{Recap} January 2016

Happy New Year! *wink. wink*

It is starting to sink in, that we will be a family of six next month! 

Yes! I can' believe it either. 

January was a pretty low key month because of it too!

Santa brought Carter a Spirograph. I'm not sure who likes it more Carter or Mommy!

We literally spent at least an hour a day playing with it! 

If we weren't using the Spirograph, we were coloring.

Santa left me an adult coloring book, but Ellie thought it was for her!

And if we weren't coloring....

We were drawing, and let me tell you. The force if strong in this house!

Wyatt drew this!  He looked at a picture in a Star Wars book and was able to do it by himself!

Proud Art Teacher Mama moment right there!  

Can I remind you Wyatt is 4?!? Not bad!!

Lastly we decided to tackle a project that has been on the to do list, since we had Ellie!

Remove a half bath and convert it to....

This!  

We were able to remove the bathroom fixtures, update the electric, paint and update the flooring this month alone! Can't wait to show you next months progress, even with a newborn coming we made some headway!

{Organizes} Lego Storage

We went from one Lego set, to about ten in the last year. 

For a while we were able to keep them in one of the larger sets plastic bins.

But each time the boys dug for a piece at the bottom, there seemed to be a spill.

A million and ten pieces everywhere kind of spill.

So we needed something else.

Luckily, for Christmas Nana, my mom came up with a solution.

These locking bins!

For the most part, I try to keep them sorted by color family.

Red, Orange, Yellow all in one bin.

Blues in one bin.

Greens in one bin.

White in one bin.

Black, Brown and Grey in one bin.

But what I am liking the best is the small dividers

 in some of the bins (they pull out if you don't need them!)

They are perfect for storing all our guys and their accessories.

Or storing wheels, and car parts!

Lastly, one bin holds our instruction booklets!

The bins are fairly small, you get a good idea how small by looking at the instruction books bin. 

But I like that, easier to dig through when looking for a specific piece!

When we are done playing, which honestly is pretty rare. 

All the bins get stacked, locked and slid under an end table in our living room.

How do you store your Lego collection?

Bins? Drawers? Bags?

{Tip} Replacing DVD's!

Wow! Wow! Wow!

is all I really can say. 

But that would be a super boring post...

So I will share some details!

Our Ellie adores Frozen, I mean who doesn't?

Fun Fact: it premiered on her first birthday at El Capitan theatre!

Anyways, she adores it. And when a two year old adores a DVD they normally scratch it, am I right?

Well, Love is an Open Door was more like a remix version as it skipped, stopped and restarted.

I was getting desperate, and knew the library had a DVD cleaner so I asked if they could help me out.

Well, I probably should have just lived with the remix, because after being cleaned the DVD would no longer play at all!

This is when panic started to set in. 

I looked at just buying a new one, and felt silly.  That is when I remembered I had seen Disney actually replaces DVD's! I couldn't believe it, is it true? So I asked my facebook followers. No one had heard of it, or done it. So I was a little skeptical. But I thought, for $6.95  and a stamp it was worth a shot.

Best $6.95 spent EVER! 

To replace your Disney DVD's: click here.

We printed out the form, put it in an envelope and mailed it out January 15th.

The site says give them 4-6 weeks, well business must have been a slow because we had our 

NEW Frozen DVD in hand on January 31st! AMAZING! 

And if for any reason we need to replace Frozen again, hopefully we don't, we can send it out again next January. You can send any DVD once a year! 

Now, I haven't had an experience or sent any DVD's to them but you can also send in your Universal Studios DVD's too!

To replace your Universal Studios DVD's: click here

It looks like it's better for you to send multiples to Universal, as the first is $7.95, then $2.50 for each additional DVD.

What DVD's do you think you might send in for replacement?

For us, Disney may see our Toy Story Movies!

And Despicable Me, and Despicable Me 2 could use a trip to Universal Studios! 

Kid Craft: Making Spooky Masks!

Have you ever picked up any of the masks in Joanns?

You know, the bare wood ones in the dollar bins?

I've picked up a few for the boys and I to color, and we are hooked!

Here are some of out latest!

My favorite part? 

We've painted them, colored them with crayons and colored pencils. 

And all look great!

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Joann's Fabric and Craft Store. I was given a gift card to Joann Fabric and Craft Stores to create a #spookyspace for the Celebrate the Season Campaign. 

How we are keeping cool... and Learning too!

This past week has been HOT. 

I mean above 90 everyday, which is not very common for us in Upstate NY.

So in an effort to keep cool, and sane, we've been keeping busy indoors.

Reading Lot's of Fun Books!

Back in June I signed Carter up for the Summer Reading Program at the Library.

He got a bunch of neat incentives to encourage him to read. A bag to carry his books back and forth, pen, pencils, Sunglasses you name it. We even got him his own Library card! 

I'm even loving some of the books we have gotten! 

Steam Train, Dream Train is definitely one of the favorites in our house right now.

And Wyatt is hook on the I Don't Want to Live on the Moon board book. So much so, he asks me to sing it at bedtime! Anyone else remember the words? I remember from when I watched as a kid!

Worksheets!

There are so many awesome free printable preschool worksheets on the internet!

The one on the left I printed a while back, and used  with sheet protectors and a marker. Now, we take them out and he does them daily. One letter a day, Monday through Friday. 

The one of the right is from Over the Big Moon. Stop by she has a ton of great printables!

Workbooks!

Some days Carter is on a roll, and wants to do more than his two letter worksheets. So he will pick out a workbook and work a little longer. These can be found anywhere really. The dollar store, Target has some in their dollar bins right now, with some fun flash cards ( more on that... in  a second)

Flash Cards!

I have a weakness for flash cards. I am always looking for cute ones! 

Then I laminate and keep them together with key rings. Yes. I know. A little overboard but I will always have all my states, and not lose any! 

How cute are the occupation cards I just got at Target? Barista! Love it.

Arts & Crafts!

Some days we just color, somedays we play with beads. Some days we paint.

Today we are going to paint these fun masks I found in Joann's last week! 

And... when I got to the register the cashier noticed the stain on the frogs leg, and some on the others and offered them for 75% off! 

Well, I am off to paint! Keep cool!

Wishing you JOY...

I guess this is better late than never!

This year I got a little extra creative making our Christmas  New Year's card. 

Instead of jumping through hoops to get all three kids ( Ages 4 and under!) into one picture, I went with three individuals pictures that when put together made one adorable card! If I do say so!

But now, my mind is thinking of all the other three letter words we can do! 

The first to come in mind, DAD. I better get working on it so I can actually get it done before June!

Finally... Our Calming Jars

I love all the Calming Jars on Pinterest. Except the fact that most were Big, Heavy, GLASS jars.

So I kept my eye out looking for the perfect sized, light, plastic jar.

Look what I found yesterday!

A bouillon cube jar! 

The perfect size for little hands!

Gathered my supplies and got to work! 

And these only took one "batch" each.

1 cup water, to the glitter and glue!

Then I used this handy lifesaver to get rid of the code off the top!

Such a cute, and quick craft! 

Lifesavers Series: Bubble Station and Solution

Just another tip to save you some time, money and frustration!

With the nice weather coming, and staying for a while I decided to try my hand at bubble solution making!

With that said, I went with this corn syrup, dish soap and water mixture. Even though I was tempted to go with the cornstarch one, but I didn't have enough on hand. Maybe next time.

Do you make your own bubbles?  

Toy Story Moving Box Pinata {A Tutorial!}

Carter requested a pinata for this birthday, I think Dora made him do it! 

But to not let him down, my husband and I said we could do that. Well, being the more frugal of the two I decided let me try to make one. After all it's just going to broken for the "goods" anyways and who wants to keep a broken pinata (my guess, Carter would have!)

So, when I was looking all over the internet for cake ideas, I came across a great cake that had moving boxes from Toy Story 3! And that's how this came about, and it was really fun to tell Carter that Andy had packed up his boxes and sent them to us just for his party!

To make your own pull string pinata:

 ( did you think I was going to trust a very active now three year old with a stick?)

Carboard box (shape/size can be up to you, mine was pretty small and square)

Craft paper

Hot glue, duct tape

Scissors

Ribbon and Strong string to hang from

First:

Cut the bottom of your box out 

( I didn't cut all four flaps out and regretted it when it didn't break much, so trust me on this one!)

Remove all four of these flaps!

Second: 

Wrap your box to hide the current logos!

I used hot glue to attach mine, and had no issues!

Third:

Poke a hole in the bottom of your pinata, this will be your "active" pullstring.

Your will not have cardboard to make pulling easier!

Ours pulled but didn't pull open as I thought it would! Boo.

Duct tape your ribbon inside.  

Four:

Trick your little party goers! Just scotch take ribbons on the bottom outside, for their pulling pleasure!

Five: 

Camoflauge your ribbons, I just attached strips of paper across each row of tape and glue on each side.

(Sorry no picture!)

Six:

Add your hanging string. 

I went through the handles, across the box and had the string criss cross.

See?

Seven:

Fill! I went with some candy and some plastic toys! Had to include army men!

Eight:

Place a piece of scrap carboard on top, and I duct taped in place (not shown)

This creates a place for all your toy story themed toys!

Nine:

Add toys, tissue, packing peanuts (that I couldn't find!)

Ten: 

PULL AND PARTY!

Toy Story Birthday Bash!

Happy Birthday Carter!

I cannot believe he is THREE already! 

The first thing I made after he decided on a Toy Story theme was this banner.

The pennants are Woody's flannel shirt, his cowprint vest, and Andy's Sky wallpaper!

(Available in the shop, Cowprint and Woody's Flannel!)

One of the last things I did was add some streamers to the staircase! 

(I decorated after he went to bed the night before so it was a surprise on his birthday!)

(As you can tell he loved it!)

But it was the first thing he saw after getting up!

Some other decorations were the "Ready To Play" banner my mom picked up for me.

I love that its plastic, and doesn't say Happy Birthday! So now it will be going into the playroom! 

Love when I find great freebies online!

Pin the tail on bullseye!  

Of course the army men were staked out in all my plants!

 They were telling all of Carter's toys what he was getting for gifts!

I made several Army men garlands! Picked up a pack of men in the $1 store and hot glued them to some kitchen twine!

The paratroopers also made an appearance too!

My biggest accomplishment for the party! 

The "moving box" pull string pinata!

(Tutorial here! So simple! And no guilt throwing it out, because it cost NOTHING to make!)

Any and all Toy Story themed toys made an appearance somewhere amongst the party decor!

My sister's awesome dump truck cake! Lotso beware! Woody and Buzz where using his truck all day!

We snacked on traditional party fare, and my oh so yummy cake batter dip!

I'll be sharing some of the details in their own post later this week!