I Heart Valentine's Day

Soooo, I guess it's been quite a while since I've posted considering that the last post is a Thanksgiving post and now it's Valentine's Day. Time sure does fly. 

Unfortunately my daughter woke up sick this morning, so we haven't had a very thrilling day. However we have done quite a few Valentiney (is that a word?) things this week as preparation.

Early in the week we set up a Valentine station in the living room. My kids spent lots of time coloring with markers, decorating with stickers, and creating lovely cards.

Everyone had their own mailbox, and we kept leaving each other notes.

 I also printed off several Valentine games from Pinterest.

With our playgroup we went to visit a Retirement home. This was the most special thing we did this week. The activities coordinator got a group together for us and when we got there we sang them some songs, handed out Valentines, and talked to each person individually. I only snapped one picture the whole time (I was really enjoying talking with those we were visiting and got wrapped up in it), and this picture looks kind of goofy because the kids were singing "Once There Was a Snowman" and they had all just melted to the ground.

We went to a cookie painting party.

We graphed conversation hearts. 

 I forgot how disgusting those things are! How to people keep buying them? Yuck. My kids have major sweet tooths, and they were only interesting in eating three of four.

Finally, we put conversation hearts into different liquids to see what would dissolve them fastest. This is how they looked after about an hour. 

My the next morning, the only hearts that had totally dissolved were in the vinegar. We're still waiting on the others.

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day with those you love!!

Different Ways to Make Bubbles

There are so many ways to make bubbles. First, I gave my girl a pan full of baking soda, and several cups full of colored vinegar. She used all different sized spoons (and a turkey baster) to mix it all together. And boy did it bubble!

 Next we made home-made bubble solution. I made a whole bowl full before I thought about the fact that I didn't have any bubble wants. My solution (pardon the pun)? I just used one of those campfire lighters to burn a hole through some plastic spoons. Problem solved!

Finally, and old classic: Dawn in the kitchen sink. I am always amazed how clean I can get the rest of the kitchen when the kids play like this in the sink. It entertains them for a solid half hour, if not more. This time my little one had the idea to go get all her toy dishes and wash them with the scrub brush. Awesome! I'd been meaning to wash those for a while.

Balloon Science

We filled a balloon with baking soda and a bottle with vinegar. We placed the balloon on top of the bottle, dumped its contents, and VOILA!

It inflated itself.
Afterward we tied it off and started the process again. The really interesting thing to me was that it felt a whole lot heavier than a regular air-filled balloon. I guess that's an experiment for another day.

Happy Windsday

It's been quite blustery around here lately, so we decided to do a little wind experiment of our own.

Bubbles

I had no idea how much fun baking soda/vinegar bubbles could be.

By the way, did you know that bubbles stick to glass. My daughter discovered this and we both found it very interesting.

Nature Bowl

We love going on walks. Sometimes we go in the double stroller, sometimes in the single stroller with the little one in the front pack, sometimes in the single stroller with the bigger one walking, sometimes with the little one in the stroller and the bigger one pushing a doll stroller. Any way you slice it, we love walks. Along with walking, we love talking. We talk about the trees, the dogs, the birds, the cats, the cars, and everything else we see. Recently we've also started collecting. Pine-cones, rocks, leaves, twigs, pine needles, and all sorts of other outdoor treasures. These treasures usually end up in the stroller or in my pocket. I recently had the idea that instead of chucking them at the front door, we could collect them in a nature bowl. Now every time we go out for a walk, my daughter is on the look-out for something we can put in her bowl. When we get home, she pulls everything out, sorts them into piles, put them back, dumps them back out, and shows them to all of her stuffed animals.

Color Discovery

This week my daughter started learning about mixing colors. She would fill up the bowl with water and I would add a couple of drops of food coloring. She would stir it up, and I'd add another few drops. She would dump it out and we would start all over again.

By the way, don't you love her farmer's tan??

Grandma's Flowers

When I saw this on the Artful Parent, I knew I wanted to make something similar. When we went to visit Grandma (who lives in another state), we collected a whole bunch of flowers from her garden. We stuck them in a big thick book and then waited. Last week we put them between some sheets of contact paper. As you can probably tell, I did most of the arranging. My little girl seemed more interested in handing me the flowers, but she did contribute a few flowers to our project. Now she likes to run over to the door and say, "Grandma's flowers."