Our birdhouses, according to Anna, needed birdies. So I bought a big bag of assorted pompoms and pulled out a few other supplies:
Ready for some crafty fun!
A little glue here, a little cutting there…
(Please excuse the post-swimming-lesson hair...)
…and we had fuzzy little googly-eyed birds!
Chirp, chirp!
And then we made some name caterpillars because gluing pompoms is kind of addictive.
This caterpillar is named "Anna".All of our fuzzy creations.
After that, the girls went to town with glue, pompoms, googly eyes and construction paper.
Googly eyes are small, and glue is kind of runny...Anna glued about 10 pairs of googly eyes to that paper!A plethora of pompoms.
I think the message I need to take away from today’s project is that I need to go hit the back-to-school sales to stock up on more glue. The girls love glue almost as much as paint. Especially if it involves googly eyes!
This week’s theme is “In the Garden”. I spotted these cute little wooden birdhouses (I keep wanting to call them “dollhouses”!) at JoAnn’s for $1 apiece the other day and thought it might be fun to paint them.
Little wooden birdhouses.
Conveniently enough, they were located right next to a display of Delta Soy Paint. I let the girls each pick out a few colors, so we ended up with Pink Carnation, Pink Hibiscus, Sunflower, Kiwi, Blue Sky and Wisteria. Even the paint colors fit in with the theme! (Although maybe not so much Kiwi. It sure wouldn’t grow in a garden around here…)
Pretty paint colors!
I learned my lesson from the last multi-color painting project and gave each girl their own palette of colors and cup to rinse brushes in so Anna could mix away to her heart’s content and Carolyn could be more particular about her colors.
Pig-tailed painter.Fine details.The slap-and-slather technique.Great color combo!
I think they turned out very cute!
Anna wants to know where the birdies are...?Why yes, I painted one too!
And I already have a glimmer of an idea of how to make birds for them. Need to go check the random craft stash for pompoms…
Anna had a birthday party to celebrate turning 3 today. She wanted a Strawberry Shortcake party, which was a pretty easy theme to work with!
For food, we made a variety of pinwheel wrap sandwiches, a veggie tray with dip, a layered fruit salad (in my new Pampered Chef trifle bowl – it was pretty as well as tasty!) and chips with homemade french onion dip. I also made some blueberry muffins, my mom picked up some incredibly delicious lemon bars, and I made these strawberry shortcake cupcakes in lieu of a fancy decorated cake. (We skipped the raspberry torte and the apple dumplings. There were plenty of desserts already!)
A cupcake with a tasty surprise inside!Strawberry mascarpone frosting. Sinfully delicious!Topped with a strawberry, of course!A tower of berry delicious strawberry cupcakes!
I’ve never made cupcakes from scratch, so I was really happy with how they turned out. The baking was the easy bit – filling them was a bit fiddly and time consuming. And then the icing started sliding off the cupcakes while they were in the stand and it was a messy disaster, so they were on there approximately long enough to take the above picture and then went back in the cupcake carriers. But even though they turned out a bit messy, they were delicious!
I made a bean bag toss game a couple of weeks ago, which we put out but didn’t really organize. The kids were mainly more interested in just playing with each other. So much so that I don’t think any of them ate lunch! And then it was time for cupcakes. Anna was very excited to blow out her birthday candle!
Cupcake and candle, ready to go!Happy Birthday to Anna!Make a wish!Delicious strawberry cupcake!
It was a “berry” fun birthday party, and it was followed by some time in the pool for those who could stay and play. Thanks to all who came and made Anna’s birthday party fantastic!
Opening a card.A viewmaster!Aunt Genevra & Uncle DanLizzy & Michelle by the pool.Denis and his girls in the pool.
The one thing that was (slightly) disappointing to Carolyn about the beach we visited the other day was that there were no shells to collect. So, I bought a bag at the craft store. And I found this great recipe for sand dough. Luckily, we have a sandbox full of nice sand waiting to be used in the kitchen. Or something.
Sand dough, sea shells and sea horses.
We tried using the seahorse molds, but they wouldn’t release, so we had to clean them out and try again, spraying them with vegetable oil spray first. I have my doubts as to whether these will hold together when dry, but both girls wanted to keep them, so we’ll see!
Filling the seahorse molds.Seahorses waiting to dry.
Then they went to town with the shells. Carolyn wanted to make a seashell windchime, but none of the shells had convenient holes and I didn’t quite know how to make holes in them without breaking them. So we settled for making sand dough/sea shell decorative nick-knacks.
Shells make interesting patterns and holes in sand dough!Tall shells in dough.Our creations.
And that concludes our beach week! And not a moment too soon…I’m getting tired of cleaning sand off of the kitchen table from all these projects!
Our second craft project of the day was starfish. I cut cardstock into starfish shapes, got some colored sequins, and broke out some more of that leftover colored sand.
Starfish and sequins.
I watered down glue a bit so the girls could paint the starfish with it. Then they sprinkled colored sand on them.
Anna liked matching the sand color to the cardstock color.
They dabbed on more glue and stuck sequins on.
Pretty pink starfish.
And now we have a pile of sandy, sparkly starfish. These came out pretty cute!
My plan for yesterday’s craft project had to be postponed, so we did two today! The first one was heavily inspired by this fishing game, but at the last minute I discovered that none of the large collection of eyelets I’ve amassed are magnetic, and I inexplicably have no paper clips in the entire house. But I did have googly eyes. (I have my priorities straight, obviously.)
First, the girls painted the fish with our well-used set of watercolor paints.
Concentrating deeply.She'd rather be finger painting...or painting her fingers!The rare polka-dot fish.The even rarer plaid fish.
Then they glued on googly eyes. (This was Anna’s favorite part. I need to come up with a project that will use a lot of googly eyes for her.)
We're on our second bottle of glue this summer...A school of googly-eyed fish!
We did our second project to give these a chance to dry, and then I punched holes in the tops of all the fish and Carolyn and I strung them on thread. We tied the strands to a stick we found outside, and, voilá: a giant fish mobile!
I took the kids to a local (tiny) beach today after swimming lessons for a picnic lunch and some play time with friends. Luckily, I’m apparently much better at applying sunscreen to the kids than I am to myself. (Note to self: invest in a beach umbrella.)
Toes in the sand...Anna in the sand."Anna" in the sand. (We tried writing "Carolyn", but the waves were too quick!)Come on in, the water's fine!They were trying to create a tide pool, I believe. Or maybe the world's biggest mud pie?Filling up the bucket.
It was a perfect day for the beach. Not terribly hot, sunny with a few clouds now and then for a bit of shade, and breezy. The kids had a blast, and we stayed much longer than planned…so our craft project of the day will have to happen tomorrow!
Today you turned 3 years old! I’ve been calling you my three-year-old for a few weeks now, because, well, you’ve been acting 3. That is to say, you’re going through a completely age-appropriate stage where you are testing limits, making a bid for independence, and generally trying to make me crazy. When you’re not trying to drive me up a wall, you are literally climbing walls and looking for ways to hurt yourself while adding to my (thankfully still small) collection of stray gray hairs.
Luckily, you’re cute.
Anna in the Garden
We spent the day doing pretty ordinary things: swimming lessons, library, piano lessons. You got to watch a couple episodes of your current favorite TV show, Phineas and Ferb. And when Daddy got home, we went out to dinner at El Jimador, where you were serenaded while wearing a very (very) large sombrero – and got to eat yummy fried ice cream for dessert.
Not your average birthday hat...
And then came the presents…a name sign for your door, to match your sister’s. A superhero cape of your very own. A couple of books. You were so happy with these things, and while Daddy was getting your last surprise ready, you said, “Thank you Mommy for all the presents!”
Oooh, what's in the envelope?!?Daddy's Little PalindromeHer superpower: reading upside down!What's the surprise???
But we did have one last surprise. I found a gently used little bike, complete with Dora stickers and a purple backpack bike “basket”, that’s just your size. One of those things you’ve been trying to do when finding new ways to scare me half to death is climb on your sister’s way-too-big bike – using the training wheels as a step up, naturally. This will be (at least slightly) safer. You haven’t quite figured out how to pedal it, but you’ve got the whole rest of the summer to learn!
Little Girl, Little BikeProud and helpful big sister Carolyn!Who needs to pedal? This bike is sister-powered!
I still can’t quite believe you turned three today. I know I’m guilty of thinking of you as my “baby”, when clearly you are growing up and turning into a big little person in your own right. The fact is, you will always be my baby, but I am enjoying so much watching you grow and learn, and I’m looking forward to seeing the great big girl you will become someday.
This week, the theme is “On the Beach”. What else is on the beach but lots and lots of sand? We had a lot of colored sand left over from a birthday party a couple of years ago, so I broke that out:
These colors of sand are *definitely* not found in nature......or these, either!
…and let the kids go to town making layered sand bottles.
Pouring as carefully as possible.A pointy blue sun-bottle!
Honestly, I made one too!
Why should the kids have all the fun?!?
And then we took all of the spilled sand that had accumulated on the cookie sheets (I have lots of old cookie sheets that I keep around for just this type of thing – I promise I don’t bake actual cookies on these sheets!) and sprinkled it on glue we drizzled on construction paper.
Carolyn took full advantage of her lesson time, while Anna sat on the side of the pool and dabbled her toes in the water. Considering it was her very first non-parent-participation class, at least she got through it without tears or trauma. Maybe tomorrow she’ll get her feet wet?
