Playing at the park

The Ogle County Fair

A yellow collage

our materials:
one piece of cardboard (Lucas uses a ridiculous amount of glue and paper just doesn't hold up well enough - we switched over to cardboard for gluing projects)
bottle of glue
piece of yellow paper to cut into strips (with a generous amount of supervision)
strands of Mardi Gras beads
pom poms of various sizes
a matchbox car
a tiny little spiny ball


The little car was the first thing to get glued on :) He loves little cars!! He, of course, had to glue a pom pom right on top. Then he made a 'fence' around the car using popsicle sticks. He then covered everything with heaps of glue and pom poms. And then threw on a few extra little things like paper and beads for the finishing touch :)




























Lucas's finished piece of art.
(He wasn't actually done, but he started licking the glue off of his fingers, so we decided it was time to move on...)

Two magazines

Two magazines can keep the kids busy for hours. Lucas started ripping up one of Tim's unread magazines. See Tim trying to read a single crumpled up page? Tim actually found it funny :)
The kids were so happy shredding the magazines and crumpling them into balls to throw.









































And when they start to get bored? Give them a basket of Easter eggs, of course. The messier, the better!

Muffin tin lunch

sliced cucumbers
alf alfa sprouts
cherry tomatoes
olives
colby cheese
mushrooms
Kashi crackers









After I set his muffin tin out, Tim came along and gave him an extra bowl for ranch dip :) And his carrot was just too big to fit in a little muffin tin cup.
He didn't really get it though. He ate all of the olives and asked for more. I told him he could eat the food in front of him. He ate all of the tomatoes and asked for more. I told him to eat what was in front of him. He ate the alf alfa sprouts and asked for more. Noticing a trend?







I made Lucas's lunch in a mini muffin tin today. I saw the idea for muffin tin lunches a little while ago and thought it sounded fun. Lucas was kind of skeptical (he's not usually allowed to eat things in muffin tins - uncooked or too hot). But he really did enjoy all of the little cups of food.

Check out this blog for more ideas or for a better explanation of muffin tin lunches :)
Her Cup Overfloweth

Breakfast

Lucas peeling bananas and putting them into the blender















Gwendolyn playing with each measuring cup and bowl that we finish using :) She licked each one clean.












We made a nice homemade breakfast this morning. Super healthy banana pancakes. (the recipe is below) Lucas made them almost completely by himself. The only thing he needed help with was measuring and cooking. He found all of the ingredients, blended, poured and mixed them :) I was amazed at just how much he was able to do himself. I was able to carry Gwendolyn around and sing them happy songs while Lucas actually made breakfast. It was great!! And he was so happy to be able to cook for us.


Check out this blog on Sunday to see what other kids are making :) Susana is hosting a blog carnival, so link up if you have any fun ideas!




Super healthy banana pancakes
3 cups coarsely ground oat flour (I ran out of whole wheat flour, so I just blended some oats)
1/4 cup coarsely ground flax seeds
3 ripe bananas
1 cup spinach
water

blend the bananas and spinach together with enough water to get a smooth, liquid consistency.
mix puree with oat flour and flax seeds.
cook like regular pancakes.

They are super easy to make, taste great and are super healthy - a winning combination around here!

A window baby

A song

Lucas is such a little song bird. He makes up songs about anything and everything. Today, he was singing about his new balloon. And a counting song that he made up. (we've been talking about numbers alot lately)
His singing is infectious. He told me (in song) that he left half of his banana on the kitchen table for me to eat. So I went and got the banana and walked into the living room singing 'I'm eating your banana!' His answer? He sang 'I'm whacking our balloon!' He even answers me in song. It is adorable!!
He's starting to sing along with actual music, too. This evening he was humming along with a Beethoven song. Awesome!!

A balloon

Things we learned today: It's probably a bad idea to have a balloon floating around in the same room as a ceiling fan. It's a much better idea to have the balloon tied to a table. But even if it is securely tied to a table, a crafty toddler can still pull it off. And feed it to the ceiling fan.
Believe it or not, Gwendolyn is actually the one that set the balloon free. She sure is crafty...
We went to our neighbor's birthday party on Saturday and the kids had a great time playing with a balloon there. The next day, he brought the balloon over to our house for them to keep :) They love it!!

A day of play

Lucas making the bed :) All of the pillows were stacked along one side (not the top) and the blankets were all piled up in a big heap. He took so much time and care making sure the pillows and the blankets were just so. It's the best made bed I have ever seen!! I love his unique approach to everything he does!









































Gwendolyn found an unattended stack of hangers. She really enjoys the sounds they make when they click together. She sits and whacks them against each other for ages- listening to her own music. She is such a sweet, happy, easily entertained girl! (because she's not a baby anymore, she's a real girl! I keep forgetting..)





















I think Lucas must have been tired after all of the bed making. He's happily laying on a cushion driving one of his favorite trucks back and forth.

Tot School

Lucas is 34 months. Gwendolyn is 11 months.

::Fine motor skills
we hammered.

and connected blue links.
and stacked up stacking rings.
and clipped clips on a bowl, on the couch and on my pants :) (Lucas and I did the clipping and Gwendolyn pulled them off)::Art time
Gwendolyn has been enjoying our outdoor easel. She doesn't draw much, but she does like to stand there looking purposeful, chewing on a marker.

Lucas stuck farm animal stickers on the barn. He loved it and asked for more stickers when he was done.

::Bottle cap play

I set this activity out with Gwendolyn in mind, but Lucas ended up liking it much more than she did. I put out a small tray full of bottle caps and two small toy garbage cans to fill with caps and dump out. Lucas got his recycle truck, poured all of the caps in there and drove around the living room with it. And Gwendolyn chased him. A definite success even though it wasn't at all what I had envisioned :)
::Block play
::Puzzles
::Outdoor fun
a bowl full of puffed rice and some random kitchen utensils makes for a fun time!

our bouquet of flowers was starting to wilt, so I brought them outside for Lucas to play with. Since he has been loving hammering so much lately, I thought we could try to work that in :) It's kind of an art/science fun activity. We put gladiolas on a piece of paper, covered them with another piece of paper and hammered.
a tray of rice, four scoops, and two funnels. The kids loved this activity and have asked for it over and over! Which thrills me because it is a great sensory something for Lucas to be doing.
hammering pasta :)
hammering chalk.
cleaning up the mess that all of the hammering makes :) I love that we can do all of our fun with food outside during the warm months! Clean up is so much easier than when we do it in the kitchen in the winter. Which means I am much more likely to give the kids fun stuff to do.