Earth Day

Earth Day!

In our house we try and do our part to celebrate Earth Day everyday but it's always fun to make Earth Day a special day with some fun Earth Day activities.

We started out by reading a few books. 

Choose to Reuse

Illustrated by Miriam Latimer

 

It's an adorable book about reusing items in your house that you normally would toss but with a little imagination it can come to life as something else.

It is also a touch & feel book.

 

Curious George

Plants a Tree

by Margret & H.A.Reys

Then we make some Earth Sun Catchers

First we painted some coffee filters with water colors to look like the earth.

 

Then we let it dry.

Then we hung it in the window to let it shine!

Then we made Recycled Earth Day Crayons! 

To make these super cute & super easy Recycled Crayons all you need is the following.

• Broken up blue & green crayons. I just pull out all the broken ones and use those. 
• A muffin tin. I use one that I picked up at for really cheap to use just for melting crayons.
• An oven set @ 250*

Step 1 

Preheat the oven to 250*

Step 2  

 Take the wrappers off all the crayons.

Step 3

Brake the crayons up into small pieces.

Step 4

Place them into the muffin tin. I put in 2 layers so it's about 1/3 of the way up. (you could do more I'm sure it would just take a longer baking time.)

Step 5 

When your oven is preheated place the tin in the over for 10-15 minuets.

 

Step 6

Once the crayons are melted, take them out of the oven and let them cool. This takes about 10 minutes or so.

Step 7 

Turn the muffin tin over & pop them out. Sometime you will need to press on the bottom of the tin to help them out.  

  
Presto! 

brand new recycled crayons.    

 






I like how the greens and blues came out. It's neat to see how the different shades translate once they are melted down.   
We have also made these in diffrent shapes. After the holidays I buy the silicone baking sheets and use them for next year. I have even made them for Ian's class during the holidays. 
   

A movie and a buddy

Earlier this week Ian and I went to the movies and brought along his BFF Duke. 






Ian has been waiting to see the move the Croods. It was a cute movie. The boys had a blast! 


 

They didn't take their eyes off the movie at all!

Check out the Croods Site, there are tons of fun things to do on there from color pages, games, downloads and you can even Crood-ify yourself!
 

Nana's Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NANA!!!

Today is Nana's Birthday. Although she lives far away we can still wish her a Happy Birthday and make her a special birthday card!

I took some white paper from the art easel and traced the upper half of Ian's body. I was going to trace Leland but he was way to squirmy so I gave up. 

 

Then, they boys colored it... 

 

Added a few Stickers.... 

Wrote a little message & signed our names.... 

 

Then there you have it... 

A Birthday Wish for Nana!

Happy Birthday Nana! 

Hope this was the best Birthday ever!

Back to the Buttons

It's back to the buttons!

A while back I was out of sorts on what I could do to get my boys to help out around the house. 

Who am I kidding?!? 

Heck, I just wanted them to pick up their toys for goodness sakes! 

So I went on ivillage message boards. If you have never been there you should really check it out. It's  a great parenting resorce when I go to get some advice that's not given by my family, my in-laws or my friends. You can get answers from other (real & regular) women & men that have been in your shoes before so they don't talk to you like you are some horrible parent and they love to share their experience and opinion. There are also tons of other message boards. Health & Fitness, Money, Gossip TV talk, tons of things! 

So back to the buttons! I went in one of the message board and asked others what they had for suggestions.

I kept reading all of these articles from the so called "experts" about what to do and what not to do or you might ruin your kid for life. I was so confused on what to do. Finally someone responded with the idea of a Button Jar. It was Brilliant in my mind and I wanted to start it that say day.

I remembered that I had this jar full of buttons in our craft box that would be perfect so I pulled it out. There are several different buttons, plain ones, decritive ones, shapes of dinos, cars and snowflakes to kittens and dogs. You name it, it's in there. I think that might be the most fun for the boys... picking out the button they want. I have to tell you though, my clever 5 year old.... he likes to pick the biggest buttons because he said 

"Duh, mom, it gets you to the top faster!" 

So that is the "game" of the jar. Get your buttons to your name and you get to pick a prize. The "prizes" range from getting to pick a prize out of the prize box (random things I have picked up along the way that I find on clearance. Pencils, stickers, notepads...), to an outing with mom or dad, to having a playdate or picking a dinner out for the night. Some weeks they get the buttons to the top twice but most of the time it tends to take them a little over a week to fill them up. Basically they 2-3 "fun" things a month on top of all the super fun stuff we already do of course! lol

I already had these great Chore Magnets that I ordered on Etsy a few years ago. At last... 

The

  "Chore Chart" 

Basically the chart works like this. I move some of the "Must Dos" to the To Do side and then through out the day, they can move the magnets of the chores they completed. I'm sure you noticed that some are for brushing teeth, homework and clean table. Yes those are simple things that are always expected of them but I find it motivates them just a little more to get some "easy" buttons. Also, they are only 5 & 3. It's a chore just to get them to brush their teeth twice a day. I should get a button for that! You may have also noticed that there are doubles for the Hearts & Stars... I use those for the Super Star of the Day & the Super Sweetheart of the day. 

We just took a trip to Disney World and now that we are back, it's time to get back to the Button Game. I wasn't sure if it would be an easy transition back but so far so good. Ian was very excited to pick out his buttons last night. 

 

Kids Fair

Friday we went to the Kids Fair. Rob got lucky & got out of it so I drug my Friend Sarah with me. She brought her little boy Henry and her son Duke. Duke I Ian are BFFs & they are so cute together. They are inseparable so It's going to be a great summer!

Back to the Kids Fair. Now this is our first time going. I only decided to go because the local radio station was selling 1/2 price tickets so I figured if it was a flop, we wouldn't be out much. Plus it gives us something to do I guess. 

The boys had a great time!

They did a little Face Painting 
Ian got Spiderman

Leland got a Ninja Turtle
Orange of course! 


There were bounce houses, Games and Food. They had some magic shows and reptile shows. It was a fun time.

The boys were SO excited to see the HUGE boa snake. It was kind of neat. 

Then of course the highlight of whole event was meeting  

SPONGE BOB!!!!

The boys had a great day and it was nice to get a little girl time with my friend Sarah.