If you have small paper bags and colored construction paper, these little guys are super easy to make! The kids wanted to make some paper bag puppets so I simply googled paper bag puppets and found many ways to create one! We found a simple tutorial here for the puppy puppet and a simple tutorial here for the owl puppet here.
These hair clips are so fun and simple to make. I got the cute and simple idea from mycakies.com. All you need is some felt, thread, a sewing needle and some hair clips. You can even use hot glue if you don’t know how to sew or just don’t feel like sewing! I also made some hair clips for the girls to wear on St. Patricks Day. I found some clover patterns here. I cut out the pattern and used it to cut out the green felt. Cut two pieces, sew or hot glue together and hot glue a clip and you’re done!
We love reading any story by Jan Brett. Our family favorite is of course The Mitten. Our copy has literally had to be stapled and put back together several times. Not because the kids don’t take care of it but because we’ve handle the book so, so, so many times! I found this really simple and fun activity to go along with the story. I had these printed and kept on hand for a snowy day, and lucky for me and the kids it SNOWED! Lots and lots of snow. It was fun to read the book and do the activity after hours of playing in the snow! You can find a pdf format Here. I’ve found lots of great resources and activities at www.janbrett.com.
You know your kids are getting big when you can all sit and decorate eggs without it becoming a complete stress fest! I think this is the first year I actually 100 percent enjoyed egg coloring season! In the past I enjoyed it about 75 percent, maybe? Having three kids so close in age there was always one, even two children who were too little to do it by themselves and too impatient to wait for help. But this year, it was just lovely and the girls were able to take their time and share the colors and I was even able to color a few myself! I’m not sure why but I didn’t take any pictures of what the girls did to their eggs! They added eyes and tails and glitter, they came out so cute! I could swear that I took a picture before we turned them into egg salad. Oh well! And Isabel, what happened to the picture of her!? Well, she was there! and her eggs were awesome!
I can’t believe I’ve been celebrating Passover for 14 years now! Being born Catholic I had never celebrated the holiday before meeting my husband Amir. I have to admit it has become one of my favorite holidays and my in laws do such a beautiful Seder! The kids were so involved this year and so excited about it. They followed along with the Haggadah (the Seder prayer book which tells the story of the Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt) they even sipped on juice or seltzer (instead of wine) and they loved the part where they were instructed to recline in their chairs. They especially loved being able to reenact the 10 plaques using their puppets! My in-laws always put together a very traditional Seder table with a Seder plate and the Elijah cup and a traditional meal which consists of Matzoh latke’s (my favorite) and my mother in-law’s amazing Matzoh ball soup, and of course a feast filled table! Although a handful of our favorite family members were not able to join us this year it still ended up being a very special passover. Thank you Ema and Aba!
The Ten Plagues is one of the most fun parts of the Passover Seder for me and the kids! My kids love acting out the plagues, and these quick and easy to assemble plague puppets are perfect to get them involved and help them (and myself) learn more about the Passover story. Last year we made these cute plague puppets for the kids to use during our Passover Seder. I had bought a set at Party City years ago and when I went to take it out I found that some pieces were missing (my youngest had gotten into the bag and well not sure what happened next but some pieces were torn and chewed up). Instead of buying a new set I decided to quickly make one. I found a cute printable set here and here. We printed them out, laminated them ( I actually used large clear tape to laminate them because I don’t have a laminator!) , and cut each one out and glued them to a straw (didn’t have Popsicle sticks!). I found a cute little shoe box and had the girls decorate it and we use it to store our plagues. I was so excited to find it in one piece and can’t wait to use it tonight! Happy Passover!
The holidays are gone and I’m finally getting around to posting the results of our holiday party! I can’t believe I didn’t get many pictures of my little reindeer family! We had so much fun dressing up though, and the party was lots of fun! I did my best with the makeup! Some thought we looked like little mice but definitely very cute little mice! The girls loved the reindeer ears and wore them throughout the holiday! We definitely celebrated the holidays for the entire month of December. Between 5 birthdays, Chanukah and Christmas by the time January came we were pooped and ready to start a new year!
We are invited to a holiday party at my sisters house and were asked to dress up for the occasion. Our family is going as santa’s reindeer. To keep things at a low cost, I bought the kids these cute pajamas from kohls instead of buying costumes.
and these cute antlers from Oriental Trading. They came in a pack of 12 which was cheaper than buying them separately. I keep the extras in a basket and whoever comes during the holiday season can wear them! I even brought one to my dads. He wore it for the entire evening! So cute!
To complete the reindeer outfits I made these tags from the extra cardboard sitting in our garage. I used permanent markers to write the name of each reindeer and used glue and glitter to embellish the tags. I bought the cute little bells from the dollar store and hot glued them at the bottom. Then I hot glued some thick string I found in my craft box and ta da! Reindeer Tags!!! Now everyone will know who is who! I cannot wait to see my little reindeer all dressed up!
This year I did a lot of my holiday shopping online and because of that we have so many boxes in our garage! I always like creating stuff from our empty boxes. We’ve made tons of treasure boxes, spaceships, beds for dolls and puppy dogs but I have never made a house! I guess since we have a huge doll house I never thought of making one until I stumbled upon one here. I thought it was so cute and thought it would be so fun to make one with my little Lia. Ruby from mycakies has specific instructions you can follow. I kinda winged it with mine so it’s not as fancy as hers but we definitely had so much fun creating it and theres still more decorating we’d like to do. I’m proud to say that I let Lia do a lot of the decorating herself without trying to take over the entire project! This was a great way for the two of us to spend time together.
It seems as the school year comes to an end, my girls realize how much they love and will miss their teachers. My daughter Melina asked me the other night, “Mom?, can I take Miss. Christine and all my teachers to Kindergarten with me?” The fact that they get so close to these teachers only to have to say goodbye to them breaks their hearts and mine too! My girls take a while to warm up to someone, so by the time they have warmed up it’s time to say goodbye! They both really love their teachers and are very sad about the change that will come. I told them, “In life, there are going to be lots of wonderful people that will come into your lives, sometimes they stay for a while and sometimes they leave sooner than we are prepared for, so treasure them while they are in your life and know that they will always have a special place in your heart.”
I will never forget the wonderful teachers who taught me. Miss Ladhie, Miss Murphy, Miss Lane, Miss Thornton and so many more. I loved them all so much. Everyone of them helped to create the person I have become. I wish I could say thank you to them today!
Now that school is about to end I wanted my girls to have a special way to thank their own teachers. I couldn’t think of anything special enough so I asked a friend who happens to be a teacher and she said she loves getting a plant especially a plant that’s in a pot decorated by the child. I instantly loved the idea and so did the girls!! I went out the next day and bought some inexpensive pots from Target and Family Dollar and had the girls pick out flowers at a local nursery. I was going to have them paint the pots but instead decided to have them use permanent markers. This made decorating them much easier and allowed them to work on the pots throughout the week without making a big mess and I don’t have to worry about their drawings getting washed off by the rain! They had a good 2 weeks to work on the pots before we planted the flowers. This also makes a great Get Well gift, Mothers Day gift or any kind of occasion gift!
