Cloud Dough

Dot and L had a great time playing with Cloud Dough today.  It's such a silly thing really, but they played in it for almost an hour and just loved it!  Two ingredients is all you need...flour and oil.  Any oil would work, like vegetable oil and such, but I used baby oil because it smells so good.  We did 8 cups flour and 1 1/4 cup oil.  Mix together and play!

Bird Feeders and Dancing Ribbons

Today we made bird feeders from pine cones found in our back yard.  Glued a few together as they are small ones, tied twine on one end, the girls spread on the peanut butter and sprinkled on the birdseed.

 Hang outside the window and watch the birds!  So fun and easy!

 We also made dancing ribbon sticks and spent a good chunk of our morning running around and dancing to Go Fish.  They have really silly songs that the girls love...and they don't drive Mama (too) crazy like many kids tunes. Here's a little clip....I love how Chubbo just sits there reading his book and I have no idea why Dot mentions my eyeball ????  Haha!

Noodle Necklaces

We had a lesson in color mixing and color patterns today.  Dot and L worked together to add food coloring to some shallow dishes with water.  We found out what happens when you mix those primary colors...they thought that was so cool!

We threw in a bunch of dry noodles for just a couple minutes....no more than that 

as they will turn a little gooey.

 Scooped them out and set to dry.  Took about an hour.

 Before we started our necklaces, we made some color patterns with the noodles on the table.  It didn't matter to me if they made patterns on their necklaces, just seemed like a good teaching moment with all those great colors!  Anyway, a piece of yarn and a jumbo needle....

 ....we made these beautiful necklaces!  

Wait a minute....who are those girls????

 There, that's more like it!  ;-)

Christmas Elf

 Brownie the Elf is now back at the North Pole resting and I'm sure coming up with more sneaky tricks to play on the kids next December.  The kids woke up to a special note from him on Christmas morning and we haven't seen him since.  Here were some of his last visits.

Still no snow in MN....Brownie must make his own...and snowmen!

 Aaron grew up with this green spoon.  It was left behind from the previous owners when they moved into a new house.  Weird.  For some reason, it became the favorite spoon to have.  We somehow ended up with this spoon and again, for some reason is a favorite in our house.  The kids try to take turns, but let's face it, they fight over it.  This is what they found one morning:

 Then they woke up to this!  Hey, when did Chubbo get hair and a beard??!!!

 And this is a favorite pix of Eliah at 3 months...

 ACK!

 Uh-oh!

 Hmmm, think we found out what happened!

 This was our last morning finding Brownie. 

 

I'm sure everyone at the North Pole was doing some practice runs on Christmas Eve.  Same was happening here.

 A special thanks to all the Lego guys for helping make a sleigh.

 And since we didn't have real reindeer, only a moose, a little rocket blaster was needed for take off.

 Bye Brownie!  Thanks for all the laughs...see you next year!

XOXO

A Hand Made Christmas

 We went the creative route this year for many of our gifts.  The kids were eager to help make, wrap and label the gifts.  It took about twice as long to get things done with all the "help" but it was worth it.  I love seeing the excitement in their eyes to give a gift that they were a part of.

 The Grandparents both got their own faux-canvas pictures of the kids.  I love the internet....loads of information, ideas and how-to's for being crafty.  These were really fun to make and quite easy!  End result isn't too bad!  They might need a little poster putty or tape in the corners on the back to help keep it level, but otherwise I think it hangs ok. 

 Here's the run down on how to make them.

- Find your favorite photos

- Get the size canvas you want.  I used a pre-stretched canvas 4x4 from JoAnn's.

-Cut your pix just slightly smaller than the size of canvas and Mod Podge to canvas.  Let dry.

-Cut scrapbook or other paper for the edges...again, cut just slightly smaller.  Mod Podge to sides.

-Put on 2 more coats of Mod Podge across photos and edges.  It looks something like this:

 Once you have a couple coats of Mod Podge on, grab your paint.  I used black acrylic, but you could use any color to go with your pix...especially if you kept the pix in color instead of black and white.  

-You could use a paint sponge or paint brush, but I just cut off a section from a kitchen sponge and "sponged" on the paint around the edges.  

-Once paint is dry, one more coat of Mod Podge.

-All that's left is to get ribbon on.  I used a single strand down the back and two at the top to make the ribbon.  Staple gun is needed to get through the wood.

-Tie a bow and you are done!

You may remember a number of weeks ago I did Bubble Painting with the girls one afternoon.  We took all those lovely bubble prints and cut them down to note card size.  Then grabbed some extra envelopes from old Christmas cards we never used and printed more on the back flap of the envelope.  Now you have a set of note cards...tie a bow around them and you are done!  However, when doing this project with 3 year olds, you get finger prints and smudges...so, you would probably only want to give these to someone who won't mind these little "oops'" on their cards.....usually a Grandma.  ;-)

 

Since Island G&G actually have a tree this year, it seemed fitting to get them some more ornaments.  Home made, of course!

My parents live on an Island, we refer to them as Island G&G.  My in-laws have a huge old house with a fabulous attic that has been turned into an amazing romper room for kids....we call them Attic G&G. 
Anyway, back to the ornament.  Ava and I picked up these little wooden ornaments at JoAnn's not really sure what to do with them.    This is what we came up with:

 Did I mention earlier that I love the internet?  We found map of the Island, shrunk it to size, wrote: We love Island Grandma/Grandpa on them.  Painted the wood red, had the kids write their names (thumb print for Chubbo), and sealed it with a couple coats of Mod Podge.

 We also made some almond bark pretzels, knitted some dish cloths and made some tile coasters...forgot to get pix of those.  So, there's our home made Christmas.  Nothing too fancy but made with love!

Stocking Stuffer Bags

We're going green!  Check out these little drawstring bags to hold the stocking stuffers instead of using wrapping paper.  They were super easy and fun to make...and reusable!  I picked up some scraps of Christmas fabric at JoAnn's for super cheap and just made them all the same size.  I think they'll be fun to use from year to year.

Elf traps don't work....

Brownie must have been keeping warm or reading by candle light last night.

Tonight E wanted to try to catch Brownie in a trap...this is what he came up with:

As you probably already know, Elves have a major candy craving, so E baited the trap with a candy cane.  They are hoping that as Brownie crawls under to get the candy, the box will fall off the stand and trap him in the box.  But, I'm sure you have already figured out that Brownie is just a little too fast for that.  The 2nd pix shows a little note that the kids will find in the tripped box in the morning along with the empty candy cane wrapper.  The note simply says: Nice Try - Love, Brownie

In fact, not only was Brownie able to get the candy by rappelling down from the bird cage, get the candy without being trapped, but he also was sneaky like a spy....and don't all spies need a good black mask???

Doh...there he goes with the candy.  Sneaky Elf!