Watercolor Painting

One of my boys favorite activities is to paint and I prefer watercolor paints because they don't make nearly as much of a mess. Last night we all sat down together to paint. As a parent you probably notice the difference between giving the kids an activity to do and actually sitting down with them to take part in the activity. Last night I had everything prepped (including dinner) so that when they boys came home I had nothing to worry about but sitting down and enjoying time with the boys. I bought some special watercolor paint books which are great because the paper is thicker than normal paper and so the water doesn't tear holes in the paper. We had a great time painting and talking about school. Atakan is convinced he needs a PSP because someone in his class has one and I was having a hard time expressing to him that 3 1/2 is a little young for a PSP. Seriously people??? Why would you buy that for a kid?? At any rate, I guess I'll just continue to tell him that he might be able to get one in 2nd grade or so. Today he asked me, "How many more days until I can get a PSP?" My response, "Not days, Atakan, more like 4 years!" Wish me luck!

(This is an old picture of us painting from last year...but we still have the same paints even after using them 3 times a month at least in the last year!)

Splashing in Puddles

I know many of you are enjoying snow (or maybe not) but winter in Mersin means rain. In the summer we go months without any rain, so I actually enjoy the few days we get in the winter. So, after picking up the kids from school and running to the car under an umbrella, Ilkan pointed out that his pants were wet. So, I decided why not??!! I told the boys to have out and splash to their hearts content!

I think it was about a year ago that we were outside after it had rained and there were puddles everywhere. The boys were stepping in them and I kept telling them to stay out of the water before I had a funny thought. "What is the big deal?? They are kids and will only be once so let them splash!" I even joined in on the fun and we had the best time!!

So, last night the boys had their fun splashing around and I only got a few looks from other women who probably thought I was crazy, but whatever. As soon as they were all done splashing and had water squishing in their shoes, we headed upstairs where they immediately got in a warm bath and their clothes in the washing machine. Everyone was happy and in a good mood as we started our night:))

Do you let your kids splash in puddles or do other similar things?

Glitter Jars

I have been scanning the internet for ideas for the boys and came across this idea for glitter jars. They can be used for a variety of purposes and one of my favorite is to use this as a "calm down" jar. It's a sort of way to teach a kid to count to 10 and relax when they get worked up or angry. Since this concept can be hard for a kid, all they have to do is shake the jar, watch the glitter settle back down to the bottom, and then talk about whatever it was that was bothering them.

To make these glitter jars all you have to do is have a glass jar or even a clear plastic bottle. First fill with some warm water and then let your child add glitter, glitter glue, food coloring if you wish, and some clear glue. The glue makes the glitter swirl for a longer period of time. Then you just need to make sure the lid is screwed on tightly before shaking!

Crazy Straws

Tonight I let the boys stay after school to play in the giant play room so we didn't get home until close to 6pm and didn't have time for the crafty idea I had prepared. I guess that just means I get to save the suspense of that idea for another day. But, we did have a little fun just before bedtime. While drinking their glasses of milk before bed we decided to get crazy with straws and see how many we could put together and still drink the milk from the glass. We just folded up the tip of each straw and stuck them into each other to create this crazy contraption. While it did work up to about 4 straws, the milk wasn't coming out very quickly so we worked our way back down to just one straw to finish up before starting our bedtime routine. At any rate, the boys got a real kick out of the crazy long straw and this quick activity helped everyone, including Mommy, get in a fun, silly mood before bedtime! I love any activity that allows us to laugh together before saying goodnight:))

Thumbprint Snowmen

Today we tried our hands, or fingers I guess, at making some thumbprint snowmen. First I cut out some blue foam into circles and also got out a few sheets of blue construction paper. Then we got to work with white and black finger paint. The boys were very careful to dip just their thumb and only make 2 or 3 prints in a row on their papers. I let them go to town on the construction paper making as many snowmen as they liked but we were careful when doing the foam circles to only have 1 or 2 snowmen per circle. After we were done with the white I washed their hands and got out the black finger paint to add the print for the snowmen's hats. (I have made the mistake in the past to just give them all of the finger paints at once and the paints end up getting all mixed so this time we only had one color at a time and washed hands in between.) We then let our work dry for a few hours while we had dinner and took a bath. (Hint: I do activities like finger painting on days when we are having baths and make sure the boys take off any special clothes they may be wearing.) After their paint dried I gave them each a thin tipped black marker to draw eyes, arms, and buttons on their snowmen. You could even get out an orange marker or paint to make a "carrot" nose but we chose just to keep to the black and white on blue background.

Gingerbread Boy....or whatever kind of cookie you prefer:)

Ok, so I am back in action and trying to get caught up with things. Another Christmas sort of activity for the boys was in order a few weeks ago so we pulled out the cookie pan that Grandma Kimbrough bought for us and got to baking! About a year ago my mom found the book "Gingerbread Baby" and bought a copy for us and my brother and his wife. Along with this she got really creative and bought us each a cookie/cake pan so that after we read the book with our kids (well mine since my brother and sister-in-law are still young and traveling the world:)) we could make our own gingerbread baby, boy, man...whatever you want to call it.

Since my kids are not big gingerbread cookie lovers, I decided just to make a sugar cookie dough. When the kids got home they helped me press the cookie into the pan and then we popped it in the oven. While it was baking and cooling off they ate their dinner and then were ready to frost the guy and decorate. I had some white canned frosting left in the fridge so we pulled that out and got the frosting done quickly. I had bought the candies (which let me tell you are not the easiest thing to find in Turkey) before picking up the kids and they had a good time decorating. The boys each ate a foot off of our poor guy and Ilkan decided he wanted to take the rest to school the next day to share with his friends. This worked for me since there was no way I needed to help finish off that huge guy!! The kids and teachers at school loved the pan and cookie so it made a nice thing to share!

While at my brother and sister-in-law's house for Christmas we made a chocolate chip cookie man to nibble on for dessert on Christmas Eve and to leave out for Santa. Hope you all enjoyed your Christmas!

Foam and Glitter Ornaments

Holidays mean decorations, baking, and gift giving...well other stuff too but these 3 are on our list right now. Last week we got our tree up. Let me be clear, I got the tree up and the lights on and I waited to put the ornaments on until the boys got home from school. As I mentioned before, decorating the tree and watching Christmas movies go great!

This week we decided to decorate some ornaments of our own to hang up and to distribute as gifts. (Uncle Matt and Aunt Kathi I know I am ruining the surprise but just pretend!!) I headed out to the store to get some foam sheets and glitter glue. Yesterday was a rainy day and I didn't feel like doing much anyways, so while watching movies and drinking coffee while the boys were at school I was tracing and cutting out ornaments. I probably prepared about 20 ornaments to be decorated which proved to be more than enough. I cut out trees, bells, stars, and circles. (Trust me, the trees are fun to decorate but no fun to cut so just do a few of those and get plenty of stars and circles!!)

When the boys came home from school everything was ready and set on the table. They had a great time using the glitter glue pens to decorate the shapes. Ilkan even wanted to get more creative and drew a few pictures of trees to decorate. He declared that one will be for his Aunt and Uncle and the other we have to leave under the tree and write, "Santa take this with you!" (His words, not mine:)) This activity was so fun that we painted until we ran out of glitter glue. Looks like I will be making another trip to the store to get more so we can decorate more ornaments before the holidays!