Painters Tape Saves the Day!

There are days that you just can't make it to be the outdoorsy family you usually are. Perhaps it's a late season snowstorm or hurricane day off of school or my favorite, is the Florida heat is so suffocating today that the layers of sunscreen and gallons of water required for outside play is just too much to bear. I enjoy arts and crafts with my girls. I find things on Pinterest like the next mom for sure. But sometimes we are just in need of something different, then crayons and glitter. My secret for creative indoor play? Painter's Tape. 

There is no painting but Painter's Tape will make adventures appear in your home that weren't there before like obstacles courses, hopscotch fields, giant Tic Tac Toe, alphabet search, and race tracks.

The great thing about Painter's Tape is that it doesn't hurt the surface you put it on. There is no lasting damage to your walls or floor. 

1. Obstacle course. 

A hall away is best, but if there isn't one that can be an obstacle at the moment, you can recreate the same effect with furniture. Simply you tape stick the tape on either side of hallway in crisscross ways. Place some tape really low and some of it really high. Consider the size of your kids in the process. If you kids are bigger makes sure that they will be able to crawl without tearing everything down immediately. I added areas for my little ones to crawl, stand up, jump over and then crawl again. After it was set up, I told them we were secret spies that had to get the magic sparkling treasure on the other side but we couldn't touch any of the "sensors" (aka tape.) It was so fun. 

2. Hopscotch 

We have a big brick hallway and I taped down hopscotch field with numbers. Since my kids are young it was a fun and easy number activity. We threw things and hopped down the hall. We counted backwards and forwards. Then I had a pack of dollar flash cards that had different numbered animals on it. We matched the animals to the numbers. So, we got a little early math skills and large motor jumping skills out of the fun.

3. Tic Tac Toe

A large board was made on the floor and we picked toys to be the X's and O's. Stuffed animals were X's and dolls were O's. We played for a while. This board was the least successful because my kids aren't quite into the strategy of Tic Tac Toe yet, however it was a good distraction. 

4. Alphabet Letters

On an area of the carpet I taped all the letters of the alphabet in half hazard ways. We sand the ABC song slowly while going to every letter. Then I called out letters to see who could find it first. Then we sounded out words with the letters, then I had another dollar set of alphabet flash cards and they matched the letters on the floors with those on the cards. 

5. Race Tracks

On the family room rug, I created a race track with straight shots and swerves. The girls got out all their cars and played on the track. Eventually they raced cars and got other toys to ride in the cars. The imaginative play they created was amazing. The track became the road to the castle or the circus. All the friends were on their way there and having great time. 

After the day of tape was done, I peeled it all off and there was no trace of using the indoors like an outdoor play area. It did take a little prep time, but well worth the effort. 

Lean In

Recently, I read an yet another parenting article where the author gave great practical doable advice about reducing your daily parenting stress and keeping up with the daily things like making dinner, getting the kids dressed and doing one daily chore around the house. As I skimmed it, I realized I already do all of those things and still I feel parenting stress. My two year has spent a week eating nothing but pretzels and pickles. Nothing works. No positive reinforcements, no negative reinforcements, and no bribe has been alluring enough to convince her otherwise. She has dug her heals in and pickles and pretzels are it. The parenting stress has peeked and I can chose to handle in two ways:

1. I can follow her around the house with a variety of food choices, fork in hand and pray for the miracle of her giving in and eating something slightly more nutritious.

                                                                                 or

2. I can let it go (you may add the Frozen tune here if you like or let that go too.) Chances are that my two year old will all on her own want to broaden her pallet and try something different.

I opt for #2. I call this Leaning In. My second child has given me the greatest gift of awareness and parenting skill I could ever imagine: learn to pick your battles. Most of us moms have already consider what the tween and teen years may bring and we have heard this idea of picking battles with hair styles or clothing styles with our future 15 year olds but the thought doesn't occur to us when juggling our preschoolers. If they want to wear dirty pajamas, why not? If they want to wear sandals with socks, why not? If they want to wear everything blue and pick out what character on their diaper, I say LEAN IN. These are not the fights.

My parenting goals are that our children grow up to be kind, respectful, hard working members of society. Lean in. Let things go. And do it often.

We are lucky enough to live close to the beach. Beach trips typically take a lot of preparation with kids. You must remember the sand toys, the snacks, the towels, the blanket, the sunscreen, the drinks, etc. Sometimes the idea of packing it all up is exhausting, instead I take them to the park which they love and requires no prep on my part. However, upon recent reflection I considered that perhaps the complications were mine. The kids love the beach. They won't care if I forget something. I threw some sand toys in a bag along with a couple of juice boxes, grabbed the sunscreen and a blanket and away we went. For two solid hours the kids played. They ran up and down the shoreline, hunted for shells, created castles and instantly smashed them. By the end of excursion, they had gotten a little more wet than I expected since the water was still freezing it didn't cross my mind they would want to get in to it. I didn't bring back up clothes. When we were ready to leave. I pulled off their shorts, wiped off their sandy feet with the sandy blanket and we trotted off to 7-11 to get a post beach slurpee.

I didn't worry about the sand in the car. I didn't worry about the pant-less children in the convenience store. I worried about making lasting memories with my kids and appreciating their childhoods as deeply and thoughtfully as I could that day. I say Lean In! Allow some chaos. Allow piles of dirty laundry or heck all piles of freshly folded laundry! Don't let your stress become their memories.

Spring Break Bucket List

One the greatest blessings at teaching at my independent school is the glorious two weeks of Spring Break that we have at the end of every March. Here is my Spring Break Bucket List this year.

We are headed to Orlando for 4 days with Abuelos and little ones all in tow. We plan on going to Disney just for one day because we have seasonal passes. These passes have black out dates for most folks this doesn't work at all, but for us as locals we have more flexibility in going, so it works well. Plus as a Floridian I am thankful never to go to Disney in July because the heat is unbearable. For this break, we will be at a villa hotel room, plenty of room for us all. Here are a few things I am taking for the girls to do. I always take hotel room items because I hate having them in the sun for 12 hours, however we do plan on lots of pool and outside time.

• Disney Junior Super Stretchy which is just like Twister
  
  
• Paint a Chick -- wooden Easter chick with paints
• Alex My Collage Farm
• Go Fish Card Game
• Puzzles -- as many as I can find

Here are my other Kid Friendly Plans:

1. Ft Desoto Historic Park There is a toll on the way out there otherwise it is a free excursion
2. Great Exploration Museum Terrific Tot Time We have annual passes that we got dirt cheap with a Groupon.
3. Rowdies Opening Game Which is free for everyone young and old via the Rowdies Soccer Club
4. Turns out our Groupon Great Exploration museum passes have an Florida Aquarium reciprocal in April so this is a free trip too.
5. Lowry Park Zoominations (my father in law purchased annual passes for him and the girls, so we get a discount.)
6. Watch Dolphin Tale and go see Winter at the Clearwater Aquarium which is a year long reciprocal with our museum passes.

It is also Egg Hunting Season. We are hoping to hit up a couple of new egg hunts this year. Here is the best list I found locally: Eggs. There are couple that I think will be awesome when my girls are even a little older such as the Flashlight Egg Hunt in Dunedin.

It's this time of year in Florida where I wish I went ahead and got my pool heater fixed. The outside temperature is ready for a nice dip but the pool water is still way too cold. It only really matters 2 months out of the year.

Making Bunnies

It has been a bit since I have blogged our happenings and I miss it tremendously. Over the weekend I had the girls make giant bunnies using the giant chart paper made by post-it. Since Lydia is 4 now I wanted her to practice her cutting skills. She did very well. I still made her bunny mouth but otherwise she did well. It was tedious. Vivian being 2 wanted to cut the just like her sister and not as successful. She did cut her papers up but not quite the same level ability but she was happy trying.

I had them on "islands" created by vinyl table cloths and gave them each a paper plate with mod podge and a disposable foam brush. Because I cut the bunny head from the post-it paper it stayed in place.

They both really enjoyed it. Afterwards, they made giant Easter eggs. I drew 3 lines creating 4 sections on the egg. My intention was that each section would have a different shape, circles, squares, stars and triangles. But the girls ended up putting them all over the egg which was okay too.

Each of their masterpieces were placed on the window of our sliders as decorations for the Easter Season.

Thanks and Giving

It turns out that having two kids under 4, a successful career, wonderful family and friends near by makes the opportunity to blog hard; almost an unsurmountable obstacles. It occurs to me to take some pictures and I make a mental note to jot something down about the moment, and then just like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of lives.

November is time of year that we all should take the time to be thankful. Some folks post a daily thanks on Facebook or Twitter, add a hashtag and admittedly, that's sort of nice. I like seeing them, but some how I am not diligent enough to pull off such commitment for 30 days. At home with the girls we have a little tree that once a week we ask the girls what they are thankful for and we write it on a leaf and add it to a tree. On the coffee table in the living room we have pulled all the Thanksgiving children's books out and we've been reading them off and on.

However, our goals as mentioned in my epic last post is to give and minimize our stuff. So we have been working on that. For our church service project we put together a few boxes for Operation Christmas Child. We had the girls pick out items at Target. They colored pictures. I also had been hoarding shoeboxes, so I sent those to church too. We packed up 2 boxes designated for girls ages 2-4 and 1 for a boy age 2-4.

We gleaned the playroom with the girls again and took the items to Metropolitan Ministries. We arrived on the day that Met Ministries was breaking the world's record on the most food ever collected. News fans were present and volunteers were gathered around a giant thermometer. The excited was palpable and Tampa Bay beat the record. It was amazing!

Our last contribution over the last few weeks was with the help of the boy scouts in our neighborhood that are collecting food for the hungry. They dropped off a bag at the door asking for canned food. We simply put in a few cans that we had on hand. It couldn't have been easier.

When I was taking pictures and conceiving of this blog entry, I wondered about potential boastfulness of blogging about our family giving. It occurs to me that I am proud to be working on serving others. To be more conscience of the needs of others and the abundance of advantage that I have. I am proud that we are hoping to teach our girls by example. And I do believe if you are able you should care for others in the world in whatever way you can. If you share about your service to others, perhaps someone will feel moved to do that same. Thus to accusations of boastfulness, I say NEH! Join us in trying out best to help those in need.

Summer Fun: Toddler Crafts and Kid Cooking

A few weeks ago I had the rare opportunity to have time with each of the girls by themselves. This is very rare. I set a couple of things up for Vivi (22 months) to do. She likes to feel successful immediately when she is doing activities and so I wanted to be sure to be ready to change activities when she got bored or frustrated. I know this is a common trait for this age and in other areas good parenting dictates you allow them to be frustrated to overcome adversity however, I want her to have fun while doing art, therefore I create the opportunities for that feeling to be pervasive. 

The first activity was painting with tubes. I poured washable paints into a plate but out the paper and let use them as a stamp. She did this for a few minutes and then asked for a brush. She likes painting so she multi-tasked.

 This is an oldie but a goodie. A used Pringles can. I made holes of different sizes in the top and gave her a stack of pipe cleaners. This helps her use small motor skills and work on patience a little. Once the can was full she was done. She didn't want to do it again as if she completed the task and moved on.

 The next activity was a string game. It's an Alex Little Hands activity. The theme for this one is thee farm. I pulled off all the wooden figures and put them in a bowl. She then threaded them on. I was surprised by how this held her attention and how many times she wanted to do it again. It must have been close to 10 times. She would put them on the string and then I would take them off, she would happily thread again. This is another small motor skill development and she was very good at it. I recommend these because the figures are sturdy and Lydia actually likes to use them for imaginative play.

 Once Vivi was napping, Lydia had gotten home from her morning camp. I let her use the same paint, tubes and brushes but added a couple of paint stamps to keep her busy. She loves this type of thing so she painted here for a whole 30-45 minutes without question or fuss at all. The difference between an almost 4 year old and an old most 2 year old.

 Once everyone was up and awake we made dinner. Digiorno has a new pizza that comes with various toppings, they call it they Design a Pizza. The consumer can put whatever they want on the pizza. I found this to be a great kid cooking activity. Even Vivian was able to help. They each have a step stool so they can reach the counter. I opened up the packets of toppings and they just put the stuff on there any way they wanted.  It was sort of awesome. When they were finished we made the pizza and ate it. They both ate 2 whole pieces and I think that part of it was certainly the ownership over the food itself.

A Collection of Random Ideas and Little Crafts

I was looking for some art for the  girls playroom. I didn't really want to spend any money. Lying around my garage was an old cheesy painting of of a women playing the guitar in a cool old green frame. I had some chalkboard paint lying around. I painted over the guitarist with 2 coats and turned it into a chalkboard. Using colored chalk I wrote on it what you see below. I worked out perfectly. It's placed somewhere the girls can reach it so it will remain like this for awhile. Eventually I can take it down let the girls use it or draw something new. Easy to do, less than $5.
Lydia is loves butterflies so I cut a paper plate up to look like one. I let her use the glitter glue and pom poms we had. It was an easy craft. Quick to do but tough to finish because we had to wait for the glue to dry repeatedly to be able to do the next part of it. So we had to let the head pom dry before we added a face which also had to dry before we added the antlers. It's a tough task for a 3 year old to wait.


Obviously you see what I mean about butterflies. I bought these a while ago at the dollar store. I believe there were 4 in a packet. I let both girls (ages 1 and 3) paint them as they saw fit, but then there was nothing else to do with them. I could have added them to anything really, but I chose to glue them to clothes pins. I use them to close chip bags and to hang kid art on our display line provided by Ikea.

The last completely random mom artsy moment was this set of dice. Eliot brought home a couple of boxes that were almost perfect cubes. I taped them up and spray painted them white. I used sharpies to make them sort of like dice. Instead of the normal dots I made each side with different shapes. So we can throw the dice and count the squares, then the circles and then all the shapes. I found a couple of dice games with fun printables, so Lydia can practice counting and then match the total with the actual number. We play bingo with them. She counts, finds the right correlation and then place a coin on it. We fill the sheet. It's easy. And fun and once we get bored of the giant dice we will recycle them, a nice Earth Day project for sure.

Summer List of Things to DO

 

Summer Bucket List for 2014. 

35 ideas and things to do locally and at home with my girls, one is almost 4 and the other almost 2. Most of these are free and the couple that have admissions costs are less than $30. You can't beat it. 

I am lucky enough to work at an independent school that has great opportunities for the summer. Lydia will attend a fine arts camp for two weeks half days while I am teaching for a couple of weeks. We will take advantage of our church family VBS this year too, which will be just a few days in the evening, since we have already made plans for the traditional VBS times.

We will also go on vacation for a few weeks to Tennessee to be in the mountains and see friends. So we will be on the go, as always but I also love the days that we get to be home, and this is what the bucket list is for. Fun summer days and rainy summer days where you can find something new and special to do. I labeled the ideas that can be done on rainy days since there are plenty of them in Florida. 

1. Roast Marshmallows. We have a fire pit outside. We were thinking we could roast marshmallows with the girls and make s'mores in our backyard.
2. Road trips: Orlando, Chattanooga, Knoxville and Jensen Beach. We are still hoping to get the most out of our Disney Passes so we have on the calendar at least one trip to Orlando. We are going to vacation in Chattanooga and see friends in Knoxville and then spend a couple of days at Jensen Beach, to rest and relax.
3. Library. One of my frustrations is always that the Children's programs at the public library tend to mirror the school calendar so when I am free they are vacationing which is fair, I suppose but I hope to take Vivian at least a couple of times to the library. Free. 
4. Bayside Gymnastics Open Gym Time. This local gymnastics establishment is not only owned by someone I went to high school with but Lydia has taken several classes there. It's a great establishment and even though their summer open gym time can be nutty, I think it's an easy thing to do with the girls when we want to get out of the house. For both girls $10.
5. Pool. Lydia know how to swim and Vivian is taking lessons. I am excited about moving into a pool-tastic summer. Last year the pool thing was still a lot of work. Lydia wasn't a big fan and Vivian you had to hold or put into the floaty device. Lydia can swim well now, so we are hoping that will add more fun less work. 
6. Little pool slide. This is simple. Take a small blow up pool and put it at the bottom of you playset slide. Instant water slide.
7. Mudpies. On the day we do the little pool slide I figure would be the day to make mudpies. Messy and clean all at once. Chances are there will be little clean, but here is hoping.
8. Tea party. I wanted to have a fancy tea party for summer fun. Little muffins, little sandwiches, fancy cups and plates and dress for the occasion. I think it will adorable. rain
9. Make jello aquariums. There are gummy snacks that have fish and we will make blue jello and put them in clear containers as a fun snack and dessert. rain
10. Root beer float. Giant frozen mugs, ice cream and root beer. Also a fun summer treat. rain
11. Paper roll road map. I keep having this thought. We have long hallways at our house. I think I can take paper from the easel roll and roll it down the hallway. I thought I could draw some things on it and have them draw some roads and play with cars. rain
12. Obstacle course. My vision of this is things to jump over, things to crawl under, things to do along the way. I think this will work indoors or outdoors depending on your home and your willingness to make things chaotic. rain
13. Outdoor fort/tents. The new play set has space underneath it where you can clearly tie sheets and create a tent. Recently we cleared out our linen closet so we are very prepared for sheets to hang all over the backyard.
14. Make bird feeders/bird bath. I fear that these projects will bring bird poop into my yard as well but since we have already been spending a lot of time in the backyard I have seen bluebirds, robins and hummingbirds. It would be fun for them to be a little closer. 
    
15. Sprinkler fun. Simple. Old School.
16. Splash park. My girls have never really liked splash parks something about the water in their face but I like to try it at least once a season. 
17. Kite flying. Simple. Old School. Kite are pretty cheap. Dollar Store for sure, we have a couple from Walmart that I think were a couple of dollars. All you need is a field or front yard with some space. 
18. Little Kid Yoga. I love yoga. At one point in my life I practiced every week and it was genuinely fulfilling. Since then it's been hard to fit it in. I think Lydia would enjoy doing some position and so will Vivian so I ordered a book about yoga for kids. Book $12. rain
19. Soccer game or baseball game. The Rowdies are back and so are The Rays, we haven't taken the girls to a professional game and it just may be a ton of fun to do it. Prices vary. 
20. Scavenger Hunt. Hide stuff, make the find it. rain
21. Make pizzas. We would get pre-made dough have the girls make pizza. A little sauce spread around, cheese sprinkled on, maybe mushrooms. rain
22. Get Sea shells. Lydia loves to find sea shells, so I thought it would be fun to go to the beach just to do that. We would take "hunting" gear. We would be on a search for just shells like explorers. 
23. Paint Sea shells. Once we got our shells we would paint them. It would be fun to do. We are about painting just about anything. If I give them small brushes they like the fancy feel of this type of painting. rain
24. Sunset. A lot of the time we catch the sunset on drives from point A to point B. I would like to take the girls to the beach to see the full on experience. 
25. Beach 3x Eliot and I are lazy beach people because we have always lived by the beach and well it takes a lot of effort. The girls on the other hand love the beach. My goal is to make to the beach at least 3 times this season for them. 
26. Ft Desoto Park I have been to the Fort itself in years. I think it would be fun to go check it out. $5 toll to get out there. 
27. Tin foil river Another backyard idea taking a roll of tin foil and making a river through the yard filled with water. Random silly fun. 
    
28. Weaving with paper  Imagine painting paper then cutting them into strips to weave them. I am not sure at all how this will go with Lydia but I think it has the potential of being kind of cool. rain
29. Sewing with yarn and paper plate Another craft as a pre-sewing activity. Punch holes in a paper plate and have her make a design with yarn colors. rain
30. Spaghetti painting. I have been waiting to do this for a couple of years now. Make spaghetti and let the kids dip it in paint and paint with it. It is clearly the messiest thing in the whole world, so I have to gear up but I think it could be really fun. rain
31. Shaving cream designs. Cheap shaving cream and a cookie sheet. Let them have some sensory play. I was thinking of filling up the water table with it too, see what happens. 
32. Tube wall. I have seen this a couple of times now, using tubes from paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls. Using paint tape you position the tubes all over and some what connecting. Then roll marbles or other small balls through them. rain
33. 4th July crafts and World Cup crafts! The World Cup is serious in our house. So there will be more to come for this item, but for now the idea is watch, play, dream soccer and add a few kid crafts to the even rain
34.  Dinosaur World a Florida delight! I think. I want to know. $15 for adults, $12 for 3 and older. 
35. Old Mickey's Farm This is a local farm with farm animals. You can visit there for the day. Milk cows, pet goats, you know your average farm visit activities. $20 for me and Lydia, Vivian is still free.

And We are DONE!

April 11 marked the one year anniversary of our Park Quest. After reading some inspirational outdoor articles, we decided to venture to visit as many parks in the area as possible, the first goal was 50 between April and August. This goal quickly evolved to as many as we could over the course of a year.

Crescent Lake 

This is what we learned:

1. There was no way to get 50 parks in 4 months unless both of us would have been unemployed and wanted to do nothing else but go to parks. We covered 36 parks in one year which breaks down to about 3 parks a month. Even that was tough. Imagine there are 4 weekends in every month, if we only went on weekends, which we didn't but that could have been an activity planned for 75% of weekend time in one month.

   

   Albert Whitted Airport Park

2. Not all parks are created equal. Based on my experience I can say that the city of St. Petersburg seems to work hard on maintaining these community spaces, but if you have just one afternoon in the area there are several parks I would recommend over others. The definition of park is even different for each consumer. As a young family a park usually has a playground, but for a hiker, runner or biker a park has a host of trails to explore, or perhaps for a tourist may just want to sit and see the water. I can provide lists for each of these. 

   

   Myrtle Beach City Park

3. Sand sucks unless on a beach. 

   

   Northshore Park 

4. Fenced in playgrounds are great for parents who want to zone out. 

   

   North Straub Park for Tree Lighting

5. Always take water or a drink with you. I can't remember if all the parks have water fountains but I don't recommend using the ones I do remember. Creatures live in these parts.

   

   Philippe Park in Safety Harbor

6. Don't be afraid to drive a little longer to see something new. We live such rushed lives that if we carve in time to go to a park, we tend to go to the closest because it's easiest when in fact there may be something new to do just minutes a way. 

   

   Hammock Park in Dunedin

7. There is a ton more to see!

   

   Boyd Hill in St. Petersburg

We are so lucky to live in a truly gorgeous part of the country. The weather, of course, is typically amazing, so even on the coldest of days it is great to be outside and we have a ton of options to chose from in the Tampa Bay area. Even though the Park Quest itself is complete, I will continue to share new parks when we get to them, one at a time.

Boyd Hill Nature Preserve

As a child this place was home to a lot of my memories. This is where I remember going on library field trips. This is where I pet my first snake and saw my first bee hive. I was not the kid that chased frogs in the mud, but I thought they were cool and pretty much every creepy crawly bug thing I can think of was in a small science center at Boyd Hill. I was excited to be there on Saturday and it had been clearly a long time since I had been in the building itself, because when we went inside, the library was gone. Apparently, it has been gone for 15 years, a true surprise to me. The lovely volunteer behind the counter, though gentle was amused by my dismay. Even though, change is always had, the new and improved all nature center was very well done. They clearly have school come in for programs so there are a couple of classrooms.

We paid $3 for each adult to get in, so for a family of 4 a total of $6 was not bad. This allowed inside the actual nature center to see various displays, touch and play with several areas and have access to the several trail preserves. Inside we got to see and pet a tarantula, see several turtles, frogs and the biggest toad I have ever seen in my entire life.  Outside there was an aviary sanctuary. There were several interesting rare birds to see up close since most were birds of prey. We walked around a couple of the short trails which were perfect for our kids attention spans. Afterwards we walked through the butterfly garden and saw the metal sculpture in the trees which really has been there since I was a child.

The park was full of small kids and families some attending birthday parties since this was a gorgeous Saturday morning. We went to the playground which Vivian was obsessed with and once again I was reminded that it used to be a huge wooden structure that must have over time just fell to pieces. Now it is a traditional strong playground equipment. There is a smaller one near the picnic tables which Lydia declared was the perfect playground. I think because she was able to play on every element without help from me. There is also a little area that has a stage and benches which my girls loved.

The girls loved it and we could have spent all day there running around. Next time we may bring a picnic. There is also a ton of programs the center offers for young children, some during the week and others are for summer camp. The edge of this preserve is right up next to Lake Maggiore, which also has picnic tables and playground space. It is a rich nature corner of the city of St. Petersburg.

Totally Awesome Cheap Kid Backyard

Slowly we have been working on our backyard. It is small. We are lucky enough to have a pool but it's actually positioned in the middle of our house. This was a really highlight for me, because I always thought that the girls would be able to play in our backyard without worry of the pool. The swampland of our backyard and drainage issues, have been a significant hurdle. Over the last year, we have been working on that. After two years, we can hang out in our backyard. I have diligently been looking at Pinterest for various ideas on what to do in small spaces that is inexpensive and kid oriented.

First of all, I wanted them to have a play set of some kind. We were looking at many different types, but with a small space it's hard to really  know what to do. I kept my eye on Craigslist. I knew we didn't want to spend a lot of money and the wooden play-sets are expensive. On the low end, they are close to $600. I found a relatively small one for $100. We went and measure it, then Eliot and his dad went took it apart in chunks and put it back together in our yard. We purchased a couple new swings, new screws and bolts and added a coat of wood finish to protect it.

The playhouses were a similar story. These things are crazy expensive brand new, some of them range close to $400, even the second hand stores were selling them for $200 which technically is half price. I just looked on Craigslist for almost 8 weeks. I found one that was terribly beat down, everything faded for $20, I spray painted  it bright solid colors and it looks lovely. We found the other one for $30 in really great condition.

The sand boxes were also second hand and so was the kid picnic table my in-laws got the girls which is great to outdoor mess activities and fun lunches. I placed the old play kitchen outside as a mud pie station for the future, when I am ready to commit to a mud day.

On Pinterest I saw a couple of really easy things that I knew I needed to do. One was spray painting stepping stones. We had a stack that happen to come with the house, so I just used the extra spray paint I had to rainbow it up. The girls love those things, more than I would have guessed. They jump from one to the next over and over. I also saw a chalkboard screwed to the fence which seemed adorable to me. Most of the links lead to really complex and expensive directions for this project. My original plan was to go to Home Depot and purchase chalkboard paint and a piece of wood which roughly would have been about $50, then we found a pre-made chalkboard. It is about 4 feet by 2 feet and it was being sold as an outdoor sign option, it was $9.97. We pre-drilled the holes and attached it to the fence. I added a dollar store bucket with rope next to it, we drilled a couple of holes in that too and poof $11 for the same effect. We figured for this price point, we could replace it in the future if we wanted with very little effort or even add another one.

The piece that I was most excited about was the fairy garden. I was going to wait until the summer, but decided why not now. I planted a couple of herbs which I have been wanting to do for a long while and bought a couple of dollar flowers. I let Lydia pick them out. The bucket was a Walmart find for $5 (meant for a drink container at parties I drilled holes in the bottom) which was a fourth of the price of some of the flower pots that I was looking at. At Walmart I found a Fairy Garden kit which I could pass up for $12. We planted the flowers together, she added all the kit elements, and daddy moved it to the back yard so we could take care of it. I hope for her to make a fairy house this summer to add to it too.

That is basically it. I found $1 buckets and bowls at the dollar store to stick in the cubies of some old shelves that were laying around outside anyway so I put them on their sides. The buckets have shovels, some have rocks, some have other sand toys but they are to be played with as they see fit. The grown up part of the yard at this point is just a couple of chairs and umbrella for the sun and a fire pit for the evenings. Eventually we would like to add a couple more chairs and the hammock we bought on our honeymoon that we have never hung up. Right now this is a great play space and I am so excited to be able to open the backdoor and not worry about them. They can play while I get dinner ready. They can play while I work on the computer right inside. It's ideal. A great fun space for less than $300 including paints and additional accessories.

Sisters Theater Presents....

Over the holiday Lydia received from one of her aunties a set of cardboard finger puppets. She has really loved playing with them. On Friday when I got home from work she immediately started parading her finger people all over me, when I remembered that I had once mentioned a goal of making a puppet theater for them. I went to the garage and was mulling over how to create it with the boxes that we had available when I noticed that we still had a science board tucked away behind the frig.

It would be valid to wonder who keeps science boards around the house? Well, not us. We had it because we used to, before having kids, really liked making puzzles. We would use the science board on top of the table and then close it up and move it if we needed to use the table for something else. So it's really a puzzle moving board, which I am not certain makes more rational sense. Regardless, I had one.

The one we had had giant writing on the back of it which meant that the flaps didn't flap in the right way, so I bent them right off and reattached them with duct tape. Now being able to have the blank side facing out. I took a box cutter and cut a square in the center panel for the stage.
For about an hour the girls decorated the outside. I pulled all the stickers, pictures, glitter glue out along with markers crayons and I happen to have form flowers that were glittery left over from an Easter craft. They loved it.
Once their decorations were complete, I had them select from a box of fabric squares that I have. For a while I was hoarding fabric squares because I thought they were pretty and was determined that any day now I would be making quilts. Now that that delusion has subsided, I just have a shoe box full and use them for silly moments such as these. I simply took duct tape and stuck it on the inside creating a curtain.
We named it Sisters Theater and the show begun! Lydia really loved it. She performed several shows and we dug out other puppets that we had around. Mostly little finger puppets and a few that are supposed to be wash cloths but we always used them as hand puppets.
Vivian on the other hand, is still trying to come to grips with the mysteries of the theater. We have all been there, comfortably in our seats watching the show thinking, "How did they do that!!??" However, most of us sit and allow the show to transform us; to take us to another world, Vivi just goes to look.
The next plan is make puppets. By we haven't quite had the time yet.