Printing Flowers with Celery Hearts

I made a soup the other night and I was left with this great big celery heart that I didn't use.  I did hear on Dr. Oz once that the heart of the celery (or any vegetable) is where all the best nutrients are.  We decided to use all those good nutrients for the sake of art this time!  

The kids had a great time picking up this big vegetable and stamping it into paint and then their paper.  Like a lot of stamping projects; it's low mess and can produce A LOT of art quickly!   

 Here are our stamped hearts looking like pretty roses.  (Caleb picked blue).

The pretty celery heart ready to be stamped! 

We used our stamped celery to make cards for teachers and friends!

Best Brownies

Why have I been using boxed brownie mix all these years?  My son's class was having a "manners tea party" a couple of weeks ago.  I signed up to bring the brownies and realized I didn't have a box of mix in the pantry!! Wow- could I make brownies from scratch? :)  I came across this recipe online: Hershey's Best Brownies I love Hershey anything, so I thought this recipe would be a good one. And I had all the ingredients in the pantry to make the brownies and the icing.   They came out great.  With the icing bad them more moist.  And now I've done them a second time with dark chocolate chips added in (shown below). They probably take about five minutes longer to make than the boxed variety- but so much more satisfying! Yum! Oh, and they were a hit for the tea party too!

Hot Wheels Car Wash

Well, my two year old has been fascinated with the water in the sink when washing his hands after potty time.  He's been so interested, I tried to let him have some "water" fun when I filled the sink up about one third of the way and let him play with one of his action heroes in there.  That didn't last too long since after I peeked in after about two minutes he was getting his socks wet!  So- to help contain his interest in the water/ splashing play- we set up a Hot Wheels Car Wash.  We had two containers; one soapy, one plain water, a towel and all the Hot Wheels OUTSIDE. It was definitely fun.  I did let it go on about 5 minutes too long, however, as towards the end we had Hot Wheels getting thrown in the grass- which means they had to go through the car wash again. My four year old was super into it because she is very neat and loves to clean! Lucky Me!

And since there is this strong desire in me to make everything a theme for the day- we went to a carwash later in the afternoon for our minivan. I guess a more hands on approach would to be actually wash your car yourself- but this was great for our day!

Ben is 4 months Old

Benjamin Marc is one cute baby! He is four months old and at his check up today he was 17 pounds and 12 ounces! He has a really sweet demeanor.  He easily gives smiles and makes great eye contact.  He really likes to hold on to your fingers and he is always looking for his big brother and sister!

Preschool Post Office

One of my favorite things to do with the kids (Corinne-4, Caleb-2) is to pretend play about things we already do. I use simple supplies usually that we have at home and set it up the night before so they can start playing in the morning right after breakfast.  It's fun to hear them get excited about something new that they see when they walk down the stairs!

For this activity, I knew we were going to need to run by the post-office during the afternoon.  So that morning I had post office supplies on hand; envelopes from the Dollar Store, old return address labels, stickers and more stickers, pens, paper and markers.  I also covered a cereal box with paper, cut a slot and labeled it.

They got right to work with "letters" to friends and family. To be honest, my 2 year old was only interested for about 10 minutes and hasn't done much letter writing since.  But what fun my 4 year old has had making notes, coloring pages for people and folding them into teeny tiny pieces to stick into the envelopes.  Then, it's about another 20 minutes to decorate the envelope.  The actual trip to the post office was not nearly as much fun as our post office at home!

We've kept our mail box up for a week now and continue to make letters.  It's been a good pretend play activity, a way to think about others, writing practice, learning about addressing an envelope and a practice in creativity!

Preschool Lunches

There are a few lunches that I've put together for Corinne and Caleb that have been a hit so far for school.  The silicone muffin cups really make packing easy- they conform to the container and make it really easy to put small items together. You can find 6 for $1.99 at Walmart (in the cake decorating section)!

Quesadillas, carrots, corn casserole, to go apple sauce

Cheese stick, pineapple, red pepper, raisins, almond butter and jelly sandwich with hand cut out.  The hand cut out is inspired by the The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn.

More Preschool lunches to come!