Candy Towers

Alyssa came home from her play school with a plate of Spice Drops and toothpicks. She couldn't eat the candies because they were old but she wanted to make more towers so we went to Walmart and got some more spice drops. Then after dinner, for our family activity, we made Candy Towers. It was really fun and Alyssa loved eating the candy - then again, so did I :)
These are a few of our creations.

Daddy's creation

Cost: $2. $1 for the Spice Drops and $1 for the toothpicks.

Stars: 5/5 - this was really fun and age appropriate for all of us.

Time: We spent about a half hour on this but we could have gone longer. We will definately do this again. Alyssa has already asked for this.

This was really fun.

Making Bracelets

Excuse my daughters hair, she hates having it brushed unless I tell her she'll look like a princess.

We were saying good bye to a friend of hers so we decided to make her friend a necklace and bracelet. It was a fun activity and really good for her fine motor skills.

We taped the end of the elastic to the table and wrapped a little tape around the top of the elastic to help with the putting on of the beads. Alyssa had a great time and loved the final products.

Cost: About $7 for the beads and elastic - it helps when Joann's has sales.

Stars: 4/5 - would have been a little better for older kids.

Time: Took about an hour or so. We had to stop because she would get bored after a little while so we left it on the table and she would go back to it.

Library Fun!!

Every Tuesday is Library Day. They have storytime at 10:15 and then it's playtime after that. Alyssa loves the puppet theater, especially when Daddy comes with us!!

She also loves to pick out books to take home and read.

We are so grateful for the libraries in our area, there are 2 that are so great to just go and hang out at when we have nothing else to do.

I highly recommend finding out where the libraries in your area are, and what activities they have for your kiddo's!!

Cost: Free

Stars: 5/5

Making Cookies!!

When my husband asked for some cookies, Alyssa and I got to work making cookies. These are the yummiest chocolate chip cookies I have ever made and this recipe makes TONS - I think we got about 13 dozen out of it. We made many bags of cookies and gave them to friends.

The recipe:

1lb of butter

1/2 cup white sugar

2 C brown sugar

2 Tbsp Vanilla

Beat 10 mins. Add 3 eggs. Beat another 3 minutes and add the following:

6 C flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

Beat together for 5 minutes. Add chocolate chips (we added a bag of white chocolate chips and a bag of milk chocolate chips) but you could also add toffee chips, peanut butter chips, nuts or whatever you want. Bake at 350 for 7-9 minutes.

These were seriously the yummiest cookies ever. I'm so glad we got to share them with friends. I would have been too tempted to eat them all!!!!

Cost: I don't know - I had all the ingredients at home

Stars: 5/5

What to do differently: Um, I wish I could have involved Alyssa more in the making. She put in the things she could but she couldn't do much else. Her favorite part was eating them though, which she was VERY happy about.

Just regular ol' painting!!

It seems that my little girl is just an artist. She loves to paint so when there is nothing to do and the weather outside is miserable, we pull out the paints. I found this idea online, I can't remember where - sorry, but they put the paints in an egg carton and I thought that was a great idea. Alyssa loved mixing the paints and coming up with different blends of colors.
Painting is another staple of ours. We love to paint. We have to go and get more paints because Alyssa uses them up quickly!!

Cost: A couple dollars for the paints, papers and newspapers (sometimes the only reason I am grateful for the newspaper is because it works as a great cover for the table)

Stars: Always will be 5/5

What to do differently: Nothing, We might try potato stamping next time though.

Oh the things you can do with Bean Bags

Poor Alyssa was going stir crazy with the cold weather and the rain so we decided to whip up some bean bags and have some fun. I didn't have any but we did have some fabric (thanks to my Mom), some rice and my trusty sewing machine. Alyssa and I cut out squares, sewed them together, filled them with rice and sewed up the holes and got to playing. It was the easiest, yet messiest things I have ever sewed. I let Alyssa fill the bags and rice went everywhere. She thought it was great though!!

We put the bean bags in a bucket and pulled out some cardboard that was going to be recycled. I drew some circles with numbers on them to see if we could throw the beanbags and have it land in those circles. This was great throwing practice for Alyssa but it didn't last long.

At first she wanted to throw them to me, back and forth and then she decided she wanted to balance them. She tried with her hands and arms.

Then quickly moved to her head. She loves her bean bags. She has asked to play with them over and over again. She'll try to balance them on her head and then she'll put them on my head.

There are so many things you can do with bean bags.

Throw them through hoops

Use them for hopscotch

Throw them into buckets

Races balancing beanbags on your head

Beanbag tic-tac-toe

Cost: For us it was free because we had leftover stuff but it couldn't be more than a few dollars for scrap/remnant fabric at the store and a bag of rice. But if you need to buy a sewing machine then it's probably going to be quite expensive.

Stars: 5/5

Time: To make them it took about an hour, but the playtime is endless

What would I change: not a whole lot. We liked the whole activity.

I love playing with this little girl. She is so fun and has such a great imagination!!

Alyssa's Garden

Alyssa and I went to Walmart and let her pick out 2 packets of seeds that she wanted to plant. Then we came home and found a cardboard box to put her soil in. We planted her seeds and marked them with a skewer and paper. Alyssa enjoyed planting.

Cost: $1 for the seeds, a couple dollars for the soil.

Stars: 4/5

Time: Half hour - maybe

What I would change: We did this inside because the weather was cold. I think next time we'll wait till the weather warms up a bit and do this outside. The seeds also didn't grow after we transplanted them to the garden so we'll plant them straight into the garden next year.

Hand and Feet Painting

I was reading one of my activity books and saw an activity for Feet painting. We got out the newspaper, paint and regular paper and got to work. This was one of Alyssa's favorite activities. What started out as just feet painting, ended up being feet, hand, and whatever else painting.
At the end of it, we had a lot of pictures to send to family of Alyssa's feet and hands which are cherished by her Grandparents and parents.

Cost: A couple dollars for paint and paper

Stars: 5/5

Time Length: A couple hours - depending on the child - we added on a long swim in mom's big bath to help clean her off. A total of about 3 hours for our set up, activity time and clean up.

What we would change: I would love to have a big roll of paper instead of lots of little regular sized pieces of paper.

A Bus Ride

Alyssa is fascinated by busses and trains and all kinds of different transportation. We decided to take a trip as a family on the bus. We went to downtown Springfield. We got off and got a treat. We got back on the bus and came home. Alyssa still talks about going on the bus and asks to go again.
Cost: This was $1 per person each way. Kids are free.
Stars: 5 out of 5
What we would change: Not a thing. We are going to do this again.

Going to the Park

An Activity that is a staple in our family is going to the park. My daughter, Alyssa, loves it. Every time we drive past a park she says "I'd like to go to the park, Mom." So sweet. During the winter and colder days it is hard to get out but when we do, we LOVE it.

Welcome to our new blog

Recently I have realized that I only have a certain amount of time before my babies go off to school and I can no longer spend the time with them that I want. I have a 2 year old little girl and a baby on the way. I want to make the most of each minute I have with them so I decided to have some kind of activity that is just for them a few times a week. These are our adventures, feel free to do these too.