Kiddo Krafts-- Mickey's Medals

Anyone else have a Mickey Clubhouse fan? Booger is obsessed! One of the newest episodes was Olympic- themed and called "Mickey's Sporty-thon". It had the Clubhouse members and friends doing all sorts of sports-- basketball, swimming, running, biking, etc.

At the end, they all got Mickey Medals.

So what does Booger need for when shes plays obstacle course in her playroom? A Mickey Medal, of course!

Now, before we go further into this Kiddo Kraft, know that I had to do this on the fly, so  there are spots I will explain how to do it better than I did!

You'll need:
**Tin foil
** ribbon
** Scissors
** Tape (I used scotch tape, but duct tape would probably stick to the foil better)
** hard circular object (cardboard would work well, so you could leave it inside the foil for structure)

Making the medals was pretty easy:

1. Take a piece of foil, wrap it around your circular object. I used a lid to a water cup, so I first wrapped it around, took out the lid, then flattened it back into the circle shape. This is where a piece of cardboard cut into a circle would be better-- wrap the tin foil around the cardboard and leave it in for structure.

2. Cut a piece of ribbon as long as needed to make the medal necklace length for your kiddo.

3. Tape the ribbon to the "medal" and voila! You can also decorate it, make different color medals for different places, etc. I did have a flower taped to one, but Booger didn't like it and ripped it off....

And that's it! Mickey Medals for everyone!

Stickers, Stickers, and more Stickers

I remember when Booger was tiny, under a year old, I saw a mom with a small child (maybe 6 years old) working on a sticker book together.

I expressed my thoughts to them-- how I love seeing them working together and how I couldn't wait until my daughter was old enough for stickers. The mom replied with a laugh and an "oh, just wait" type of answer.

And now I know why.

Stickers are the devil.

But, stickers are also the best thing ever. Booger L.O.V.E.S. stickers, even if she doesnt really use them right. She's not so much into placing stickers into a correct spot than she is just putting them onto paper wherever her fingers land. Usually all in one pile.

Exhibit A:

When we took a trip to WI last month, we bought her a new pad of stickers, Frozen themed of course. I kept the book up with me, and when she asked for some, I only gave her 1 sheet at a time, in order for them to last the whole 4-5 hour car ride each way.

This is what happened to those stickers:

She also found a love of stickers for her slide...

But anyway, to my point. Stickers are great for other reasons-- we have successfully used sticker charts for both potty training and changing to her toddler bed. How?

For potty training, we printed out a little game like maze. Every time she went on the potty, she got a sticker. After a certain amount of stickers, there were prizes (a cookie, a toy, a milkshake, etc). Once the game was done, stickers were done as well. Now, that didnt mean she was completely potty trained at the time, but it worked for long enough (a few days) for her to get the point of potty training. Going #2 on the potty took another few months to master, and a few more milkshake bribes.

Before we potty trained her, we also converted her crib into a toddler bed by removing the front railing. I was petrified of doing this because I had heard all the horror stories of kids waking up at 5am and jumping into bed with mom and dad, or going downstairs, or playing in their room. Booger can open all the doors in our house (except the ones that lead outside, thankfully), so I knew we would be doomed if she knew she could get out.

A few days before removing the side, we started telling her she would be sleeping in a big girl bed. Every time we talked about it (usually while rocking in the chair before nap or bed), we would always say "Now, in your big girl bed, you have to stay in bed until mama or dada come and get you. You can't get out until we come get you." I mean, we DRILLED this into her brain, having her repeat it over and over for us.

So when the big day came, I removed the side and repeated it again and again. Then, together, we went to make a sticker chart. For every time she successfully stayed in bed until we got her, she got a sticker. At the end of week 1, she got a treat. End of week 2 she got a book, then a toy, then a special outing (to see Dory- which coincided with her yay! you're officially pretty much potty trained outing).

I'm telling you, this girl will do ANYTHING for a sticker. Shes been in her big girl bed for almost 4 months, and has only gotten out once-- randomly a few weeks ago she left after a nap to go potty... I found her in the hallway. It was weird and scared the crap out of me.
But that was it. Not one other time has she left her room. She'll hang out in her bed talking to her stuffed animal for a while before I realize shes awake from a nap.

Our newest sticker chart is for Good Behavior.  We've fully entered the Terrible Twos, and are bordering the Threenager stage. Lots of "leave me alone" and "go away" and "no!" and other mean phrases. I'm trying to encourage more nice words, nice hands (no hitting), more please and thank you's, etc. I'm hoping a sticker chart will help... but the first day brought nothing, unfortunately. Today has been a bit better, but still might take some convincing on her part.

She gets stickers for good behavior, whether its spontaneous on her part (Husband asked me to get him a bottle of water yesterday, and she took it upon herself to take my bottle, bring it to the bathroom and fill it up just for him, So considerate!), whether its asked for- aka do this the nice way and get a sticker, or whether its a random act of kindness. She can also get stickers taken away for bad behavior.

Today at nap time, I told her that if she got into bed without jumping, screaming, yelling, flipping around etc, she could have TWO stickers. Going down for a nap has been quite the challenge here lately. Unfortunately, we not only did not get two stickers, we had a time out before falling asleep. I'm hoping the stickers have more power over her and she's not losing interest in them yet!

(Oh, by the way, she almost asked for the time out so she could use her glitter bottle! She finally came around and likes using it now!)

Do your kids love stickers? Do they use them the right way or just love to peel and stick? Have you had success with sticker charts?

Room Makeover- Playroom Update

Hi all!
What a crazy week last week was. Husband was out of town for a work trip from Tuesday through Saturday, so I was on my own with both kiddos for 5 days.... I'm happy to report we all survived with minimal scarring (Serious about that.. Booger did manage to get her first bee sting while at the zoo on Thursday. Luckily it doesn't look like shes allergic- it barely affected her at all!)

So the playroom took a small back burner last week. We did get two things done- moved all the toys in and paint some letters for the word PLAY. Since the walls are dark, I'm going with lighter colors- pink, white, blue and sea green.

I moved the toys in there last Monday when we babysat my two nephews. It was way easier to have all the kids in one room with a door! It cemented the idea that the playroom was a good idea-- see Husband? I said you were right...

So, the update. For now, this is the configuration we are having. We do plan to add two small chairs in the corners (the tub in the back corner is leaving eventually) and possibly a small bench with storage bins to the back wall.

Booger has spent almost every waking minute in this room. Remember, its all the toys she had out in the living room before... so nothing new. But for some reason she is loving this room way more. I do enjoy that there is enough room to put Chunk on the ground to play while room for Booger to run around and go crazy at the same time.

What is left?

** rearranging wall items- we have two Star Wars posters and three puzzles I've completed. I'd like to put the puzzles more around the room instead in the back corner by the weight bench.
** adding a few clipboards to the walls over the bench (when that comes down). That way we can hang some of Booger's artwork, and swap them out easily.
** adding fun painted words-- PLAY, CREATE, LAUGH around the room
** buy or make 1-2 floor pillows (one for each kid to relax on- for Chunk when he is big enough).  Boys and Girls links
** get two small chairs for the corners to relax on, and use when playing the video games (found here)
** bringing in the bluetooth speakers so we can play music!

Book Review- The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

Very seldom do I have a book I can classify as my "favorite". Of course, Harry Potter will always top the lists, but that is a series as a whole- not just one book.

When I first read The Sea of Tranquility, I knew it was a contender. I know a book is good, and I mean really good, when I re-read it again right after I finish it.

I read this one three times in a row. And it got better each time. I read this book back in February of 2013, and to this day it is the number 1 book I recommend.

It's so good, one of my other favorite authors- Colleen Hoover- subtly references it in one of her books. I thought I was crazy (I won't spoil it, but you'll find it if you look hard enough) at first, having read TSoT just before, but a while later I read an interview with CoHo and she mentioned that TSoT is HER favorite book too. And she said it again at the author signing I went to last month.

This book is THAT good.

So what is The Sea of Tranquility? Its a Young Adult book with themes that span into the adult world. Its a love story that transcends the meaning of love story. Its a real world meets fiction in a way you want to jump right in and live there. It's a "that's so me" type of story. It's part mystery, emotions, love, friendship, finding your true self, and questions about life.

You wont be able to put it down.

Nastya has just transferred to a new school when she goes to live with her aunt. Josh is a loner-- literally. People leave him alone due to his association with death- everyone close to him has died. It's ok, Josh prefers silence. Which is great, because Nastya doesn't speak. Ever. It's not that she can't, but more of she won't-- until she finds the one guy who took everything away from her. Then, she'll have a lot to say.
Nastya and Josh somehow become the odd couple. They're not dating and they hide their friendship from the world, but somehow they fit together like a strange puzzle.

Pick up a copy today. You won't be disappointed. 

Top 5- Items for Toddlers

Did you miss the Top 5 post from last month? Check it out here-- Top 5 items for babies.

This month is following a similar theme, but upping it to Toddlers. Here are my Top 5 items for kids aged 1.5-3.

1. Mini Trampoline

Once Booger got to the point where she needed creative ways to get her energy out, I knew we needed something inside the house. I wanted to get her one for Christmas, but we got her a slide instead (which she still loves). When the weather outside is too bad to send her out to run around, she can bounce!

2. Plastic Bowls and Plates

 (from Ikea)

We received other plates as gifts before, but these have held up the best. Unfortunately, when you have a toddler that throws bowls and plates on the wood floors, other items just cant hold up! These are dishwasher safe, and honestly, I use them for myself sometimes! And they come in a pack of 6 for only $2.49!

3. A DVR

If your kiddo is like mine and only likes to watch a few shows, you NEED to have those shows available at all times! Our bedroom TV has a DVR on it, and it literally only has Disney Jr shows (Sophia, Lion Guard, Mickey, Elena and Miles) plus some movies when they play them. This way, we always have a happy camper! I let her watch sometimes while I'm nursing Chunk and its so much easier to be able to press play instead of hoping a show she likes is on!

4. Puzzles

One thing I like about puzzle time is that there are so many ways to learn from them. Once the kid masters doing the actual puzzle itself, it doesn't end there! I always find a new way to play with Booger and puzzles-- I ask her to find a certain piece (where's the horse? where's the square?) or a certain color. I turn the pieces upside down and see if she can figure it out without looking at the picture part of each piece. I time her and see how fast she can finish a puzzle. She loves doing puzzles and never is bored with them!

5. Blanket, Animal, Lovie, something they love

Toddlers are great about finding one item and becoming obsessed with it. However, it's the items that last that make the difference. By this age, toddlers usually have a blanket or an animal they just cannot live without. Booger has 3 blankets and 2 dolls (a Minnie and a Corgi). They bring her comfort when shes upset, she shares them with her brother because they are important to her, she sleeps with them every night, she brings them to snuggle time, etc. While they are her favorites, they do have rules-- none of them go downstairs unless mama or dada say so. This way they stay clean, don't get lost, or ruined. But it's important for a kid at this stage to have something that brings comfort besides a person. They're learning to wean themselves from a parent, but still need a physical item to feel safe.

Those are my Top 5 items every Toddler needs! What are some other items you would add to the list?

Room Makeover- The Playroom

Update time!

We sold the two couches earlier this week, and they were picked up yesterday.

Once they were gone, and the room was vacuumed, we realized just how much SPACE there really was! Booger has played in there every time we've been downstairs in the past 24 hours. As much as I loved those couches, they really did take up way to much space for that room to be a decent play room.

Here is how the room looks now (no judgement!)

 panoramic view

 

We've moved the weight bench to the back next to the dresser. When we use it, we can move it out, but most of the time it'll stay out of the way.

Next up:
** clean out junk that doesn't belong
** sell TV stand; find taller/ more storage option (TV mainly for DVD's and video games)
** find 2 comfy chairs- one in each corner that can be brought out when using for gaming
** find/make floor pillows or cushions for the kiddos
** bring down or buy new shelving unit; make bench top
** organize, decorate, enjoy!

I'll be posting a mood board for the room later this week, as I wrap up finding all the items we are looking for! Our budget is strictly set to the items we sell from this room (couches, TV stand, old teacup shelving unit), so we have to find items that fit within that.

I'm excited about the room already and can't believe we didn't do this sooner :-)

Kiddo Krafts and Saving Mama's Sanity

Toddlers.

They suck.

The End.

How many mama's could write that book? These little pint sized dictators with their emotional roller coasters are exhausting. Perfectly fine one minute, then the world ends for twenty minutes, then they become a super cuddle bug and back to perfectly normal.

This was our house 5 times the other day. Yes, we had FIVE horrible, hysterical, manic, full blown meltdown tantrums. Three within the first 2 hours of the morning. I tried being nice. I tried being stern. I tried being strict, I tried ignoring. I tried everything I could think of to keep my sanity. It didn't work. By 3pm, both Booger and I were absolutely exhausted. And then she had one more.

We used to do time outs, but those have become super stressful for both her and I. We've tried 'time in's' but those usually end up with me being punched or scratched as she tries to escape, which becomes more stressful for her. We've tried quiet time in her room until she calms down, but that ends with multiple escape attempts, sometimes trashing her room, and usually prolongs the tantrum a bit until she is done. 


I've tried connecting the dots-- when does she have meltdowns? Is it because of something that happens, or at a certain time of day? I've found that most of them happen around the time she is getting hungry-- snack times, meal times, a while after a meal she didn't fully eat. If she doesn't end up eating all her breakfast, I know we'll have some tantrums that morning. Sometimes the first tantrum starts with me asking her to finish her breakfast...

So anyway, moving onto the Kiddo Kraft-- one item I've been thinking about using for a while is a Sensory Bottle. A DIY item where she can sit quietly and watch the glitter fall in order to get herself to calm down.

I'm hoping to make a couple of these bottles-- at least one to keep downstairs and one to keep upstairs. That way we can sit and offer the bottle when she gets crazy. Hopefully this solution will work for more than two days..

Materials:

** empty bottle (plastic water bottle, etc)
** glitter glue in your choice of color
** extra glitter
** water
** optional: small toys (legos, figurines, etc) to watch moving around the bottle

1. Empty, wash, and dry the bottle.

2. Pour glitter into the bottom (if you have multiple types, it makes for more to watch)

3. Squeeze glitter glue into bottle (tip: let the littles squeeze a bit, then take the cap off and do the rest yourself. We used about 1/2 bottle of glue for each bottle)

4. Fill almost to top (leave a bit for combining) with warm water
5. Add toys (optional)
6. Hot glue cap onto bottle
7. Shake, shake, shake, shake! It'll take a bit for it to all combine.

The more glitter glue you use, the longer it'll take to reach the bottom. My plan is to let her use the bottle until she feels calm, but you could tell a kiddo that time out is as long as it takes for the glitter to settle.

Room Makeover- September Edition

Does anyone remember that home makeover show with Hilde and Vern and the neighbors who swapped houses for a weekend to re-do a room? Remember how horrible most of the rooms turned out? Man, we've come a long way since then. Now we have shows like Fixer Upper (obsessed!) and Property Brothers and Flip or Flop that actually make homes liveable and nice...

Anyway, small detour there. This month's Room Makeover is going to be....

The Addition!

 Or, soon to be known as

The Playroom!

I struggled with the function of this room since we moved in 3 years ago this month. Its a fantastic space-- a rather large room with a closet and large bathroom (handicap accessible bathroom). There are lots of windows on the front end, with gorgeous plantation shutters. However, the space is off in its own "wing" if you will, so it's not very accessible for every day use. Plus, it was built way after the original part of the home, so it has its own heating system, and no A/C, so we normally keep the door closed so we don't have to heat/cool it.

All those reasons lead this room to be a glorified storage area. We tried to make it a movie/ hangout room. But with no cable box, it didn't work like we wanted (we watch a lot of movies off of HBO, or Netflix on the Xbox). We tried to make it a game room with Husband's vintage gaming systems, but we usually forgot it was there. We tried to make it a workout room, but we became lazy.

When we decided to do make this room the Room Makeover for September, Husband threw out the idea of making it the kids playroom. We knew when the kids got older that we would make it into their hangout (and be the cool parents, right?) and Booger's big toys were taking over the living room. I was a bit hesitant at first, as it is a closed off room and away from our normal living areas, but in the end, it made the most sense.

So! We have a lot of work to do! Luckily the room is already painted, so we are not changing that.

What we are doing:

** clearing out the area-- selling the couches, the shelving unit and the TV stand
** replacing the TV stand with one a bit taller with more storage
** adding two comfy chairs that can be moved to use to play video games, watch movies, etc
** adding floor pillows for the kiddos
** moving the weight bench and weights to the back of the room
** adding a storage bench for toys and reading spot
** moving Boogers toys (slide, trampoline, tunnel, etc) into the room
** adding bright colors to the walls and fabrics

Follow my Pinterest board for some of my ideas!

I'll post later this week with our first updates!

Kiddo Krafts-- Wonder Crayons

This is a kiddo kraft I've been meaning to do for over a week now, and we finally got the chance to do it this morning.
The best part about this one? It spanned over an hour and a half and I didn't even realize it! I was looking back on the time stamps on the pictures and was amazed-- time truly flew with this one.

Wonder Crayons

Materials--
**silicone baking mold
**oven
** crayons (perfect craft for all the broken, run down crayons at the bottom of the box)

1. Pre-heat oven to 175*

2. Peel paper from crayons, break into small pieces (Booger was very helpful and excited to do this. She loved being able to peel and break them without getting into trouble!)

3. Place broken pieces into mold (in hindsight, we should have only done max 3-4 per mold, some on the very top didn't melt as well)

4. Place into oven for 7-14 minutes (start low and check routinely), until crayons are melted. This is where some of the ones on top did not melt fully. It doesn't effect the use of the cray, just aesthetics. I did try to mix them a bit with a small knife-- maybe a toothpick would have helped more?

5. Once cooled (we went for a walk for 10-15 minutes to let cool), turn mold upside down and pop out-- note, it did stain my mold. Not sure if it comes out in the dishwasher or hand washing as I haven't tried yet.
If not fully cooled, place into freezer for a few minutes. Then, use a paper towel and rub the outside of the crayon (like washing off a strawberry). I found some residue that got on my fingers, and it seemed to wipe off with the paper towel. The crayons still left some color on our fingers, but nothing that couldn't be washed off in the sink.

6. Enjoy and color! We colored a nice picture for Papa. I probably wouldn't recommend the starfish shape, as the legs tend to wear quick with how hard Booger presses, but any shape should do the job! It's fun when the colors come out together- orange and blue with one swipe? Wow!

That's it! Over an hour and a half of entertainment (with a walk thrown in there) and now she has 6 new crayons to play with (3 are being sent as a present to her cousin). It reuses old broken crayons, lets them pick their favorite colors (let them choose which colors to put in each mold), and shows them how to make something new from something old!

I can see this as a great item for a party gift bag, part of a birthday present with coloring books, or just a fun activity for kiddos!