Fireflies and Jellybeans Giveaway

"Fireflies and Jellybeans is hosting an arts and crafts giveaway! Check out All ChildrensFurniture.com for your favorite brands like Little Tikes, KidKraft, and more! Giveaway ends 10/29"

Halloween Decoration

A very nice, easy and cheap way to decorate your house for Halloween is to paint pumpkins with paint and let them dry outside. We had 6 pumpkins and my daughter painted them all and put them outside so everybody could see we celebrate Halloween!

Painting

Yeaaaah!!

She is soooo proud!

The Pumpkins

A Simple but very Unique Picture Frame

Last Thursday, it was Daddy’s Birthday and my daughter made this beautiful picture frame! Daddy loved it! The material you need for this project is::

• Jumbo Sticks
• Glue
• A picture ( I used Picassa to make this photo)
• Scissors
• Colors, paint, glitter, or whatever material you have to decorate the frame

The first thing to make is the frame.

Depending on the size of the picture, you make the frame. I put a diagonal stick to support the back (and in our case to write down the date and a happy birthday

Glue the picture to the base.

Glue the picture...

Make the border with some other sticks. Here you can use your imagination! We made the frame different from the back to make it unique!

Let it dry so it is is ready to paint and decorate (put it under some heavy books for a little while)

Then you paint it and make the decoration using the material you have...

My daughter also wanted to decorate the bag. She wrote her name and last name on it!

Crochet Pumpkin - Link to Free Pattern

I found a great website where they not only give you a free crochet pattern of a pumpkin, but also, if you are a beginner like me, you can take a look at the video made by Teresa - The Art of Crochet. Her videos are fantastic and so easy to follow......Her website is called Learn to Crochet and here you can see the pumpkin I made this afternoon using her pattern. It is super easy to make (I have only made a couple of scarfs so far). This is how it came out:

Halloween Activity - Yarn Pumpkin

This activity is perfect for Halloween! Or to decorate your home this fall. A very easy activity for old and young. My preschooler loved it! All you need is yarn, a piece of cardboard, rafia and scissors.

I used the same method as my previous posting, but instead of using chenille stems, I used rafia. If you want bigger pumpkins, just use a bigger cardboard and more yarn :-)

My plant with the little pumpkins

Diferent colors pumpkin!

This is what you need:

Yarn, rafia, cardboard, scissors

To make the green/orange pumpkin, just do the same as with the regular pumpkins but use the 2 colors at the same time.

Wrap it around the cardboard and follow the same steps as on the website on my previous posting....and ready!

Cute Fall Apples made with Yarn

The other day I found this activity on a website and it caught my eye. I think this is so cute!

That same afternoon I tried to make them with my daughter. She had the next day her "show and tell" and I thought this would be a great activity for that occasion. The only thing was that I couldn't find brown chenille stems. Neither at my local craft store. But I found orange and green yarn, so I said to myself...why not try to make Halloween pumpkins? I will show them in my next posting.

I leave you here the directions and the website where I found this so cute activity:

My daughter loved to glue the leaves on the apples! And she was so proud during her "show and tell"!

Activities and Responsability

Since we moved, we have given our daughter a little more responsibilities, like for example, take care of her pet and her plants (herbs).

She does these activities daily and she enjoys it so much. It is a good exercise to start responsibility and even it seems not to be a big deal, she is so proud of it. Every afternoon she gives her fish his food and give water to her plants. She smells the leafs and acts like an adult. This age is so beautiful!

I'm Back!

I’ve been gone for a while because of several reasons. The first one because I felt so sick the first 5 months...I had no energy, I didn’t want to do anything but sleep, had nausea....sounds familiar? Well, yes! Our daughter is going to have a little brother! We are so happy! All this made us be very busy moving, having grandma (Oma) with us so she could help, prepare and celebrate our daughter’s 3rd birthday. A lot of things that kept us busy but now we are back on track and ready for our baby boy to arrive and ready to continue our blog.

Meanwhile the time has passed and my daughter has been growing so much. Each day she talks more and more. I have been studying a lot lately about multi-linguistic children since we are raising her using 3 languages (Spanish, Dutch and English).

She speaks and understand them very good. A very good website for bilingual and multi-linguistic children is Multilingual Children’s Association.

There are a lot of parents who have questions or experiences that can help you if you have any question. You could also try to read some very nice books about this subject. There are tons in the library or look here at Amazon: Multilingual Children

Since English is not my first (or second...but thirth lenguage as you may notice...) I need to study a lot more about this subject. I will let you know more how my daughter is advancing...

Crochet

Patron
Originally uploaded by www.MiniCuties.com

I have been a little sick last weeks and to keep me busy I decided to try something I had never done before:  Crochet.

My problem is that I am a lefty and to find someone to teach me has been always very difficult. So I decided to learn and teach myself to crochet like a right handed person would do....I found some good tips and ideas on this page Crochet Pattern Central.

Another good website is Crochet Cabana

I tried the single, half double, double crochet. After a while I had made a big square...I didn't want to trow it away or just let it sit there (although you can see I made a lot of mistakes on the sides)

So I decided I could make a little bag...

This is how it came out:

I sewed a big orange button on it 

My daughter loved it...

Spring Craft Sweepstakes

A while ago there was a sweepstakes on ParentsConnect and we participated with some of the activities I have shown you here on my blog. ....And guess what? We WON!!! 

The activity that won the price was Button Caterpillar!

Take a look at the website! It is very nice site where you will meet a lot of moms with the same interests and it has a lot of information and activities.

Earth Day

There was a book fair the other day near my place and I found these books which I bought. They are super cute. They are written by the same author (Jean Marzollo) of I Spy and other very good and known books. The illustration is beautiful, all made out of cut paper. Even though it is a book for a 4 years old who starts to read, my daughter loves it because she is starting to understand how things work in this world....I really recommend you this collection of books. They have several titles.

For the occasion of Earth Day, we read the book I Am an Apple (Hello Reader Science Level 1). We could learn how a little seed changes into a big tree with a lot of apples in it! We also read about all the things you can do with apples! Yammi!

Later we looked for some material so we could make our own apple tree...

I found loose fill peanuts, a toilet roll, a half Easter egg, paint, glue....

We put the half egg inside the roll to create a base.

We glued the peanuts and colored them green...(we used one of the peanuts to paint them. We painted the toilet roll using brown.

I still had some "San Valentine Day" hearts. These were perfect for our Apple Tree!

Happy Earth Day!

Looking for the High Rise Step Stool, Kitchen Helper or Learning Tower?

My daughter loves to see everything I do. When I am in the kitchen, she wants to be there and help! We have some barstools where she was trying to climb on, but I didn't let her since I thought it was not really safe. So surfing the web I found these 3 perfect options!

1.- The Learning Tower by Little Partners

2.- Guidecraft Kitchen Helper

3.- Guidecraft High Rise Step Up

I really liked The Learning Tower by Little Partners. My sister-in-law has one and it is really sturdy, easy to access (for the kid of course) and easy to clean, but too big for our kitchen.

Guidecraft Kitchen Helper was another good option because it folds so you can store it. But to store it you have to take out your tool kit, and right now, I don't have time for that....

So the last option was Guidecraft High Rise Step Up, which was a little smaller and not so expensive as the other two. My daughter loved it!

She climbs and gets down whenever she wants, and she loves it so much that some days she prefers eating standing so she can be on her stool.

If I had more space in the kitchen, I would have probably bought The Learning Tower by Little Partners, but this stool does the same function and it is light enough to carry from one point to the other...

My daughter loves to do the dishes and I let her! (Looks like I have one thing less to do, right? ummmm...No!

First I have to clean them and leave them in the sink... she thinks they are dirty and washes them again... It is so lovely to see her imitate me!)

Her you see her cleaning the dishes on her Guidecraft High Rise Step Up

MONTESSORI: This is a wonderful Practical Life activity and kids love it!