Busy Boys

The first Saturday of February D took N to his first toy tractor show. They had a great time and N did well with 2.5 hour drive. While they were gone, L and I went to a nearby Children's Museum. He really enjoyed it! His favorite activities were the water table and the painting area.

One day last week N got off the bus and was in a very cranky mood. We got inside the house and I suggested we have a snack picnic and I'd let N choose any room in the house for our picnic. That snapped him right out of his funk!

The boys were sick this week. L started with symptoms a week ago Sunday (could we have picked s'thing up at the CDM?) then was full on sick my Monday. So, Mommy and L stayed home Monday through Wednesday. N woke up on Thursday morning with symptoms and a fever, so he stayed home too. By Friday morning we had ear infections, coughs, runny noses and pink eye in our house. Ick! The boys were sick, but they still had energy to do some low key activities. We needed to pass the time somehow!

I made Sensory boxes for the boys. They each have their own box of rice and toys to play with. Last week I freshened our Sensory Boxes up with a Valentines items. I was going to dye the rice red or pink, but opted not to because I found cute colored beads to put in the box. I ended up with heart shaped pink and purple beads as well as red bracelet beads. I also got each boy a heart shaped clear container. L likes running his hands through the beads and N likes sifting the colored beads out of the rice and sorting them into different containers.

One day while L played in his sensory box (or "flower box" as he calls it), I worked on an Art Cart project for N's class. I will be teaching them about Van Gogh and his Sunflower painting. I cut lots of sponges into pedal shapes. The kids will use the sponges to create their own Sunflower painting. So, between L's rice play and my sponge cutting, we made a big, yet colorful mess!

Because L liked painting so much at the Children's Museum, I decided to break out our giant roll of paper (IKEA) and paints and supplies and let him go to town.

We put tempura paint in plastic bags and practiced writing.

N wanted to play hotel, so we made door hangars out of construction paper and put a number (and stickers) on each hangar. N put them on all of our bedroom doors so each "guest" knows which room is his/hers. L played Play-Doh while N and I played hotel.

I tweaked this idea (below) I saw on Pinterest. Love Pinterest!!! The original use was for a chore chart. Each pin had a chore listed on it and once the child completed that chore, he/she move the pin to the right hand side so they could see what they'd done and what they had left to do around the house. Well, since the boys were sick and because N needed several doses of meds each day, I made this into a medicine chart. Suprisingly, N is actually very interested in it! He loves moving the pins after each dose. I told him if he takes all of his meds like a big kid and once he's moved all the pins over, he can have a treat. That has worked very well.

L woke up with a yucky ear this morning that will require several doses of medicines and drops each day, so I see a second medicine chart in our future for him.

D and I managed to get out of the house Saturday night for a Valentine's date night. We had the most delicious meal at Biaggi's. Biaggi's has an entire gluten free menu, so I felt like a princess ordering such yummy food. They even had gluten free bread to munch on while we waited for our entree's to arrive. Yum!!! The food was good and so was the company. It's always nice when D and I can get out w/o the boys for some grown up time. :)

On Sunday I couldn't handle the thought of germs in our house anymore, so "Operation Sanitize" commenced!