Mama Puts on the Hard Hat

For Z-man's second birthday, I turned this...

Into this!

 






A forgotten-about side garden + a dump truck of gravel and mulch (which was a dream come true to have pull up at our house!) + a wheel barrow + shovels + lots of trash bags + some neighborhood teens + tons of help from my awesome parents and uncle = Z-man has an amazing new play space!

Now I just need to come up with some ideas on how to get him to come inside without a fight!

ROAD TRIP!!!

Spring break for us was a road trip down to NC to visit my brother and then on to SC for a dear friend's wedding. Z-man is a great traveler. We travel to NY to visit his family almost every month on the train. At this point, we are train riding professionals. But car rides, not so much.
Over 1000 miles total. This is no small feat for a turning-two-next-week-year-old. Or for a motion-sick-mama. Or for Z's dad who had to put up with both of us and drive.
I tweaked a tradition the bride shared from her childhood. Her family has four kids and trekked often from NJ to SC. That's a road trip. Her parents packed each one a shoebox with games and goodies that they got halfway through the ride. Well the Mother-of-the-Bride is among those mamas I admire most, so I knew it was worth a try. 

A dollar store trip, left over valentine tissue paper, and a new favorite word "present" and the trip was relatively painless (minus traffic). Every time Z-man would get frustrated, bored, or a little grumpy, I passed a present his way. I tried to limit the presents to one an hour. It was so successful on the way down that we made a dollar store run before the trip back.

Among the best and most entertaining gifts were a slinky, pipe cleaners and pony beads (and I now have a fabulous new blue bracelet), books, a glow stick (reserved for when it started to get dark), a small car, and window clings. I have some left overs from the way back that I'm saving to use on our next trip!

*I'm so proud of this thrifty idea that I have to share it. When some of the presents failed me, I resorted to Dinosaur train, hung up by a sweat headband. Who needs a fancy mount for the ipad? Not this mama!

Bunches of Lunches

Making lunches is like laundry. You can never really cross it off the to-do list because as soon as you do, its time to make another. Or clean another Tupperware with tiny crevices. Or go shopping for more food to put in said lunches.
I actually do enjoy making Z-man's lunch, especially when it comes back near-empty and I can tell he liked what I packed (or he threw it on the floor, but I'm choosing to believe he loved it.) However, I really value my ME time once Z goes to bed. After almost a year and half, I've finally found a routine that simplifies the bunches of lunches us parents make.
These amazing Tupperware are the perfect size to fit in his lunch box and have compartments, which my slightly-OCD self finds comfort in. I found silicon cupcake liners in the dollar bin at target. They clean easily and are great for dividing the biggest compartment. I make at least two lunches at a time, which makes every other night super easy. (Unzip. Empty. Fill. Zip). 

I put in veggies, usually baby cucumbers or petite pickles-minimal prep, fruit (berries, small grapes, or tangerines just get rinsed and thrown in), some kind of meat (mini pepperonis, dino nuggets, or cut up hot dog), and some carb (usually veggie straws or goldfish). I throw fruit snacks, Z-man's ultimate favorite, and a squeezable fruit/veggie sauce and call it a day. X2. Or x3. Or on day's I get to love on my niece, x4. 

I still wish I was this mom or this mom sometimes. But for now, I'm totally ok being the mom I am (and having a little extra ME time).

Weather Wonderful

March's theme is weather and what a perfect theme it was. We experienced so many of the elements as we learned about them, thanks to the crazy weather last month. We charted the weather each day, threw scarfs in the air to watch the wind throw them about, brought snow inside our classroom and played with it until it all melted, and sang about raindrops made of gumdrops.
Our favorite song was a rhyme we made up in a song-songy voice: "Five snowmen sitting in the sun. The temperature rose and away melted one.  Four snowmen...three snowmen...two snowmen...one snowman...and then there were none." We pretended to melt as we sang this. SO FUN. It also proved to be a great way to learn why things melt. What made it melt? The temperature rose!

It's hard to pick my favorite activities from this month because so many of them are worth re-doing (and sharing). Here are a few:

-We called this Hurricane Painting. We used spray bottles filled with watered down paint to spray at our easel. As the kids sprayed the easel, I turned a fan on the highest setting and held it up to them. The spray paint went everywhere. Really. Everywhere. There was even some half way across the room, but this was so much fun and totally worth cleaning up the mess. The pictures turned out pretty amazing, too! (Look at the hidden color mixing lesson! Yes, red and yellow do make orange!)

-This was our Tornado Art. We used empty glue bottles filled with paint. I only put a little paint in each one and refilled for each child because they empty out very quickly! The kids squeezed the bottles in large circles, really focusing on (gross motor) movements in their arms. The pictures were some of the coolest art I've ever done with kids. It was a blast to make, a great chance to do some movement art, and also turned out pretty fancy. We made prints of the art, placing another paper on top of a finished picture and gently rubbing it so we could have one copy for home and one copy for school.

-When we talked about thunderstorms, we used paper cut into cloud shapes to rub on ink pads. The colors blurred and left interesting ink lines on the paper. 

-This puffy paint cloud is another awesome cloud activity. No Time for Flashcards is a go-to resource for me, time and time again.

-Here's another one that I borrowed. (I used paint instead of shaving cream because we can't spray shaving cream around the kids.) We brought dollar store mirrors outside and painted the clouds that we saw in the reflection. We then used a shower squeegee to erase the picture so the next friend could have a turn. We did this on a very cloudy day, but are super excited to do it on a more sunny day when we can see the outlines of the clouds better.

-And last but not least, Painting with Ice was great to watch the ice melt and for arts sake. I used real water color paints and mixed them with water in ice cube trays, putting craft sticks in each cube. Last year, I did not use the craft sticks and everyone's hands were stained! This year the kids stayed interested longer, probably because their fingers weren't freezing!

So, what's in store for April? Celebrating our planet!