The Good Let-Down: January 2014

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Color Mixing and Making Messes

A friend of ours just posted recently an activity she did with her two kids using a plastic bag and paints -- it looked like so much fun, so I had to try! I was mostly interested in it because it was mess-free and would save me the trouble of a major clean up. . . but then the girls kept begging me to paint on paper so I broke down and brought out the supplies. 30 min later, Isabelle painted cat whiskers on her face and I learned that Melissa and Doug paints are NOT very washable. She now has a beautifully green-tinted face. :/ But I digress. . .

This week B has been very inquisitive about colors. This little girl never ceases to amaze me. So daily; "Red and blue make what?" "What do yellow and red make?" "What about Yellow and Blue?" She's pretty good and knows them all pretty well and gets the primary colors, but now that she knows which are mixes, it's, "What if you mix purple and red? What then?" She's always thinking!

Start with just paint in a ziplock baggie. Make sure it's well sealed!

Tape it over a white piece of paper and let them go to town :)

Bed head baby!!!

Our friend (thaks Sarah!) also mentioned you could put it on a window, so we tried that too :)

Then B discovered she could move it anywhere, and that was her new game.

B just recently started showing interest in painting, coloring, etc. S has loved it from Day 1. She gets soooooo serious when she's working on a master piece.

. . . starting to get messy. . . .

The face painting began shortly after this shot :) Mom turns her back for 30 seconds. . . There was also paint on her belly, her legs, hands, and arms, so rather than take pictures I just ran them both up for a bath! Sometimes I think they just want an excuse to take a bath!!

Friday, January 24, 2014

Playing at Home

Ok, before I get started on the blogging, I have my resolution this year to BLOG MORE! I previously have only blogged about big topics, but I need to focus more on the daily shabang of life and document all of these awesome moments with my girls. Facebook less, blog more.

Oy, these snow days have been killer.

I remember before I had kids thinking my sister was the SAHM (Stay-at-home-mom) genius. (Yes Jen -- start bragging now!) She always had something fun to do with the kids, was always keeping busy. . . she had it mastered in just a few months. Thank GOD I had her after I had B, because she definitely taught me how to do it! Despite the fact that my daughter couldn't walk, talk, crawl, speak. . . much of anything. . . you bet I climbed on board whenever they took a trip. Even if it was just to Target. Staying home day in and day out is tedious.

I've come to the point that staying home 2 or 3 days in a row pretty much never happens. I have to leave the house almost every day. Which in turn has created a few monsters, because the girls are usually always wanting to know what we are doing and when we are leaving. I'm more of a leave-the-home mom than a SAHM.

BUT Ohhhh my Lord are these crazy winter days killing us! More snow than I ever remember having and sooo bitterly cold that even *I* don't want to leave the house. So we go a little stir crazy. But keep busy. PlayDoh. Painting. Plays. Dress Up. Toys. Baths. Forts. And some craziness in between.