Dollar Dino's

One of AJ's recent preschool units was on Dinosaurs.  I stopped in the local dollar store to see if I could find a bag of small dinosaurs to sort. 

Well, I hit the dino jackpot!

While I didn't take pictures of all of our activities in process, I did take some.

Laundry bag:I set out the bag of wooden dinosaur cutouts (see 1st photo) as a reference for the shape of a dinosaur.  I drew a dinosaur with a Sharpie-freehand.

Carefully, I cut on the inside my marker lines-cutting through both

sides of the bag-which made 2 dinosaurs.

We dipped the poly scrubbers (1st photo) into fabric paint and

made spots on our dinosaurs.

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Foam Circles:
We used the green, yellow,and purple circles for a balance activity. 

I placed two of each color on top of each other to give them a little dimension.  Place them on the floor and stomp from each circle. Note: Save the circles and for future use with a homemade game of Twister, dice, or another activity, such as making a circle frame craft with your child's picture for his/her grandparents .  I thought this package was great with the variety of colors...for $1!

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Stamp:

The stamp looked like a dinosaur footprint to me!

(Look at him use his left hand!)

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This came home in AJ's backpack one day-they made soap dinosaur eggs! It took a good few days to use up all the soap, but at the end AJ had a pterodactyl!

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Not Pictured:

*We decorated our wooden dinosaur cutouts-we had plenty leftover for future use.  Idea: Tie their tails together to make dino-garland.

*We sorted small dinosaurs by the number of feet they had.

*I printed out dinosaur coloring pages and cut the sponges into small circles.  We dipped the sponge circles into paint and made spots on our dinosaurs.

*We played with 3 different dinosaurs (play size-also found at the dollar store) and felt their different textures, weights, etc.

Food Ideas:

Macaroni & Cheese with Broccoli Trees-What herbivores eat!

Speckled Chocolate Easter Egg Candy-Dinosaur Eggs

Dinosaur Fruit Snacks

Dinosaur-Shaped Chicken Nuggets

Chocolate/Vanilla Pudding Swirl-Mud/Swamp

Click here for more cool food ideas...I think the "swamp mud" sounds awesome!

Tuesday and Thursday's 10

1. We seem to have a lot of people stalking our house.  Like, slowing down and passing very slowly.  Now, if only they would call and schedule a showing.  We've been looking at houses online again and have a lot of new listings.  Exciting!  Our house looks so bare...I'm starting to miss pictures of my little man and our families on the walls.

2. Last week was a total tease, we had 50 degree weather for several days.  This week, we were hit with more snow.  Our area wasn't hit as hard as those around us, but its still snow! It is supposed to be an early spring.  How about an early early spring?

3. AJ and I both have wicked colds.  His has turned from a head cold to a chest cold.  Poor thing.  We're full steam ahead with humidifiers, even a pot of water on the stove (our house is super dry) and Vicks vapor rub. I kept him home yesterday, in hopes of kicking this thing to the curb, only to find out he does not have school for the rest of the week.  5 days off, with a sick kiddo who doesn't like to cuddle, doesn't watch movies or cartoons, and gets bored very easily.  Fun.  Surprisingly, he's in a very good mood, he just sounds like he's hacking up a lung when he coughs.

4. We've gone a full week already without a bedrail on AJ's bed.  Another big boy moment. He's stayed in bed every single night. He's a CP kiddo, in a regular twin bed (in size and height), with no bed rail.  Amazing.  That is a smile behind the blanket....

5. For a while I was making our laundry detergent (FelsNaptha, Borax, Washing Soda). It was super cheap to make , and I'm a stickler about how much I'll pay for laundry soap.  I started grating the bar soap in my food processor upstairs, but mixing everything together downstairs because the dust from the powders lingered and really bothered me.  I couldn't breathe.  After doing some research, I found out the dust from Borax is toxic.  Lovely.  No wonder I couldn't breathe. I follow Bonnie's blog and kept reading about Shaklee products.  Actually, I think I was really stalking her blog! After asking her a million questions about the products, doing my own research, and cleaning my oven with oven cleaner (which I will NEVER do again), I'm now a Shaklee customer.  No more mixing my own stuff and not being able to breathe.  I absolutely love their stuff.  I'll be writing more in another post.

6.  Jeremy and I have been going on regular date nights. It's been heavenly.  We've been trying to think outside the box instead of going to the same restaurants or just going to a movie.  Last night we ventured to one of those restaurants where its changed hands and names a billion times in the last few years...the food was great and the atmosphere was perfect. 

7. Is there any produce that is grown in the USA?!! I overheard a conversation the other day that tomatoes in the stores are picked green, then sprayed with CO2 to artifically ripen them.  EWW.  I don't know if thats totally true, but  it was enough to totally gross me out and make me hate buying produce from the store even more.  Spring is coming...with summer following and that means farmer's markets.  And maybe the CSA I mentioned in my last post.  I don't know about you, but I think grapes from Chile taste gross.

8. AJ signed "bath" so beautifully to me on Wednesday night that I cried.  There seems to be a correlation between motoring him through the motions while teaching him signs that really connects things for him.

9. I'm staring at a package of Pampers sitting here on the counter (no we aren't announcing anything, they are part of a gift) and its making me realize two things: AJ truly is no longer a baby and reminding me of how much I love that stage in life and wish another baby was in our future. 

10. This past week was the one year anniversary of my Gram's death.  I really have no idea how its been a year already.  We honored her memory by having dinner with my family and telling stories.  Some our own, and some of Gram's.  I found myself at the best bakery in town yesterday.  I'm not sure why, I just ended up there.  She'd always insist on stopping there after her dental appointments.  Which totally makes sense, right?! It was just across the street you know. She'd be super excited to know they put a new location 10 minutes from her house.  Their apple turnovers are "The Best", she'd say.  Since it was evening, they were out of almost everything already.  Including Gram's beloved apple turnovers.  But, thats ok.  I got ham and rolls instead and walked out with fond memories of my Gram.

Tuesday's 10

Since I so look forward to checking two of my favorite blogs on Tuesdays to see their top 10 thoughts, I'm jumping on the Tuesday bandwagon too....

1.  Despite my brave attempts to stave off replacing our garage door opener, I think it finally bit the bullet. It usually gets cranky during super cold weather and forces us open and close manually (horrors), so I wasn't surprised when it wasn't moving.  It was the grizzly grinding sound coming from the motor that was just awesome.  Super-Duper.

2. Today was AJ's 2nd rockin' day at school.  Three novel activities were tried...with no tears. I LOVE good days.  They fill my heart with such joy.

3. I've been researching local farms that participate in CSA.  With our house on the market, we won't be planting a garden this year and I'm anxious to keep a nice stock of healthy veggies and meats in the house.  I'm also looking to add more fish into our menus.  We all love fish, we just don't seem to eat a lot of it.  Anyone have yummy recipes? Share!

4. We returned from our trip to Hawaii just a few days ago (blog post coming soon).  My carry-on still smells like coffee and coconuts.  It's awesome.

5. I need to figure out a way to spread out AJ's appointments.  Period.  We work with over 25 people on his team and somehow, appointments seem to get stacked together all in a week. 

6. There seems to be a Steve Carrell marathon on lately.  Which usually means if I watch said marathon I'm bound to see Paul Rudd too.  Love them both.  They make me laugh hysterically...

7. Was Valentine's Day really yesterday?  Despite being exhausted from our trip home, I stayed up late on Sunday night, frosting graham crackers, adding candy hearts for stamps, and handwriting each of AJ's classmates names in the TO and his name in the FROM areas on the edible "love letters" that were his valentines this year.  I made three batches of rice krispie treats and created "Hershey Kisses" by using kitchen funnels and then wrapping them in foil...complete with a little piece with a msg from AJ sticking out.
Am I insane?  Probably.  But since AJ's protest during our vaca hindered him and Grandma from doing these projects...I didn't want that to ruin anyone else's V-day.  And we all know how I/we feel about his school team.  Jeremy and I spent the evening working on a project for his current class and watching our loaded DVR.  I am NOT complaining...we certainly could not have topped our week+ in paradise.

8. Speaking of classes, Jer only has four weeks left of his class and then he is officially done with his BA.  I'm trying to plan a special celebration for him (shhhh don't tell him) but nothing seems to live up to his amazing accomplishment. 

9. AJ has this obsession with ICEE cups.  I found them one day, on a whim, at the Dollar Store.  Odd.  But, its a bold flavor, its cold, and packed solid in cups.  Easy to eat and perfect for his decreased oral awareness.  I know, horrible nutrition choice. Lets just get over that. I now have little hands that stand at the fridge and slam the refrigerator door after you've attempted to open it, and reach upward toward the freezer.  Sigh.  Its becoming quite a problem and I fear an ICEE strike, via Mommy, is coming. 

10. I felt completely relaxed when we left Hawaii.  Slightly stressed while traveling home.  And broken-hearted when I saw my sweet little boy's face when we pulled in the driveway.  His uber tear-stained face, complete with snot drippings and eyes shut, screaming for his Mommy and Daddy.  I'm super thankful we had the opportunity to go on this vacation, I'm super glad we went, we had an amazing time, but he wasn't ok.  He wasn't fine.  And it broke this Mommy's big heart to see the culmination of his week of meltdown.  Yesterday's jet lag brought crabby to this household and today brought uber stress.  Relaxation, where did you go?