Hello Kitty Birthday Party

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I love living in the country and all, but I feel like it's a 3rd world country sometimes.  I mean if you ignore the fact that we have running, clean water.  And a refrigerator.  And a dishwasher.  Oh and grocery stores within 15 minutes.  But internet?  Nope.  And I have no glimmer of hope it will come anytime soon.  In the meantime I'm using internet from my iphone and every so often I have a great connnection.  And so I can't blog as much as I'd like to,  but I'm catching up :)

Last weekend a friend asked me to help her put together her daughter's second birthday.  I was thrilled of course!  We planned this party in just 48 hours, so though it still turned out completely darling it wasn't AS personalized as I would have liked.  But that is just the perfectionist control freak in me.  It was beautiful and so was the birthday girl.

The birthday girl is super girly, so of course we kept everything pink!

See the hello kitty pom pom on the bottom left?

It was rather cute.

My friend came up with the cutest names for the food.  Like these "kitty kabobs"

And "kat nip" which was just cheese and crackers.  Though the cheese hadn't made it to the table yet when I took this pic.

 

And then to drink my friend made "kitty koolaid" which was a concoction of sprite, raspberries and pink lemonade.

One of my favorite party dessert/snack foods is chocolate covered pretzels.  How adorable did these turn out??

The cupcakes were made by a local lady. 

One way to add depth and personality to a party table is to take boxes and wrap them in wrapping paper or tissue paper.  Varying heights on the table are appealing to the eye and then wrapping paper just adds one more detail to create a beauitful layout.

Boxes wrapped in paper also work great if you don't have a cake or cupcake stand :)  Wasn't the cake adorable?  Another friend of ours  used a hello kitty cake pan and then frosted the cake.  So cute!

All the girls dressed up in tutus and helloy kitty shirts

It was a lot of fun.  If you have time before your party, check out etsy.  There are some super cute hello kitty party items like cake pops, hats and tutus.  We were on a time crunch and used what we could :)

It was so much and I am so grateful I got to be a part of this party!  Coming up later this month is my little man's FIRST BIRTHDAY!!  So you know I'm going all out!  I've got some very cute ideas I'm incorporating and can not wait to share!!!

xoxo

B

Homemade hand print ornament…easy!

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Now that I have two little ones, the holidays seem even more special.  As we get older as a family I want our tree to be a reflection of memories of years past. 

I remember making a handprint ornament when I was a kid and thought it would be fun to do with my own kiddos this year.  Something we can put on our tree each year to remember how small they were when we lived in Germany. This is such an easy way to create a memory and a keepsake for your Christmas tree!  It would also make a great gift for grandparents.  I found the recipe here.

I didn't use food coloring, but instead just painted the handprint after the mold had dried.

Enjoy!

B

Preschool Autumn Paint Project

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When Little Wright went to preschool back in the states she would bring home artwork nearly everyday.  For Earth Day she made a tree with the trunk as her arm and the branches/leaves was here green handprint.  It was adorable. 

I thought since it's fall it would be fun to do a variation of that same project.  I used brown paint and painted her arm for the trunk.  The only colors I had on hand were red, orange and tan.  I think yellow would have been a nice color to have, but c'est la vie.

What you'll need:

-Fall ish finger paint colors (red, orange, brown, yellow)
-Construction paper

Simply paint an arm for the tree trunk.  Then paint your kiddo's hand in alternating colors for the "leaves/branches".  Have your kiddo use their fingertip to create "leaves" on the ground.

To make it more of a learning experience you can talk about fall, how the leaves on trees change colors and how the weather gets cooler this time of year.

Enjoy!

xoxo

B

Halloween Spider Craft

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Isn't he cute?!  Unlike the real life creatures that have been taking over every corner in our house lately.  This little guy is super easy and doesn't require many supplies. 

You'll need:

-Styrofoam balls (whatever size you like)
-Black pipe cleaners
-Google eyes
-Push pins in various colors (for the nose)
-Glue
-Black craft paint
-Wooden skewer
-pom poms for the legs (optional)
-fishing wire if you plan to hang these guys
-Sponge paint brush
-Wire cutters (to cut the pipe cleaner in half)

Directions:

1) Take a styrofoam ball and poke a skewer into it.
2) Using your foam paint brush and black paint, paint the ball.
3) Volunteer your kiddo to hold the skewers while they dry.
4) Depending on the paint you use the dry time could be anywhere from a few hours to overnight.  I let mine sit overnight to dry.  I poked the skewers in a grapefruit!  (using a sharp knife cut off just a tiny bit of the bottom of a grapefruit too help keep it from rolling)
5) Once the balls are dry, glue the eyeballs one, stick the pushpins in for the nose and then poke in the piper cleaner for the legs.  I cut the pipe cleaner in half since my styrofoam balls were smaller.  If you are making a big spider you could probably just use the entire pipe cleaner for the leg.  Glue on pom poms to the legs as variation.

The only spiders ever allowed in my house!

xoxo

B

Preschool theme: Flowers and Plants

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Recently I've been browsing homeschooling websites.  These families are incredible.  Like Jolanthe at Home School Creations.  This lady is supermom.  Seriously!  I don't know how she does it.  It takes so much planning and work to create a structured learning environment at home. I never really thought about homeschooling our kids because it seems like they'd miss out on making friends and creating memories.  However from what I've been learning many homeschooling families have meetup groups and do co-learning groups a few times a week.  That and they have their kids involved in sports or other extra curricular activities.  I still don't know that homeschooling will be the route we take, but I do love learning and making it a part of our daily life.  I have totally slacked in teaching Little Wright anything structured.  She can count and spell her name and knows shapes, colors..blah blah blah.  I guess that's good.  I don't know.  I have nothing to compare it to.  But what I do know is there is so much I could be doing with her.

And so, on top of my mounting pile of supermom tasks I've decided to try monthly preschool themes.  There reallyare some wonderful sites out there and a wealth of ideas and information.  I didn't really think about teaching Little Wright math at 2 1/2, yet there are simple things to teach toddlers to build a foundation for an interest in math.  For example teaching her about volume and weight (heavy versus light) and length (short versus long) as well as counting.

Science is another subject that can easily be taught to toddlers.  Especially with the theme of plants and flowers.  We can learn that plants and flowers need water and sunlight to grow.

Math
I found this really cute printable of a potted flower and petals.  You cut out the petals and the flower pot.  Then laminate the pieces so they last longer.  Your toddler can practice counting the dots on the petals and matching the petal to the correct number.  Keep all the pieces in an envelope and this is a fun game you can bring along on the go.


There is a second flower pot that goes up to number 10


For math we will also practice counting seeds, weighing water when we water our plants and maybe Ill get some more ideas this month to incorporate math.

Science
I printed and laminated these sequence cards which allows toddlers to learn the process of growing a plant.  We will keep these in an envelope too.


For science I have a few more ideas we will do this month:
-Go outside and find some leaves and flower petals and laminate them
-Plant some seeds in pots
-Go to a park and identify different types of flowers
-Learn about what plants need to grow (sunlight, soil, water, etc)
-This parts of the flower printable maybe a little advanced, but I'll print it out and try it

Language Development/Reading/Writing
-Find some books about flowers/plants
-Practicing tracing the letters of the alphabet with these cards (I printed and laminated so we can use a dry erase marker to trace)


-Practice learning the days of the week with these printable flower pots (also laminated)


I'm sure I'll come up with a few more ideas and be sure to update.

Arts/Crafts
-Family Hand flower
-And more ideas TBD Ill post more ideas/links as I come up with them

So at the end of the month the plan is to compile all this into what is known in the homeschool world as a "lapbook". This concept is still new to me, but basically you create a file folder and put everything from that month's theme into the lapbook.  Not only is it a portable learning folder with fun activities, but its a neat way to keep and save all the crafts.

So once the lapbook is done I'll post all links and ideas I ended up doing and hopefully someone else will find this stuff useful :)  Id love to hear ideas, tips or links if anyone else does this type of thing.

Ladybug Craft

Pin It Now! Using items found around the house and with adult supervision, this simple  ladybug craft is fun for toddlers and preschool aged children.  For instructions click here

Giraffe

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I was doing a search one day for toddler craft ideas and came across this site: www.allkidsnetwork.com.  They have some adorable crafts that also include printable templates.  This giraffe  was too cute to pass up.  Litte Wright had so much fun taping, cutting and gluing this little guy together. For instructions click here.