Camping in sheet tents

This morning during Theodore's nap, I was folding laundry in Oliver and Buttercup's room while they helped me. (They're not bad at folding washcloths and socks! And Oliver is very good at folding his pants and shorts.)

When the laundry was finished, instead of putting their clean sheets away, Oliver and Buttercup decided to go camping! Each camper had their own designated camping spot, to prevent squabbles. :-)

I remember (probably about a year ago?) when they would go "camping" in the sun room almost every day. They would each drag their blankets, sheets, pillows, stuffed animals and other necessary items down the hall, camp for 20-30 minutes, and drag everything back. :-) I'm glad they still like camping together!

Maybe their daddy should take them camping for real . . .

Buttercup's "people"

Buttercup has finally figured out how to draw stick figures! She's been trying for a while, and one day it just clicked. She calls them her "people". :-)

Here's some of her artwork!

Bluebonnet pictures, 2012 edition

Spring is upon us, which means it's time for our annual photo shoot of the kids in the bluebonnets! Thanks to some much-needed rain, the flowers are really blooming this year and there are several patches near our house. The kids love spotting them while we're driving around!

Here are some of my favorites of the pictures I took last week with the kids in their Easter outfits. Hope you like them!

Sticky table

This is a really great activity idea that I found at Having Fun at Home. My kids loved this! And I loved it because all of the mess sticks to the contact paper, and then you just roll it up and throw it away! Can't beat that. :-)

You'll need a large piece of contact paper. Tape it sticky side up to a table (I used the kids' craft table since it was the right height and size for them). Then give them a bunch of different things to use on the table. We used pom poms, paperoni, googly eyes, craft sticks, buttons, glitter, and bits of pipe cleaners.

At first the kids just had fun seeing how the different items (and their hands!) stuck to the paper.

Then they started pouring on the glitter. Definitely Buttercup's favorite part. :-)

It was even fun to see if the glitter shaker would stick to the paper. :-) (One end did, one end didn't.)

Then they had fun making shapes and animals. I think this was Oliver's favorite part!

Here's a salamander that Buttercup made:

Here's Oliver, making a fish:

This was so fun, and we are absolutely doing it again!

Finger painting with pudding

Letting the kids finger paint with pudding is something I've been wanting to try for a long time, but I never remembered about it when we actually had the time. Fortunately for them, I remembered yesterday, so I had it all ready to go as soon as the baby boy was in his crib for his morning nap!

Most of the websites I've seen use chocolate pudding, but we didn't have any. So I used vanilla, with a little bit of food coloring. I think that worked out better, since Oliver and Buttercup both liked mixing up the pudding and food dye. :-)

Nothing like good, colorful fun! :-)

Baby in the bluebonnets

Back yard pictures

The kiddos and I were playing in the back yard after naptime, and it was such a perfect spring afternoon that I had to take pictures so I would be able to remember it in the future. :-)