Letter C

Princess enjoying her scrambled eggs on Car Day

 Letter C Week

With 3 little boys letter C week obviously had to feature cars. I needed to make a valance for the twin's window so I used the Cars themed fabric for that as a table cloth before making the valance. No sewing involved for the table cloth just used pinking shears to trim all the edges to keep them from fraying.

After putting the kids to bed I laid out the "table cloth" and added to it any little cars I could find from around the house as well as a few others I picked up at the $1 Tree. Using the pinking shears I cut out little napkins, for Rose: princesses out of scraps from a previous project. And for the boys flannel cars napkins out of cheap Wal-Mart fabric remnants. I later hemmed the edges of these to make them last longer.

 The kids each needed a new water bottle for spring walking trips so I figured this was a perfect time to get them. Sure enough, $1 Tree had 3 Cars water bottles left from last year and I found a princess one for Rosie.  Growing up with so little money my mom always found creative ways to make even the simplest things special. So following in her foot steps I try to make even the littlest things exciting. A new water bottle isn't that exciting, but as a part of Letter C week it is super special. New socks? What toddler cares about new plain socks? Unless they are a part of Letter S week!

Pie loves goofying off the the camera. The kids quickly divided up the cars according to color.

Some of the fun little projects we did: I find these by spending 15 minutes on pinterest each Sunday and posting ideas to my Letter of the Week board, many are too extravagant or require buying a lot of supplies or spending hours cutting tiny things out, so of course I won't be doing those, but they give wonderful inspiration. Next I look through my cupboards, craft bins, and books looking for anything that starts with that week's letter/sound. If I still feel I don't have enough I open the kid's dictionary and go through all the words under that letter. Coconut covered Letter Cs were one of those ideas found by looking through our cupboard. Old bag of cheap coconut I didn't like for baking, but didn't want to waste? Perfect--especially for Pie who tastes everything, edible or inedible.

Pie and Pumpkin enjoying the coconut. I love seeing how the kids personality comes out even in these little things like covering a letter in coconut.

Princess, Pie, Pumpkin and Peanut work together to make cookies

We had a morning where everything seemed to go wrong, even Prince Charming couldn't get out to work because of the icy snow in our driveway. We were disappointed, but decided we could still have some fun. Why not have a letter C tea party?! We made Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies together. Which took most of our morning.

Prince Charming, Edo, Princess, Pie, Pumpkin and Peanut

And then Princes Charming and Edo joined us for our little tea party. We served Chamomile tea, with Carrots, Craisins, Crackers and Coconut Cookies and everyone tried to put extra emphasis on words starting with the letter C. As you can tell they all loved it.

Afterward I set up the Letter C playlist I made on youtube for the kids to watch while I cleaned the kitchen, 10 minutes later I came back to this. Haha. Sometimes a bit too much sugar can be a blessing. :)

Pumpkin, Pie, Peanut and Princess

In my searches of the kids toys we found lots of Letter C items like this little Car's puzzle that we used for Mommy-Peanut time.

Another theme of Letter C week was Caterpillars. I had meant for it to be a one day thing, but Peanut got super into it and simply had to know about the life cycle of caterpillars. We ended up spending hours, reading, watching and discussing butterflies and caterpillars. Starting with Coffee Covered Letter C Caterpillars we quickly moved on to making our own Caterpillars out of pipe cleaners. Leaving them in sock "cocoons' for a few days before they emerged as beautiful pipe cleaner butterflies. 

Another Letter C meal. Canned tuna sandwiches with Carrots, Crunchy lettuce and Crunchy apples. Great way to get toddlers to eat a few more veggies. :)

For Mommy-Princess time we decided to make some sugar cookies on Caterpillar Day. 

The result was lovely and fun! Many caterpillar cookies (roll 1 large and 6 small balls, line them up then gently flatten with a rolling pin) and even more butterfly cookies. We enjoyed an evening of "painting" our sugar cookies. For the paint just powdered sugar and a tiny bit of water and food coloring or use berries, coffee grounds and so on for a more natural food coloring. We use paint brushes to paint our cookies. Princess of course decorated the most.

We were doing a market research study on diapers that week so took the cookies with us and passed them out to the other moms and toddlers turning in the diapers as the boys explained the life cycle of butterflies.

 

And yeah it's possible we made a few too many cookies during Letter C week. Haha. At least we perfected our dairy free chocolate chip cookies!












To view our Letter C playlist go here http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL65-2RN-VwrizblkkKLglzR55yPbPWYsd&feature=mh_lolz
I also created a Caterpillar Playlist for this week http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL65-2RN-Vwrjom99rD8uOc7Ca33XLuTNM&feature=mh_lolz

Have fun!
--Fall

Letter of the Week: D

Letter D

This week is a little crazy for us, with the upstairs bathroom being remodeled we needed something that would keep us super busy. Letter D was up next. Hmmm...what can we think of that starts with the letter D?

 D is for Dinosaur Day!

For breakfast we ate our normal scrambled eggs but drank "Dinosaur Milk"--colored almond milk. 

Growing up our family was very poor, our mother had $25 a week for groceries so we couldn't afford real milk. Instead Savta bought powdered milk. But we hated it! Not allowing her children to defeat her, Savta added food coloring to the reconstructed milk and called it "Dinosaur Milk". To this day I hate milk, but LOVE colored drinks.

Princess colored in the lines today.

Making "Dinosaur Eggs" . Simple egg coloring using vinegar, water and food coloring. Of course Princess chose purple! 

A Dinosaur Dinner! Since many dinosaurs are herbivores we decided to go with salad for dinner. Notice how the carnivores are trying to eat the Dino-eggs and cheese? 

Letter D is for Dinner--split peas and we made split pea soup for dinner one night. Letter D is for Dinosaur--random stickers I had on hand. I love how Clown just covered his paper in stickers rather than shaping them into a D, of course Princess made her's perfectly and took an hour to get it just right.

 What else can you think of that starts with the letter D? 

Dumbo! Early in the morning I set up the Ikea tent Princess gave the boys for Christmas. We played circus using their stuffed animals for a few hours before getting out this cute jungle set--which we called "Dumbo in the Dessert".

We have been watching way more TV with the bathroom being remodeled? Great opportunity to fold laundry too right? I added a lot of review to our Letter of the Week youtube playlist in order to keep them extra busy as well. We also made "Dancing with Dumbo" and "Dangerous Dancing" playlists, these worked wonderfully to keep the kids active but still contained in the bedroom.

Circus, train and Dumbo stickers for Dumbo-Day! All in all Letter D week was a great success! We had a D is for Daphne Dog Day making dog treats and using dog stickers to cover the letter D. And reviewing how we care for our pets.

Friday was D is for Dada Day. I got 2 wisdom teeth removed in the morning so the kids really did get the day with Dada, eating Dada's favorite foods, reading special stories with Dada and playing games Dada enjoyed as a kid. 

What did you do for Letter D week?

Have Fun!

--Fall