Somewhat Crafty--Hearts and Tulle Valentine Decor

Scarlett painted quite a few valentines cut out of construction paper- we used these AWESOME soft crayons that are also watercolors- Alex Creamy Crayons-too cool! ( You can check them out on Amazon.com- I put a link on the left hand side!) They were so much fun to color with (they come in a tube that almost looks like a chapstick tube.  I had to color with them too because they were so much fun.. They were kind of like pastels the way they easily slid across the paper- then she used water and a paintbrush and smeared the colors all over the Valentines she created.  They turned out pretty cute!

 

She also used these tiny heart stampers that I got from Oriental Trading and stamped a few hearts.  

These are the final Valentines:

Then I used double sided tape and put them up on our Kitchen chandelier (in the eating nook).

I also had red tulle left over from something ( I think from Christmas) and wrapped some bows and loops around the lights.  Scarlett woke up from a nap in awe--- she loved it!  She has been wanting to make more Valentine decorations ever since!

 

  

--- our next craft--- Salt Dough Valentines--- sometime this coming week! ---

For more ideas :

Tot School Week 8- Lots of random learning!

Starting next week, along with various Tot school activities that we will be doing at home, we will be officially be starting Thursday Preschool Playdates with a couple of Scarlett's 3 and 4 year old friends.  We had a trial playdate last week and it went so well!  I will work with Scarlett on Tuesdays at home with her little sister and then Thursdays another mommy (or two) and myself will be splitting up the Thursdays in the month to work with the kiddos as well.  Should be great!
So this week we were sort of in "limbo" and so we just did lots of fun "preschoolish" activities!  Enjoy!

 

Cutting with her plastic fruit (one of her Christmas presents)

Lots of painting!

  

One of her favorites- using small clothespins to hang the "wash" on the line.. there weren't enough felt pieces and so she went and got some of her socks!  Great activity to work on fine motor skills. 

Of course, Lily always wants to help her big sis!

Shape activity- I hide the shapes around the room and she has to find them (she loves this part) and match them to the sheet that has the shapes on them (I always ask her what color the shape is too!)

  

Stacking her boxes- her little sis had to "help" with this too- and "helped" knock them over quite a few times- Scarlett was very patient with her little sis!  

Matching Upper Case letters with Lower case letters- I found colorful, plastic poker chips at Dollar Tree and glued the lowercase letter with same picture to the chip.  Then Scarlett matches it to the same picture and Upper case letter on the paper.  She did great- and really enjoyed it!

Making mini cupcakes for Mommy's birthday!  Scarlett LOVES to help cook- especially if it has anything to do with chocolate (this girl SERIOUSLY takes after me!! LOL)

She iced all the cupcakes (but I'm not sure it all went on the cupcakes... see her face?!?) LOL

Here is how they turned out... Ta da!

Here is Mommy's birthday cake and the mini cupcakes!

This was one of my favorite pics this week... we bought Lily a Pottery Barn First Chair because big sister has one as well- they love to read books in that chair!  Now, Scarlett will pull her chair into Lily's room and they pull the books up in between them and sit and READ!! 

I am just in heaven and took tons of pictures- too sweet!

These are the moments that make me so happy and BLESSED that I am a stay at home mommy!!

For more Tot or Preschool fun.. check out:

Weekly Wrap Up - The Homeschool Edition- on Weird, Unsocialized, Homeschoolers

or

 

50 FOLLOWERS!!! WHOO HOOO!!

Okay, I know for many of you, who have 200 or 500 or over 1000 followers, that 50 Followers is not much-- but for me that is AWESOME!  I feel very loved and very excited about all of my awesome follower "bloggy friends".  It has been such a fun 3 months since I decided to start documenting my stay at home mommy stuff and all the Tot homeschooling that I do.
You all just made my day- and it's a FRIDAY TOO- even better!

XOXOX,

YAY for Follow Me Fridays!!

Thanks to  One 2 try, Hearts Make Families and Midday Escapes 
for this AWESOME way to get more followers!  Last week was my first week but I was able to see lots of amazing blogs I had never seen and also get some more followers!

Have a WONDERFUL weekend!!

Luv,

Wordless Wednesday- HAT PARADE!!

(My two girls (3 years & 1 year) paraded around the house -changing out hats while Daddy and I fixed breakfast!) 

 

 

 

 FOR MORE WORDLESS WEDNESDAYS CHECK OUT!:

Seven Clown Circus

Extraordinary Mothers

5 Minutes for Mom

The HUB

Trying out my signature...

Just trying out my signature... it isn't anything really flashy... but still I had to try it out and see!  :o)

luv,

Check out ABC and 123!!

There are lots of cute SNOW Themed activities right now on ABC 123 -- --------
in fact, they talked about my Preschool Playdate from last week, which was very exciting for me!!!

To get some great SNOWY ideas (think snowflakes, snowmen, snowballs, etc)  check out:

One OLD Lady's Birthday Wish...........

I would just absolutely LOVE... adore... cherish....
                                                                             more...
                                                                                          FOLLOWERS!!
                                                                                                                     :)

This is my ONE wish for my birthday (just don't tell my husband he thinks I want jewelry!! LOL!!)

Soooo... if you would like to follow my blog- Happy Birthday to me! 
I'm 32 on the 23rd of January... that seems like it should be good luck or something.

I think this will be a GREAT year!!

Cheers!

xoxoxox,
Jo 


ps. this doesn't seem desperate... does it?!!  lol

Thursday Preschool Playdate (Snowmen!)--- and ...Tot School Week 8

Today, I hosted my very first Thursday Preschool Playdate- this is my "unoriginal" name for it at the moment!
We invited a few of Scarlett's 3 year old and 4 year old friends to come over and join in .
There were just 4 kids in all- a nice, manageable group!
We did a st"ART" for the first time as well!--- Story + Art   ( THE THEME TODAY WAS SNOWMEN!)

I had 4 really cute little colored baskets that each child received.  Inside the basket was EVERYTHING they would need for the 2 hours of preschool play, learning, and fun!  I got everything from Dollar Tree and Oriental Trading--- my two favorite places!!

Here are the activities that we did today--  When the kids arrived - we played with homeade "Snowman" playdough- with glitter in it.  I had pipe cleaners (or the fancy name- chenille sticks) googly eyes, and little pom pom balls for them to use to make their snowmen!

 

 The long armed Snowman!

Some pretty cute snowmen were created!

While 2 of them were playing with their snowmen, I had the other 2 start on some other individual activities.

I got this from Confessions of a Homeschooler- she has an AWESOME assortment of printables for themes and especially for LETTERS- which I love, love, love.  This one was letter matching Capital S and lowercase S.

This was another from Confessions of a Homeschooler- Matching the big colorful snowman to the small snowman (we called them the mommy snowman and the baby snowman)- they loved this!!

Confessions of a Homeschooler printable-  matching the colored hat with the correct colored snowman- because you HAVE to be matching, yes?   (By the way- I laminated all of these because they are keepers!)

And the last Confessions of a Homeschooler Snowman printable- Snowman sizes matching!

Thank you Erica for such beautiful printables- you are an inspiration to me- and you save me soooo much time too!! LOL

After all of that hard work it was time for Snowman Soup!

Found this idea from Ramblings of a Crazy Woman- it was hot chocolate... and cute little marshmallows(or snowmen as WE called them!)  Everyone had a snowman mug or a snowman straw! YUMMY!

Then, we made cute little snowman/snowflake picture frames- I got these from Oriental Trading- they were pretty cute- I wish they were stickers instead of having to glue them on but the kids did much better with them than I thought!

Then it was time for my favorite type of activity- Montessori "sorting".  We used these cute little marble-like snowman beads.  They had to pick them up with tongs and place them in the little star ice cube molds. They did a really nice job with this!

I LOVE how serious they get when doing this!!

While 2 of them were working on sorting, the other 2 were making snowmen with blue paper, glue, and cotton balls.  This was a good opportunity for them to work on making circles.  They made 3 circles on the paper- 1 for the head, middle, and bottom.  Then they dipped cotton balls in glue and stuck them on!

They were still hanging in their for this activity but I could tell they needed to get up and get moving-- soo....

Off we ran to play PARACHUTE!!  Everyone grabbed hold of the parachute and we sang songs and had a blast!  I also threw in some cotton balls after awhile and they were shaking the parachute and bouncing them everyone- I was calling them snowballs but they all said they were making "snowmen"!  LOL

I don't have pic of the parachute because I was joining in the fun!

Finally, we cleaned up- read the book Frosty the Snowman, and then while I packed up all the goodies ( in cute Snowman bags)  for them to take home (some extra marshmallows, homemade playdough, some extra writing activities for pencil practice, and their frames) I turned on the movie/cartoon Frosty the Snowman.

I also used my cute little photo printer and quickly printed out a picture of each of them for their parents and placed it in the snowman frame.  They really turned out cute!

It was a fun day with lots of smiles and laughter-- and that's all I really wanted out of it!  Success!

For more st"ART" activities- Check out A Mommy's Adventures.

For more Pre-K Activities check out- Homeschool Creations: Preschool Corner 

For more fun check out 1+1+1=1-TOT SCHOOL TOO!

and: