Chalk village

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One of my favorite things to do with the kids is draw a chalk village for their cars. It's like Sim City all over again. We get to decide where the neighborhood is, the grocery store, park, airport, school, library, fire station, lake, police station, and whatever else we feel like throwing in there. And perfect for all of their ages. John can help draw the houses, and Dan and Joe drive the cars on our streets. Then when we're done, we can leave our village there to play with later. At least until the rain comes!

Curious George and paper boats

The Curious George books are one of Daniel's favorite series. So after reading "Curious George Rides a Bike," we decided to make our own paper boats like George does in the book.

Painted rocks

I've been wanting to do this project for a long time now and finally got around to it last week. We used rocks we had collected on our camping trip, washed them off and let them dry. Then as soon as Joe was down for his nap we went for it. Decorated them with acrylic paints, then after they dried put mod podge over the top to give them a glossy look. This was a fun project not just for the kids but for me too! I made letter rocks that have uppercase letters on one side and lowercase on the other, number rocks, tic-tac-toe rocks with an "x" on one side and an "o" on the other, and a few rocks with shapes and pictures. The options are endless. Get creative and try it out!

Morning distraction: zip line

On these lazy summer days we haven't had a whole lot going on in the mornings. Nowhere we have to rush off to. And it's on mornings like these that the kids tend to drift to the TV or computer to fill the time. Unless there's some kind of distraction. I'm not completely against the TV or (educational) computer games, but I do think that too much of anything is a bad thing. And to be honest, I don't love starting our day with them. So I have found that if I have something ready for them to play with, a toy they haven't seen in a while, a game, a picture to color, etc., I can easily avoid the screens. One thing we tried this week was building a mini zip line that I found on the blog Made By Joel. Love this blog. So many fun ideas! The kids loved watching buttons, lego guys and whatever else we could attach to the paperclip zip down the line. Kept their attention and excitement for 3 or 4 mornings. Then, like any other toy, it started to get looked past. On to the next distraction!

Pine cone bird feeder

Yesterday the kids and I made bird feeders. John had made these in preschool and I thought it was a fun idea. We first tied yarn around the pine cones, then dipped them in peanut butter and bird seed. We hung them in some trees in our backyard and look forward to watching the birds!