Let It Snow… Pinterest Fun

The weather is starting to change in New York. YAY! Today it started to snow and then it switched over to rain. Even though it rained and melted some of the snow, we still have about 2 feet of snow in the yard. The weather is going to be really warm this weekend, so it will be perfect to do some fun things outside in the snow without having to worry about freezing to death.

I found a few activities to do outside in the snow.  I haven’t ever tried it but painting the snow sounds like a lot of fun. Visit my Pinterest board for ideas on what to do to have fun in the snow.

Make Your Own Magic Snowballs @ Momma’s Fun World

Painting On Ice @ Toddler Approved

Snow Ice Cream – YUMMY @ Housing a Forest

Make a Snow Volcano @ Growing a Jeweled Rose

I hope you enjoy have some fun family time in the snow this weekend!

Follow the Rainbow

The little girls and I did our first St. Patrick’s Day craft of the year the other day. Together we made rainbows with tissue paper. It was an easy project for both my little girls. The preschooler was able to understand that she was suppose to match the tissue paper to the colors of the rainbow. My 2 year old had a great time gluing any color of tissue paper to the rainbow.

What you will need:

• Crayons, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple
• Colored tissue paper, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple
• Glue
• Paper

What you need to do to get crafty:

• Before the kids started, I cut the tissue paper out into small squares and drew a rainbow on a piece of paper for each of the munchkins.
• I put the glue on the rows of the rainbow on at at time.  I knew, if I put glue on every strip of the rainbow that would have gotten messy, really quick. Then the girls laid the tissue paper on top of the glue.

My four year old had a great time matching the tissue paper colors to the the rainbow stripes.

My 2 year old enjoyed gluing the paper to any strip on the rainbow.

When were were done making our rainbows, we read one of our favorite books, Minnie’s Rainbow. I love this book. It reenforces colors of the rainbow and at the end it breaks down how a rainbow is actually created.

Stuck in the House, Let’s Get Crafty

Yikes. We are about to get hit with the biggest snow storm that I have seen in years. The weather channel is saying to expect 8-12 inches of the white stuff.  That is an insane amount of snow! Add that to the 4 inches we already have and if my little munchkin goes out, we won’t be able to see her head above all of the snow. We aren’t going to be able and go out to play in this snow storm to get our energy out, there is just going to be way too much snow. To keep busy we are going to have to do LOTS craft projects instead.

During my lunch at work to day, I was able to get out of the office and get supplies. I went to Hobby Lobby and got lots and lots of crafting supplies to keep us happy and busy for the next few days. They must have been happy to see me coming, I think I bought the store out of craft paper and glue. The store was so packed, I must not be the only person thinking, “stuck in the house, let’s get crafty.”

Here are some activities that I plan on doing with my little ones to have some fun.  Check out the links to some awesome blogs to find things that you can do with your kiddies until you are able to tunnel your way out of the snow.

Handprint Heart Tree (I Heart Crafty Things)
Mending Broken Hearts – A counting-puzzle Activity (Sorting Sprinkles)
Hidden Message Valentines (Mamas Like Me)
Paper Hug (Happy Valentine’s Day 2014)

Question: What are you doing with your little ones today?

Dinner Time DISASTER!

Each week I carefully plan out wonderful dinners for my family.  Every night, I rush home from work so that I can get dinner on the table before 6:30 pm.  I usually can accomplish this successfully and that is a pretty awesome thing.  But then IT happens.

The dinner time DISASTER!

I truly believe that our kids just don’t like the word dinner.  Each night, the kids come to the table screaming and kicking.  We have even tried saying it was snack time but they just don’t seem to believe us.

After I finally get them to the table and they will carry on for about 10 minutes saying they don’t like dinner or they aren’t hungry.  When they are all done screaming,  sometimes I can get them to eat some of their dinner on their plates.  There are also times when they will eat nothing at all.  I know that the kids aren’t going to like everything I make, so I always put at least 1 thing on their plate that I think they will eat.  Some nights my littlest munchkin will push her plate away without even trying anything.  These are usually the nights when I am like, ‘Oh come on,’ just try it.

I don’t like to offer them something different because they just don’t like what I have served.  This seems like it is setting the stage for a time when I am making 5 different meals for everyone.  I just don’t have enough time to do this and I really don’t want to either.  My kitchen is not a restaurant.

I am always trying to figure out different tricks to get them to eat.  Sometimes I wonder if they have had too much food during the day.  So some day I won’t give them a snack during the mid-afternoon.  Do they eat dinner because they are soooo hungry?  Nope.  Leaving out their snack doesn’t make them famished for dinner.  We have also tried leaving their drinks off the table and then they only get their drinks if they eat some of their dinner.  Does this make them eat dinner?  Nope.  Still doesn’t work.  Bribing with dessert works sometimes for the 3 year old but the 2 year old really doesn’t understand bribing yet and this is probably a good thing.

What is it about dinner that is so different from breakfast and lunch that they just won’t eat it?  I wonder if I ever will understand why a dinner is such a rough meal for toddlers.

Question:  How do you get your little ones to eat dinner?

Is it Cheating?

Can you get your kids eat their vegetables?

I can’t!  My kids used to be such good eaters, they would often eat their veggies before touching anything else.  The first food that my two youngest munchkins had was mashed up avocado.  THEY LOVED IT!  They would eat it up and ask for more.  As they got older they would wake up and have eggs and sauteed spinach for breakfast.

 They were eating great, I thought that I was doing a great job getting them to eat a wide variety of things.  Then one day they just refused to eat their vegetables.  This changed started to happen for both of them when they turned 2 years old.

At this point, I am lucky if I can get them to eat sweet potatoes and corn.  Yup, that’s it.  I still offer them vegetables every chance I get because I know they are missing out on all of the vitamins that fresh vegetables offer.  So, I have started to make them smoothies with some fruit and spinach mixed in.  When I do this it seems like I am cheating.  I feel like this is teaching them to only like sweet things and pushes them ever further away from eating really vegetables.

Question: Do you have any tricks to get your kids to eat their veggies?

Fruit Smoothie Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 banana
• ½ c frozen strawberries
• ¼ c frozen spinach
• 1 c almond milk

Directions:

1. Add everything to the blender, and blend until smooth.  Sometimes I have to add more milk to make it a little bit thinner so the kids can drink it easily through a straw.

Tip:  Freeze extra ripe bananas and strawberries that are about to go bad to use in your smoothies.  Remove the bananas from their peel and cut the tops off the strawberries before freezing.