Hats and other accessories

Recently, Kyle has taken to trying on hats.  Not just putting it on and wearing it around, but almost as if he were practicing the art of wearing and placing a hat on one's head.  I must say that this new little habit of his has made for some really cute pictures. Enjoy!

 

 

 

I guess his practicing extends to accessories in general. It was quite hysterical to watch him trying to wear this pair of glasses.  His cute little nose is just not quite the right size to hold them up!

 

 

And since I am here posting gobs of cute Kyle photos, I figure I might as well add these treasures too.  Sometimes he is just too darn photogenic...and he hasn't started hiding from the camera like his big brother ;0)

 

 

Project Guitar

Just before Christmas, Corey saw a toy guitar at Target.  It wasn't just an ordinary toy guitar, no, it was one of those "I know it is going to be obnoxious" toy guitars with so many bells and whistles that you just could tell it would eat through batteries in a few hours and drive you nuts in much less. Unfortunately, he kept talking about this guitar.  Thus the idea of project guitar was born.  Daddy was going to be off work for several days for the holidays, and that would be plenty of time to do a daddy and me project with Corey.

It was great.  Corey and Daddy went out to the shop and together they cut out, routed and sanded a little wooden guitar (Daddy made a second one too so Kyle could have one too). 

And yes, we know he is holding it backwards in this photo.

 

 

Inside, we painted the guitars, and Corey picked out the stencil we used for a design on the front.
They were pretty much done with the exception of stings.  We weren't really sure what we were going to use, so it took us a while (okay weeks) to finish that last step.

Funny thing is, he referred to the Target toy guitar as the "purple guitar"
so I figured he would choose purple paint...nope, he went with RED :0)

 In the end we found some really large rubber bands, and instead of cutting them and trying to figure out how to attach them, we decided to leave them whole and have them wrap around the entire guitar...this would also make it much easier to replace broken "strings" ;0).  With a few well placed notches and a simple bridge, we had them well secured and ready to play! 

 

And Corey hasn't mentioned that silly toy guitar since :0).

Name, Numbers and Noodles oh my!

As you probably guessed from the title of this post, last week was N week.  I had all sorts of wonderful things thought up for the week, and I think I used them all up on day 1 (well, used them up, or had my idea completely rejected...Corey often wants to do a craft or project HIS way, and well there is just no changing his mind!!)!

First we started with his name.  We wrote it out on his white board, and I had him point to and name all of the letters in his name (this is not the first time we have done this...we have spelled his name out to him pretty much from the beginning).  I am happy to say that I think he actually got it this time...both letters and order!  We glued noodles in the shape of his name, and then I tried a play dough mat with his name.  He was supposed to form play dough into the shape of each letter, but he had his own ideas, so instead I did it and let him chop it up when I was done.  At least that way it was done both my way AND his way ;0).  I had the wonderful idea to let him use the play dough mat as a dry erase board so he could trace his name...but no such luck.  He just wanted to color in the O.  Oh well.

 

Don't be fooled, mommy did ALL the work ;0)

 

Corey enjoying destroying his play dough name

 

Kyle destroying his name (which mommy also made for him).
I think he was his brother's inspiration!

 

Later that day (while little brother was still napping), we dyed noodles.  He had a great time counting out the drops of food coloring and helping me pour in the vinegar (we used this as opposed to rubbing alcohol just in case Kyle tried to eat them...which he did ;0)).  It was lots of fun, but I think I left them in the dye mixture too long and the noodles had gotten a bit soggy so they were much harder to dry than I had anticipated (all the links to dying noodles made sound really easy...they also forgot to mention how stinky it was...perhaps another problem due to my letting them sit too long!).

 

 

Several days later, we were able to play with them.  We tried making necklaces (notice the N ;0)), but the noodles were a little to long for easy stringing.  I had to help Kyle with his, and Corey stopped at about 4 noodles.  Oh well.

 

 

 

Kyle modeling his necklace

We also spent some time working on number recognition and counting.  We have some neat dice that a friend of ours let us borrow.  They have the numbers 1-6 written on the sides, so we would roll the die and Corey would have to name the number showing.  All in all I think we had a very productive homeschooling week...even if it didn't all go as planned.

Oh and just a side note, the play dough mats/dry erase boards inspired yet another idea.  We made face mats.  We used them as place mats for snack and made faces with our snack food.  This could also be used with the dry eraser pens to make funny faces...like the face Corey made with a giant tooth and mouth and nothing else, then told me it was ME! Ha! (unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of that piece of work ;0))

 

Frozen

We have had a few days of below freezing weather here lately, and I am just fascinated by the way things look when they are all covered in frost.  But yesterday I found something most unusual.  Its beauty struck me, so I tried to capture it on "film".

The last couple were from a different day, but they were just as striking.  I am pretty sure the spiders are long gone, but having lived for years in places that freeze, I am surprised that this is the first time I have ever seen a frozen spider web.

Car Painting

I saw someone post this activity on Pinterest, and I knew right away that it would be something my boys would LOVE!  And I was right.  It was a little messy, but totally worth it.  All you need is some paint, a large sheet of paper and cars (maybe avoid beloved ones)...make sure to include some with some tread patterns if you have them.  I put a large blob of paint in each corner, then let them loose!