Fun with Mom | Marriage Confessions Fun with Mom

A few weeks ago at my favorite place, Target, I ran across these adorable aluminum mailboxes in their $1 bins. I scooped up three of them and thought that I’d use them sort of as stockings for Valentine’s Day. I had all these plans to decorate them with puff paint and stickers, but it’s 9:37 on Valentine’s Eve and I’m tired. So, I Sharpie’d their names on the mailboxes and called it a day. I still think they came out really cute.

Chris and I agreed to keep Valentine’s Day cheap and sweet this year, so I did most of my shopping in the check out aisles at Target. In Gracie’s little mailbox, she is getting a new rattle/teether. She has a ton already, but she loves these suckers! I also picked up this adorable bendy flower that I wrapped around the mailbox flag. I stuck some candy in there for her, more for show than anything else. Although, I kinda want to let her try a piece of one of the jellybeans. I bet she’d flip out!

Bean got a Finn McMissle toy car from Cars 2. He has all the other character cars, so this completes his little collection. He’s going to be so excited. He also got a new box of crayons, which he really needs. He goes through Crayons like a mad man. His Grandmomma sent him some Angry Bird bandaids, too. I think Chris might steal some of these from Bean. He was pretty excited when they arrived in the mail today. Bean got some chocolates, too. It IS Valentine’s Day, after all.

Chris even got a mailbox! I stuffed his with my traditional gift of silly themed boxer shorts. And, of course, candy.

I think all total, I spent $20 on everyone’s gifts. Turns out that cheap and easy is totally doable!

I set up each mailbox on the living room table so that we could all open our gifts tomorrow morning before school. Under each mailbox, I put all the Valentine’s Day cards that family and friends have mailed the kids over the past week.

This is a new tradition for our family. Truthfully, Chris and I have never done anything really intentional for Valentine’s Day before, but it has been a lot of fun to plan and collect little odds and ends for each of them over the past week. I hope they all have as much fun opening everything tomorrow morning as I had putting it all together!

15 comments | posted in Fun with Mom, Holidays, Parenting Ideas, The Romper Room | tags: Valentine's Day gifts

“Hey, Gracie,” I said. “Whatcha wearin’?”

“Oh, do you like it? I call it my Little House on the Prairie ensemble.”

“Hmm…it’s very…uh…”

“Do you like the ruffled collar?” Gracie asked. “I really like the ruffled collar.”

“It’s…um…”

“Or maybe it’s too much. Ruffles were in last season, but maybe they’ve gone out this season…” she said. “What do you think, Mom?”

“It’s…uhhh…”

“Fashion these days is evolutionary, Mom. It’s cyclical. I mean, what was in last week will be out again this week, but might be in again next week. You know?”

“Oh…I…uh…I didn’t…” I stammered. “Are you sure ruffled collars are in again?”

“Oh, I’m sure. They’re so very ‘Paw-asked-me-to-milk-a-cow.’ Milking cows all the rage right now.”

“Uhhh…ummm… Are you positive, Puffalump?” I squeaked.

“GOTCHA MOM!” Gracie laughed. “You’re such an easy target!”

“So, you don’t really think ruffled collars are in style?” I said, relieved.

“Heck, no!” Gracie giggled. “Nana gave me this thing. I can’t decide what to do with it. Is it a nightgown or an outfit?”

“I’m not really sure,” I said.

“Maybe it’s a Halloween costume!” Gracie guessed. “I could go as an Amish girl!”

“Does this mean you are going to be wearing this ruffled collar until Halloween?” I asked.

“No, Mom,” Gracie laughed. “Just until my blue metallic parachute pants come in from Amazon.”

(crickets, crickets)

“GOTCHA AGAIN, MOM!”

19 comments | posted in Conversations with Gracie, Fun with Mom, Gracie Girl, The Romper Room | tags: babies, fashion, humor

The other day, a little fairy came and whispered into my ear that toddlers love playing with brightly colored rice.

Okay. Not really. I found this on Pinterest.

(sigh)

Because I’m addicted.

Since browsing Pinterest a few months ago, I have been pinning all these great, simple ideas and then doing nothing about them. Finally, in the past few weeks, I have started actually doing a lot of them. Mostly, I’ve been doing home organization tips, which I’ll share little by little on the blog in the next few days. Today, though, I did one of the ideas for kids and it was pretty cool.

Chris has been working a lot in the past week and the kids and I have been a little stir crazy on our own. So, today I busted out one of my pins… Colored rice.

First, you take four gallon Ziplock bags and fill each one with two cups of rice. Then, add two teaspoons of rubbing alcohol to the bag.

Next, add six or seven drops of food coloring to each bag. I used what I thought was a lot of food coloring and the rice still came out a little pastel, so be generous if you’re going for brighter colors.

Then, seal the bags and start shaking up the rice and food coloring, making sure that you’re evenly spreading the color throughout the rice. This is a fun part for your wee tot to help you with.

Next, line baking pans or big plastic bins or whatever you have on hand with aluminum foil or wax paper. Then, pour each color out onto the lining and put the bin in the sun so that the food coloring can dry. It was really sunny here today and so the rice dried pretty quickly – under half an hour, I think.

When the rice dried, I combined it all into one big tub, threw in some spoons and other sifting toys (including a construction truck…), and turned Bean loose!

All total, it took about five minutes to dye the rice, then half an hour to let it dry, and VOILA! A really fun, different activity for Bean to play with.

We spent the rest of the afternoon burying things in the rice and then digging them back out again and sorting and shifting through the rice bin. Even I thought it was fun! Rice feels crazy fun when you run your hands through it!

Even Chris played in it when he came home for a little break from working…

I have another pin that uses this same rice for a different game, I-Spy Bottles. You fill an empty plastic 2-liter bottle with the rice and stick a few little toys in there. Then, your tot can shake the bottle all around and try to find the toys in the bottle. I haven’t done that one yet, but we’ll probably try it tomorrow. Here’s a picture from Pinterest of what that looks like…

For now, though, we’re pretty content to shift and sort and pour and dig and bury with our brightly colored rice in a bin. We’re purists like that, I guess.