Basket sleeping?

I went to wake Rachel up from her nap and found her like this:

I have no idea why, but one can never understand the mind of a 3 year old!

Snake day!

We made a couple of snakes simply by chance when we had some snipped straws as well as some corrugated cardboard from a fan box. 

When I saw the cardboard 2 weeks prior come out of the box I knew we would be able to use it for something, so I put it on the counter and just waited for the perfect opportunity. When Rachel started snipping a green straw I had visions of a green snake, and I knew we could turn the cardboard into another snake!

He even has a little smile!! Hee Hee!

Here's our straw snake:

And a green necklace:

Bowls on our Head

It doesn't get better than a bowl for a hat, right?

When in doubt, grab a bowl and have fun!

Mommy maybe had a little too much fun . . . 

Drawing on Kitchen Tiles!

I bought Rachel Crayola Whiteboard Crayons this May for her birthday (I got them at Michaels). They're this new thing, and I loved the concept because no matter how hard I try, she always forgets to put the caps on her whiteboard markers and they quickly dry out and it's hard to keep them on hand.


We've been enjoying them on her whiteboard,

but one day Micah discovered that they also worked on the kitchen tiles, so we had fun drawing on the floor (Rachel made the above picture, not my one year old. Ha ha)!

They cleaned up easily with a damp cloth with no residue behind! Now Rachel has been asking me if she can draw on the floor :o)

What was Barbie doing?

I swear to you, one morning I woke up, and found Barbie exactly like this, behind the bathroom door.

Please note that she is wearing Princess Belle's dress, but this is not Belle. Not wearing her own clothes, sleeping on the bathroom floor. . . .  looks like Barbie had a little too much to drink while we were all sleeping . . . Tsk tsk!

Sidewalk Chalk Games

Okay, so I'm quite proud of this game I created. It came out of nowhere one day when we took out the sidewalk chalk. It's supposed to be a game about feelings. However, two of my 'feelings' ended up being 'Hairy' and 'Sunny,' and I know those aren't real feelings, but we had fun, and Rachel knew which was which, so whatever, right? So it started with me drawing a couple of 'feelings' faces, like this one.

He's actually looking a little more worried than angry, but it's a bumpy driveway, so what can you do? Anyway, the idea is to ride your tricycle to the faces I say (Ride to the happy face! Now ride to the angry/worried face!). Then (more genius on my part), I drew lines in between them, like this:

Each face had a different kind of line attached, so Rachel followed the lines (with feet, not her bike) AS WELL as learned the names of different kinds of lines (wavy, straight, zig zag, spiral). Nothing like adding a little vocabulary lesson to your physical movement, eh? Here's some more of my delightful artwork for you:

As you can see, I wrote 'Hairy' on the left top of the picture. Rachel wrote it on the right in Rachel writing. Looks a little Arabic if you ask me. She's probably a genius. Here's her picture:

 I don't remember what feeling it was. I just remember that she told me. Sorry. Mommy brain!

Maybe it was a picture of someone throwing up? The feeling would then be, 'Sick' I guess!

ME!

Hee hee! Isn't Rachel's 'self-portrait' adorable! 

It wasn't until AFTER I took the picture that I realized the colors she was wearing matched her portrait (and that her pants are on backwards). Her hair is actually usually as messy as her portrait. *grin*

Pine Cone Painting

We love collecting pine cones when we go for a walk. Rachel told me when we got home: "Mommy, we need to paint these." The glitter was my idea, as well as shaking the pine cones in this box when they were done (but not dry) to make it into a gift box. So she can't take ALL the credit for this one ;o)

The pine cones are now in a vase in the middle of the table as a decoration, and I think she's rather proud!

P.S. - I'd love to hear if you've tried any of our activities on the blog. Feel free to leave a comment on the ones you've tried at home!

Snack Time Treasure Hunt

Today my nephew was over, and while he and Rachel were out playing in the sandbox, I made up a yummy snack, then hid it in the woods beside our house with a big 'X' on top. I made a quick map of our property...

...then stuck it in an envelope with a skull and cross bones on the top.

I told them snack was on the table, and when it wasn't there, we discovered it had been stolen by pirates and they accidentally left their map to its hiding place on the table! We have a little toy compass kicking around the house and I stuck that in the envelope too. 

They both took off running outdoors. 

We stopped on the pathway and worked out which way we should go from there and discovered the treasure. We brought it inside and enjoyed our yummy treasure!