Playdate!

Today we had a playdate!

I was so happy to hear that our friend was going to bring her little ones over to play! The last few weeks we were constanly talking about having them over for a playdate but for one reason or another we kept having to reschedule. Gage isn't usually one to share but all three kids did very well together today so we are looking forward to more playdates in the future.

Our activities that I pre-planned for today did not exactly happen. There is always tomorrow right? We thought it was a nice enough day out, at least judging by the feel in my front yard. The case was apparently not the same once we got the kids to the park! It was FREEZING! The boys didn't care, but poor Sissy, she was mad! I don't think it would have been bad had the wind not been terrible. So needless to say our trip to the park was short lived.

 

 

 

Luckily we were able to get back home with all three kids still in great moods and ready to play some more. I sat down with the boys and pulled out some paint and we started to go to town. It was Gabe's first time (atleast that he will remember) painting. We started painting toilet paper rolls first, using cotton balls as our brushes. Gabe loved this but Gage who hates getting his hands dirty was not much of a fan.

 

The toilet paper rolls were short lived though and I had to pull out paper for them.

A new activity we tried today, and had so much fun with, was an upcycling project. The toilet paper rolls the boys painted and the rest of them that I have collected in our house were put to quite a good and entertaining use today. With a little imagination and some packing tape, I made the boys a marble track.

My original and basic start up:

 

 

 

After I added some blocks for height:

 

 

 

This is what we finished up with. Blocks for height and a sand box landing post. We needed the baking sheets to ensure that the marbles made it to the sand without getting caught on the lip of the tub lid.

 

 

They honestly had so much fun with this and I can not wait to try it out again!

 

I am also very happy to say that Gage is not alone in his love for the sensory activities we do! (I really love seeing not only Gage love the things I make for him, but seeing other children enjoying them as well.)

 

Sissy LOVED the Colored Soap Bottles:

 

 

She also loved the "foam buttons" as I call them. This is another of Gage's favorites. He will arrange all of them any way he can think of and make letter out of them as well.

 

 

All three of the kids enjoyed playing in the "sand box" they used farm animals and monter trucks but mostly the just like running their fingers through it. It is amazing how the simplest things can make them so happy isn't it?

 

We had such a fun and eventful day today, although here at the end we got some rough news. I don't know if I will be posting tomorrow or the next few days for that matter. I am hoping that tomorrow will be another play date and more fun activties but I won't promise I will be blogging about it. Please bear with me and thank you for your understanding. My family is in for one rollercoaster of a week.



Until tomorrow! (Hopefully)

 

 

 

 

Very productive Sunday

Finally organized!!

Today I went on a cleaning frenzy. Which means that Gage was left to his imagination for quite a bit of the day. I was honestly so happy with how he used his time. I mean he is only 3 but instead of sitting and watching TV all day he played with his blocks and his train set. In the midst of my cleaning I walked through the living room and saw that he was building something with his blocks. Now he hasn't actually built anything to big with them yet so I didn't think anything of it but as I walked back through I looked over and saw a castle. I honestly had a very proud mommy moment. My big guy building castles with his blocks with no help. I was beaming. I made momma come a check it out too that is how proud I was.

 

 

All by himself!

Anyway I apologize for going on like that! Back to our day. Our bath time activity was a fun one. I have yet to let Gage play with water pouring so I decided bath time would be a good time to try. Everything we used is all things that can be found around the house (aside from the PVC pipe). But we got all of it at the dollar store so that it would be strictly for our activities.


We used a pitcher, a measuring cup, a PVC elbow, a colander, an ice cube tray and a turkey baster.

Eventually we will be doing an activity like this not in the bath tub. Most likely when the weather warms up and we can do it outside. He literally had no desire to take a bath tonight but once he saw that I was headed to the tub with the basket of "toys"he got so excited and then fought me to get out!

Since I finally got the essential areas organized I am going to show them off! Also I am hoping to start watching two children next week so I had to get everything where I wanted it.

The main learning/activity area which is in our front room:
Utilizing space by putting the three drawer upcycling storage bin UNDER the table.

 

This is the storage area, all kinds of fun things to do on these shelves! You can only see half of the wall but this is also our gallery area.

 

The futon will be for nap time.

 

Under the table are the building blocks and bricks as well as some cardboard boxes that will be used for activities down the road. On the table top is all of our paper (butcher, construction, foam sheets etc.) as well as a few other activity objects.

My recyclable/upcycling storage:

Gage's toy area which is in what used to be our dining area:

Unfortunately this isn't even all of his toys. Luckily we are having another little boy so there will be no need to buy anymore of them!
The wall in this area, as I am sure you can tell, is chalkboard as well as the table top. He loves being able to draw on the chalkboard surfaces around the house. (His bedroom door and half of a wall are chalkboard as well.) Small little tour of where most of day happens. If you made it this far then thanks! Time to get my activities for the week planned and then get to bed. Goodnight all.



Until tomorrow!

Rainy day fun!

The amount of things that can be done on a rainy day I am sure are numerous, apparently though my brain was off today.

Today was beautiful. I positively LOVE the rain and so does Gage. While I am sure I could have come up with all kinds of creative rain related activities today, I was lacking the inspiration. It was probably sleep deprevation, as we babysat a little girl over night and Gage thought a good bedtime for himself was about 1:30 a.m. Needless to say it has been a long tiring day for this mommy! As I write this momma is already asleep.

So due to my lack of creativity today we played outside. Gage loves puddles and jumping in them is probably his favorite activity. Today wasn't too rainy but there were still a few smallish puddles and gutter water (gross I know but boys will be boys right?) for him to have a good time with.

 

 

Who doesn't love a good puddle jump right?

 

I know I said my creativity was non existent today but that may have been over exagerated. We took our cookie cutters our side with us for a bit and Gage made "Sand cookies". This concept definitely would have worked better had it been mud, but we worked with what we had. I feel like it is a new spin on the good ol' mud pie!

 

We took his dinosaurs outside and played with them in the wet sand as well. He wasn't as interested in this as he was a few of the other things we did today but I still thought it was cute.

I showed him how leaves will float in water which he got a kick out of. Of course he thought why not add rocks into the mix as well. That obviously did not work out well.

 

All of the running around in the cold rain we were doing for some reason made momma want ice cream which in turn had Gage wanting ice cream so that was his snack. I love them to death but sometimes I just don't understand.

Right before he ran out of steam and wanted to head inside he remembered the fun we had with sidewalk chalk earlier in the week and did not want to pass up the opportunity to play with it again. So first he sweeped off the old chalk still lingering on the drive way and then he got down to drawing some more.

That pretty much finished up our fun for the day. I had a very fun bath time activity planned but he decided that he did not want a bath tonight so I will just save that for in the morning.

We just want to thank those of you who read this, I have so much fun doing this blog and I hope someone out there enjoys reading!



Until tomorrow!