Celebrating the Fourth of July

Celebrating the Fourth of July

 

I think Fourth of July is becoming one of my favorite holidays.  There aren’t any huge preparations that need to be done – no gift shopping, gift wrapping, basket making, etc.  Every year, we host brunch with our immediate family and then head over to our town’s parade.  The boys love running around in the street and watching the marching bands, dancers, old fashioned cars, and fire trucks pass by.  We come home, put the boys in for a nap, then usually go to a BBQ.  Simple.  Fun.

 

Thinking about the upcoming holiday has me talking to the boys about WHERE we live, because it is of course a celebration of our country.  From teaching them that we live in the United States of America lead us to working on learning our ADDRESS and some other BASIC PERSONAL INFORMATION.  I always tell the boys the name of our street when we turn down our block and I will periodically ask or tell them what town we live in, but lately, I’ve been putting it all together into teaching them our complete address.  Almost every night when I lay with them in their room before bed, I ask them their address and we talk about where we live.  We also have added in when their BIRTHDAYS are.

When I was working in a school, one of my biggest pet peeves was when students didn’t know their address and/or birthday.  I had 4^th and 5^th graders that couldn’t tell me what street they lived and had no idea when their birthday was.  Now since I was working with these children, they of course all had some sort of speech and language issues, so in some cases this lack of knowledge was because of their disability, but in many cases it was just a lack of someone talking to them about it.  ADDRESSES and BIRTHDAYS are something that needs to be directly taught and it’s not something children learn in school – it’s taught at home.  I write in this blog mostly about how to teach your children through experiences as opposed to drilling information but in this case, just tell them their address and birthday – again and again and again.  Bringing it up at a time when you’re about to celebrate the U.S.A. or before someone else’s birthday of when driving down your street, certainly make the information more relevant, so take advantage of those opportunities. 

 

 

In addition to talking about where we live, I am also hoping to do some painting this week.  I love painting fireworks because it’s so simple and no matter what or how you paint, it can totally look like a firework.  You can use your hands, paintbrushes, sponges, star shaped cookie cutters, etc. Last year, we painted with q-tips. 

 

 

This year, I think we’ll try one of these great Fourth of July painting craft ideas:

Handprint American Flag

Spectacular Fireworks using a toilet paper roll

Exploding Fireworks using a sponge

Firework Painting using pipe cleaners

During our craft, we’ll be focusing on the colors, RED, WHITE and BLUE as well as the concepts BIG and LITTLE (as in, “here you painted a BIG firework, but this firework is LITTLE).  Expanding on the words BIG and LITTLE will add in HUGE, TINY, and my little Anthony’s favorite word right now, ENORMOUS.  DESCRIBE your artwork and make it come to life by PRETENDING to be fireworks when you’re done.   Encourage your little one to use their SENSES to talk about fireworks – what do they LOOK like, SOUND like, SMELL like, how would they FEEL (hot).   

Let me know if you find any Fourth of July crafts that your little one loves!

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Love & Language,

Marisa

MORE Car Wash Activities!

My boys love washing their little toy cars, so I thought why not start another car wash on a bigger scale???  Here are two different ideas for getting out the suds and bubbles again!

BIG TRUCK Car Wash

We had a custom shelf built for our larger trucks (the Bruder trucks are too long to fit on most bookshelves and I hated having them lay on the floor) and we refer to it as our garage.  One morning, I was feeling ambitious and my goal was to completely clean the playroom – surfaces and all.  The hard part about doing this is always that once I touch any toy, the boys immediately want to play with it.  So, I spread some towels down on the floor and gave them a water bucket, rags, and squirt bottles. I told them while I cleaned the garage, they were going to wash their trucks – they were thrilled!  I had them drive their trucks to form a line at their car wash and while I cleaned the garage shelves, as well as the rest of the playroom, they washed down all their trucks!  It was easy enough to just let the trucks dry once we were all done and I have to say, I was actually able to complete my cleaning mission!  I felt good giving my children a PRETEND PLAY experience while I carried out a grown up task. 

 

 

Car Wash Outdoors

We’ve been spending much of our time outdoors with the warm and sunny weather, which is great.  The fresh air is good for everyone and the boys just seem calmer and happier when they’re outside.  The other day was hot enough for the pool.  Anthony has always loved the pool, but Michael not so much.  Anthony begged Michael every 10 minutes to come in the pool with him and Michael just went on his merry way mowing the lawn with his toy mower.  I felt bad for both of them and wanted them to spend a little time playing together.  Car wash!   I brought out their pails, some rags, and the sprinkler and told them it was time to play car wash.  I had bought bath tub finger paints from the Dollar Spot at Target so I squirted their Little Tike car with them to get them “dirty.” 

The boys set to work cleaning their vehicle!  It was a good time to chat about CLEAN and DIRTY and also the different PARTS OF THE CAR (hood, lights, trunk).  Adding words that NAME the PARTS of things is a great way to expand your little one’s vocabulary.  We also talked about the FUNCTION of each of the PARTS (the steering wheel turns the wheels).  It really was a fun way to spend a sunny afternoon!

 

Hope your little ones find these car wash activities as enjoyable as we did!  Make sure to check out our original car wash activity which is perfect for a rainy day!

 

Love & Language,

Marisa

Michael’s DUMP EVERYTHING 2nd Birthday Party

Michael’s DUMP EVERYTHING 2^nd Birthday Party

 

I was originally going to go with a train theme for Michael’s 2^nd birthday party.  I had the invites and a bunch of other stuff already picked out, but as it got closer Michael seemed less interested in trains and more into diggers.  So I left it up to him, “Michael, would you like a train birthday party or a digger birthday party?”  His response, “dig-dig birtay pary.”  Michael’s language skills have come a long way in the past few months.  He went from saying only single words to talking in sentences in a matter of a week at about 21 months old.  A month later, his actual speech became a lot clearer.  This language explosion has really had a significant impact on our family life.  Michael is able to be part of our conversations now and eaves dropping on Michael and Anthony’s chats completely melts my heart.  Michael is happier because he’s less frustrated in getting his point across.  Some of the things he says now assures me that he has been listening for a long, long time before he could let us know himself.  But back to the party…

Pinterest and Etsy were my main resources for ideas and I searched “construction party” on Oriental Trading, Shindigz, Birthday Express and Amazon to find some products that would go with the theme. 

I purchased a digital file invitation on Etsy from Mason’sMommy Designs.  If you’ve never done invitations this way before, I really recommend looking into it.  Rather than searching countless invitation websites for the perfect invite, just do a search on Etsy – I searched “construction party invitation.”  Mostly digital file invites will come up but there are also printed invitations for sale, but those tend to be costly.  Complete your purchase and send the seller your party information and a picture file (if your invitation needs a photo).  The turn around time is usually fairly quick.  This seller got me back my invitation file in less than 24 hours.  Once the seller emails you the invitation, you can upload it to a site that can print it.  I used Mpix.  The cost was about $1/invitation and I received them in a few days.  Invitations… done!

 

Next, I started thinking about the favors.  I’ve mentioned before that I am a big fan of the Dollar Tree and that was where I started my shopping.  Luckily, they carry a variety of individual CAT diggers.  My boys have these and they LOVE playing with them too.  I was able to find the amount that I needed at a local Dollar tree, but you can also make a bulk purchase from them online.  They will even ship it to a store near you for free. 

I envisioned the truck sitting in a bucket on top of a pile of dirt.  I ordered black tin pails from Oriental Trading and filled the bucket with candy instead of dirt.  It didn’t seem complete without some sort of label, so I searched on Etsy once again.  I came across a listing from Popcorn and Pixels that included food tent labels, cupcake toppers, and  thank you tags.  I knew I could find a way to incorporate all of that so I made a purchase.  It was also a digital file, so I received the file from the seller and printed them myself.  I used the cupcake toppers as my favor labels.  I printed them out on full sheet label paper and then used a very large hole puncher to cut them out.  I placed them on the front of the pail, bagged the whole thing in a baggie and tied it up with orange and yellow bows.  I was very pleased with the end result!

 

I printed the food tent labels and used them to label the food I had set out for guests.  It was a morning party so we kept it simple with bagles, muffins, croissants, and yogurts. 

The cupcake topper labels also served another purpose – another little something for our little guests.  Construction hats of course!  I wrote each child’s name on one of the labels and stuck them on construction hats that I purchased on Amazon. 

 

 

 

 

The construction theme made décor fairly simple… black, yellow, and orange tablecloths, paper goods, and balloons.  I purchased CAUTION tape from Amazon and hung it in various places in the yard and used the boys’ diggers as weights for the balloons.  I used my Silhouette Cameo to design and cut a Happy Birthday banner.  Decorations… done!

 

The guest list totaled about 23 children so I planned a few activities to make sure everyone was entertained.  Children do tend to keep themselves busy but I always worry that they’ll get bored.  I purchased a bulldozer piñata through Amazon and a tool picture frame craft from Oriental trading, which both seemed to please the kids!

 

I purchased cones and rings to set up for a ring toss game.  I found a Pinterest the idea of a wrecking ball game – wrap large boxes (diaper boxes worked perfectly and I always have plenty of them), have the kids stack them up and then have a big ball for them to throw and knock them over.  The kids enjoyed setting up the blocks just as much as they enjoyed knocking them down.

 

 

 

Most people have a sandbox in their yard, but my boys love dirt.  My husband built them a dirt box and it is filled with their shovels, pails and of course, diggers.  We had the dirt box ready to go and I think most of the children played in it for a little while.

 

 

Desserts… my personal favorite part of any party.  We had “paint brushes,” which were rectangle rice krispy treats put on a stick and dipped in chocolate and “logs,” which were chocolate dipped pretzels.  I also made chocolate cupcakes, which were coated with chocolate frosting, sprinkled with cookie crumbs and completed with a digger cupcake topper purchased from Amazon.   

 

I saw several versions of the cake I wanted to make on Pinterest, but I feared that although it looked super easy to do that it would be a major Pinterest FAIL.  Luckily, I was totally wrong!  I baked two chocolate round cakes – one 10 inches in diameter and the other 8 inches.  Once they cooled, I sliced off the top of each cake to make a flat surface.  I frosted the larger cake completely and then laid the smaller cake on top pushed to one side.  I frosted the top layer.  I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out a number2 and placed it on the top layer.  I sprinkled cookie crumbs (I used Oreos) over the entire cake and made sure to get around the outline of the number two.  I removed the paper and it worked perfectly to leave a smooth 2 on the cake.  I added some CAT diggers that I used for the favors and spelled out MICHAEL in shapes I cut out on the Silhouette.  I have to admit that I was very proud of how the cake turned out!

 

I bought the birthday boy a dump truck t-shirt from FreshFrog Tees on Etsy and I think he looked super cute in it!  Michael seemed to really enjoy his “dig dig birtay pary” and I had lots of fun planning it as well!  Starting to think about Matthew’s 1^st birthday now…

 

 

Love, Language & Diggers,

 

Marisa

 

 

He's a Giver!

There are givers and takers in this life and my husband is a giver.  He is one of the most selfless people  have ever met in my life and it amazes me still today.  One of the things I loved most about him when we first started dating was that he made me want to be a better person.  His example of strength, perseverance, humility, patience, generosity, and confidence has always made me strive to be more, but without making me feel like less.  We seem to complete each other in many ways... where one leaves off, the other one begins.  He's calm, I'm much more intense.  He sees the big picture, and I focus on the details.  He's a night owl and I much rather go to bed early.   He's a steak and potatoes guy and I'm a grilled veggie kind of girl.  And where these differences may be seen as opposite ends of pole, they compliment each other in a way that suits us just fine. 

 

Being the parents of three boys three and under is certainly not easy.  There are many moments of frustration and exhaustion but we make it through and its greatly in part because of the amazing partner my husband is.  After working a long day, he jumps right in to whatever fun or tough times we're having at home.  He gives the boys their bath almost every night and is with them brushing their teeth and as we tuck them in at night.  After all the clean-up and preparations for the next day, I pass out.  But not my husband.  He stays up for a few more hours fulfilling his dream of having his own business, while at the same time working a second job so that I can live out my dream of being home with the boys every day. 

 

 

My boys adore their dad and if I thought I couldn't love my husband anymore, seeing him play with them, teach them, and laugh with them makes me fall in love with him again and again.  I can only hope that all of my sons grow up to be just like their daddy.  I am grateful for my husband every day and more than happy to celebrate the family man he is today!

 

Happy Father's Day to all the great dads out there!