Busy Bag Exchange

This past month 11 of my friends and I put together a busy bag exchange, we each made 11 sets of the same activity and went home with 11 different busy bags! In a previously post I mentioned for my busy bag activity,  I put together ABC playdough mats which Carson just loves. In addition to our play dough mat we have added fishing game, clothespin color matching, Sorting into paper clips into color and number cups, clothes pin shape shorting game, making shapes with pip cleaners, hiding a fish in the hymns game, a necklace making game, making felt pizzas, popsicle shapes games, and a mystery one still being made by one of the ladies. Lets just say we are loving each game, not sure which one is his favorite, but he has played most several times. 

Math Fishing Game
For now we are learning our colors mostly with this game, and will move into the numbers and addition when he gets a little bit older. 

As you can see he absolutely loves fishing. 

Learning our Colors in English and Spanish

This clothespin color matching has an easy version of just matching up the colors or a harder version when he can read. When he is older he can learn the Spanish names for his colors as well, Uncle Austin will be proud. 

Additionally he is gaining a great fine motor skill of pinching the clothes pin and is getting better with each stab at it. 

Here is a close up of what the game looks like, though we have a Spanish version rather than a French version. So simple to make and fun to play. 

Paper Clip Color/Number sorting. 

 He is getting pretty good at this game, I don't even have to start the sorting anymore, we have one smart boy!

Clothespin Shape Sorting

 "I did it!"

 It was fun to watch him squeeze the clothespin, he was using all his muscles and making sound affects. 

Pipe Cleaners

Lots of things can be done with pipe cleaners, from poking them in a salt shaker, to making shapes out of them, to threading beads on them, such a variety. 

This kept his attention pretty well, I even let Sydni pull them out which she loved. 

Find the Fish

This game is a great game for church, you hide these 4 fishes in the Hymn pages and then they find them. It keep him occupied until the sacrament!

Making a Necklace

Another great game for hand eye coordinator and fine motor skills, he patiently and neatly placed all the flowers on the string one by one. 

Pizza Felt Game

He loves putting together his pizza, there is also recipe cards to help with counting. 

Making a pizza sure takes some concentration, my mouth is watering.

Popsicle Shapes
Trying to make a 'W' but couldn't figure out why he couldn't fit them all on the card, finally he gave up and started making his own shapes. 

Being silly making his own shapes/designs. 

 A triangle

He was so proud that he made a triangle, he used the remaining popsicle sticks to make lots of triangles, way to go Bubba.  

 All the shapes/design cards we can choose from, including making our own designs.

Thanks to all the lovely ladies who put together these activities we love them! We are even probably going to make more to go in our collection, what a great idea. 

Valentine's Day Tradition

Valentine's Day was fantastic, no presents were given to each other, only spent time together with our little family, just the way I like it. We have decided though it is good to spend time with your spouse, we feel Valentine's a great way to show your kids how much you love them too, so this day is a family day!

I have been a slacker lately and have not spent quality time with my little guy, so on Thursday the day before Valentine's we made our little thumb people Valentine's cards for the grandparents. They turned out cute and we have fun making them, each one of us and our thumbprints. 

 Another one of our Valentine's Day crafts the kids and I painted this size for Daddy to have at his work after the month is over. Carson's little hand print, and Sydni's foot prints, love this idea I got of pinterest, I say successes! That reminds me I need to pull out Carson's first Valentine's Day foot prints to compare to Sydni's for curiosity sake.

As a last minute idea, I decided to decorate the table, I didn't buy anything that day, just looked in my scrap booking supplies and there you have it. I made personal conversation hearts and place them around the table, placing the special ones where each of my special people sat. Near Carson were the hearts that read 'lovable', and 'loving'. By Robert I placed a 'kiss me 'of course and 'best friend', and of course 'hottie', and finally by Sydni I place one little heart that read 'cutie pie' because she is!

The best picture we got of our Cutie Pie next to her conversation heart, she kept wanting to ripe it off. 

With our window markers I wrote a message to my family, letting them know that I love them. On a side note, love these markers. 

For dinner we cooked our very own salmon dinner for the very first time, and it was delicious. I found a recipe on pinterest and ran with it, we loved it! We also had wild rice and salad with poppyseed dressing, and finally for dessert no bake cheese cake. MMM is all I can say about our Valentine's dinner, we will have to make salmon more often. 

Another one of our traditions for the holiday is to take pictures of the family, this year we had a tripod that we purchase not long ago from a friend to help us take our pictures. 

I couldn't help myself and post a few of the shots we got of the kids.

 They love to play together, Sydni face lights up every time she sees her big brother Carson. Carson on the other hand, always asks if Sydni can play with him. 

By this time Carson was beginning to be done with taking pictures, but we wanted to see if we could get a few other pictures, so we took pictures of us and the kids. 

 

Love their little smiles, brightens my day each and everyday. 

 

That concluded our Valentine's Day traditions, but we took a few more pictures during the night of our little princess being adorably cute. 

Our future Yoga instructor practicing her downward dog, and doing pretty well I might add. 

 Adorable is that is needed for this picture. 

 Finally as of late she has loved blowing raspberries and making funny faces, so we just had to capture it on camera, silly girl. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Imagination

As part of the 25 days of Christmas blog posts I did I introduced Carson to play-dough and he has been hooked ever since, he frequently asks to play play-dough. Because he has loved playing play-dough as much as he has I put together a activity Mat that he can use with is play-dough. If this ABC mat continues to be a great hit I will print out other pages that he can use to explore his imagination. Thank you pinterest for opening my eyes to play-dough mats! 

I made 11 sets of these ABC mats for a neighborhood busy activity exchange, excited to see what fun new activities we will get back in return!

Well back to the real reason for the post, on Monday we had our good friend Akane over for some good old fun, we have loved getting to know her and spending time with her over these past few months. We consider a long life family friend even when she does return back to Japan, we hope to stay in contact for years to come. 

Not sure how this whole silliness and imagination all began, but it was sure fun to laugh at each other in fun. 

 Our black masked bandits Carson and Akane. 

 Then Carson said "Dad picture, Carson" this is what he came up with :)

 Man Robert lay off the blue raspberry koolaid!

 Yosemite Sam, or is that Akane, I can't quite tell. 

 Apparently my facial hair comes in bright orange. 

 A sneak peak at what Carson may look like once he can grow facial hair. 

 Akane has grown horns, I guess she has been around us Mormons too long. Just kidding, I really have hard time understanding why some of those not of our faith truly believe we have horns. 

 Carson was laughing hysterically when I pretended to eat his snake, by the end he really wanted me to bite it, I declined. 

 Nacho Libre

 Mr Incredible, and that he is!

Take one, laughing.

 Take two, still laughing.

 Take, not sure, but finally success without laughing. 

To round out silliness, bug eyes for Carson and Mom

Laughing is truly the best medicine!