lil Mop Top

Printable Bookplates - FREEBIES!

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

If your kiddos are anything like mine, they LOVE books. We have tons of books at our house and I love watching the boys picking up books and flipping through them. It is just so dang cute! Ever since the Build-A-Library baby shower that I co-hosted for my sister, I have been adding bookplates to the boys' books. The most recent favorite that I created are these cute grey ones.

I love being able to document who gave the boys that particular book! Slowly but surely, our library is being labeled either with these bookplates, or generic 'Brown Library' bookplates.

I have also started including a set of bookplates when I give books as gifts. I add one in the book with the boys' names written in, and then a set of blank ones for the recipient to add to other books in their collection.

So, because I love all my sweet readers, I am sharing some free bookplates for your personal use! You can hand write the names or use an editing program to add text to these. I have a blue, pink, and orange version that you are welcome to save and use for yourself or for gifts. (PLEASE, do not sell these bookplates! But you are welcome to make as many as you like and give away as many as you like!)

I print these onto Avery name tags, but you can resize these to fit the sticker labels of your choice. I like these Avery name badges because you can seperate them individually after printing rather than having a full sheet of stickers. They are a little more expensive than others, though!

If you would like personalized or custom bookplates, please check out my Etsy shop! I have both jpgs or premade versions available!

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rainBOW Baby Shower

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

We have another guest post today! Yay! My sister, Emily, from Refreshingly Chic, is here to show off her fabulous 'Somewhere over a RainBOW' baby shower. I love how everything turned out (and I am only a tad biased!). I also designed her invitations so I am more than a tad biased about those. So, please welcome Miss Emily!

One of my great friends, Stefanie, is having a baby girl in March and I helped throw a baby shower for her at my house over the weekend.

We wanted to do something different that we haven’t seen all of Pinterest (love) and that we haven’t already seen at our own friends’ showers… so we came up with a build a bow collection. My sister, Jen, owns Lil Mop Top and helped design our ADORABLE invitations. I got TONS of compliments on them and everyone seemed to love the theme. So happy with the outcome!

*Hard to see everything because I saved the copy weird, BUT check out her Etsy shop to see this invite and all of the others that she has for sale*

A few months ago I saw a picture of a string of origami bows and I knew I wanted to do that as part of the décor. I didn’t think it would be so hard to find a video on how to make these but it was! After some research, the bows were made and ready to go.

These bows added with some balloons were the main decoration for the fireplace and mantel area, which is where we put all of Stefanie’s presents.

The activity for the shower was a RainBOW of blessings. I cut out a bow shape and traced it onto 6 different pieces of scrapbook paper and cut those out (duh). I made a chalkboard and bow holder and put the instructions to write a blessing on a bow and using a baby clothespin attach it to the bow holder for Stef to take home. Stef had mentioned to me a month ago that she wanted to make a bow holder that she found on Pinterest, but little did she know I already made it for her!

*Check out Refreshingly Chic and like them on Facebook to find out how to make the bow holder and chalkboard yourself!*

As you can see there is also a wreath in the decorations. I have a SLIGHT wreath obsession, so what better to do than make one for Stefanie to use at the hospital and then in her home! I bought some white yarn that has a glimmer of iridescent to it and wrapped the whole wreath in it. Then using the Cricut I made a banner that spelled out Baby Girl. I got the letter A and painted it red to match her nursery and my lovely husband wired it on there and Wah-Lah! Wreath complete.

One of the hostess made a diaper cake and another made favors for our guests. The favors were Rice Krispie treats, YUM.

Next was the food. We had about 25-30 people RSVP and it was from 1-3pm so we wanted to make sure people got plenty of options. On Pinterest I saw a rainbow of fruit with marshmellows as the clouds so I knew that I wanted to do that. Sara, hostess, made the cupcakes and made the cupcake toppers, which I thought were perfect for the shower theme. Sadly, I couldn’t eat one, but I am sure they were delish! I also added balloons entering the room with the food. I never get to use balloons with shower so I used them a lot! ha!

Here are some pictures of my sweet Emma playing with my friend Kendra’s baby, Asher. They were too cute together! And, of course, some pictures of Stef opening presents.

Hope you enjoyed the shower!!!

Thanks again to Em for being here today! Be sure to check out her facebook page Refreshingly Chic...and after you check out mine of course! :)

Please be a fan of lil Mop Top on facebook!! I link up to these parties!

For ME Friday - Shabby Chic Sign

2012-01-20T13:02:00.007-06:00

As per usual, I haven't done a crafty project for myself in a while. However, when cleaning out my craft closet this week, I found some wall decals I bought 5 or 6 years ago. Yes, you read that correctly. Five or six YEARS AGO. I bought these at a scrapbook store that was going out of business and thought I would use them to make something for my bedroom. Well, fast foward 5 or 6 years, and they were still in my closet packed away. Not anymore, my friends! Look at what I made for myself!!

Isn't it super cute?! I love how it is simple, yet pops on my mantel. I also love that it was one of those easy projects that I could put out on my kitchen counter and do the steps throughout the day while still taking care of the kiddos. I think one reason why I don't do a ton of projects is because if they are time intensive, I have to do them at night when the kids are sleeping and by then I don't feel like doing anything!

So here's how I made this easy sign.

Supplies:
scrap wood
paint, brush
heart doily (from the dollar store)
decals (can make your own with a cricut or silhouette...or scissors!)
sander or sand paper

1. I took a scrap piece of wood from the garage and painted it white. I used 2 coats.

2. After the paint dried, I used Brad's power sander to sand around the edges and distrss the wood a bit. And, you know, I should start saying it is MY power sander since I am pretty sure I have used it more than Brad has!

3. I used some spray glue to glue the heart onto the middle of the board. This glue is SUPER sticky. Like, doesn't come off your fingers sticky. So, definitely do the spraying outside. It is also better to spray the back of the heart away from the board, and then press the heart onto the board.

4. Using the directions of your decals (or vinyl), rub the letters onto the board.

*In case you didn't know, my name is Jen and my hubby is Brad. Thus, the 'j & b'. I will let you figure out why I didn't want 'b & j' on my mantel*

OPTIONAL- You can also mod podge over the entire board to seal it. However, I ran out of mod podge after my last sign (that I sold on Etsy! woohoo!) So, I left mine unsealed.

Side note- don't you love the distressed corners of the board?!

Don't you just love easy projects?! Like I said, I love how this looks on my mantel. I posted about my mantel earlier this week, but I think I really like the new setup WAY better. Don't you agree?

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Simple Valentine's Mantel

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-06:00

In case you haven't notice, we are just shy of one month 'til Valentine's Day. I love Valentine's Day and all the sappy sweetness! I just think it gives me a good excuse to do extra fun and lovey things for my favorites boys and hubby.

Unfortunately, this year we are trying to get our house in tip top shape so we can try to sell it in March. So I am having to scale back this year on decorations and parties (no annual pizza party this year and I am already sad about it!). So, I decided to put up a simple mantel to bring a little color and festivity into the living room. So, here it is...

My garbage find shutter is still up (and I still love them!) and I strung heart doilies across the corner. I got the hearts from the dollar store last year and I am not sure if they have them this year. I made the wreath last year as well. I wrapped a foam wreath, also from the dollar store, with scrap fabric and tied a red ribbon at the top. I folded and hot glued cupcake liners onto the side of the wreath. Then I glued hearts (also from...the dollar store!) to add some heart pizzazz.

See, simple and pretty! Do you have a Valentine's mantel to share? If so, put the link in the comments because I would LOVE to see it!

Please be a fan of lil Mop Top on facebook!! I link up to these parties!

Guest Writer - Winter Activities

2012-01-17T11:30:00.002-06:00

Please welcome Christina Johnson, a guest writer to lil Mop Top today! Hope you enjoy her list of fun winter activities!

“The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful…” With these sentiments ringing in our ears, winter often serves as a time for many of us to stay inside, cuddle up on the couch, and spend little time engaging in activity. However, this snowy time of year does not have to be a season of hibernation. Rather, it should be an occasion to participate in life, try new things, and have fun! So, the next time the weather turns “frightful,” choose from any of the options below, and you’ll surely change your tune and soon be singing, “Come on it’s lovely weather...”

Fun Winter Activity Medley:

Play in the Snow— A wonderful way to spend time as a family and to get everyone active is to take advantage of the winter weather. Building snowmen, making snow angels, constructing forts, and having snowball fights are all ways to pass the time and to appreciate the climate that winter has to offer. Sledding and tubing are also enjoyable ways to spend the time. However, if a trip is more your style, consider packing the family to the nearest ski resort and trying a new sport.

Go Ice Skating– One of the most memorable winter experiences for children and adults alike is ice skating. Whether skating on a frozen over pond or venturing to a commercial skating rink, ice skating is an exciting and unforgettable experience. Remember to wear your thickest socks and warmest sweater, though. You’ll be exposed to the wintry elements even at an indoor rink.

Play Board Games— On the worst of days, staying inside is probably a better option than challenging the elements. A fun indoor activity? Board games, of course! Playing board games together is a lovely way to spend time and teach good sportsmanship to the children. Make sure you keep plenty of age-appropriate games on hand so everyone can participate. Complete your “family game night” with your favorite snacks and treats, and you’ll while away the hours having fun as a family.

Make a Craft— Crafting is another enjoyable indoor activity that helps pass the time. This activity even helps you exercise your brain instead of just your body. Craft products can be purchased in local craft stores or even just collected from around your home. Tablets of construction paper, safety scissors, and tubes of glitter, glue sticks, feathers, buttons, sequins and rhinestones are all fun craft items. Let your imagination carry you away from the weather. Cut, glue and sparkle masterpieces into existence.

Cook Together— Cooking is an entertaining and practical way to spend your time. Gathering the family in the kitchen for the testing of new recipes is a fun way to spend an afternoon, evening, or weekend. Bake cookies, bars, or cakes. Try a new and unusual ingredient or recipe for the first time. Or, refine your family favorite for a tasty, timeless dinner for all. Cooking is not only an enjoyable activity for all; it will also heat up the house and keep everyone contented and cozy.

Whether you’re staying in or going out, making snowmen or baking cookies, winter is a splendid time of year to make memories. And, what better way to preserve those memories than to take photographs? So, when you’ve decided on that “perfect winter activity,” be sure to pull out the camera and snap a few candids while you do it. And, once you’ve had your fun and sung your tune, you’ll be able to add another winter activity to the list— Make a Winter Scrapbook.

Christina Johnson works remotely for Elliman Prudential in the New York City Apartments and New York City Rentals market. She is using her journalism major to combine what she loves most, writing and her career. Her specialties include home decor design and DIY home improvement projects.

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Closet Redo

2012-01-15T06:00:00.007-06:00

Last Friday I had the whole day to myself. My mother-in-law kindly took the boys for the day because my original plan was get massages with my sister and then do lunch. Well, she got sick so instead I worked out and then spent 3 hours tackling John's closet. His closet is such a mess because besides having his clothes in there, it houses all our tot school stuff, old baby stuff, my craft stuff, and other random items. Needless to say, once one or two items are out of place, there is a snowball effect and his closet was a nightmare.

Here is what the nightmare looked like before I worked my magic.

Did anyone have a slight panic attack looking at that thing? It is terrible! Just junk EVERYWHERE!

I took almost everything out of the closet (and wish I had a picture of it because it was a sight to be seen!) I organized everything, tossed a bunch of junk, and moved some of the baby stuff to another room.

I was able to get rid of all this stuff...

...and now the closet looks like this!

So, you may be thinking 'It still looks mesy', but it is nice and organized and everything has a place. I didn't want to spend money to make it look awesome because we are hoping to move soon. I just wanted to make it more functional so that I could take things out and put things away without having to dig through the entire closet of contents!

I reorganized my tot school theme materials (farm animals, zoo animals, bears, apples, sports, transportation, fall, spring, etc). Then each theme went into a gallon sized plastic bag (or 2 bags) and I hung them on the rod with pants hangers. Now I have all that theme's material ready to go instead of hunting around in 5 different places in the closet for what I wanted. I am so excited about this because it is so neat and easy to use!

The Halloween bag is trying to escape!

Oh, pretty organized bags!

For some reason I had a TON of Valentine's Day stuff and Easter stuff. So, those went into boxes instead of bags and went above the bags.

Here are all the arts & crafts supplies. Matthew LOVES to color with markers so he is luck that we have a whole drawer full of them!

All the playdough was put in one box instead of 2 boxes and a plastic bag.

I put all the manipulative items in one spot (blocks, dry pasta, magnetic letters, etc).

What every boy needs at all times: back pack, sleeping bag, and breast pump. Wait...

I am happy with the results! I won't have a heart attack when I open John's closet and I am not afraid something will fall out onto my head. John can still get to his toys at the bottom of the closet but can't get into the tot schol stuff or make a mess with the paint supplies! Perfect...until we get the next house. :)

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Easy Thank You Cards

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-06:00

My sweet niece, Lilly, had her 1st birthday last month. If you recall, I made these invitations for her tea party and my sister did a fabulous job of throwing the party.

Well, I also made some super easy thank you cards. Here's how:

1. I used this sweet picture of Miss Lilly (take by Fancy Pants Fotos)

2. Using photoshop, I added the words 'Thank You' to the top corner. Genius, right?! You could also use Picnik which is a free site or any other editing program like Publisher.

3. Allison uploaded these to Vista Print when she had a coupon for 100 free postcards. Then she wrote the thank-you's on the back. Easy cheesy!

This takes a tiny bit of work, but probably not much more than driving to the store and buying a pack of thank you cards, and they are WAY cuter! This is one thank you card that won't be tossed in the trash immediately.

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Grocery Shopping with Toddlers

2012-01-12T06:00:00.000-06:00

I always hear my friends say 'How do you shop with the boys? I can't get shopping done with my kids with me'. Well, I am no expert, but I found one trick that works with John (outside the obvious 'If you sit in the cart nicely, you can have a lollipop' bribe).

So, this is the oh-so-fancy trick. I make up different grocery list for John to keep up with while we are shopping. I am sure I am not the only one who does this, but I feel smart and that is all that matters! I usually make a list of 4-8 items and put little circles by each one. Then we take dot stickers with us and mark off the items as we find them. They aren't always items we actually need but it helps gives John something to do besides drive me crazy.

Here is an example:

I just get images either in word or on google and tada...a grocery list! I don't make this for every shopping trip but throwing it in every so often spices up our lives a bit. Guess we must have boring lives. :)

We also sing the 'Let's go to the Market, Let's go to the Store' song and practice signs for different foods. However, the signs I know is pretty limited, but it helps Matthew continue to be introduced to signs and John LOVES signing. I get a little embarassed that I sing at the store so I try to do it when no one is around.

So, what are your tricks to making grocery trips more bearable with kiddos?

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Banana Love!

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000-06:00

Have you guys seen posts on several other blogs that showed you could write messages on bananas for your kids?

Well, today I thought it would be cute and easy to use cookie cutters to make a design instead of a message. I didn't have small enough snowflake cookie cutters (which would have been perfect for this week's tot school theme!), so I tried it out with a small heart.

I lightly indented the banana with the cookie cutter three times. (I only did it to the left banana, in case you didn't notice!)

And maybe an hour later, this is how it turned out!

This would be so cute to do for John's lunch around Valentine's day when he goes to pre-school. Of course I would make it prettier that my trial banana. Or I could make them for sweet Matty B's breakfast. Any small cookie cutter would work so I am excited to make their bananas more fun to eat!

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Winter Tot School Activities

2012-01-09T06:00:00.001-06:00

Ok, I haven't been here in a while! Sorry about that. Between Christmas, birthday parties and trying to plan to get the house ready to sell, I have been slacking in all blog areas. I am trying to get back on track though! So, I thought today I would pull up my old posts from winter themed tot school stuff from last year. This will help me kick start planning the next two weeks for the boys...hope it helps you too!

Snowman Footprints

Winter Accessory Playtime

Snowman Unit Plans

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Toddler Art Tuesday- Making Wrapping Paper

2011-12-13T06:00:00.000-06:00

Last week I had the boys do some painting on large sheets of blank paper to make wrapping paper. I put out Christmas cookie cutters for them to make prints with finger paint (like we did HERE and HERE) and they also decided to simply finger paint. Well, and Matthew wanted to eat the paint. Typical! This was an easy and fun activity and now we have very unique wrapping paper for small gifts! I don't have pictures of the final product, but here are some pictures of the boys in action.

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{Christmas} cookie & milk birthday party

2011-12-12T22:00:00.000-06:00

If you can believe it, John turned THREE this month! Time certainly flies by. To keep myself from going into deep depression that my sweet boy is getting older, I spent the last couple months planning his 3rd birthday party. And by 'couple months' I mean I thought about what we could do, ordered some things here and there, and kept a list of ideas in my head until about two weeks ago when I finally put the party together.

Back when John was barely one years old, I saw this post on Skip to My Lou. I knew one day I would do something similar for John's birthday since it is so close to Christmas. I LOVED the idea of Santa showing up and it was just so sweet. I originally wanted John's party in the morning so we could do a breakfast with Santa but instead decided to use the now popular 'cookies and milk' themed party with a holiday twist.

The party all began with this invitation that I created using photoshop. I love how it turned out and it is certainly unique! (It is for sale in my Etsy shop and can easily be modified to a non-christmas party!)

When guests walked in the house, the first thing they would see was a hot chocolate bar. I had a coffee pot of hot water so they could use Swiss Miss packets to make hot chocolate. I also set out toppings (marshmallows, candy canes, whipped cream, and sprinkles) to make it extra yummy! I wanted to get disposable coffee mugs, but found insulated 'hot' cups at the dollar store instead. So I put Christmas stickers on them to make them more festive.

I made a pennant banner on photoshop and printed onto white cardstock. It was SO much easier to make it on the computer instead of using scrapbook supplies! I just hot glued the paper to a ribbon that came off of the wrapping of some pj's that I had bought the boys. Because I just love my readers so much, I am going to share the banner later this week...when I get my act together and can get it online! So be sure to check back late for the free download!

The food display was against a cute snowball and snowflake back drop. I used white yarn and hot glued cotton balls to represent snowballs. I found these glittery snowflake ornaments a year or two ago after Christmas and never remembered to take them out of the craft stash for the tree! So I added those to the snowballs to add a little sparkle. My sweet hubby hung the strands on the ceiling and we actually are going to keep them up through Christmas since it is kind of a fun decoration!

I had lots (and lots!) of cookies for this party. In fact, we ONLY had cookies since it was an afternoon party and was over before dinner time. Some I baked with the boys, some were baked from scratch by my husband, and some were store-bought. All were yummy! I decided the parents might completely hate me if I fed the kids lots of cookies AND then had cake too! So I made mini cupcakes instead...and boy were they MINI. So cute! I designed food labels on photoshop that coordinated with the invitations. I feel like using the food labels seems super anal, but it was nice to not have to tell people over and over again which cookie was which.

We also had a bucket of Horizons vanilla milk and a bucket of Yahoo chocolate milk. I really wanted cute milk bottles with straws but knew that 3 year olds probably would spill milk all over my house if I did that. So I got the milk boxes instead. Unfortunately, I got vanilla milk thinking that was the same as plain milk. The choices at Kroger were vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry so I just figured vanilla was plain! Oops! So now I have a ton of vanilla milk boxes in my fridge that I don't think my sons will drink. :)

The most exciting part of the party was when Santa stopped by for a visit. He came in jingling some bells and coralled all the kiddos into the living room. There he read the kids a story (John LOVES books so I knew he would love hearing a story from Santa) which was just so cute. Then he pulled out his 'nice list' (which I made as a simple list of guests so I didn't have to put names on the presents!). This nice list was a last minute decision and it turned out way cuter than I thought it would be! So, Santa handed out presents to each kiddo (holiday coloring books and crayons from Oriental Trading), which served as their party favors.

Lastly, I wanted the kids to decorate cookies since it was a cookie themed party. I quickly rejected that idea because I could just imagine sprinkles and icing all over the house by the end of the party. Instead, I found foam gingerbread men cutouts at Target in the Dollar Spot (LOVE the dollar spot!) as well as a bunch of Christmas stickers. I put out pom poms, glue, more stickers, and pipe cleaners and they kiddos could decorate those 'cookies' with minimal mess! Some kids put the pipe cleaners in a loop at the top of the gingerbread man to make it into an ornament which was a cute idea too.

I think John thoroughly enjoyed his party (and even woke up in the middle of the night with a tummy ache from too many cookies!). I loved how it turned out and it was actually an easy party to plan for and put together!

Plus, if nothing else, it got me to actually put out Christmas decorations instead of saying 'I hate everything I have!' and telling Brad to put it right back into the attic. :)

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Tea-Party 1st Birthday

2011-12-06T06:00:00.001-06:00

Remember these invitations I made for my sweet niece's 1st birthday?

available in my Etsy shopHERE!

Well, my sister shared the party on her blog, Refreshingly Chic. Of course it turned out fabulous and was perfectly decorated. My sweet boys had so much fun! Here is one little sneak peek pic. Go see the rest at their blog!

Please be a fan of lil Mop Top on facebook!! I link up to these parties!

Christmas Countdown Board

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000-06:00

You probably didn't see this, but about a week or two ago I guest posted on Sugar Bee Crafts. (exciting!) So, I am reposted my project for all my favorite readers! and you get to know a little tidbit about me too...bonus!

Hey everyone! This is Jen from lil Mop Top. As you can assume, I am super excited to be guest posting today at Sugar Bee Crafts. {yay!!} So before I show you to make a Christmas Countdown Board for your own family, let me tell you a bit about myself.

I am lucky enough to be married to my best-friend, Brad, and we have two precious baby boys. (I can call them babies forever, right?!). John John turns 3 next month (be sure to check out his birthday party on my blog soon...so cute!) and Matty B is 16 months. They are both the sweetest and cutest boys EVER! I was a high school math teacher for 8 years and decided to stay home with the boys when Matthew was born...and I am LOVING it!

I am always gathering ideas around the internet to do activities and fun stuff with the boys, so my Christmas Countdown Board is perfect for our family. I used library card pockets and library cards to make a different activity each day for us to do in December as we countdown to Christmas. Here is how I made mine, but of course you can vary this in so many ways to fit you perfectly!

All of the supplies I had around the house so you could do this project for 'free' using things around your house.

First I took a thick black poster board and painted it white. I wanted it to look a little distressed so I painted it unevenly because I didn't know if I could sand poster board. (Hind sight, I wish I had painted this green or red, but too late now!)

While the paint was drying, I used Christmas scrapbook paper to cut out small pieces of paper to cover some card pockets I had in my stash. I cut each piece 3.5"x2.5" but you would have to cut yours to size.

Then glue a piece of cut paper to the front of each card pocket. My favorite helper (Brad) glued while I stuck the paper on which made this part of the project take about 1 minute.

Then I printed and cut the library cards.

Once the paint on the board was dry, I laid out the cards how I wanted them (eyeballing my spacing because I am too lazy to get out a ruler and do the math...but I COULD do the math if I wanted because, remember, I was a math teacher!) Then I stuck the card pockets on the board (they were the self-adhesive kind...awesome!).

This looked pretty plain the way it was and I didn't have an actual frame to put this in. So, I found a spot in the house where I had a mirror hanging above a painted dresser. (My sisters painted the dresser and I love it! Check out their blog, Refreshingly Chic).

I used tape to hang the the board on the mirror so it looked like it was being framed. Right now I don't have my holiday decorations out, but it will look super cute when I get all my junk out of the attic. :)

Like I said, this is very easy to vary to put your own creative spin on it. I thought about making it into a banner for the mantel, but since the boys are so young, I didn't want them pulling it down. If you have 25 Christmas books, it would be SO cute to put a card pocket in each book and the kids pick a new book each day and the card has the activity for the day after reading it. I bet you can come up with something really cute!

I have a document HERE with the library cards with my activities (I found most of them at various sites such as The Activity Mom) and I also have a blank library card HERE if you want to add in your own activities.

Thanks again to Mandy for letting me invade her space at Sugar Bee Crafts! Be sure to stop by my blog at lil Mop Top where you can find a variety of fun crafts such as...

Easy Fabric Roads:

Cozy Flannel Blanket:

and lots of ideas for learning activities/lessons for toddlers such a feeding Cookie Monster during our baking themed week:

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Save 20% in my Etsy shop!

2011-11-21T07:04:00.004-06:00

Is anyone else super excited about this week?! I have a full week of shopping with my mom, baking with my sisters and our kids, fun dad with Daddy at home, Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning and two Thanksgiving dinners! Can't wait!

I am thankful for many, many things in my life, one of which is my lovely friends here in the blog world. I love being able to learn from others and get lots of creative ideas to try out with my sweet boys. So, to say 'THANKS!', I am offering 20% off my digital Christmas cards in my Etsy shop. Use the code THANKS20 at check out. The code will only be accepted on my digital Christmas cards until the end of the day Friday! Here are some of my favs...

Click HERE to go to my shop!

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Unique Wedding Present- Deep in the Heart of Texas

2011-11-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

Over the summmer, Brad and I were lucky to be able to attend a wedding of our friends, Chad and Caitlin. We had a great weekend with all our friends celebrating the newlyweds in Austin. I FINALLY finished their present over the weekend and I LOVE how it turned out! More importantly, Chad and Cait Cait loved it too!

Not to toot my own horn, but they did say it was one of the best gifts they got. (toot toot!) This sign was about 12x14 so it was a good size for displaying at their house. I used the same steps as when I made the Family Tree Subway Art poster for Brad.

If you aren't super crafty or just simply don't want to make one of these, you are in luck! I am selling these in my Etsy shop. Trust me, these make the perfect wedding gift!

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Toddler Art Tuesday - Leaf Wreath

2011-11-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

Now that we are past Halloween, I will be doing fall and Thanksgiving activities with the boys in tot school. So, our toddler art date with my sweet nieces was to make leaf wreaths.

We first took a walk down the street to hunt for leaves. The older kids used pumpkin buckets while the younger kiddos took a ride in the wagon (pulled by strong boy John!). It was so nice to be able to do something outside for a little while!

Then we took our treasures inside where I had cut the center of paper plates out to make paper wreaths. I mixed up brown paint and glue for John and Bella to paint the wreaths. While the paint/glue mixture was still wet, they attached their pretty leaves. I was surprised the leaves actually stuck to the wreath but the glue/paint mixture actually worked!

I think they had a good time with this project and their wreaths are simply gorgeous. :)

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Look What I Got!!!

2011-11-02T21:23:00.001-05:00

About two months ago, I was so excited when I got all these goodies shipped right to my doorstep:

This was sent to me from the sweet sweet people at CraftProjectIdeas.com. Thanks guys!! There are so many fun things I can use these craft materials for so I am super excited! I happened to go shopping at Walmart after getting this box and they have a whole big aisle of craft stuff that would be perfect for those at-home craft projects. You should check it out!

The first item I used was the finger paints for a quick painting session with Matthew. He really enjoyed the painting and REALLY enjoyed putting the containers in and out of the packaging. I wish the paint was a tad thicker (it was more gel like so it doesn't have a super saturated color) but it washes nice and clean off clothes which is really important to me with messy boys!

Isn't his artwork pretty?!

Stay tuned for some more projects that we have done using these items! And be sure to check out CraftProjectIdeas.com for even more crafty goodness!

**Remember, I got this package of stuff for free from CraftProjectIdeas.com. Everything I am writing (or will write) is my opinion on the products!**

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Toddler Art Tuesday - magazine collage

2011-11-01T06:00:00.001-05:00

Last week I did an impromptu craft with the boys. I took a Pottery Barn Kids catalog and used it to cut out pictures from their Halloween section. Then each boy got a sheet of colored paper and a cup of glue with a q-tip. John was able to mostly glue his pieces on his own (great practice in fine motor skills!) but I obviously had to help Matthew glue his pieces.

Matthew actually did really well with putting the paper glue side down on his paper...even though he kept trying to pull the pieces back off.

Here are the finished products:

Matthew's:

John's:

This was really easy and a great way to reuse all those catalogs that show up at your house! I am already saving the pages with Christmas pictures. :)

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Tot School - Halloween Edition

2011-10-31T06:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Halloween!!! As you are reading this, I am taking the boy's to Brad's work for the big Halloween celebration. WOOHOO!

The last two weeks I had out our Halloween themed activities for tot school. John and Matthew played with everything throughout the two weeks, but of course I didn't get pictures of most of it. It is really hard to take pictures now when I am trying to get two kids to do the activity (or two activities at one time!), trying to keep them from fighting over a toy, and trying to keep Matthew from falling out of his chair or eating pieces of a toy. Soooo...pictures are slim right now. I had all the activity pieces out on the shelf and they just would pick and choose from what was there so we basically are having 'educational play' for about 45-60 minutes each day. If nothing else, it gives us a break from playing with the same ol' toys in the living room!

However, we did a lot of fun things! Here is what I managed to actually photograph:

1. Shaving Cream Pumpkin Painting:
I used food coloring to dye shaving cream. Then the boys painted plastic pumpkins outside in the backyard. This quickly evolved to painting their hands and baths were needed right afterwards! But they of course had fun with this activity.

2. Counting Pumpkins:
I got this activity from Confessions of a Homeschooler. John is really into counting right now and did this perfectly!

3. Skeleton Puzzle:
I made this skeleton puzzle last year using a plastic skeleton from the dollar store. Basically I traced around the skeleton on a folder and then took apart the skeleton. Very easy. John really liked putting this together this year and did this several times. It was interesting because he could fill in the traced outline, but if we took away the folder, he couldn't put the skeleton together very well.

4. Pumpkin Patch:
We made the annual trip to the pumpkin patch with Nana. The boys had fun checking out the pumpkins, jumping in the bounce houses, and taking a mini train ride!

5. Cookie Cutter Prints:
We pulled out the Halloween themed cookie cutters and used them to make art prints. Again, this evolved to John painting his hands...and Matthew trying to eat the paint!

6. Halloween Collage:
We made collages from a Pottery Barn Kids catalog. I am posting more about this tomorrow for Toddler Art Tuesday!

Other things we didn't get pictures of:
-color pumpkin puzzle from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
-candy corn letters (that I posted about HERE)
-pumpkin patch letters (that I posted about HERE)
-monster math from No Time for Flash Cards
-spider leg counting from Little Family Fun (with Uno cards instead of die!)
-Mr. Pumpkin Head (that I posted about HERE)
-pumpkin toss (tossing small plastic pumpkins into a larger plastic pumpkin)
-sorting Halloween erasers in a muffin tin
-playing with a VERY mini sensory bin of spiders and skeletons

WOW- you know, I always feel like I should be doing more with the boys and I am slacking on these tot school things. (I mean, have you seen other people's blogs? They are hardcore and sometimes make me feel like I am failing or something!) But when I write it out, we do more than I realize and even though I could always do more, I shouldn't beat myself up about it!

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Teaching Thursdays - Halloween Treats

2011-10-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

So, obviously Halloween is on Monday. For all you teacher out there, do you give your students candy on Halloween? On any major holiday (Halloween, Valentine's Day, Christmas, etc), I would jump back and forth between giving candy or holiday pencils. Pencils sound so dorky, but they are so much more pratical than a piece of candy! I usually bought them in the dollar section of Target or at the Dollar store. I would stand at the door between classes and hand out the pencils as students were walking in. Not one kiddo ever complained about getting a pencil and I saw those being used for several weeks after being handed out.

Speaking of pencils, when my MIL threw our rehearsal dinner, she put pencils in little goodie bags that said 'Brad & Jen - July 2006'. She gave me all the extras so I used those in class for the kids who forgot their pencil. It was pretty funny because kids did NOT like getting those pencils for some reason! I guess they were embarassed to use a pencil with writing on it??? As usual, those pencils ran out pretty quick since students don't usually return pencils in high school. Anywho, one day I was talking to my Assistant Principal in his office and wouldn't you know- he was using a Brad and Jen pencil! He said he probably picked it up off the floor in the hallway one day. Pretty funny how that pencil got back to him!

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New Invitation in Shop!

2011-10-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

John's birthday is around the corner so I finally made his invitation last week. I am going with the cookies and milk theme but putting a Christmas twist to it since his birthday is in December. I will be throwing the party with a fun holiday cookie theme and even the Man in Red may stop by for a visit! I am so excited! So, to help set that theme, here are the invitations (with my info changed of course!).

I also have these in my Etsy shop if anyone is interested in getting the jpg for your own party. After Christmas I will put some plain cookies on the invite so they can be used all year round. :)

I have been saving ideas on Pinterest for John's party so I am so excited to share with you how it turns out. So, check back (in December! haha!) for the full party!

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In Case You Missed It...

2011-10-25T06:00:00.000-05:00

I posted about these Halloween Shirts last year. So, in case you missed it, I am reposting this for all you readers out there who need shirts for boys. Because, let's be honest, there isn't much out there for boys, yet TONS for girls! Don't get me started...

From last year:

Well, Halloween is this weekend and I never bought John a Halloween shirt! I made this one but he has only worn it once or twice. Is it just me or is it hard to match a grey shirt with shorts? (...assuming you are like me and don't have black shorts for your kid right now!) It is too hot to wear jeans, and quite frankly it is hot to wear long sleeves past 10 am!

So, I decided he need something a little snazzier for Friday when we are going to Brad's work where they have a HUGE Halloween celebration. The office is just short of shut down for most of the day as they put on skits, play games, and entertain. It is so fun! So, I had a black shirt from Walmart (still long sleeves, but oh well!) and I made a Halloween version of the 4th of July shirt.

If you kind of squint so that the white lines don't look so wavy, it is a pretty cute little shirt! I can't wait for John to wear it Friday and it is perfect because it will match Matthew's outfit which is also a black shirt.

So, which shirt do we like better? The graphic...

...or the argyle?

I can't decide which to put him in at the Halloween party on Sunday!

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Guest Blogger - Emily

2011-10-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

Hi there lil Mop Top readers! My name is Emily from Refreshingly Chic and Denson Duet. I also happen to be Jen's sister. I am so excited to be guest posting today and sharing a fun and EASY project with you today! You will leave this blog knowing how to make these sweet clothes dividers which is perfect for nurseries!

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But, first, I wanted to share a little bit about me. Most importantly, I just had a sweet little baby named Emma. She is only one month old, so having time to do crafty stuff is not really happening right now! But before Miss Emma arrived, I had been working with our other sister, Allison, on our furniture refinishing items for Refreshingly Chic's clients. We love taking old pieces and giving them a face lift and new life! At Denson Duet, I share ideas for wreaths, seasonal decorating, and more wreaths!

So, let's get started on today's project...

After seeing these adorable closet dividers on Pinterest (most addicting site in the world) I decided to give it the good old college try. Thankfully, it was really easy to do. Here is what you need:

Go to Container Store (at least that is where I went!) and get as many dividers as you want. They were $.99, so this is really all you will spend money on. I got 5 because I didn’t think I would even need all 5, but it sounded like a good amount! You also need scrapbook paper and Zots. I am sure all of you crafter have this. You could use any other kind of adhesive, but I thought Zots worked really well.

The first thing I did was trace one of the dividers onto computer paper and cut it out. Then, I taped it to the actual divider and traced the inside lip on the paper. I wanted the white to show a little but that is completely up to you. After I cut it out to the right size I glued it to a a spare piece of cardstock and cut it out. I wanted my template more sturdy so that I can use this again for baby shower gifts for friends.

Now all you have to do is trace your template onto all the scrapbook papers that you wanted. I did 10 pages so I would have enough for the front and backs of the dividers. I can use them on either side of the closet! After you trace, you cut… duh! This was the longest process, which should show you that this is a very easy and quick project.

With your Zots (or whatever you are using) glue the cut outs to the front and back of the dividers. And, done!!!

I actually inked all the edges in light pink. Not sure why but I did.

And, here they are in Emma’s closet!!!

All in all this was a super easy and cheap project! Took me an hour total and cost me less than $6. That, I can handle!

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Favorite Things Party

2011-10-19T06:00:00.001-05:00

About two weeks ago, I hosted a 'Favorite Things Party' at my house as a Girl's Night In. I saw this idea on pinterest and it was so cute! Here is what we did...

**Fair warning- all my pictures turned out SOOOO blurry! I am so upset! So, I apologize upfront for poor picture quality. **

All the guests were told to think of their favorite thing and bring three of that favorite thing. I put a limit of $6 per item just to keep us from spending tons of money. For example, I love using big icing tips to make pretty cupcakes that look somewhat professional so I gave away icing tips, decorating bags, and sprinkles.

When the guests showed up, each person wrote their name on three sheets of paper and put it in a bowl.

After having time to chat and snack on our favorite appetizers that we all brought, we each took a turn explaining our favorite item. Then we drew three names from the bowl and gave away our favorite item to those lucky ladies. It was really fun to see everyone's favorite things and go away with new loot! I got awesome lip balm from Cooper Aerobics, yummy smelling candles from Bath and Body Works, and Jergen's Natural Glow tanning lotion.

Quinn got a pretty wreath from my sister that is prepped for a personalized monogram.

Sarah gave out pretty eye shadow.

To carry said loot, I had bags ready for each person. I really wanted brown craft bags but couldn't find them at Walmart so blue was the 2nd runner up. Inside the bag I put a notepage for people to write down anything they wanted to remember for later (brand names, flavors, etc). I think it was a nice touch, but I am pretty sure only one person wrote anything down. :)

As far as decorations, I put a couple food labels on the table for the favorites I had out (drink, dessert, and appetizer) and a sign I made the night before (mod podged to a scrap piece of plywood). I had grande ideas to make this all spiffy and decorated, but it just didn't happen.

Like I said, we had so much fun and it was nice to try something different with friends! I have seen several variations and modifications for this party so check out pinterest for more ideas if you are going to throw one of these parties yourself. It would be so cute if you did an Oprah theme with it because I totally felt like Oprah when I was getting ready for the party!

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Halloween Party - 2010

2011-10-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

You read the post title correct- this post is about my Halloween Party from last year. I never posted about it so I figured I would do it now so if anyone wanted to use my ideas, they had time to get it all together!

So, only one year late, here is what we did last year for our fun party!

Prior to the party, John helped me paint toilet paper tubes orange. Then we made them into pumpkins. At the party, I 'hid' them in the front yard so John and Bella could hunt for pumpkins. They really liked this game and wanted to play it a couple times.

I took our bowling set and cover the pins with tissues to make ghosts. Then we used a small pumpkin to bowl. All family members played this and Aunt Emily won! She got a cute little bucket of candy for her prize.

The adults also played a partner game. The guys taped a cup around their chest and the girls had to throw ping pong balls into the cup. The original plan was to throw eggs, but considering my son is very allergic to eggs, having broken eggs around wasn't a good idea. This was a funny game to watch...and the pics turned out funny as well!

I made two Halloween themed foods- mummy hot dogs and severed fingers. The fingers looked so real and gross in person. They were almost too creepy to eat!

Now I need to get my butt in gear and plan this year's party! Thankfully I just went to a friend's party who did a fabulous job of activities so I have plenty of ideas now. :)

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Dinosaur Costume

2011-10-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

Can you believe Halloween is almost here?! I have been a slacker and haven't done any fall/halloween activities with the boys. :( I did, however, make a costume for John! He has been saying for about a month he wanted to be a clown for Halloween. I kept asking him hoping he would change his mind and FINALLY he said he wanted to be a dinosaur. WAY cuter than clown! So, I made him this cute costume.

Now, before you think I am super creative, I totally got the intructions for the hoodie from DIYing to be Domestic. The only thing I added was the grey felt to the tummy. Since she has very easy instructions, there is no need for me to type them up!

I got the basic idea for the tail from The Train to Crazy but modified it slightly. I didn't make the waist band. Instead I sewed mitten clip thingies on the end of the tail and clipped the tail to John's shirt under the hoodie. Very simple.

So, starting with this plain hoodie from Walmart...

came this sweet stegosaurus...

And let me tell you, John LOVED this costume! He wants to wear it all the time. I was worried I would put in all this hard work (all 60 minutes of it!!!) and he wouldn't wear it. So, I consider this a total success. I thought I might rip out all the stitches after Halloween and get this back to the original blue hoodie so he can wear it, but my sister said it was so cute and he could wear it as it. Well, we might just do that. John can be a cute dino all winter long!

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School Spirit Shirts in Shop!

2011-10-10T07:00:00.000-05:00

First all, my Aggies finally won this past weekend! WHOOP! In honor of their win against Texas Tech, I wanted to quickly mention that I have a couple school spirit shirts up in my Etsy shop.

I LOVE this 12th Man shirt I made for Matthew. A simple appliqued '12' in A&M material with frayed edges give this A&M boy's shirt a cute and playful look.

I made this sweet onesie originally for my niece and then put it up in my Etsy shop. It has three A&M rosette with a painted necklace. To add even MORE cuteness, it has ruffles on the tush! I also have a toddler/girl version in a t-shirt (sorry, no ruffle tushies on those!) I even made a Tech version for Miss Lilly with a new kind of flower that is super cute too!

I even made a quick polo for John (this one isn't in my shop though, so let me know if you are interested in one!). I love that he can look like my sweet lil' man and be supporting the Aggies at the same time.

Check out my shop HERE!

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Halloween Themed Freebies

2011-10-05T06:00:00.000-05:00

Now that Halloween is coming up, I wanted to share some of the freebies I had last year for toddlers and kiddos. Feel free to use with your own precious little ones!

Halloween Matching Game:

Mr. Pumpkin Head:

Candy Corn Letters #1 and #2:

Pumpkin Patch Letter Game:

Cat Shape Game:

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Easy Peasy Baby Gift

2011-10-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

As you probably know, my youngest sister had a baby a couple weeks ago. So I whipped up this easy peasy {and practical} gift for her. I got her a plain white travel wipes case and used vinyl and the Cricut to pretty it up. Didn't it turn out super cute?!

Sorry I don't have a real tutorial but I bet you could figure out the steps if you wanted to make one of your own! :)

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For ME Friday - Halloween Mantel

2011-09-30T07:00:00.000-05:00

Woohoo for Friday! I am super excited about this weekend because my best friend is in town and we are partying it up this weekend! (which means I will be up past my usual 10pm bedtime!)

Anywho, I have another For ME Friday post. A couple weeks ago my neighbor threw away this perfectly good shutter:

I am talking this bad boy had it's price tag on it still and was in perfect condition. It was also huge! The shutter was sitting by the garbage for a couple days before I was brave enough to take it back to my house...while taking Matthew on a walk so I had to tuck it under my arm while pushing the stroller and hoping no one saw me!

Anyways, I painted it white and distressed it with Brad's power sander. Very very easy! Brad attatched it to the wall above the mantel and I added some other randomly aquired Halloween/Fall themed items. Some items were from garage sales, some from the dollar store, and some were gifts from my mom over the years. I made the boo bunting last year for my Halloween party and thought it looked cute on the shutter.

I usually don't do a whole lot of decorating for holidays, but I like how this turned out and when I see it, it makes me happy! Now if I can just get the rest of the house in order...

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Quick Toy Bin Facelift

2011-09-28T05:00:00.000-05:00

I have a niche in my living room where we store some of the boys' toys. I LOVE the shelving that I found at Walmart. I was shocked to find them there and they are actually made of real wood and look great. They look very similar to ones at Pottery Barn Kids but for a fraction of the cost. I also got fabric bins for some of the cubbies to store the hundreds of small toys we have. (Do they just multiply at night?! I swear I didn't buy all of these!). After seeing bins in catalogs such as Restoration Hardware that sport numbers and seeing lots of inspiration in the crafty blog world, I gave the bins a quick facelift.

Here is the before: (with a bit of a mess!)

and here is the after:

I used the Sure Cuts Alot and my Cricut to cut out the numbers onto freezer paper. Then I ironed the freezer paper to the fronts of the bins as best as I could. The fabric on the bins wasn't flat so I couldn't get a really good seal.

Then I painted with white paint. (Truth be told, I ran out of white fabric paint so one of the numbers is painted with...ACRYLIC!!! shhhhhhhh).

Once I removed the freezer paper, I was done!

The paint bled a little in a couple spot since I could get the freezer paper to iron very well to the bins, but if you are using regular fabric you shouldn't have the bleeding. And unless you are examining these bins up close, you can't tell they aren't perfect. And if you are the type of person to examin toy bins, you probably aren't my friend and won't be at my house anyways. Sooooo...no issues there!

The next time John saw these, he immediately said 'Hey! You put numbers on these!'. So, they definitely make an impact on the area...at least to a 2 year old.

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Teaching Thursday - An Ah-Ha Moment

2011-09-22T06:00:00.001-05:00

Can't believe it is Thursday already...I haven't posted anything in a week! Oops. :( Been one of those weeks I guess. So, on to our Teaching Thursdays post we go.

Some of you may think that stay at home moms get to just sit aound all day watching tv. Brad even asked me if he was going to come home to me watching Oprah every day. Well, let me assure you I hardly ever watch TV during the day. Mostly because John will want to change the channel to one of his {educational} shows, but that is besides the point.

However, one day John was at Nana's house and Matty B was a little baby who wasn't even crawling yet. So I flipped on good ol' Oprah for the first time in about a year to see what was going on. This happened to be an episode about two sisters who were sexually abused every day by their dad and brothers. I tried so hard not to start boo-hooing while reading Matty B some books during the show! One girl commented that no one at school had any idea (they were too afraid to tell someone) and that she wasn't doing great at school because all she was worried about was what was going to happen when she got home.

Well, that really made me think. I had a student come up to me one time to confess being abused at home, which was really sad and of course nothing happened to her dad. Besides that, I really didn't know what was going on with these kids at home. It is so easy to forget that some kids have major issues outside of the classroom. I feel bad that I may have been too harsh on kiddos when they didn't turn in homework, attend tutorials, make up a test, etc. Maybe that student had something more important on his mind. Not that teachers should be lenient, but maybe more questioning to see if there is something else causing the student's actions.

It was also frustrating when I might say something to a counselor or principal or parent and they would say 'oh, yeah, but this students is dealing with XYZ'. Hmmm, that would have been information that would have been very helpful to a teacher! So if you are a parent, or administrator, please keep those teachers in the loop!!

Anyways, so that was my Ah-Ha Moment. It is a nice reminder to be patient with students because we really may not know the full story on them.

Hope you all had a great week!

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Teaching Thursdays - The Wave

2011-09-15T10:55:00.002-05:00

Well, it is Thursday, so you know that means it is Teaching Thursdays here! Woohoo!

Today I am sharing an activity that can be used for Algebra I, Algebra II, and Math Models. It is great for graphing scatter plots, finding linear regressions, extrapolating info, solving equations, comparing equations, and determining changes in graphs when the slope is changed. Plus the kids have fun which is a double bonus!

So....here is The Wave activity! This is just like when people do the wave at sporting events except we are obviously doing this on a much smaller scale.

Using this worksheet, the class will do the wave with increasing number of students added to the line and time themselves. Then the class graphs the scatterplots, gets an equation and makes predicitions. I make the kiddos stand in the front of the room and make noise as they are doing the wave. Some kids think they are too cool but most students have fun with it. You can get the worksheet HERE to use in your classroom.

Here are some tips:
1. Make sure the students do the wave the same way each time. So if an individual decides to do it super fast, they need to do it super fast at each trial to keep it consistent.

2. If you are short on time or have a large class, have the students do the wave in groups rather than adding individual students to the line. So maybe at each trial 3 students are added to the wave instead of one.

3. Set behaviour expectations up front. I told my students if they couldn't handle this activity, they would be sent to the hall with a worksheet to work on rather than have fun with the class. The worksheet would practice the same things we were doing in The Wave but would be much more boring!

4. Keep all the data in your calculator so that you can graph the different waves on one screen. It shows a GREAT comparison at how the different slopes shifts the line.

5. You can add in changing the y-intercept by saying the first person in the wave has to wait 4 seconds before starting the wave. Or waiting 10 seconds.

6. Maybe another class is doing this the same day. Then you can go in the hall and see if your prediction of 50 students is correct.

7. If it is a nice day maybe you can do all the data collection on the football stands outside. Or in the gym if no one is using it. :)

What other ways could we make this activity run smooth in the class or make it a better activity? Have you done this in class and have modifications to it? I would love to hear about it!

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Toddler Art Tuesday - New addition

2011-09-13T17:05:00.002-05:00

If you hadn't noticed yet, I didn't put a post for Toddler Art Tuesday. Last week my sister and I had the kiddos do a Grandparent's Day craft that I haven't taken a picture of yet. I have been really busy the last couple days with random house stuff and Etsy orders.

However, more importantly, we have a new little baby to add to our Toddler Art Tuesday cousin gang. My youngest sister, Emily, had her baby on Sunday! I am so excited for her and Jeremy. Here is the only picture I have on my camera that was decent (hospital lighting isn't flattering!). This is Baby Emma and Aunt Jen (that's me!). Emma is my third niece so we now have 5 little ones to plan for on our Toddler Art Tuesdays!

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Subway Art Present

2011-09-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

Remember the Subway Art Tutorial post a couple weeks back where I made this cute piece for Brad?

Well, I made another one for my dad for Father's Day. Yes, I realize Father's Day was a couple months ago, but I hadn't posted about it yet. This is mainly due to the fact I took first pictures of it today when I was at my parents' house. My many apologies for my tardiness.

Anywho, I made this for my dad using two posters since it had my grandparents listed, where they are from, my parents and their original address when they were married, my sisters and where we all live now. I did this the same way I made Brad's. My dad is super handy and made the frame for the artwork. I love how simple the frame is and it looks great with the subway art. Don't you agree?

Should I feel bad he worked on his own present? Oh well- he loved the present so that is all that matters!

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Teaching Thursdays - Open House

2011-09-08T05:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome to another Teaching Thursdays post! So glad you stopped by!!

Some of you may be having Open House soon. So I wanted to share three quick tips on making Open House slightly more bearable for parents. AND...I stole two of these ideas from non-math teachers! See- you can totally learn from other teachers outside your subject area. :)

Message to the Students
When I was teaching in Lewisville I was lucky to have met Mr. Serge Moreno who taught Spanish. (Hola, Serge!!!). He is the sweetest guy you will ever meet...and funny too! He is probably one of the best teachers I have seen and he truly cares about his students. I am so sad I only got to teach with him for just over a year. Randomly, I had two of his sweet nephews in my class when I was teaching in Frisco! Anyways, I stole this idea from him and did this almost every year for Open House.

I put a large piece of butcher paper on the back wall and set out a box of markers. As parents stopped by I told them to leave a message to their student on the back wall so the students know they are supported by their parents. Some parents were hesitant (and some didn't do it which still baffles me) but by the end of the night there were tons of messages to students. Well, tons means about 15 because high school parents don't seem to attend Open Houses. Some messages were really funny, some serious, and some were from younger siblings. When the students saw the messages the next day you could just tell they were excited even if they were trying to act cool in front of their friends. I left them up most of the year and even I still liked reading those notes at the end of the year.

If I did this again, depending on the schedule of Open House, I might have out small sheets of colored paper on the desks, have parents write the notes there and hang them up later. I wonder if they would be more apt to participate this way??

Candy!
Open House was always later in the evening for us and around dinner time. So I always brought candy or snacks to Open House and set them out near the sign-in sheet. Probably deep down I did this for myself because I love candy but let's pretend I did this out of the goodness of my heart. I think one year Open House was on my birthday so I even had cake in my classroom. Either way, those snacks were readily eaten by parents.

Pictures
I think I saw Casey Wohlers do this one year. She had pictures of her students working in class, doing projects, etc and put them into a slideshow. She had it playing through the projector while parents were waiting their turn to visit with her. I think this is also a great personal touch so parents can see their precious babies in action.

Do you have any creative or unique things you do to spice up Open House nights?

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Teacher Present

2011-09-07T05:00:00.001-05:00

I decided to go ahead and give John's preschool teacher a gift the first week of school. I really don't want to be a brown-noser, but I thought John's teacher might like to feel appreciated the first week of school. Plus I used materials I had at home so it just took up a little of my time to put together.

I saw a monogram made of buttons on pinterest and thought it would be easy enough to make. Here is how mine turned out.

This is how I made it:

1. I took a piece of cardboard and used spray glue to cover it with a scrap piece of fabric. I know cardboard is kind of weird to use, but when I was teaching I always hung things on my wall with pushpins. (My principal wouldn't even allow staples in the walls so think he would crap his pants if he knew I used nails to hang some heavier frames!) So I thought it would be good to use something light to hang in the classroom.

2. I printed the outline of an L, cut it out, and traced it onto the fabric. I eyeballed the center which means of course it was off center.

3. Then I used my handy dandy glue gun and went to town gluing buttons in the traced area.

4. I used a piece of scrap ribbon to tie in a bow and hot glue to the back of the board for hanging.

See, I knew this would be easy to create! I think it is pretty (minus the glue everywhere. I was kind of sloppy). It also reminds me of something you would find in a baby nursery so this project is quite versatile. Hopefully John's teacher likes it. If she doesn't, we can just pretend John made it instead of me.

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Toddler Art Tuesday - ABC book

2011-09-06T06:00:00.002-05:00

If you saw my post on the Build-A-Library baby shower, one of the activities we planned for the guests was to help create an ABC book. We had the letter pages printed out and the guests were to draw a picture and sign their name on a page. When we got home, there were a couple letters that weren't completed so Allison and I had the kids help create pictures to finish up the book. Here is what we came up with:

N is for New York (by Bella and Lilly)

J is for Jungle (by John)

X is for X-ray (a tracing of Lilly's hand)

E is for Emma (by Bella)

Once all the pages were complete I laminated them and bound them with binder rings. I added some ribbon to make it prettier for Miss Emma. I think it is a very special book for Emma considering so many different people had a part in it. I also like that we used binder rings so Emily can use them as flash cards or use them for games with Emma later on. Quite the double purpose present!

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Cleaning is Pointless with Kids Around!

2011-09-05T05:00:00.001-05:00

I think of all the frustrations that come along with having children, cleaning the house is the WORST. I find this to be the most defeating thing...ever. I finished another month of my chore calendar, and I did pretty well. However, one day I was cleaning out the inside of my fridge (and doing an AMAZING job if I do say so myself. That thing was spotless, neat, and organized). I put away the last fast food ketchup (does anyone else save those?!), closed the door, and this is what I find next to me.

Hmmmm...that wasn't there when I started cleaning the fridge. Thanks, Matthew!

But surely the rest of the house stayed clean while I was knee deep in left-overs needing to be thrown out. I mean, I just folded a load of laundry and straightened up the living room.

Nope. Thanks, John!

But hey, if you come over to my house, it may look like a mess, BUT the inside of the fridge is PRISTINE. Soooooo, there's that.

source

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For ME Friday - ruffle apron {tutorial}

2011-09-02T05:00:00.000-05:00

Thanks to John being in preschool and my MIL kindly taking Matthew for the day, I had time to craft FOR ME yesterday! Looky what I made!

So, here's the deal. I hate regular aprons. For some reason when I am in the kitchen my hands are ALWAYS dirty or wet. So I need something that actually absorbs all that mess. Normal aprons just don't cut it. I also seem to use about 235 dish towels while I am cooking and baking. Mostly because I set one down, can't find it in the mess and grab a new one from the drawer. By the time our meal is cooked and the kitchen is cleaned up, 5 dish towels have been added to the laundry. Soooooo, I decided to make an apron out of a dish towel so I knew where it was at all times and it was the nice, soft, absorbant material I was looking for. I got this particular towel in February from my mom, thus the Valentine's hearts print. So I have been sitting on this idea for a while! :)

Now that you have been sufficiently prepped on the back story, here is how to make your very own ruffle dish towel apron!

1. Gather supplies: Dish Towel (duh), ribbon (wish I had wider on hand today), scrap fabric for ruffles, normal sewing items (double duh).

2. Measure how much ribbon you need by wrapping it around your waist. Fold in half to find center (long ways). Fold dish towel in half (short ways) to find center. Pin the ribbon along the top edge (long ways) of the dish towel, making sure to line up the center of the ribbon to the center of the dish towel.

3. Sew your ribbon onto the towel. I did a zig zag stitch down the center. I also zig zagged the ends to keep the ribbon from fraying in wash.

4. You could stop now and have the easiest apron EVER. I decided I don't get to sew girlie stuff often considering I have two boys, so I added some fun ruffles to my apron. To do this I cut two strips of coordinating scrap fabric and sew them into one long strip. I needed two strips since the fabric piece was small. You may only need one long strip!

5. Fold in half and iron.

6. Sew along the edge of the folded side to give a nice finished look.

7. Time to ruffle! Sew along the open side using the longest stitch and tightest tension. That should make a cute little ruffled strip of fabric.

8. Pin the ruffle to the right side of the bottom edge of the apron. Pin it sew the ruffled seam is at the edge of the apron and the finished edge is toward the center of the apron. Then sew. DON'T FORGET to reset your machine!! I always forget to do this...boo...

9. I then flipped the ruffle down so it was facing the correct way and sewed on the right side of the apron to keep the ruffle laying flat and not flipping back up. You can see that seam in the picture- I sewed on the dish towel itself.

10. Put on the apron, have your husband take 500 pictures in attempts to get one that magically makes you look thinner, magically puts make-up on you and magically makes your hair look decent even though it is 7:00 at night so it is pretty crazy. Good luck with this step. It is a challenging one.

So, I haven't used this apron yet but I KNOW it is going to be awesome the next time I am cooking. And yes, Mom, I have been cooking!

I think I like the apron so much I need to make some more...but maybe without the ruffles.

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Teaching Thursdays- Partner Activity

2011-09-01T05:00:00.001-05:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful week and you are getting back into the swing of teaching again! Last week I shared how I set up my classroom that allowed for partner work at all times and quickly switched to group activities. So, at the request of Mrs. H from Math Tales from the Spring, (Hi, Mrs. H!!) I am going to share an activity today for students to do with partners.

Mrs. H said she found these really cute small sheets of graph paper at Target.

These would be great for Mix, Freeze, Pair activities in class. I am a cheapo and would laminate the sheets of paper and let the students use wet erase markers to make them reusable. Or you can put them in sheet protectors instead of laminating. And because I am a cheapo, I would probably skip buying those all together and just print out a class set of graph paper and laminate those. But I digress.

So, since most Algebra II classes are reviewing linear equations right about now, I thought I would share a Mix, Freeze, Pair activity for graphing a linear equation.

1. Give each student a notecard or have them use a sheet of scratch paper. (I always kept my extra worksheets and used the backs for scratch paper).

2. Have students write down their favorite ordered pair. I mean, who doesn't have a FAVORITE ordered pair?!

3. Students will stand up, MIX (walk) around the room, and as they pass another student, they say hi and trade cards. They continue doing this until you say FREEZE. When you say FREEZE, they PAIR up with a person next to them. They now have two notecards with two ordered pairs.

4. Using their notecards, they can find the slope, equation, and graph. I usually give them a worksheet to carry with them for writing down their calculations, but again they can use scratch paper. They could also use a small dry erase board instead of a handout or paper.

A sample worksheet that I would have had them use can be found HERE! :)

5. Once you see that the students are ready to switch again, have the students MIX (continually trading cards so they aren't using the same point for each problem), FREEZE, and PAIR. I usually had them switch 3 or 4 times, depending on time. I also insisted they found a new partner each time they paired up so that way they were working with new people all the time.

To add a little fun, I also did this with music. So they mixed while the music was on and when I turned it off it meant for the students to pair up.

Some reasons I love this activity:
1. It is very little prep on my part. The students make up the cards, they carry a reusable graph, and I can just facilitate and answer questions.

2. It is versatile. Think of all the concepts you could use this with: graphing/ solving systems, finding slope between points, are the equations parallel/perpendicular?, graphing systems of inequalities, adding/subtracting/mult/dividing rationals, mult/div exponents...

3. Kids are getting to move around the room, work with new people, ask questions, teach others.

Lastly, I wanted to add a sidenote of using wet erase markers or dry erase markers in class. Whenever we used something out of the norm such as the dry erase boards, I ALWAYS let them play and doodle for about 2 minutes. I told them to draw to their heart's content for those two minutes because after that, we are focused on math and I didn't want to see any hearts, flowers, boyfriend's initials, tic tac toe, etc. It worked pretty well and I didn't have problems with kids off task during the activity. Just a little tip for ya!

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John's First Day pictures

2011-08-31T05:00:00.001-05:00

John started his first day of pre-school yesterday. I was pretty nervous about dropping him off. I knew that he would be totally fine but I didn't know if I would have a major breakdown in the middle of his classroom. Thankfully John had absolutely no issues with me leaving him (hmmmm...maybe he is tired of being around me?!) and I didn't cry at all. I was surprised that I held it together.

Anywho, I wanted to share his 1st day of school pictures. I saw the idea all over pinterest (to which I am totally addicted) to do the 'favorites' on the picture. I am glad I knew I wanted to do this before hand so I knew to take some pictures with John framed to the side.

I also saw lots of cute pictures of the kids holding printed signs for their age or grade. I didn't get my act together for that one and figured it would be tough to get John to take a picture holding something we would need to read. So instead I gave him a white magnetic board we had and told him to hold it. (he chose to get on the scooter that is probably too small for him!). Then I just photoshopped in the words. Much easier that way!

So, the moral of my story is, a little prep work and thought before taking important pictures goes a long way. I think we were able to get a couple cute pictures of an always-moving John!

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Toddler Art Tuesday - Baking

2011-08-30T05:00:00.001-05:00

Last week we did baking themed activities for tot school. So I wanted to match up our Toddler Art Tuesday activity to the theme. Since we were baking and decorating cupcakes, I connected the activity to the book 'Cupcake' by Charise Mericle Harper. It is a pretty cute book and John wanted me to read it to him 429 times last week.

Before my nieces came over, I had the boys make chef hats for our baking adventures. I cut a strip of white paper and let them color it. John made all of 3 lines claiming he drew a hat and Matthew didn't color his at all. Typical! I guess I should cut Matthew some slack considering he is 13 months. :)

Then I wrapped the strip around each boy's head to get the size right and taped into a circle.

Lastly I taped some tissue paper to the inside of the paper strip to creat the top of the hat.

The BEST part was after all that work (taping is hard work!) John wouldn't wear his. Again, typical.

Once the girls came over we made icing from scracth and then decorated cupcakes. Bella's turned out...interesting. I think she used the entire bottle of sugar sprinkles on her three cupcakes.

Notice that Bella has a cute chef's hat. That is because I sewed it for her as a Christmas gift. :) My poor boys are slighted sometimes, huh?

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Tot School - Baking Themed Week

2011-08-28T06:30:00.000-05:00

First of all, Happy Birthday to ME! I am turning 31 on Monday...dang I am getting old. :)

As I am spending my birthday with my favorite boys (probably treating myself to a fancy lunch at McDonald's), I am leaving you with this little post on our baking themed week during tot school last week. I thought it turned out really cute and finally made up some new games for John. Woohoo! So, here it goes...

**All games that I made can be dowloaded HERE!**

Cookie Monster Game:
I printed off a picture of Cookie Monster and attached it to an empty tissue box. Then I printed out different pictures of cookies- either different shapes or with letters, numbers or words on them. I put out all the cookies for John and pretended to be Cookie Monster asking for a certain cookie. John loved it and would crack up every time he fed Cookie Monster the correct cookie. I threw in words that he spells on his own to see if he could recognize the words and he did! I was so excited! We played this game several times (even with Daddy at night). Matthew joined in on just putting stuff in Cookie Monster's mouth. Seriously, John LOVED this game and wanted to play it every day. So, I consider this one a success!

Counting Cookies Game:
I printed some different style cookies, laminated them, and glued them onto magnets. My mom has been giving me advertising magnets for a while so I have quite the stash of magnets now! (Thanks, Mom!) I took a block we had at the house and used stickers to number the sides. John would roll the cube and the put that many cookies onto the baking tray. I used a muffin top pan for this which worked perfect because each cookie fit nicely into its own spot. You probably could even do without the magnet part but I thought it might be fun to let Matthew use them on a the fridge late or for another activity.

Fine Motor Skills:
John practiced pouring rice krispie cereal using measuring cups. After he did this a couple times he decided he just wanted to eat the cereal and made a HUGE mess. They had fun so it was ok that I had to vacuum up half a bag of cereal off the floor. :) I am still nervous about Matthew choking on small items so I am hesitant to use beans or something else that isn't edible.

He also practiced scooping up 'candy' (decorative stones) and put them in a muffin tin. Not very exciting for him so he only did this one time.

Sorting:
I put out a pitcher of different spoons for John to sort by size. He did a couple and lost interest. Then I let Matthew play with it and was interesting because he didn't quite know how to get the big spoons back in the pitcher. So this was a great activity for him too- very simple but he is still fine tuning those fine motor skills.

Dot Pages:
I made a C is for Chef page and downloaded a B dot page from Confessions of a Homeschooler. John really loves dot pages so I thought he would enjoy playing around with the marker. However, I guess he decided he wasn't as interested in dot pages this week and only did the C page. You can download the C is for Chef page I made and the other cookies games HERE for FREE!

Random Kitchen Stuff:
I put out a tray of random kitchen stuff for the boys to play with: measuring cups, spoons, sifter, slotted spoon, and cupcake liners. Matthew liked stacking the measuring cups and squeezing the cupcake liners. So this was kind of just like a sensory bin without the beans. We also played with the play kitchen for a little bit. The boys aren't super interested in the kitchen at our house yet they love to play with toy kitchens at other people's houses! So weird!

Real Life:
We made cupcakes and icing during the week. Of course I had my helpers with me the whole time! Then my nieces came over for our weekly playdate and we decorated cupcakes together. So fun! and super yummy! Tomorrow I will post more about this for Toddler Art Tuesday.

Science:
We mixed up pudding and watched it change colors as we mixed in food dye. That counts as science, right?! We then turned it into a sensory activity and I let the boys paint and play with the pudding. Matthew had a cooking brush and John has a bottle cleaner and they just sat there mesmerized by how it felt with pudding all over it. So cute! Of course we ended up with baths (and a quick mopping of the floor!) to clean up the mess.

The printables I made are available for free download HERE!

John starts preschool tomorrow so wish me luck on not crying when I drop him off!

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Teaching Thursdays- Classroom Set Up

2011-08-25T05:00:00.002-05:00

First of all, did you enter the giveaway?! I hope so!!

Today I am going to touch on how I set up my classroom and how to get students working with their partners or groups.

Classroom Set-up

For the last several years I taught, I always had my students in pairs and I LOVED it. So I had 3 or 4 columns of paired desks. Like so:

In this picture, Student 1 and Student 2 would be partners. Everyone is facing the front all nice and neat. Everyone is SUPER excited to be in math class. :) I encouraged (and forced) my students to talk to their partners for help, guidance, assistance, praise, etc. Throughout the class period, we worked out problems with our partners, we compared answers with our partners, we discussed solutions with our partners. I often would say 'I don't hear you talking! I should hear you talking to your partner about this problem!'. I think it really helped those students were are too embarassed to ask for help when they are forced to discuss the math with the person next to them. Those students start to gain confidence because they more than likely understand the material better than they think and can start to solve the problems on their now. This also helps the student who is helping the 'struggler' because they are learning by teaching and explaining. They are having to really understand what the math is to explain it to someone else. So, it is a win-win situation! I will posting tons of ideas of specifically how to do work in partners, but not quite yet...hang tight on that one!

Now, I also wanted to do group work or group projects often. So, I wanted the students to be able to quickly move their desks into groups. So, I had the students turn their desk so they are FACING their partner and then squish in to either the partner in front or behind them (depending on where they are in the column). So the first two pairs in the column is the first group of 4, the second two pairs is the second group of 4. This will take literally 20 seconds so it cuts down any excuse for not doing group activities in class. :)

In the picture above, partners 1 and 2 are now facing each other and are group with partners 3 and 4. So Student 1 and Student 3 are now shoulder to shoulder and Student 2 and Student 4 are should to shoulder. All students can easily see me at the board because no one's back is to me. I INSIST they move their desks like this so I don't have backs to me. I won't continue the class until everyone is in their groups exactly as I want them. Some students complain but they quickly realize it is wasted breath because they have to move anyways.

Obviously, I have very specific seating charts. I have been to a couple Kagan Cooperative Learning worskhops where they talk a great deal about how to seat your students. I found it kind of time consuming and so I just kind of did a shorter version of basically pairing a stronger and weaker student together based on a recent test score. However, I never paired the person with a 100 average with the person with a 20 average. There is just too great a gap there and wouldn't be beneficial to either student. I also had to make sure that when students were in groups, their group mates and 'shoulder' partner in their group was compatible. So it takes a little tweaking each six weeks when we switched seats. The best way I made the seating chart was using sticky notes for each student so I could literally move them on the paper to configure them the way I wanted. It is also easy to move a student to a different class period when schedules start changing. :)

Getting the kiddos to work as a partners or groups

Another big Kagan idea is to have partner building and class building activities throughout the year. It sounded kind of cheesy but I tried it out anyways and I really think it worked. These were very short and informal activities for students to get to know each other outside of math work. This would get them to know each other better as a person which would make them more comfortable with working with them during the math part of class.

One way I did this in partners was by having students answer questions. Every time we got new partners (or new groups), we introduced ourselves to our new partner (yes, even in May we had to introduce our names!) and I would have them answer questions. I had a whole list of questions at my desk and would just call two or three out to the class and they shared their answer with their partner. It only took a couple minutes, students got a break from math, and we moved on. Here is my list of questions I had handy. Feel free to download a copy for free! :) You can also find tons of questions online pretty easily if you have different ages of students or just want different questions.

Another way I had students get to know each other in groups was with an activity called "Likes and Dislikes". They shared the following:
1. Things they liked that they were supposed to like. (ex: candy)
2. Things they liked they weren't supposed to like. (ex: math)
3. Things they disliked they were supposed to dislike. (ex: veggies)
4. Things they disliked they were supposed to like. (ex: ice cream)

The kids gave some pretty interesting answers with this activity and if we had time I might have them share some answers with the class. Again, this takes maybe 5 minutes out of the class yet has a big impact on getting students to work together easier in the classroom. I think we can all spare 5 minutes once every other week or so, right?!

Do you have any fun partner-building tips to share?

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How Their Brain Works

2011-08-24T05:00:00.000-05:00

Well, I don't actually know how John's brain works. However, I did catch him doing this on his own:

He did an ocean themed jigsaw puzzle...

...and then pulled up another ocean puzzle and matched up the pieces.

So cute! I had no hand in this. He did this all unprompted. (It is a great idea too so I may have to use this idea during tot school! haha!) So, it is crazy to think of how their little brains work and what connections they are making as they play! It also makes you remember that they need that play time to explore and learn on their own. It definitely is a fun time to be around John and it is amazing to me how fast they learn and excel! It is during times like these that I am so thankful that I get to be home with my babies and experience this learning with them.

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T is for Transportation

2011-08-23T05:00:00.000-05:00

Last week we attempted to do 'T is for Transportation' with the boys for tot school. I set out all their transportation toys, puzzles, games, etc and let them play. I basically did similar things from when we did our 'car' week a couple months ago, although of course we added in new toys accumulated in the last 6 months, new books to read... So instead of re-typing everything out, I am reposting what we did for those new visitors who didn't catch it before. Enjoy the old pics!

Posted in Februrary...

We had a fabulous week working on the letter c using all of John's cars. It actually turned into cars and other modes of transportation since John has so much of those toys around here. It is crazy how all those types of toys have accumulated around here! John showed a lot more interest in this week's activities and only said 'mommy do' for maybe two of the planned activities.

This week I changed things up slightly, only because we had so many themed toys and I organized it all one night while the boys were sleeping. I loaded up all the tot trays, put car themed books in a bucket, and put extra car themed toys all in the 'school' area in our dining room. So, when it was time for school, we ended up staying in that area for a long time just playing with all the fun stuff instead of going back to the living room where we usually play. I think that really helped us get much more accomplished this week and John seemed to be having fun! I also was able to pull out some baby toys so Matthew could join in the fun!

In case any of you were wondering, this is what our little area looked like. We had our small bookshelf with the tot trays and extra toys...

...our books that matched the theme (well, some were in John's room since he wants us to read those for naps!)...

...and our sensory bin.

So, here is what we did...or at least what I got pictured! and fair warning- lots of pictures in the post!!!

John completed this train puzzle several times this week. I was so proud of him because he did it all by himself and didn't need my help! He was so proud of himself and would say 'Mommy, look what I did!'. Too cute!

He worked on more puzzles. I got these from the dollar spot at Target at Christmas...

I use cards of transportation items and road signs and found objects that we had around the house. I put the objects in a box and layed the cards out on the table. John had to match put the objects with the correct card. So, really it was just another easy matching game, but just presented in a different way. I was SUPER impressed because John put the stop sign and do not enter sign in the wrong spot but self-corrected without me saying anything to him. We did this activity twice and even though it was easy for him, we were able to connect to our week's theme.

John and his cousin, Bella, painted using their cars and then had a car wash in the backyard to clean them off. Those two kids had a blast with this activity!

They also played with the sensory bin.

John got a 'Cars' marker book for his birthday so he colored with that a couple times. I love that these are 'magic' markers that don't mark anywhere but the paper, although I don't love that there is a bit of a delay for the color to appear on the paper when you actually use the markers. Guess that is the price you pay to not have your house colored with markers!

We used color cards from PreKinders to sort John's cars by color. He was too funny and had to have the cars all facing the same direction. Since we had a TON of cars by the end (30 to be exact...we counted!) we took turns pulling a car from the box and putting it in the correct column. I know you are supposed to let your kids do these type of things on their own, but I thought he might get burnt out on the activity AND he can always use practice on taking turns! I put the cards across horizontally so that way we could also indirectly be graphing with the cars. We counted each column of cars at the end and John was able to count most of them correctly. Yay!!

I found this Cars stamp set at the Dollar Tree. It was a short lived activity, but the set came with paper, three stamps, ink pad, and stickers. All for a DOLLAR!!! What?!??! I also got a Cars puzzle, but we didn't get around to doing that one.

We used the Shape Book from this tot pack. John wasn't super interested in it, but he did find all the shapes on the cars so I guess that is what counts!

We read lots of books, including 'Red Light, Green Light'. After I read it to John and Bella, I taught them how to play. It was so cute! John mostly understood how to play even though he didn't stop running right when I said red light. Bella just copied what John did! :)

Using a printable from 1+1+1=1, John matched pictures of cars with the correct number of cars. John can get 1, 2, and 3 perfectly and would automatically guess 5 without counting when he saw several cars in the picture. So, at least I know he knows that 5 is more than 3 so it is a reasonable guess! :)

Using printables from Homeschool Creations, John practiced 'spelling' car, boat, and plane. We only got about half way through this activity when he lost interest.

Last, but not least, we painted a traffic sign from www.theprintableshare.com.

Holy canoli, we did a lot this week!!!

Tiny Tot with Matthew (who is 7 months this week! how crazy is that?!)...

Playing with transportation snap toys:

Playing with a steering wheel toy:

John had to play too!

Reading a transportation book:

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Teaching Thursdays Kick Off Giveaway!

2011-08-22T05:00:00.003-05:00

I am super excited about having Teaching Thursdays here at lil Mop Top. I hope you were able to stop by last week when I shared two activities for the first day of school. If you ended up using those, let me know how it went!

So, onto the big Teaching Thursdays Kick Off Giveaway. I am going to be holding a drawing for one of you amazing teachers to win a gift certificate to TeachersPayTeachers. Woohoo!

If you haven't been to TpT, you need to check it out. It is a wonderful resource for your classroom and before you get all freaked out that you have to buy something, there are TONS of items for FREE! Very awesome. Many more items are super duper cheap (like $1.50) so I bet you can find some wonderful things there. If you happen to poke around, you can see my shop, but if you win, you don't have to buy from me. So that means even if you teach English or elementary school, you should still enter this contest because you can use the gift card for anything on this site.

So, here is how it will work.

1. MANDATORY: Like lil Mop Top on Facebook OR Follow me on this blog.
2. To get your name entered in the drawing, you need to comment on this blog post OR comment on my facebook. If you don't comment, I won't know to enter your name into the drawing so please don't forget! :)
3. If you want more entries, share this with your friends. They can do the same steps and just tell me you sent them. For each of those friends you sent my way, I will add your name to the drawing.
4. The contest will run from Monday, August 22nd, to Thursday, August 25th. I will draw the name randomly and announce the winner on Friday, August 26th. And don't worry, I will probably use my fancy TI-83 calculator to draw fairly. (Nerd Alert!)

And in case you were wondering, TpT did not ask me to write a review of them or give me the gift certificate for the contest. I am using money from my little piggy bank to pay for this contest (which means it won't be a HUGE gift certificate!). I am sure you can understand! Good luck and don't forget to tell your teacher friends to enter too!

Remember to stop back on Thursday for this week's Teaching Thursday post.

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For ME Friday - More than a Kitchen

2011-08-19T05:00:00.008-05:00

Well, this isn't a tangible For Me Friday project, but more of a meaningful one. My friend, Kendra, is hosting a contest on her facebook page. The contest is enter a photo that would fit the theme 'Kiddos in the Kitchen'. Whoever gets the most votes wins a child apron and possibly some baking goodies. Very fun! Please go vote for John HERE.

So, I went searching through my old photos trying to find something worthy of sending in. Well, I realized that our kitchen is more than a place for making a meal. The kitchen means much much more at our home.

Even before having the boys, I remember having date nights in which Brad and I made dessert together and then watched a movie on the couch. He makes the BEST chocolate chip cookies so these are still some of my favorite dates with him.

Once we had the boys, the kitchen has turned into the action zone. This is where we bake together for special occassions and holidays. Brad is teaching the boys how to make the famous Brown chocolate chip cookies already! I love having started traditions with my family, such as making Easter Bread, that I loved doing as a child with my family. I truly enjoy the times we bake just for fun (or if it fits the tot school theme!). John doesn't actually eat what we make, but that is just more for me to feel guitly about eating.

This is where I started doing tot school with John. We have done many a lesson here with lots of messy arts and crafts. Matty B joined us when he was just a baby, although he slept through much of it! He continues to be part of the action even if all he can do is chew on a spatula or play with the measuring cups...or make art work with his food.

We thankfully are one of those dorky families who eat all our meals together as a family. Well, obviously Brad isn't with us at breakfast and lunch during the week, but you get my drift. I love having a relaxing breakfast with the boys every morning. (Is it really possible to have a relaxing meal with two toddlers?). John will NOT branch out of his morning breakfast so the boys have a plain waffle and yogurt EVERY morning. Matthew gets some fruit and sometimes Cheerios because he will eat anything. However, I don't really feel like making 3 different breakfasts every morning so we kind of go with what John wants. Sometimes we make pancakes but that is adventureous as John gets. Either way, I love seeing their messy faces each morning as we start the day together. I love seeing their messy faces at night when we are a family of four and sharing stories of the day.

So after looking at HUNDREDS of photos I have saved on an external hard drive, I think that the kitchen in this house is one of my favorite rooms and will hold many many special memories to me.

Do you have a favorite room in your in your home that has special meaning to your?

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Teaching Thursday - First Days of School

2011-08-18T05:00:00.001-05:00

Welcome to Teaching Thursdays! For info on how Teaching Thursdays came about, check out this post!

Many of you fabulous teachers will be meeting this year's students next week. Or maybe you met them recently. Either way, I always spent the first day or two adding in 'get to know you' activities as a class or ice breakers to do in groups. Here are two of my favorites:

1. Starburst Game -

image from here

Grab a whole bag of starbursts (or similar candy with colors) and pass out to students. Tell them they can have 1, 2, or 3 starbursts (or whatever your {personal} budget allows). After all students have their starbursts, put on the board the following:

red- share an embarassing moment
yellow- share a goal for the year
orange- tell the story behind a scar on your body
pink- share your best personal quality

Students will then share based on the starburst color they picked. And those greedy kiddos get to share more. haha! You can have students share in pairs, groups, or as a whole class. Of course you can change what you want the colors to represent, but it is a fun way to get the kids talking with each other. Be sure the students also say their name when they share their colors. I mean, don't you hate it when it is May and students still don't know each other's names???

2. Throwing Soft Balls -

image from here

Ok, so it might sound scary to have students start throwing objects around the room on the first day of class, but my students always loved this one. I actually learned this one from Mrs. Karen Kraft several years ago (who had a great new-teacher inservice when I was at her school!). And if these instructions are confusing, and you teach at Wakelnd HS, find Mrs. Renshaw and she can explain it to you!

For this activity I used soft dog toys that looked like baseballs that I found in the dollar section of Target. If you don't want to buy anything you could probably use paper wads or even balled up socks.

-Students start standing at their desk.
-First person has a ball, calls out another student's name and then throws the ball to him. (First student DOES NOT sit down).
- The second student now calls out another student's name, throws the ball to him, and takes his seat.
-Once a student takes a seat, he can't be called on again.
-Continue until only the all students have thrown to another student and the last person to catch the ball is the first person (who will then be the last student to finally sit down).
-Now have everyone stand up again and the first person starts the SAME EXACT pattern of throwing. So, each person calls to the SAME person and throws to the SAME person they threw to the first time. Go through the pattern maybe two more times. At this point, they don't have to sit down after they throw the ball; they can keep standing.
-Now the fun really begins. As the kids are throwing through the pattern, every 5 seconds or so, hand the first student another ball. I used 5 balls for this activity and kept them in rotation for a while (until I noticed them getting bored with it). It is fun to see the chaos of balls being throw across students over and over again.
-If you have time, have students complete the pattern in reverse order.

I love that the students have to say each other's names over and over (you don't want to throw the ball to someone who isn't paying attention so INSIST students call out the names before they throw. I also love that it is just a fun way to break the ice between students and do some class bonding.

As with any activity I did in class, I was sure to set expectations of behavior. I made sure students knew I expected the balls to be used properly. If a student chose to chunk the ball at someone, or misbehave, they would be excused to the hallway and would miss out on the fun. I think this type of activity is a great intro to class activities that are out of the norm, yet behavior expectations will be held high by the teacher. Teaching freshman? Perfect opportunity to use this to show how you can do fun things in class if they can handle themselves in a mature way. :)

What are your favorite get to know you activities or ice breakers?

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Teaching Thursdays - NEW -

2011-08-17T00:01:00.000-05:00

As some of you may know, I taught high school math for 8 years before becoming a SAHM. I absolutely loved it and every once in a while I actually miss the craziness of teaching. Last month I presented a session at a huge math conference (CAMT) and LOVED sharing my fun ideas and activites I have stored in my box of goodies over the years. So I was inspired to continue sharing through my blog. Therefore, I decided to dedicate every Thursday to sharing ideas, activities, lessons, tips, etc for teaching high school math. I will be calling it Teaching Thursdays (how creative, right?!).

Many activities and ideas can be modified to teach at various levels and various non-math classes, so these posts will hopefully be beneficial for a broad range of readers. So, if you are a teacher of any sort, please be sure to read my blog on Thursdays! I even made a cute little button for you to put on your blog to share the teaching love. Woohoo! So, tomorrow will be my first edition of Teaching Thursdays and I would love it if you stopped by!

If you are a Facebook user, I will be posting the weekly links there as well. Like my Facebook page so you don't miss out!

Oh, don't forget to add your button and spread the word to your teaching buddies.

Also, if have a math blog and would like to be featured post here one Thursday, please let me know. I love having visitors! We could even do a fun blog swap.

If you aren't a teacher, don't worry, my blog will still be back to its old self the rest of the week with crafts, toddler activities, and party ideas. :)

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Toddler Art Tuesday- Fish

2011-08-16T05:00:00.001-05:00

Last week I had the idea to make a fish using colored scraps from magazines. I thought maybe if the different colors were layered across a piece of paper, it would look like fish scales. Well, when asking a 2 year old to do this project, it doesn't quite come out like fish scales. So, instead, we glued...

...and mommy helped glue some more...

...and cut into a fish shape.

Are we impressed yet??

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Best Artist in the Ocean

2011-08-14T18:55:00.006-05:00

We kind of did some more ocean activities this week (continuing last week's theme). Nothing just super amazing, but I will share what we did anyway. :)

I think my favorite activity of the week was an art project that was connected to the book "I'm The Best Artist in the Ocean". This book is about a giant squid who is painting in the ocean. It turns out he is panting on a giant whale the whole time. So after we read that book for the millionth time, I cut out a whale and had John paint with his water colors. It was realy cute!

We also did an art project with my niece Bella which I will explain more during my weekly Toddler Art Tuesday post.

While Bella was over, they played with the Melissa and Doug magnetic fishing puzzle. John loves this puzzle.

I printed out some octopus puzzles from Confessions of a Homeschooler. John did really well on this one- I think it was too easy for him. It is amazing how he is all of a sudden able to do full jigsaw puzzles on his own now. I guess things just 'click', huh?!

Also from COAH, John sorted lower case and upper case F's.

So like I said, nothing just mind shattering, but at least we did something slightly productive during the week. I just finished setting up this week's activities. I am going with T is for Transportation since I know I have TONS of toys for that theme.

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For ME Friday!

2011-08-12T05:00:00.000-05:00

I actually did a craft for myself last week! Oh My Gosh! I took this koozie...

and upcycled it to this...

Sorry for the crappy picture. I am too lazy to take another one! :)

It was pretty easy and was a quick no-sew project.

Want to fancy up a koozie you have stashed away in a kitchen drawer? This is how I did it:

Supplies: freebie koozie (sorry southwest credit union!), scrap fabric, ribbon, hot glue gun, fabric paint, paint brush

1. Using a piece of scrap fabric, cut a rectangular piece to size.

2. Use fabric paint to paint a letter. I took out the freezer paper to do this very neatly but quickly got lazy and just hand-painted it.

3. Once the paint was dry, use hot glue gun to glue fabric to the inside of the top of the koozie. Try to get your letter centered while doing this!

4. Repeat gluing around the bottom of the koozie. This takes a little more manuevering and cutting of fabric since there may be cut outs in the corners of the koozie. Try to make the bottom flat so the drink doesn't tip over!

5. I again used the hot glue gun to add a ribbon trim to the top and bottom. This kind of gives it a little more of a finished edge.

6. Put drink in koozie and enjoy.

and I actually added another coat of paint at this point so in real life the pink stands out a lot more. Again, I am too lazy to take another picture. So use your imagination! :)

Pretty cute, right? And I was reading a magazine at the doctor's office last week and wouldn't you know it- there was a whole page showing cute fabric koozies that looked REALLY similar to this one. I am pretty sure they cost way more than using scrap fabric to cover a freebie koozie.

What are you working on for yourself?

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New In Shop!

2011-08-11T05:00:00.003-05:00

Anyone wanting to throw a cute western birthday party? Well, you are in luck! I recently put this simple invite in my Etsy shop. Go take a peek!

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New Chore Calendar

2011-08-10T05:00:00.003-05:00

So, I am onto Chore Organization #1204. So far I have found anything that I have been able to keep up with consistently. So, here is the next attempt...a la a Chore Calendar.

I decided that I didn't necessarily need to dust the boys rooms every Monday or dust the living room every Tuesday. I could probably spread some chores out maybe every 8 or 9 days which lets me add in other chores that were NEVER being done like cleaning windows, cleaning baseboards, wiping all the cabinets down, etc. Then I realized chores such as mopping the floor in the kitchen needs to be done more regularly.

So I spaced things out on a calendar (2 months at a time). I tried to limit my day's chores to only 2 or 3 things so I could actually accomplish my list in one day. Cleaning with kiddos at home is VERY defeating because when you are cleaning one area, they are making a huge mess in another place in the house. Or you mop the floor and at the very next meal they spill their food everywhere.

After three weeks, I also realized I need to update my chores every couple a weeks to catch things I didn't get to or change how frequent a certain chore needs to be done. Even in just a short a couple weeks, I feel like is working better than my previous cleaning schedule. I am still not getting everything done, but like Brad says 'I am a wonderful Mommy, but sometimes my housekeeping skills are lacking'. I am trying though! And until I start tutoring so I can pay for a housekeeper, I will continue to try my best to keep up with keeping my chores!!!

So, how do you organize your chores?

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Toddler Art Tuesday

2011-08-09T05:00:00.000-05:00

In honor of our Ocean week, my sister planned an ocean themed art activity for John and Bella last week. She cut out sea weed and a starfish before we got there. The kiddos glued their pieces to the paper. Then they made hand prints for an octopus. After the pictures dried, they added googely eyes. And who doesn't love googely eyes!? :)

Here is Miss Bella's picture...and her painted hands.

We have another ocean project planned for later today and I am really excited!

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O is for Ocean - tot school

2011-08-07T21:40:00.004-05:00

Last week we worked on 'O is for Ocean' in tot school. We didn't get to all of the activities, but I thought I would share some of our favorites from the week.

I wanted John to practice his pouring and transferring skills, but I am always worried to bring out the pinto beans for fear of Matthew choking on the beans. I remembered that I once made a sensory bin of Rice Krispies for John for the very same reason, and thought using Cheerios would be perfect for our O week! The goal was for John to scoop up his O's with the shovel and put them in the bucket without any dropping. He actually did REALLY well for the first 3 or 4 scoops and then went straight to eating the cereal. :) Matthew loved eating the cereal too!

When Brad and I went to Charleston, one of the souveniers for the boys was the book 'Good Night Ocean'. We read the page about sea urchins and then made our own sea urchins with play-doh and tooth picks. We counted out different numbers of toothpicks to make the different sea urchins. At the end, John just put all the toothpicks in one sea urchin. He thought it was really fun to touch the end of the toothpick and then say 'OUCH!'. I only had pointed toothpicks so it made me nervous that Matthew would get hurt, so if I did this again, I would use rounded toothpicks.

Before it go hot, (so at 8 am!), we went to the backyard and 'fished' for numbers, letters, and sea creatures. The boys loved playing with the water and John even gave his animals a ride in the car. I just let the boys play how they wanted with this and didn't even get into asking 'which letter did you just catch?!'. I was lazy I guess! :)

Check back later this week when I share the arts and crafts project mys sister planned for the kiddos!

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Using Party Decorations

2011-08-05T05:00:00.004-05:00

So, here's the deal. I love making party decorations but after the party, what the heck do you do with them?! Some I save and reuse (like John's Happy Birthday banner from his airplane party which was also used at his dinosaur party) but lots get thrown away.

Well, I decided to take the 'Matthew' pirate bunting I made and put it in his room. So, here is his room with a little more pizazz.

I absolutely love it! I think that if his room wasn't nautical in theme, the pirate bunting may not be appropriate. But I think it fits.

(and, btw, if you are looking for a pirate bunting, I am selling the one from Matthew's party!!)

And since we are talking about party stuff...look how cute the personalized towels are when they are hanging up in the boys' bathroom!! Love it!

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Pirate 1st Birthday Party

2011-08-04T05:00:00.000-05:00

Arrrrrrgh! We threw a fabulous pirate party last weekend for Matthew's 1st Birthday. I loved planning for this party. We decided to have the party at a city park because they had a {free} splash park that my boys loved to go to. I rented a pavillion so we could have some shade and tables. This meant I only have to decorate one wall which was awesome. (I also didn't have to clean my house only to have it trashed during the party, but that is just a HUGE bonus!)

So, to start, I made these invitations. Aren't they sweet?!

I think they were perfect for a 1st birthday party!

Matthew's outfit had to match the party, of course, so I got him a cute pirate bathing suit from The Gap (several months ago!) and a pirate swim top from Target. He looked absolutely precious. (and in true baby-fashion, he is NEVER fussy, but boy, was he in a mood at the party!!)

I made John's pirate party shirt (directions HERE) and the night before the party I made Brad a pirate shirt using freezer paper. Don't they look so cute?!

For decorations, I decided to go with something somewhat simple. So I made a pirate bunting with blue and black fabrics and a Happy Birthday paper banner.

I actually bought the fabric from The Fat Quarter Shop. (I won a gift card to their online shop so I was able to get all my materail for free! yay!). I found really cute pom pom trim at Joann's. You can't really tell, but I painted 'Matthew' onto the bunting around the table using freezer paper.

I made the 'Happy Birthday' banner by making the pieces using Publisher, printing onto cardstock and cutting them out. Then I put slits on each side of the circle piece and threaded them through blue ribbon. This was SO easy and I love that I can reuse the ribbon after the party!

I wanted to add something pirate-y onto the table so I asked my lovely and handy hubby to make some wood pylons. He took an old fence post and rope and came up with a cute trio. (You can see the pirate ship he made too sitting on the pylons!). Sorry- I don't have a great pic of just the wood pylon BUT they were perfect for the table and added a nice simple touch to the decor.

For the guest tables, I just put a blue plastic table cloth over them, which I am SO glad I did because some of the tables were dirty with bird poop and what not. So gross! I printed off treasure maps for placemats and taped them to the table cloth. I am not really impressed with this, but it would have been SUPER cute if I had crayons at each spot and kids could color or something. But I doubt any of the kids really cared all that much about them.

For food we had sandwiches, brownie bites, cupcakes (with cupcakes toppers I made using printables from cottage industrialist), fruit, chips, and chex mix. Nice and easy! The hardest part was having to keep everything in coolers right up until we ate so the food wouldn't melt in the heat! I found a blow up treasure chest cooler from Oriental Trading. It turned out to be perfect to hold all the drinks for the party.

The favors for the party was one of my favorite parts. I wanted the kiddos to have something they could actually use (don't you hate getting junky favors that you just end up throwing away when you get home?!) and I wanted them to be able to use it at the party. So, I decided to make each guest a personalized swim towel. The older kids got buckets for playing in the water and the younger kids got ocean squirt toys. All kids also got a mini pirate beach ball.

You know, I thought that I would be sewing FOREVER to get the towels done. However, it probably took me 3 hours total to get them done. I used the cricut to cut out the letters (which saved a TON of time!), ironed them onto the towels first (no pinning!) and then sewed a straight stitch around the edge. I love how they turned out and thankfully I was able to find CHEAP towels at Walmart so I didn't spend a fortune on towels. (luckily all guests were 3 and unders so I could get away with buying small towels!)

That about wraps up the party! We had a fun time and it was so laid back since the main entertainment was the splash park. Although I love games and activities, I also enjoyed not stressing out about how to keep everyone entertained during the party. So, here are a couple more pictures of the party in action!

poor Matthew was not interested in eating his smushed cake! :)

I link up to these parties!

On To The Next Party...

2011-08-03T05:00:00.000-05:00

This past weekend we had Matthew's 1st Birthday party. And even though I would like to take a month to grieve that my precious baby is a baby no more, I have the next party to plan!

What party, you ask? No, not mine even though my birthday is this month. No, not the Halloween party we hold at my house most years. No, not a Thanksgiving party. JOHN'S 3RD BIRTHDAY PARTY which is in DECEMBER! Woohoo!

So, maybe I am planning a little early. But I saw this post last month and knew exactly what I wanted the theme to be. (well, I already had a theme, but this picture helped me set that theme in stone!)

I am not telling the theme yet, but any guesses?!

and don't you worry your pretty little head. I will be posting about the fabulous pirate party soon!
I link up to these parties!

Toddler & Baby Activity

2011-08-02T05:00:00.000-05:00

I saw a post on The Activity Mom a while back (at least I think that is where is where I saw it!) that said to have a baby crawl over a pillow as a fun activity. Well, Matty B went straight from sitting in one spot to climbing on everything a couple months ago. So instead of one pillow, I threw all the pillows we had (and all our couch cushions...and blankets) into a huge pile on the living room floor. Then I told John and Matthew to have fun climbing Pillow Mountain.

Boy, did they LOVE this one! Matthew loves to climb so he was in heaven on Pillow Mountain. John just likes to run around like crazy so he would run up one side and then roll down the other...or jump from the ottoman to the pile of pillows (which totally gives me a heart attack!) This entertained the boys for a solid 30-45 minutes which is great for those afternoons before dinner when you want to rip your hair out because the kiddos are getting into everything they aren't supposed to. Plus it helps get their energy out when it is too hot to go outside! I love summer time but it is too dang hot in Texas!

Here are some very blurry pics of the kids as they played. So hard to get a good action shot!

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P is for Pirate - tot school

2011-07-31T18:00:00.000-05:00

John is 32 months

I am so proud of myself! I FINALLY got a real week of tot school stuff put together again. Since Matthew's birthday party was pirate themed, we did 'P is for Pirate' last week. We will probably continue it this week since we didn't quite get to everything.

A big thanks to 2 Teaching Mommies for sharing their great printables so there was very little work on my part!

The first activity we did was a do-a-dot P (although we used my old bingo daubers!). John hasn't done this type of activity in a while and he showed HUGE improvement with this! He was able to cover most of the dots whereas he used to just make dots all over the paper haphazardly. I was so proud! Then I asked him to try to make a P out of dots with a blank peice of paper and he did a pretty good job of making a P on his own! Very exciting!

We used the foam p and pegs. John only wanted to use green pegs. Matthew played with the pegs as well. He was so cute because he knew that the peg needed to go in the hole, but he didn't have the coordination to get it there!

I put play-doh in the shape of a P on a sheet of laminated paper. Then John used a peg to punch holes in the P. Very similar to the do-a-dot activity. I like that this also helps work on pre-writing skills and he is practicing making the shape of a P.

We did a pirate puzzle. I love that this was practicing numbers 11-20. John did pretty good with this although he lost interest in it before finishing all the pieces so I helped finish it.

I guess when I type it out, it doesn't seem like we did a whole lot, but we are SO busy that I am glad we can squeeze in even the little that we did! Hopefully this week we can do even more activities!

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Happy Birthday, Matthew!

2011-07-29T05:00:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to my precious baby Matthew! He is ONE today! I can not believe it has been a year already. A year of pure happiness (well, only a few frustrations!) with the sweetest baby in the world. I have never met another baby who is always so happy, laid back, sweet, and loving. I am so excited for what the future holds for Matthew although I really want him to stay a baby forever! I love love love this little boy and can't imagine life without him!

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lil Mop Top is on FACEBOOK!

2011-07-25T12:51:00.002-05:00

So, I am breaking down and heading to facebook! Although I have my personal facebook account, I am still figuring out how to combine my blogging world with the facebook world, so please be patient! :) And PLEASE come be a fan HERE! I am hoping to use this platform to keep you wonderful readers updated on the little things that are going on (that probably don't require a FULL post!) and share things I find around the internet. Check it out! Plus I am super excited to have more interaction with readers!

I link up to these parties!

Paper Flowers - easy tutorial

2011-07-20T05:00:00.004-05:00

Ever since my post on the Build-A-Library baby shower, I keep getting asked 'lil Mop Top, how did you make those cute paper flowers on the beautiful diaper cake?!'. Ok, so no one actually asked me that, but let's pretend, shall we?

Are you ready for an EASY tutorial? Here we go!!!!

1. Cut several circles from paper. I used a baby book. Then cut little snips into the circle all the way around.

2. Crumple circles into a ball.

3. Flatten paper and hot glue layers together. I glued about 6 circles together.

See, I told you that was easy! Then put those easy and cute flowers wherever you need them. And, just in case you thought I was crafty, I got this idea from another blog. I just can't remember which one. So, if it was you, THANKS for the great idea!

I link up to these parties!

Build-a-Library Baby Shower!

2011-07-18T16:00:00.002-05:00

After what felt like months of prepping and planning, we finally had our Build-a-Library baby shower last weekend! We had an amazing turn out (about 40 guests!) and the shower was a complete success! Not only did my sister receive many many gifts, but she now has 50 new books for Baby Emma's new library. For that reason alone, I am SO glad we chose this theme for the shower!

So, here is a huge post on everything that we had going on a this shower!

Remember these?

We started out with these precious invites that we made to set the theme of the shower. I love that we asked guests to bring books so baby Emma is now set for a while on book! (These invites are for sale in my Etsy shop for those of you who are interested!)

Having a guest list of 60 people, we knew hosting this shower at one of our homes wouldn't fit everyone. So, we had the shower at a local botannical gardens that had a nice open space in an air conditioned building. This was a nice room to rent, but that meant we had to plan for much more in decor so the room wouldn't be so plain. Since we were having guests bring books, we based all the decorations around books.

Starting with the sign in table...

We put up a chalkboard at this table to help welcome guests when they arrived. My sister made the chalkboard for the party (and has a wonderful blog HERE for all her remodeling projects!). Isn't it cute?!

My sister, Allison, and I made a pretty diaper cake. I used to not like diaper cakes because the diapers get all rolled up and funky. However, I saw the swirled diaper cakes which are much prettier and are easier to make. I used an old baby book to make paper flowers for the decorations as well as the paper bunting topper. I wrote 'emma' on the bunting with a marker. I love the simple look of the cake!

We used a quote from the book "Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes" by Mem Fox for an activity during the shower, so we ordered a copy of the book for guests to sign the inside cover. I think it will be so sweet for the baby to read later and see all the names of the people who were at the shower!

The third item on this table were the party favors. I used the library card template to make a thank-you card. We made easy bookmarks out of scrap material and paper clips. After clipping the bookmarks to the cards, we set them out for guests to take with them on their way home. Easy and practical! (These are also for sale in my etsy shop!)

Moving on to the fireplace...

We made a canvas quote from Dr. Seuss' "Oh, The Places You'll Go". Didn't it turn out so sweet for a baby girl? I posted the instructions on how to make this canvas HERE. It was SUPER easy to make and it fits the theme of the shower perfectly. I also love that Emily can take it home and put it in her nursery after the shower. Emily has a collection of E's at her house, so we took those and put them on the fireplace since the baby's name will be Emma. Another personal touch for the decorations.

Again using an old baby book, I made a bunting to hang across the fireplace. Another easy project that looks so cute at this shower.

The food table...

We had tons of food (of course!). My sisters and I all have an old set of Beatrix Potter baby dishes from when we were babies. So we tried to use those for some of the food items. We used books covered in pink paper and our own kid's books as part of the decoration on the food table as well.

For the cupcakes, I made the cupcake toppers out of...you guessed it...old baby books! I used the cricut to cut out a bunch of circles and then hot glued them to tooth picks. Easy? YES!

Guest tables...

We found a thick children's book at a thrift store, cut out the pages, and then turned them into table runners. We simply hot glued the pages together and then used scalloped scissors to trim the edges. We had grand plans of making these all ruffled and cute, but it was taking WAY to look to do all the folding and sewing. So, we went with the simple look. We added flowers, candles, and books for more decoration.

At each seat, we put out a post card with a quote from "Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes". I made the postcards at Vistaprint when they were offering 100 free postcards. So I just had to pay shipping for these! We also printed out instructions for each guest that asked them to write a message of encouragement for Emily and Jeremy for certain time periods (ie when the baby is 1 month, 2 months, etc). Then we collected those, put an address sticker on it, and will mail them to her at the appropriate time. Seeing as how this is Emily's first baby, I think it will be so nice for her to get some encouraging mail especially on those days when you want to rip your hair out! :) We didn't want to play games at the shower (and didn't really have time considering Emily had to open a million presents) so we thought this would be a nice activity they could do at their leisure while chatting with friends at their tables.

The craft table...

Last, but not least, we had a craft table set up for the shower. Again, we didn't want to play games, so this was another activity for guests to do at their leisure. I originally wanted to have people make onesies, but I feel like that has become too popular. Plus, having 40 people makine onesies might difficult! After doing a google search, I found an ABC printable book on another blog. (The free printable isn't offered there anymore!) I loved the idea and it fit the shower perfectly. We put directions on a chalkboard and set out markers for people to make their pages. Now that the shower is over, I will laminate the pages and bind them together for Baby Emma! We used the Beatrix Potter nursery dishes for candy at this table.

I made the banner above the craft table by hot glueing circles that were cut out of baby books. I became best friends with my hot glue gun with all these projects!

We ended up making decorations for the gift table. With over 40 guests, Em got a TON of gifts so she is extremely lucky to have such caring people in her life!

So, there you have it! I think we had a wonderful shower for my sister and she is set for the new baby. I can't wait for my neice to arrive in September!!

I link up to these parties!

Fireman Activities - Week 2

2011-07-18T00:04:00.004-05:00

This past week we did a couple more firefighter activities. Just a couple!

Using chalk, I wrote numbers and letters on our patio. Then I handed John a squirt bottle and said 'The number 8 is on fire!! Go put out the fire with your water!'. Then my little fire fighter would find the correct letter/number and squirt it with water. He really liked this and even asked for me to write more letters and numbers after he did it one time through.

While John practiced his fire fighting skills, Matthew tried his hand at coloring with chalk. He made maybe 2 marks and then tried to eat the chalk. :)

We ended our week (after doing little things like coloring, doing puzzles, playing with his train set ALL DAY LONG, etc) with a visit to a real fire truck! A friend from high school owns a company where you can 'rent' a fire truck for your birthday party. They had the fire truck out at a toy store as a promotional thing so we headed on over so the boys could check it out. It was really neat and John even got to help spray the hose! Very cool!

I link up to these parties!