box tunnels

We're in the midst of moving.  Luckily we have an extended closing because M gets as much satisfaction from unpacking boxes as I do from packing them.  It leaves us with a lot of boxes on our hands.  What's more fun for a one-year old than unpacking things Mommy has packed?  Crawling through box tunnels!  This is a really simple one - take an unconstructed box, open it up, and lean it against something so it doesn't collapse (we used the couch).  He had a ball crawling back and forth (and it gave us a name for our blog).

We also rolled the ball through and pushed the truck through and sometimes did both.

Why we loved box tunnels....
baby: novelty
mommy: exploration & creativity, lots and lots of crawling makes for a tired baby :-)

M's age when we played: 10 months, 3 weeks

mother's day handprints

On Saturday morning M and I attempted handprint keepsakes for the grandmothers, great-grandmother, and Godmother for Mother's Day.  I found the idea on Imagination Tree.  M is not big on handprints (as seen here) so it took us a few tries.  The best thing about this project was that when our handprints came out sloppy or, more often the case, not deep enough into the dough, we could just roll the dough up and start over.
To make the dough we mixed 1 cup flour, 1 cup salt, and a little less than a 1/2 cup water.  I ended up adding more flour as the first round proved the be too sticky when we pushed M's hand in.  I used a wooden skewer to make holes that I put string through once they were done baking.  We baked them for a little over 2 hours at 200 degrees on parchment paper and I flipped them about halfway through.
After about 24 hours of air drying I painted them with acrylic paint and added an acrylic clear coat on top.  We wrote "Happy Mother's Day 2012" on the back as a finishing touch.

magnetic letter tray

M's new magnetic letter sets came in the mail this week and he's had fun playing with them on the fridge. One of the teachers I work with uses cookie sheets with letter tiles for phonics activities.  This morning we tried a few letters on a cookie sheet.

Why we loved the magnetic letter tray...

baby: pulling the letters off

mommy: exposure to the alphabet, fine motor skills (pulling the letters off the tray), developing pincer grasp, and it gave the letters that have been on the fridge for a few days a more novel appeal

M's age when we played: 10 months, 2 weeks

water bowl

This week was incredibly warm for our area so I was trying to think of some fun ways for M to cool off.  M loves water unless it comes in the form of a public pool (I have no explanation for that aversion) so I filled up our biggest bowl, added some toys, and plopped him down on a beach towel on our porch. 

There was a whole lot of splashing...

and by the end of 15 minutes, no water left in the bowl and a happy baby...

Why we loved the water bowl....

baby: lots of splashing and playing with toys

mommy: promoting fun in the water

M's age when we played: 9 months, 1 week

christening favors

Every holiday season in first grade we make snowman ornaments with the kids' handprints.  

When I was thinking of what to do as favors for M's baptism reception party I thought of these ornaments (minus the snowmen).  After a few attempts of making one handprint with a tiny fisted-up hand I decided making 30 would be impossible so I shifted gears and painted M's foot.  I found that mess-ups were easily wiped off the balls with a wet wipe.  We were able to get 30 nice footprints and our guests loved the finished products!