Green Smoothies for the Littles

Today was a lovely, warmish day. To celebrate, we decided to make some yummy green smoothies! The color green has no negative connotations when it comes to food for these littles. In fact, it actually excites them! Maybe they won't eat a lot of this green food, but they're up for sampling it. Especially in smoothie form. We made a spinach and pineapple smoothie blended with ice and coconut water. The kids and I loved it! I guess with the sweetness of the pineapple, they decided to have seconds. Yummy!

Fingerprint Fun

We are still in the process of decorating our outdoor space. There are two blank walls that could use a little sprucing up. Since we are renting our apartment, we can't do anything permanent, so I thought these beautiful works of art my littles made would be perfect. One promotes FUN in the backyard, and the other, which is not yet complete, PLAY. Two things all children are great at.

 I found 2 canvases at my local craft store (2 for $10), used painter's tape and an Exacto knife.

I taped out the word FUN, and handed the canvas over to my daughter. I put some tempera paints on a plate to let her have at it!

She painted. She slapped. She got as much paint on her arms as she did on the canvas. She had a blast! I loved watching her go through the whole process as much as she loved doing the painting. The final product is a lot of... well... FUN!

The Great Outdoors!

It's been a long time coming, and still a work in progress. Our home has an outdoor space that has been up until now, little utilized. I spent hours scouring , sweeping, and cleaning up the space. I brought in soil and plants, and the littles and I brought some life to our coveted outdoor space. I'm still working on defining the play areas. There's now a water table, a magnetic table with chairs for adults and kids alike, a swing, a space behind it for a future art nook, and a playhouse is on its way for my nearly 3 year old's birthday. We have been out there everyday playing in the water and swinging in the swing. Can't wait to add more details to make it even more friendly in our outdoor space! Here's some pictures for start. I'll post more as it becomes closer to being done.

Ballerina Hand Print Fun

My littles love to get messy! What child doesn't? So we decided to make more hand print art. This time it's a tutu, appealing to my daughter's love of ballerinas and the color pink. When we sit down to do art together, I always have an easy project the kids can work on, in addition to the final project. It works out best if everything is prepared ahead of time. We paint her hands together and make the prints for the final piece, then I let her go to town with painting her hands and making hand and finger prints on another sheet of paper while I work on the finished product. To speed things along, I like to use my embossing heater to help the paint to dry more quickly. She loves seeing her hand prints up on the wall!

To make the bodice of the tutu I marked the width of her two little hands, and drew the shape of a bodice on the back of a piece of pink polka dot paper. Cut that out and glued it on. Then I found 2 widths of the same color ribbon. I folded the edges over and glued them to the back of the ribbon, and glued the rest to the paper, using white liquid glue. I used the smaller width ribbon to tie a bow. I tacked that on with some more liquid white glue. The final product turned out pretty cute! I have to admit, I love to see her hand prints on the wall too.

Rainy Days and Ducklings

After indoor soccer practice, and a good 1 1/2 mile walk with a toddler and a baby, I was ready for an afternoon inside. After all it is supposed to be raining outside. As much as I'd love to relax and get a few things done around the house, my littles are not so interested in doing that. In fact they get progressively more mischievous and antsy if I do try to get something done that doesn't directly involve them. So, I set that all aside to do a fun art project I've been wanting to try.

The inspiration for this one came from an Easter party we attended last week. The fabulous and considerate hostess bought baby ducklings for each of the attending children. One of my littles took quite a liking to her duckling. She named her Bunny. Well she named the duckling Easter Bunny, but the hostess had a one name rule for the cute little ducklings. So Bunny it was!

To help remind my daughter of her experience, and to extend her understanding of these adorable little creatures, we made our own little ducklings. I found this cute handprint duckling through Pinterest. My little loves the result!