X,Y,Z

As you may or may not notice, I skipped letter V. Sometime today we will be making our own mini volcanoes and I will share a little later on that.
Well, on Saturday i decided lets learn the last few letters. All letters are important for learning, but not all have enough to learn 1 per week. So, I cut out each letter from construction paper. The letter Y, I chose foam.
W-I cut a green W from construction paper and added a red middle, cut some black seeds and let Colton go to town gluing!

X- I cut it out then, took white foam and cut bones and created an X-ray. Colton liked gluing them on.

Y-I cut a yellow Y from yellow foam and took a hole punch to it following the Y. I also cut a piece of yarn and Colton laced his Y. I was super proud of him for accomplishing this! When I first started this blog I did the same concept with his name and he had difficulty. However, he is older and could not believe he did this!!

Z-I cut a white Z and cut stripes from black paper. Also, I cut some ears and now I think about it I forgot the tail...OOPS!

The letter U

Honestly, like all the other weeks, this one I did not have a lot planned. I was glad because Easter was at the end of the week and I wanted to make cookies and get ready.
The weather just happened to be nasty and how perfect since we would be learning about Umbrellas! For this craft, No Time for flashcards had a perfect one! I added my own 'zing' to it and we had ourselves a textered picture showing Umbrellas!

Cupcake wrappers, pipe cleaners, cotton balls, glue, and construction paper!!!

Our Easter

My family is in  Michigan and the husbands family is in Missouri and Illinois. So Easter this year was just us. The Easter bunny hid both Colton's and daddys baskets. Colton and daddy found theirs and I began making breakfast.
I made Baked French Toast. The recipe is at Loving the Little Things. Not only is the recipe yummy, but stay awhile and visit, there are some more yummy recipes and her 2 little girls you will just adore! I cut the bread into Easter shapes for a tad difference for the Holidays.
The weather was pretty awful so the egg hunt we had planned had to be located inside. Colton actually had a lot of fun going room to room looking for his eggs and loading up his basket. Then we had nap time and while Colton napped I decided to slowly start dinner. On the Holidays I always make an early meal,
His Godmother and her daughter joined us later in the evening and we shared a nice visit. That was our Easter this year. How was your Easter?

Recipe of the Week: Toddler Pizza!

Friday nights are pizza/movie night in our household. There are so many ways to make pizza it is pretty intense. We make or order delivery. Lately, we have been finding that making it is fun and easy. I enjoy cooking so building a pizza is fun for me. Last Friday, I decided to include Colton. He made his very own pizza shapes! I rolled out some dough and had him cut out some shapes and I put them on a cookie sheet for him to top. Daddy helped him by putting sauce on, but everything else was ALL Colton. While he was having fun making his very own dinner, I was rolling out a pizza for the husband and I and adding toppings.
We like all sorts of toppings, but definitely DESPISE anchovies! I highly suggest bringing your children into the kitchen with you designing some pizzas.
Here are some pictures of last week having fun on a Friday night!

How do you spend your Friday nights? And I must say, Colton CHOWED more than ever, we believe it is from making his own dinner! He was cheesing so hard...I see a very proud face :)

Down on the Farm

Yesterday we went to a farm nearby. I found an ad in a paper about a farm that has goats, pigs,chickens,llamas,and also some fun stuff like hay rides, easter egg hunts, an Easter bunny, and barrel train rides. The husband and I decided yesterday would be a perfect day to go. Little did we know it was going to be really cold. The weather didn't hold us back. We bundles up, which we should have added another layer or two. We had a BLAST! Everyone that worked there was so nice and friendly. We also got to feed the animals. Colton loved feeding them and instead of saying 'baaaaaaaaaaaa' for a goat he said,'moooooooooo' HILARIOUS!! At one point the husband and I had tears streaming down our faces in hysterics ROLLING at the animals and Colton interacting.
The hayride was a first for us as a family and first ever for Colton. The laughter,smiles, and family time was just what we needed and felt so good. Although we were only about a half hour from the house I felt like we were in our own place in the world all by ourselves. We will be going back to the farm in the fall to gather up our pumpkins.

A bunny family

Since I have been crafting with Colton a lot in the past year. I have also accumulated some toilet and paper towel tubes. Although I really haven't found many crafts for Colton that involve them. Well, that was until i found Crafts by Amanda Okay, I not only recommend visiting, but I also recommend following and using her ideas! Kids of all ages will love the bunny family as well as the other animals she has come up with! Even monsters :)
I followed her directions but added some of my own personality! This was also something I did while I had Colton do a different craft. However, once they were finished he has gotten some great play out of them!

I am really excited how they turned out and love how they have brightened up our home as well!

'T' is for

This week we learned all about the letter T in fun new ways!
For boys tractors and trains or really anything with wheels are most loved. I decided to buy a couple canvases and let Colton paint with his favorite toys; trains and tractors. I also bought some putty from the houseware section and this is definitely something I recommend. I added pictures in a previous post. After those projects, I cut a big 'T' from green construction paper and turned it sideways and added some wheels,a little 'T' for steering wheel. Colton's party this year was Thomas and I had left over wrapping paper and also some tractor wallpaper samples and let him make a collage which turned out cute and was something very fun.

Turtles and Tigers also start with the letter 'T' and I must say Colton really learned a lot. You can ask him what letter does tiger start with and he says "T". I decided to stay simple with some shapes and have him put together his own turtles and then cut some turtles and bubbles from my Cricut as well. That way he can have some fun gluing and practicing. For tiger, I grabbed a paper plate and had him pate it orange and while he painted I cut some black stripes and chose neon orange googly eyes. Hobby Lobby has a summer craft aisle and I found some very crazy googly eyes and just couldn't resist them.

So that was our week of learning about the letter 'T'! Not many crafts were planned, but there was a lot of learning involved! Happy teaching and learning your Rays of Sunshine!

Painting with toys!

Colton LOVES to paint. I could ask him everyday ALL day if he wants to paint and he would happily head to the craft room for some great fun! Well, with us learning the letter 'T' I thought how fun would it be to paint WITH trains and tractors! I am talking no paintbrushes, no hands. I am talking actually dipping the trains and tractors and running them over the canvas!
I have been extremely excited for this! I bought a set of 2 canvases and some home putty stuff. One would be tractors, green and yellow of course for John Deere.

The other would be trains. Blue,red,and a couple other colors.

The white putty stuff is found in the paint section of Walmart. It is made for home type of stuff, but can be used for painting. You can use a spatuala tool or or paintbrush to put it on the canvas. However, Colton dipped the tractors and trains in it! This putty stuff adds texture to your artwork!

Bubbles and Marble painting

How many times a year do you buy bubbles? A LOT!? Well, I personally think they are cheap depending on what size you get, but was tired of running out and having the child spill them everywhere! So, I googled how to make bubbles.
You need, water,dish soap,and light corn syrup. 1 cup water,2 tbsp corn syrup,and 4tbsp dish soap. MIX! yeah, easy and simple plus this doesn't take long and not expensive.
I caught some in action...

I saw marble painting at Little Wonder Days. So, I decided with Easter coming next week, I wanted to do this. I took my 4 cookie cutters, traced,and cut out the shapes from construction paper. Cleanup was easier than normal and Colton and I really liked this!

Lay shaving cream on cookie sheet as even as u can

Dribble paint, any colors will do!

swirl(tooth pick,spoon...etc)

press shapes down and lift up, squeegee off and they will look like this!

I added masking tape to the backs and put them on the doors. They look great and were so easy and quick to make!

Recipe of the Week: Tortilla Soup

I have NEVER made soup before. I don't make a lot of things because I have a VERY picky husband. He bought me the Fix It and Forget it cookbook a couple years ago. Well, I decided that when he got home from deployment I was going to make some new meals. As I was searching through it I came across this recipe and asked the husband if he would eat this. He said, "yeah. I will try it" I was nervous but went for it. I am extremely happy I did! The husband took the first bite and looked at me and said,"This is freakin AMAZING!" This is a guy that won't eat soup...


4 chicken breast halves (I bought thinly sliced chicken breasts because it's easier and quicker) 
1 garlic clove minced(again, I bought garlic already minced) 
2tbsp margarine
 2 14 1/2 oz cans of chicken broth, 
2 141/2 oz cans chopped stewed tomatoes(I bought diced), 
1 cup salsa (mild,med,hot) whichever you prefer
1/2cup chopped cilantro(I couldn't find it in store so I didn't use it)
 1tbsp or more ground cumin(I didn't use this cuz I cant stand hot/spicy anything)
8oz monterey jack cubed(I used mozzarella shredded because it's what I had)
sour cream(optional)
tortilla chips
1. cook, debone and shred chicken(breeasts were already boneless and i cooked them with no flavoring...doesnt need it:) 

2. Add minced garlic to margarine in slow cooker. Saute.

3. combine all ingredients EXCEPT cheese,sour cream,and chips

 4. Cover, cook on low 8-10 hrs

 5.Divide cubed cheese into bowls, ladle soup over cheese, sprinkle with chips and add dollop sour cream
EAT!!!
Tip: when u sprinkle cheese its VITAL to add to bottom THEN ladle soup on top...ALSO, no need to add a lot...less is more in this case HONEST! 

 

'S' is for...

Snakes,spiders,shapes,sunflowers,and sheep all have something in common. They all begin with the letter S. With all the chaos the past week or so I decided to take another short break from the alphabet and this week we went out with a bang! I crammed as much in as I could and Colton really had fun as did I.
We started out with spiders. I put in a kids cd and on it repeated the song 'Eensy weensy spider' while painting Colton's hands black and making spiders from them. I then cut them out and glued them on a different sheet of paper. He wasn't ready to be done painting so while we sang the song and I showed him the movements, I gave him a brush with blue paint and told him to paint 'rain'. When it dried I wrote the song on the paper.

For sheep, I found Crafts by Amanda and Oh my Lord! She has a TON of crafts to use up those cardboard paper tubes us moms have saved up! So I decided this would be fun to do. We made 2 and Colton glued everything on and I cut everything out. The sheep will be staying until Easter and then after will be used for some puppet play!

Sunflowers are beautifull but attract the bees like no other! I thought a good safe one would be to pait Colton's hand yellow to create the petals and then do some dots for the middle and then just marker on a stem. I REALLY like how it turned out and I must say, the craft room is starting to become a very colorful place!

Snakes are slimy and scary, well to me they are. They are better left in a cage FAR away! A snake is one pet we will never have in our home. But it was fun learning about them! In the Magic Painting book i bought what seems like forever ago was a snake. Thesebooks are amazing because all you do is paint with water and the color appears! Now, this snake is cute and looks great on the refridgerator!

Afterwards I created my own version of a snake lunch. Seeing some of the amazing food 'art' inspired me to do my own. Now, I created mine very fast and didn't by anything special.

Bologna and cheese 'snake, chhezi 'snake' with freeze dried apples for eyes and freeze dried pineapple for stripes

 A day of learning about shapes was a lot of fun. Colton learned all about shapes and how items in our home re shapes too. I am also planning a scavengar hunt for shapes on our walks too. I gathered up a few books, some felt shapes I cut months ago,and included our new sticker book. This sticker book was found at Boreders for $3.99!!! I am telling you now, RUN don't walk to the nearest one and BUY IT!! The stickers are reusable and SO many pages of fun learning activities!!

That was an entire week of JAM-packed fun! I hope you enjoyed your Rays of Sunshine as I did!