Balls Everywhere!

All of my kids have been wild about balls.  And really what isn't there to like about a basket full of balls with different textures, colors, and some sparkle?  This month June's Treasure Basket is balls. 

After three kids we have a lot of balls and since she loves to dig through big baskets, I moved her things to a larger basket where she could not only riffle through balls, but stand.  To be a nearly one year old!

 

As a reminder of how fast time passes, here is Ladybug with the same balls at 9 months. How does this happen?

The Best of the Best - Little People

When you have a lot of kids, or maybe it's just having a kid, you have a lot of toys.  Unfortunately so many of those toys are cheap junk.  They break, have limited entertainment value, and will end up in landfills in less than a year. The thought makes my eye twitch and so I try to be selective in what we own.  Looking at our playroom, I may have failed. 

Now for the good - Little People.  Yes, they are plastic and probably leach BPA or some para-something into my kids, but the toys are sturdy, interesting, and have open-ended play.  I introduced June to Little People recently.  I started out with the farm and showed her how to put the animals into the silo and then retrieve them. 

The set-up.  I showed her the animals, the silo, and how to put them in.  The basket lasted a few seconds and ended up across the room.

 

 

It goes in.

 



It took a few tries to get the animal in. 

 

It comes out.

 



 

June came back to this activity a few times and each time she was a little better at putting the animals in the silo.

Arts and Crafts - Treasure Basket

We are an artsy crapsy kinda family.  I have a Honey Do List that keeps growing, a little gal who saves every scrap just in case she needs to craft, and another gal who asks every day what kind of art project we are going to do.  The boy, well, he's a little more like the only other male in this house, but he puts up a good face just as long as we play football or dinosaurs or space travel every so often.

This month June's basket if full of things we use to craft:

• Fabric - Varying textures and colors
• Ribbon - Varying lengths, textures, and colors
• Pony beads in a bottle
• Jewelry beads in a bottle
• Broken crayons in a bottle
• Styrofoam balls - We will see how long these last with a oral baby
• Watercolors
• Washi Tape
• Glitter glue
• Crepe paper
• Popsicle stick

Birds for June

Sweet June should be left out of our birds, so here is her April Treasure Basket

• Blue egg - Rice
• Purple egg - Barley
• Orange egg - Beans
• Feather
• Squeeze penguin
• Plush bird
• Rooster with straw comb
• Two empty eggs
• Boook

It's a Baby Thing

Poor June. Poor sweet number four June is defiantly the baby.  She wears hand-me-downs times three and gets recycled gifts.  The good news is that she's not my test model so there's that. 

Her March box of crap (treasure basket) was one of the Wee One's favorite.

All About Brushes

Dropping the Ball

Do you know that awkward greeting when you've been meaning to talk to somebody for a long time and you keep putting it off?  Maybe time escaped you and then you kept putting off the shifty eyes and that bumbling, "Hey.."     Yeah, I know the feeling - Hey.

I would love to tell you that I rode off into the sunset, wine in hand, angelic kids signing sweet songs off to the tropics.  That's not what happened.  We are still in the tundra, but made the BIG move five minutes from our old house.  No more babies sleeping in the closet and no more Learning Room. 

We had a baby.  Our sweet June Bug was born on June 19th to complete our family.  Mister was not impressed with another sister, but he really is the best big brother to three sisters.



Is she not the sweetest? 

We are officially in crazy town putting our house on the market a month after June Bug was born, two in kindergarten, one in preschool, one in diapers and moving an entire house less than a week before Thanksgiving.  Now that I've started to regain my sanity, I'm ready to get back to some of the things I love and try new things. 

DIY Baby Gift

Christmas is so close that I can hear Santa and his reindeer.  I can also hear the kiddos squealing with delight as they open their gifts.  The rush is on, and if you are still stumped for a baby gift idea, I think I have the solution.  I promise it will only take a few short hours and this is coming from a novice sewer. 

Hop on over to Notes from the Patch for the most amazing and darling hooded towels.  The first one took me a few hours (and it would have been longer had my mom not come to my rescue -I did say I was a novice) but the second one was finished in 45 minutes!

You will need:

• Bath towels (Mine are avocado from Target)
• One hand towel (this will make two hooded towels)
• Thread
• Ric-rac
• Fabric (1/8 - 1/4 of a yard)

I did not sew the hood and the towel together like the directions.  I put right sides together and sewed the seam on the inside down.

The second baby gift is a sensory blanket.  This should only take you 10 minutes (novice sewer) to complete.  I used some remnants I had left from other projects.

When pinning on the ribbon make sure your fabric has right sides together and the ribbon loops pinned on the inside.  You want the ribbon edges to be pinned flush with the edges of the blanket. 

Line up your ribbon a straighter and more even than this picture.

Again the fabric should be even on the top. 

Red Rover, Red Rover, Let The Wee One Come Over

Now that the Wee One is the ripe old age of one, I have started with colors.  I don't expect her to know her colors anytime soon, but it makes activity planning easier.

On her shelf is a coffee can with red beads inside.  It combines her love of taking things in and out, making music, and shaking things.  I talked about how the beads are red and shiny.  When I would tell her to shake them she would laugh and shake as hard as she could. 

I put them around the knob of the closet and she loved moving them back and forth.

Treasure Basket - Brushes

This Treasure Basket is still in the making.  I have collected as many brushes as I could here, but when I visit my parent's house I am sure to find more.  Unfortanitly, the basket is lacking wood handled brushes because we live in a plastic world despite my best efforts. 

• Hairbrush
• Paintbrush - Blue handeled
• Squid - Basting brush
• Wooden handle brush
• Make-up brush - Stiff
• Make-up brush soft
• Shoe polish brush
• Mushroom brush

My Little Smurfette

On the shelves for the Wee One is a basket with lacing objects that she can put in and take out of a metal bucket.  She can sit for hours, well baby hours, and do this kind of activity. 

When I introduced the activity to her I said, "This is a red ____" before she dropped it into the bucket.  She enjoys listening to them clank when dropped and carrying around the bucket by its handle. 

And yes my baby is blue and isn't wearing pants.  We are a classy bunch and it's because she insisted on using this

Those dots are pretty good for a 31 year old.

I Must Have Blinked

Sweet girl is one and I want to know how it happened.  One minute she was a squishy newborn and now she is a running toddler.  What a year it has been with 3 under 3 at one point, I thought I was going to have to have an intervention.  We all made it and a big Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

Her party was shades of pink and orange.





Tissue paper wreath

Kitchen and inside party area

Second seating area

The candy and picture table with a Happy Birthday Banner

The Wee One's first cake. 

The new sew tutu and bucket as a party favor.  Good thing we only had 2 little guests.

We served strawberries, raspberries, cantaloupe, oranges, chips and salsa, red and orange pepper grilled chicken kabobs, cilantro lime rice, and a mango and bean salad.  We had strawberry lemonade for the kiddos and homemade pink and orange popsicles. 

It's the Little Things

No matter how early I start dinner, nurse the Wee One anticipating her being hungry, let the dog out or bring her in, give Mister and Ladybug an activity 5:30 hits and it becomes crazy around here.  The dog is whining to come in or go out, the baby wants to nurse, the kids are bored and running around, dinner is in process and I am ready to pull my hair out.  I am happy to report that tonight I took one part out of the madness equation.  The Wee One played with an empty spice bottle and its top for more than 30 min.  She was working so hard trying to get the top to stay on.  How many plastic toys have we bought that entertain for only 5-10 minutes?

Who Needs Toys?

Have you seen the market for infant toys?  They light up, sing songs, and are really annoying.  We have some of those most popular toys and don't get me wrong the Wee One likes them, but she likes her juice container just as much. 

The markers were the easiest thing to find, but I could have done any number of things that would have fit into the container.  I need to cut out the back of the container, so she can retrieve her markers by herself.  She was getting so good, that she was able to put 2 in at a time. 

When she isn't using her container, she loves to put markers and crayons in these Ikea stools.  Like the container, they have a hole in the top and the red part lifts off.  Unfortunately the stools are usually occupied by a three year old.

Treasure Basket - Shiny Things

The Wee One is a girl after my own heart.  She loves all things sparkly and shiny.  Really, who can blame her?  I put together a Treasure Basket with bedroom items, but she kept going for the sparkly broach and leaving everything else.  After a few days, I added more of what she liked and it changed the whole feel of the basket.

Fabric Box

My mom was asking what she should get for the Wee One for her Easter basket.  What do you get the third child in 2.5 years?  She doesn't need anything, so I had my mom make her a fabric squares box.  I had her incorprate as many textures and colors that she could fing in her sewing bin.  I put 2-3 sets in the box at a time and when she holds one I will tell her it's soft or bumpy.  I will also give her the one that matches.  The Wee One loves to taste her fabric and now she is trying to get everyone in the family to try it too. 

Any leftover fabric will be added to her box, so the possibilities are endless.

Picnic Open and Close

When you live in the tundra you have to take advantage of every nice day, so when the weather gets nice we go on picnics (even if they are in our yard) almost every week.  May is usually the start of picnic season. When I spotted this picnic basket at Goodwill, I knew that it was the perfect size for our activities.  This activity is easy to put together and a favorite.  The Wee One also enjoys picking up each container, studying it, and giving it a shake.  The jars are a great size for her to practice hand-to-hand transfer.

A Forest of Eggs

I hit the mother load at the dollar store last month and these eggs were part of my loot.  Ladybug and Mister spied them in my bag in March and I have been itching to get them out.  The moment I saw the eggs, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them. 

Ladybug stuck the eggs in the floral foam so carefully.  Taking them out proved to be more challenging because she found when she pulled on the egg, it came off.  She had to use her thumb and index finger, like holding a pencil, to remove them.

Mister stacked them up to make a giant egg tree.  He explained that the roots were below the green floral foam.  I also love how different his is from Ladybug's work.  He bunched them on the sides and Ladybug made flower rows.

The Wee One had to get her hands on them too, so when the other two were finished I gave her the vase with the eggs.  I had to watch closely to make sure she didn't poke herself.  The exposed side is not a sharp edge, but she is my daughter and I am very clumsy.  The Wee One had a great time taking them out.  She even made a few attempts to put them back in the vase.