Christmas, we added a putting green to that area of our house. But the balls were always rolling all over the floor. Now we have a large basket so they are easy to find when needed, but we are no longer tripping over balls when we are in the living room.
Do you have any great suggestions for getting your toys organized? If so, please leave a comment!
Buddy and I have been on a Disney kick lately. So far this summer we have done a virtual Disney World twice, built Disney parade floats, and made Mickey Pretzels. And a couple of weeks ago, we tried to make another Disney inspired food: Dole Whip Popsicles.
*Disclaimer – This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*
The recipe we used was originally made by Today’s Creative Life. To make Dole Whip popsicles, you need an 8 ounce container of Cool Whip, a 20 ounce can of crushed pineapple, lime juice, and 2 tablespoons of sugar.
It was very easy to make the popsicles. We combined the Cool Whip, crushed pineapple, lime juice, and sugar in the blender. Buddy had a great time pushing the buttons to turn the blender on and the different speed levels. You want to keep going until everything is well mixed and the mixture is smooth. Then you pour the mixture into popsicle molds and put in the freezer.
The original recipe said to freeze 2-4 hours, but we found that wasn’t nearly enough. We had better results when we let the popsicles freeze overnight. While they weren’t quite as good as the original Dole Whip, the taste was very similar and everyone in my family really enjoyed them. We will definitely be making these Dole Whip Popsicles again.
This summer, Buddy and I have been doing What’s Cooking Wednesdays. He loves to cook, and it’s fun to have an excuse to find kitchen activities for him. Buddy has been asking to do Disney activities a lot recently, so I decided to make Mickey pretzels with him. It is a favorite snack of ours when we are in Disney World, and we were both excited to try it at home.
I got my inspiration from Smart School House’s blog. She uses a can of pretzel dough. I have seen other people use canned pizza dough for pretzels. I didn’t have either of those on hand, though, so I used the hot buttered pretzel recipe from King Arthur Flour. While it was a little more work to make our own dough, it wasn’t too difficult and they were amazingly delicious at the end.
We made the dough by combining 2 1/2 cups bread flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon sugar, 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast, and 1 cup warm water in our mixer. Then we put in a greased bowl and covered with a light towel. The recipe calls for the dough to rise for 30 minutes, but we left it for an hour while Buddy napped.
When we returned to the dough, we split it into 6 equal sized pieces and rolled each into a long log. Our final pretzels were about the size of a dinner plate, so you could do more than 6 parts if you want smaller pretzels. After we made our logs we turned one into a circle to be a Mickey head. Then we split another one to be the two ears.
Next, we put 2 tablespoons of baking soda in 1 cup of boiling water and put it into a 13 x 9 baking pan. You are supposed to let the water cool a bit before dipping the pretzels. We dipped each pretzel into the mixture, and I used a spoon to bath the top part of the pretzel for 2 minutes. Then they went on the baking pan.
We baked the pretzels for 9 minutes at 475 degrees. They came out perfectly done. Then we brushed on 3 tablespoons of melted butter and put kosher salt on two. My husband dipped his in a cinnamon sugar mixture instead.
Our Mickey pretzels were even better than the ones in the parks! And the taste was very, very similar to the ones we get in the mall. We loved them and will be making more pretzels with this recipe in the future.
Buddy and I love Disney World, and we’ve been missing the parks lately. We were supposed to go in June, but that trip was canceled. Instead, we’ve been busy doing Disney activities at home. (Read about our virtual Disney World here.)
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A friend of mine posted about doing her own Disney at home trip, and one of her activities was building parade floats out of Duplos. I knew Buddy would love it, so I wanted to try it.
Buddy’s been to Disney World twice, but we’ve never watched a parade there together. So before we built our floats, we watched a Disney parade on You Tube. (This is the one we watched, which is a parade from Disneyland.)
Once we had our inspiration it was time to build. Buddy and I searched through his Duplos to find as many wheels as we could. Then we went to build fun and inventive parade floats to carry different characters. We had to do some trial and error to find ways to make the float base large enough to carry the characters and still balance on the wheels. We also had the challenge of getting his Disney characters to stand while the float was moving since they weren’t Duplo blocks.
After we were done, Buddy and I put on some Disney music and made our floats go around his room and into the next room. We had such a blast doing this activity, that the following day Buddy wanted to make more floats before we did anything else. He loves the ones we made, and a week later there are still a few on his shelves that he can bear to put away. It was such a fun and easy activity, and I’m so glad we tried it.
My family has had a crazy spring with everything shut down and trying to do remote learning at home. We’ve also traveled a little bit once summer started. Now that we’re home and school is over, we’ve finally got some time to try some new activities.
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When we were on vacation, our cottage had access to a beach filled with stones. Of course, quite a few of them came home with us, so I had the idea to paint them. We looked through Pinterest for ideas, and tried a bunch of our favorites.
Our first step was to paint a base layer of color on each rock. We used acrylic paint instead of washable paint since I wanted the paint to last. For many of the rocks, we did a base coat on both sides. There were a few that Buddy only wanted one side painted. Make sure your paint is really dry before turning them over. (Side note – even though Buddy is wearing a smock, he did somehow get paint on the back of his clothes. Make sure you double check clothing immediately after painting, and get the paint out before it dries!)
Once we had a base layer of paint, we came back after an hour to decorate. We used small paint brushes, Q-tips, and paint markers to decorate the rocks. Buddy was actually able to do a lot more of the details than I thought he would be able to.
We used small paint brushes to do the dinosaur rocks and the alligator one that Buddy is doing below. We used paint pens to add details to the dinosaur rocks as well. The monster rocks and hedgehog rocks were also created with small paint brushes followed by paint pens for the smaller details.
We used Q-tips to do the dot rocks. They actually turned out better than I thought they would! We also used Q-tips to do the dots in the polar bears eyes/nose, the lady bugs, and the watermelon. Both the polar bears’ ears and the lady bugs’ eyes needed paint pens for the small details.
When we did paint pens, Buddy wanted to write his name and make his own drawings on some of the rocks. It was very easy for him to use and write neatly. We used Sharpie paint pens and Uni Posca paint pens on the rocks. Both worked very well.
After we added our details, we let everything dry again. Then we coated our rocks with two coats of Mod Podge. We turned our rocks a little too soon and a couple stuck to the newspaper. So make sure you wait a long time before you Mod Podge on the back side of your rocks. We applied sticky google eyes to our monster rocks after the Mod Podge step.
Once the rocks were finished, we picked a few to hide at a park near our house. We had so much fun making the rocks, and even more fun hiding some for others to find. It was a great activity, and I’m sure it will be a summer craft for years to come.
