Valentine's Day Breakfast

We had a fun Valentine's Day, while I was getting ready to make this post I realized all of our activities revolved around food. Who doesn't love food?!

A Heart-filled Breakfast!

I wanted to make a special breakfast for my kids on Valentine's morning. I made bacon, eggs and toast all heart shaped.

I made a heart shaped poached egg by putting a greased heart shaped cookie cutter in a frying pan that was on medium heat with a bit of olive oil in it. Then I cracked the egg and poured it inside the cookie cutter. Next I poured 1/4 cup of water in the pan then put a lid over the pan and cooked for a couple minutes (my kids like a firm white and runny yolk for dipping). I carefully pushed out the egg onto the plate and there you have it, a poached heart egg!

Next I made heart shaped bacon by folding it into the shape of a heart on a baking pan. Then into the oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Next I made some toast and cut it into the shape of a heart.

The finished product!

They were excited, even though my son looks like he is still asleep lol.

Cheerio Names

This was a fun and tasty activity for the kids. It is not only fun and yummy but also helps with dexterity and letter recognition. 

All You Need

• card-stock or cardboard
• pen/marker
• cheerios
• glue

Directions

I wrote out their names on a piece of card-stock and went over the letters with glue (one at a time so they wouldn't smear it all over the place). The kids then took the cheerios and placed them on the letters. 

They had fun taking "snack breaks" between each letter. We also took time to talk about what letters we were working on, the sounds they make and who had the same letters in their names. 

Ivory Soap Cloud

I have seen the pin on Pinterest with the Ivory Soap Cloud and when my husband came home from Costco with a huge pack of Ivory Soap bars I just had to give it a shot (I am not sure if it works with any other kinds of soap). I thought how much fun it would be to let the kids watch it grow then split up the cloud and let them mold it into shapes and a new bar of soap that they could use - as said promised here - Our Best Bites

So I didn't read all of the instructions...a shock I know. I tried to get the kids to mold the soap by squishing it into cookie cutters, but it would all just fall apart again. You do need to mix it in a food processor with some warm water THEN put it into the cookie cutter to mold it. 

The kids all lined up to watch the soap grow in to a cloud.

Here is our soap cloud after 1:30minutes in the microwave. I have to warn you the smell is overpowering. I also found 1/4 of the bar in the back of the microwave so I put that part back in for another 45 seconds. 

 Here they are trying to mash the dry soap cloud into cookie cutters...not working....

While the activity was fun, it made a HUGE mess everywhere, this stuff gets on the floor, on clothes and tracked through the rest of the house. The kids had fun but I think I spent more time cleaning up afterwards than they did playing with it. 

I was left with a pile of dry soap flakes which I saved in a jar and use it to wash my hands at the kitchen sink. The kids think it's fun to use the soap crumbs so I guess it wasn't a total fail. 

GOOP!

Indoor Winter Fun

Living in Calgary during the winter time with small children at home allows you to think of some very creative and fun activities to do indoors, or if you're like me that is what Pinterest is for! Here is the most popular activity of all of the fun things that we have been up to.

Goop!!!!

Goop is a fun activity to not only make but also play with. I made this one at home with my children, this not only kept them entertained for a couple hours but my husband and I had a hard time resisting playing with the goop as well. I got the recipe from Sugar Bee Crafts. We ended up making a few colors and it ended up last up to 3 weeks before it started to leek some gross liquid out of it. 

The kids loved using all sorts of baking and play-dough tools on the goop. We also made one with clear glue as well, it was fun but broke apart in crumbs and made more of a mess. I prefer the white glue goop. This was honestly their favorite activity to do for a couple weeks. 

Here are the directions:

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup of white glue
• 1/4 cup of water
• 1/4 warm water
• 1/2 tsp of borax
• food coloring

Mix the white glue and water together in a bowl, add a few drops of food coloring (not too much we made that mistake and had blue hands for a couple days). In a separate bowl add the borax to the warm water and let sit for 15 seconds then mix together. Add borax solution to the glue solution. As you mix it you will see it is going to clump together. The more you play with it the more it turns into a solid clump of goop! 

Have fun! 

My Beautiful Friend's Baby Bump

I have been toying with photography for awhile, my dad is a professional photographer so I guess that has rubbed off on me a little. I love taking pictures of my children and posting them on my Facebook for my friends and family to see. My best friend asked me to take her maternity photos for her, I'm not going to lie I was hesitant to say yes right away. I feel those photos are something that you will want to look back on, not unlike wedding photos and they should be done by someone who knows what they are doing. After much encouragement I agreed. I of course had to sit on the phone with my Dad and have a crash photography course just to make sure I sort of knew what I was doing.

Here is the final product. I have to say I am very happy with how they turned out and more importantly so is my friend!

Daily Routine

My son (age 6) has a hard time with transitions throughout the day, moving from one activity to the next. He gets frustrated and overwhelmed easily, so we came up with a daily routine that shows him what he needs to do at each time of the day. This was suggested through the program we are going through with my son to help with his behavior.


 Children thrive on routine, they love it, it allows them to take a bit of charge in their life because they know what they need to do and they can get it done without constant nagging. I made this one with empty boxes along the description so that my son (who loves to draw) could draw himself doing each of the activities. Ever since we created this it has decreased the number of meltdowns in our house, he now knows what is expected at any given time of the day and also knows what is coming up so that there are no surprises to overwhelm him.


I am currently making one for my 2 year old daughter as well, but I thought with hers I would do basic activities like getting dressed, eating, playing, reading, bathing and take pictures of her doing all of those things so that she can see herself doing her routine. 


Here is a copy of my son's daily routine chart. 

Daily Routine Web

Family Rules

We have been having some difficulty with our son and his behavior. He is a very sweet child who seems to "forget" how he is supposed to behave, even though he is reminded daily. I have been involved in a very good program that teaches both him and I how to deal with certain behavior issues. One of the ideas that come from this program is to have a set list of Family Rules so that they can see it. If it is concrete and they can see it, touch it and read it themselves it will stick with them more than the constant nagging that I was doing before. So far it really seems to be helping.






Here is our copy of our family rules feel free to download and use them at your home!


Family Rules Web