Wednesday Activities

Look at Drew's huge smile! He would only laugh if he was looking at me.

Erik is such a handsome boy! He had a really good day today and is a great helper.

Here is Lily's cute hair. I'm letting her bangs grow out, so right now they cover her eyes. This is how we decided to keep her hair out of her eyes. Her hair is just so fine that it doesn't stay up in clips very well. She still looked so cute.

Lately I've really been trying to make a conscious effort to do more activities with the kids. When it's nice we go to the park and play outside. It's actually been pretty cold the last few days so I haven't wanted to take Drew outside. We've been playing lots of games such as Memory and Uno. The other thing we've actually been doing often is puzzles. We have a few 100 piece puzzles that Erik LOVES to do. He's very good at them too! Lily helps a bit, but she likes to do her 24 piece puzzles. I really can't believe how quickly Erik completes the puzzles. He could probably do them alone faster than I could. This is one of the 100 piece puzzles he loves. It's a Magic Discovery puzzle that has hidden pictures in the black areas.

Today I decided to do some simple craft activities with them while Drew was taking a nap. First we made tambourines using bowls, beans, stickers and ribbons. Then we made sack puppets. Erik and Lily had a great time making the tambourines. I had 18 small rolls of ribbon and they both used all 18 designs. Erik started calling it his spaceship. They also used them as drums. We made some simple puppets who spent some time talking to each other. After about 5 minutes, Lily crumpled hers up and said she squished it. It then ended up in the garbage. She did keep her tambourine. In fact, she carried it around the house for about an hour. Something so simple that they both loved. We had a good time together.

Here are the finished products, minus Lily's puppets.

Tonight I decided to take the kids to McDonald's just to get out of the house. I decided to take them to a McDonald's with a playplace. Wednesdays just happen to be Family Night at this McDonald's. I don't know if other restaurants do this, but it's a great idea. First of all, hamburger Happy Meals only cost 99 cents when you buy a value meal. Fantastic, especially now that you can get a sald or fruit and yogur parfait instead of fries! Then, they had different activities for the kids to do, such as coloring, games, tattoos, a craft and sidewalk chalk. This McDonald's also has a few basketball hoops inside that Erik loved. If the kids color and hang up a picture they can get a free ice cream. Erik and Lily had fun running around and playing the different games. Drew sat in the high chair and was perfectly happy looking around and watching the people sitting around us. We stayed for about an hour and a half and finally left because Drew and Lily were getting tired. This is something we will probably be doing more often. Overall we had a really fun day today!