Wednesday, February 25, 2015

The Perfect Little Things for an Easter Basket

I love giving things in the Easter basket that are needed anyways and so I'm putting together a helpful list of little things to add into an Easter basket that are very useful and help fill up the space between the bigger items.

                                               

1. Crayons are always appreciated. This year my daughter is getting a pack of glitter crayons.

2. A new pack of undies with a favorite character on them!

3. New spring shoes!

4. Socks. My favorite's can be found here 

5. Jewelry! Can also fit in Easter eggs.

6. Any Annie's bunny snacks are perfect anytime of the year, but especially at Easter time! There's a selection of all kinds here 

7. Glitter glue

8. Stickers, stickers, and more stickers! Joann Fabric's has lots of cute packs.

9. Highlighters. My daughter loves to use pink highlighters to do her tracing worksheets because she can see it so much better over lines than anything else.

10. Books. Toys R Us has lots of Easter books, but I like to give the Easter books before Easter so they can be enjoyed leading up to the holiday. Board books for babies/toddleres or Golden books for preschoolers are good choices.

11. Hair accessories, hats, infinity scarves. Justice has super cute scarves for girls, and Gap has cute hats for boys!

12. Chalk. Dollar Tree normally has some chalk in cute Easter shapes around Easter, here they are!

13. A game or gift card for to buy apps for their Leappad or LeapTV.

14. A barbie doll or action figures.

15. Wheelie cars or Hotwheels.

16. Bubbles.

17. A CD.

18. A movie.

19. A new toothbrush. Pillow Pets make cute ones now!

20. A cute toothbrush holder.

21. New sunglasses, Children's Place usually has great ones!

22. Chocolate bunny.

23. Other candy, Reese's eggs/jelly beans, whatever you like to give your kids.

24. Organic lollipops.

25. A watch

26. Homemade play dough. You can make it look like a carrot like this 

27. Light jacket for Spring.

28. Bubble bath.

29. Pajamas.

30. Little People. They now sell Little People with all different jobs for just $2.99 each.

31. Bath toys

32. Cups

33, Utensils

34. Balls. All different kinds for all different ages, I love these for babies 

35. Animal Planet Tubes.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Puppy Love Valentine's Party for Kids

Hosting parties with my daughter makes me so happy! She loves having her friends come over and enjoy everything we've planned with them! We like our parties to be a bit unique though, so we didn't just have a Valentine's party, we had a Puppy Love Valentine's Party! I chose this theme because when little kids have crushes it's always referred to as "puppy love" and there's so many cute puppy love ideas for a party!

This was the invitation. The Valentine dog stickers from Dollar Tree were perfect for our invites. I liked how I worded things and thought someone else might like to use the same!

First, we have the table all set up. I put a Dollar Tree Valentine table cloth on, and had a centerpiece of a clear vase with artificial pink and red roses that had sparkly hearts with them, and a Valentine balloon on a stick from the grocery store.

At each place setting I put a Valentine heart napkin, paper plate, cup, and heart straw (all found at Dollar Tree). There was also everything needed for the craft we'd be making, a puppy ear headband I made, and on each plate was a personalized collar necklace I made for each of the kids.


To make the personalized dog bone collar necklaces I drew some bones that resembled hearts at their sides on poster board with a sharpie, then I cut them out and punched two holes in the top and strung a piece of yarn through them so it would be wearable as a necklace. Then I used the sharpie to write their names on them.

Each chair had a dog balloon I made tied to it

I just pumped up balloons in a few different colors (pink, orange, yellow, and blue). Then I used cloud scissors to cut each of them a pair of ears out of construction paper in corresponding colors, and taped them on. I also used white paper to give them each a pair of eyes and taped them on the double stick way. After that I took the sharpie to give them each a nose, mouth, and eyes. 

Now, for the desserts. I made Puppy Love Brownies, and marshmallow pops. 

Puppy Love Brownies:
Ingredients:
- 1 box of brownie mix
- Betty Crocker cupcake icing
- Trader Joes Cookie Butter Cookies
- Sweethearts 
- Red Velvet M&M's
- Enjoy Life chocolate chips
- Vanilla icing
- Heart cookie cutter

Step 1:
Make the brownies according to the directions on the box. Once they are cooled carefully take the entire brownie out of the pan and put it on some wax paper. Then use the heart cookie cutter to make as many hearts as you can.

Step 2:
Use the Betty Crocker cupcake icing with the tip that just looks like a hole to give the puppy his ears. 

Step 3:
Crumble up some of the cookie butter cookies to give the puppy some spots.

Step 4: 
Put the vanilla icing into a ziploc bag and cut a small hole in it to put some dabs on the dog for his eyes, and some in between the heart to attach the tongue (the sweetheart). Once they icing is on use two of the chocolate chips pointy side down onto the icing to give them their eyes. And attach the tongue like I said. 

Step 5:
Put some of the pink icing on for the nose and attach the burgundy colored red velvet M&M to it.


Marshmallow Pops:
Ingredients:
- Jumbo marshmallows
- Pillsbury hot pink vanilla funfetti icing
- Chocolate sprinkles
- Heart skewers (can be found at Dollar Tree)
- Wax paper to set them on

Step 1:
Put a marshmallow on a skewer.

Step 2:
Ice the marshmallow.

Step 3:
Dip the iced marshmallow in the chocolate sprinkles.

I put all the different things in bowls so I could have them all out and ready to be iced and dipped! 

They need to be sat on wax paper so the icing won't stick and come off.




We also played Bingo for the game, I printed the bingo sheets from here 

My daughter loves playing Bingo. We used heart gems from Dollar Tree for the  markers. As you can see she looked adorable in her puppy ears headband. They were simple to make. I cut the headband part from poster board, and stapled it to fit my daughters head. Then I used different shades of brown craft foam to cut dog ear shapes from and stapled those to the headband as well.

I forgot to take a picture of the prize for winning Bingo, it was just a puppy craft thing where you colored some cardboard puppies and they had little stands you could stand them up with. You could also use a puppy stuffed animal or book for the winners prize.

As for the favors table


For each of the kids I got them a heart shaped box of Russel Stover's chocolates that had dog(s) on the front. So perfect for the theme, I was thrilled! I covered the surface with a bit of the table cloth from the table that I had cut off. Then I put out a pink puppy stuffed animal, a decoration, balloon, some plastic hearts, and a pot of artificial pink roses and hearts. There was also silver wrapped chocolate hearts laying out for them to take/for decoration.

As for the other decor, right next to the favors table I had a chair with a heart blanket on it with all our cute puppy stuffed animals on display, and a heart chalk board that said "Puppy Love"


 

She insisted her doll be there too!

We also had these adorable Valentine puppy window clings up from Dollar Tree. I bought both the cartoon and the realistic pack. I couldn't decide, both were perfect for the theme.



Saturday, February 21, 2015

St. Patrick's Day Rainbow Sensory Bin

Everything needed for this bin (except the super cute shamrock care bear, we've had that for years) can be found at Dollar Tree. As for the addition of a St Patrick's day stuffed animal I'm sure you could find a Beanie Baby of something of the sort. All you need is a pack of construction paper, and some gold coins. 

Just rip up the construction paper (one piece per color of the rainbow) into squares and arrange them in a row in a sensory bin. Add in the stuffed animal or whatever you're putting in the middle of your bin, and then place some gold coins around it.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Spring Garden Bath

Spring isn't here yet, but soon enough it will be. So I'm going to share a Spring Garden themed bath with you today!


Now, for this bath I did not use the bath paint I normally make. I just used washable tempera paint to decorate the tub, it washes off so when I'm trying to paint a specific scene with detail I use that instead because it's easier to use than the shaving cream kind.

So, I used blue to paint the little bit at the top to make it look kind of like a sky, orange and red for the butterfly, bright green, yellow, pink, and purple for the flowers.

I made the water green with neon green food coloring to make it look like grass.

To the side of the tub for bath time play and to make the bath come to life I added some artificial flowers, plastic flower pots, and a couple shovels. The flowers and pots can be purchased at Dollar Tree, and the shovels came with her sandbox.

Healthy Toddler Breakfast

This is a lovely healthy breakfast idea for a one or two year old toddler. It has things from the grains group, fruit group, and calcium group. 

The grain is gluten free Arrowhead Mills Puffed Rice cereal. The fruits are organic strawberries, and organic blueberries. The calcium rich food is dairy free yogurt (trader joe's cultured coconut milk blueberry flavor).

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Pin the Football Game

I made this game for my daughter to play during the football game on Superbowl Sunday a few days ago. You could use it next year for Superbowl Sunday, or for a fun game to play whenever (a sports themed party, a rainy day, etc.)

So, it was really hard to get a picture of her playing the game as she was moving so quickly. But here is her holding her football player she made, standing next to the game after she was finished!

So, I had originally planned to color the poster board to look like a football field myself, and was going to try to make it accurate but that sounded a little challenging. Luckily, my daughter decided she wanted to help me make the poster board. So I let her color the football field green any way she wanted. Perfect! She loved participating in the making of it. Then I wrote the football team's name at the end of the field just like a real end zone would be. I also drew the goalpost with a yellow crayon. Then I taped it up to the wall.

I had prepped the footballs for pinning earlier in the day. I just cut football shapes out of brown paper and then used some white paint to make them look like footballs. They dried while we did other things, and then when it came time to play the game I just put some tape on the backs so they'd stick to the poster board. (We played several times, they went on and off just fine).

You play the game just like any other traditional "pin the...." game. You can use something to cover their eyes, a scarf, a headband, and give them a spin a few feet in front of the poster board.