Winter Accessories Playtime

We are a bit behind on our 'S is for Snowman' week so I am extending it a couple days. We get so busy some mornings going out to meet friends or run errands and John has been taking long naps in the afternoon so school time sometimes is in short supply!

Instead of sharing the week's plans (check back here for the letter S lesson plan!) I am going to share our 'playing with winter clothes' activity. It turned out really cute and John played for about 20 minutes on this one.

I took out John's gloves, mittens, & hats and my gloves, hat and scarf. It is kind of funny that we had so many gloves when we live in Texas and hardly need them!

First we practiced putting the items on. John definitely needs practice with getting dressed so this was perfect for him. We even dressed up some of his bears!



Then I said 'Let's play a game with the gloves!' and John said 'matching!'. Haha! It was so cute that he knew what we were going to do before I said it! I taped a string across the back of his chairs and used clothes pins to pin one of each glove and mitten. Then I handed him the other glove/mitten and he had to pull off the match. He had so much fun and we did this two or three times. He also loved trying to get the clothes pins back on the string and has finally started to figure out how to squeeze the pins and be able to clip them onto something. That is an improvement for him since the last time we tried to use clothes pins!





If I had been more prepared, this would have been a perfect craft to go with this activity! Maybe next time...

I link up to these parties!

Stylish Blogger! :)

Woohoo! I got a Stylish Blogger award from Michelle at This and That about Kids. Be sure to stop by her blog!! Thanks Michelle!




Now, to the rules for acceptance...
1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers.
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award

So, 7 things about me...
1. I am married to a great man and we have 2 wonderful sons.
2. I have two younger sisters {who also have fun blogs!}
3. I taught high school math for 8 years before staying home with my babies.
4. I would love to teach at a college in their education department so I can teach teachers. Wouldn't that be fun?!
5. I have two tattoos. and promised my dad I wouldn't get anymore. :)My sisters and I have matching tattoos on our ankles which I think is kind of neat!
6. I love love love to dance even though I am not the best dancer in the world. I taught dance for two years (along with math!) and didn't really like teaching it. I also coached cheerleading and enjoyed working on pep rally dances the most!
7. My husband and I like to take trips together often. Thankfully he works for SWA so we can get to fly for free and have taken several vacations together since we have been married! We are going to Charleston this summer and I am so excited! (and sad to leave the boys!)

I am giving this award to:
1. Itsy Bitsy Brianna
2. Life With My Giggly Girls
3. Hart 2 Hart
4. The Iowa Farmer's Wife
5. Get Down and Get Your Hands Dirty
6. Early Education with Antek and Kuba

Valentine's Day Activities

I went to Dollar Tree (who doesn't love that store?!) looking for Valentine's Day stuff before it was all gone. I found a couple things to use with John John when we get closer to Valentine's Day, but I thought I would share my ideas so you can get the supplies before they are sold out!



Heart Picks: I found these cute felt heart picks. I am not sure why they are called picks, but whatever. I am going to find a tall plastic container and kindly ask my hubby to poke holes in so John can practice his cute little fine motor skills by putting the sticks in the holes. They had the same picks but with glitter hearts but that would mean I would see glitter all over the house for weeks so thankfully I saw the felt version tucked in the back of a rack somewhere! :)

Heart Containers: I am going to put chocolate in these heart containers (which I also got while I was there) and hide them around the room. Then John can go on a Heart Hunt! He LOVES chocolate right now so I bet he will love this game! We can also use them for counting especially if you take the containers apart to double the hearts.

Heart Foam Stickers: This is a bag of lots of heart stickers. (How descriptive was that?!?!) I am thinking we can do sorting, patterns, graphing, matching, writing letters on the hearts and matching it to the lower case version, etc. We can also use them for making Valentine's for the family.

Do you have ideas for ways to use these items? Did you find other items at the stores now for Valentine's Day activities? I would love to hear from you since I am not super creative right now. :)


I link up to these parties!

Crafty Snowmen!

My sister and her kiddos came over on Tuesday so John and Bella could have a craft session together. Of course they had a blast (as evidenced by my very messy house!) and their little footprint snowmen turned out ... unique!

We first painted their little feet....



stamped onto paper...





and then decorated!



And seriously- why do kids feel they need to take out every toy we own when they get together?!







Ok, so it doesn't look that bad in the pictures, but it certainly feels abnormally messy right now! :)

I link up to these parties!