It's Arts & Crafts Time!

Ella LOVES arts and crafts and Lily is getting to the point where she likes them more and more. Ella's preschool sent home a fun family activity that we tried two weekends ago. We found a bunch of broken crayons around the house, sorted them by color and put them into a muffin tin. We used my silicone muffin cups even though it said just put them in the muffin tin. I wasn't sure how they would come out of the tin so we used the muffin cups. Needless to say, those will be our crayon muffin cups from now on (which I sort of figured would happen). But we had a ton of fun sorting the crayons, watching them melt in the oven and then we let them cool overnight in the fridge. In the morning the girls were very excited to see the finished product and to try them out.






The girls and I also attended a Thanksgiving craft party on the Wednesday before Turkey Day. It was at a place called Kidcreate Studio. We had attended a birthday party there before and enjoyed it so I thought this would be a fun Thanksgiving activity. It is a bit overpriced for what you get, but the girls did have a fun time and I now have a great idea for a craft to do for one of their birthdays next year.

For creating fun, easy, and creative crowns:
Place a piece of clear packing tape of the table sticky side up. Be sure it is long enough to go around your child's head when finished. Have the child place feathers, sequins, leaves, anything that is reasonably flat and goes with whatever theme you are aiming for. Confetti would work great too. Once finished decorating, place an additional piece of tape over the first, lining up the sticky sides together. Press the two pieces together to seal the masterpiece. Measure it around your child's head, tape the two ends together, and Voila! You have an instant crown!



We had a very nice Thanksgiving at our house with my mom and Dave, Tom and Pat, my Grandma Betty and Aunt Carol, besides the four of us. It was a nice number to have and the food turned out very tasty with almost everyone contributing something. Ella even OFFERED to help wash some of the dishes afterwards! She also helped me clean the house before our visitors came. We're just calling her Cinderella now. :-) We are very thankful for all our family and friends, our beautiful house and MN surroundings, and Andrew's successful job. We had no idea what to expect for this year of adjustment to our new life in Minnesota and we are very thankful that life has surpassed any and all of our expectations!



Hope you all had a great Turkey Day!