Tyler, TX blogger - parenting, cooking, DIY-ing, crafting, sports, and life with three boys!
The holidays are in full swing! Having three kids at home, though, we need to keep busy. We found these DIY Snowy Pinecone Ornaments on JuicyJuice.com, and had fun making them together!
thanks to Juicy Juice for sponsoring this post
A while back, I noticed that our grapevine was out of control. It grows on the fence between our garden and carport, and it was so out of control that the boys had to push them back if they go out of Daddy’s car. It was almost like a jungle! I enlisted the help of the Captain and D to prune the grapevine, which apparently you are supposed to do in the winter, anyway, to encourage new growth in the spring.
I taught the boys how to use the loppers to carefully trim the old vines that were growing right into the carport and our garden. Traditional pruners would have worked too, but well, loppers are more fun to use and to say. The Captain would prune off a few vines, then D would. My little boys LOVE to cut things, especially big things like a grapevine! After a lesson in where to cut, I let the Captain get a bit too comfortable and he lopped off a huge part of the vine, but hey, it happens. It will grow again!
Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post. Contains affiliate links
The Captain is 7 and loves to read. He has really loved discovering the world of chapter books this year! Often times we find him after we thought he was asleep, reading his Star Wars book, the Bible, or a book about animals or the solar system. Reading is such a gift and I am glad that he has found this love and is confident as a reader.
One problem that we have run into, however, is that he has two little brothers that love books, as well, but in different ways! While D is gentle with books and loves sounding out words, Baby Brother is two and very destructive! He loves to look at books, yes, but he also loves to throw them, drop them, and he is learning that we do not rip pages or color in books that are not coloring books. That's a tricky thing for a toddler to learn, isn't it?
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Mummy Letters – Halloween Craft for Kids contains affiliate links
Since it is already September, I guess it is time to start thinking about Halloween. It’s not my favorite holiday, but it’s in my favorite season and the day before the Captain’s birthday, so I have learned to love it. It really is a lot of fun to see the boys dress up in their favorite costume and get candy and little toys. They love it, so I guess I must, too. I sound like a hater, but I just don’t like adults trying to scare kids who don’t like to be scared. Halloween doesn’t have to be full of scary things to be fun! Maybe I’m just bitter because I was a very sensitive child who scared easily and I have bad memories of Halloween. ha!
The boys love to make decorations for different holidays, and I like to keep it fun and cute for Halloween. I came up with the idea to cover cardboard letters with cheesecloth and attach the always adorable googly eyes . D had the idea to attach a nose on his mummy, so he added a pom pom and it’s pretty cute, I must say.
The Captain volunteered to show exactly how we made it in this time lapse video:View Post
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Crafts are something that we all can agree on in this house. The boys are excellent about coming up with their own crafts, but sometimes they need a little guidance to get started. They love these Do A Dot Art! markers that Grammy gave to them and so I drew a shamrock (doesn’t have to be perfect!) and let them dot around it. The box says to only dot the markers, not drag them, so that adds another level of patience and skill to their crafting. They seriously use these for everything. We have made letters, their names, different drawings, and now these shamrock craft paintings. They turned out really cute!
Help kids realize that it does NOT have to be “perfect” and they can do whatever they like because it’s THEIR PICTURE! This is important to help them love art! These do a dot markers help with the mess, but they are not mess free, so make sure to remind kids “we only draw on paper” and to wear old clothes if you are concerned with staining. I have never had a problem with these, but that does not mean that they are stain proof! I know it takes a few washings to get it off of your skin!
Don’t miss these St. Patrick’s Day crafts for kids!
This easy, fun dot art shamrock craft for kids is perfect for St. Patrick's Day fun in March!
1. Draw or print an outline of a shamrock.
2. Have child dot the marker all around the outline, then fill in the inside with green.
3. Create a rainbow pattern with remaining colors (red, orange, yellow, blue, purple) and create a rainbow "behind" the shamrock. We made two lines of dots for each color, then repeated the colors until there was no more white space showing.
4. Let dry (it doesn't take long) and display for St. Patrick's Day!
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The boys love talking about the changing seasons and looking at all of the magnificent colors of the fall leaves. We wanted to decorate the house a little with the beautiful colors of fall, so we made a stained glass fall leaf craft! It was a bit more difficult than I had prepared for, but they were each able to participate and do what they could, with help.
We had some sprouting potatoes that were not being used up quickly enough. Sure, they’re still edible, but today Baby D and Captain Fussybuckets did some potato stamping!
First, you select the potatoes.
Then, you cut them in half and either leave the sprouts on or take them off. Washing is also optional, unless you think your child is going to take a bite:
Now this is the tricky part. You must cut out letters but you can do this easily with stencils, just trace the letter on to the potato with a marker and cut away the excess. Or you could freehand a letter on to the potato and then cut away the excess. I chose the lazy way and cut the letter out and cut away the excess, but lucky for me, neither me or my kids are perfectionists! yay! Remember that with some letters, you’ll need to cut them out reversed…such as the letters Z, B, D, etc, so they’ll be correct when stamped.
I chose to cut out the letters H, O, A, T, and Z. Then I got some red craft paint, poured a little in a small, flat plate and let the boys stamp it up! First up was Baby D:
He really liked it and then went a little nuts with his stamping, but that’s okay!
Baby D’s finished product:
Next up was Captain Fussybuckets. He is excited about learning to read words and how to spell them, so he was super excited about this craft! He chose to spell “zoo” first:
Time for a new piece of paper and more letters:
Super proud of himself:
This craft was really fun AND educational. We’ll definitely be doing it again. The only slightly annoying part was cutting out the letters but as long as you don’t go all out and cut out the whole alphabet, it doesn’t take long.
