DIY Sensory Bag

Sensory bags are super-duper easy and soooooo much fun! There are no real "rules" and the possibilities are endless! You can add anything or nothing or everything to them! And did I mention that the mess is "contained"!!! Woohoo for that!

Here's what I used to make Yulli's sensory bag!

All you have to do is add the hand sanitizer to the bag. Typically these bags are made with hair gel, but it just so happened that the giant bottle of sanitizer was cheaper than the hair gel so I went with that. At least I know her sensory bag will be germ-free haha!! I added a few drops of food coloring to make my bag blue! You can leave it plain or make it any color you want. Other variations I've seen are body wash/shampoo, lotion, water, oil, rice, sand... like I said the possibilities are endless!
Then I added some squishy jelly bugs. You can seriously put anything in the bag... just try to avoid sharp things! If you're fancy you can make different "themed" bags. If you have older children, let them decide what to put in there. Lay out a bunch of items and give them a "free for all" and make up their own bags! How fun would that be for them?
Squish out as much of the air as you can and then seal 'er up! I duct taped the top and all the sides for extra reinforcement! I also used a little bit of nail polish remover to get rid of the white Ziploc symbol from the bag!

These bags can just be a fun touch sensory item for the little ones to squish to their hearts content or you can use them in an I-spy type of way or if left plain can be used to draw or write using their fingers! I think foam or jelly letters would be a great way to teach alphabet recognition by playing I-spy. So much fun... what's going inside your sensory bag??

Holiday decorating in under 60 seconds!

Need a centerpiece for your Holiday Party?
Here are TWO super EASY ways to dress up your table for the holidays! You will need a large plate (or platter or bowl or any type of vessel), some garland, acorns and ornaments!

Okay here are the steps for the first centerpiece! Pay careful attention!
1. Place bowl on table.
2. Put ornaments in bowl!
3. Done! You just increased your Holiday Cheer by 100% in 10seconds!

If you are up for a "challenge", here is a much more challenging centerpiece!
1. Place plate on table (duh!)
2. Put garland on plate any which way you please. I like it to hang off the plate a little bit!
3. Add acorns and ornaments!!
4. Stand back and admire how you just did some holiday decorating in about 45seconds!

 

Well gee that was stupid simple wasn't it? Happy Decorating folks!

Powder Room Mini Make-Over!

Remember how I said that I wanted to wallpaper the powder room? Remember how I actually went and bought wallpaper? Remember how that was eons ago? Of course you don't remember... it was too long ago! Haha... Well guess what? It actually happened! Husband woke up early last Saturday morning and wallpapered the powder room for me! YAY! Pat on the back for Husband! And guess what else? I LOVE how it looks! Eeek! Such a dramatic difference!! Why didn't we do this sooner? Haha! I want to wallpaper EVERY room now!! I wonder how many years that will take!!
So would I recommend wallpapering to others... YES! Especially YES, if you have a Husband that will do it for you! You definitely have to be patient and precise and take your time! There were a few non-PG 4-letter words that escaped Husband's mouth during the process! Start with a random pattern that doesn't have to match up perfectly... those are much more forgiving! Also try and buy the pre-pasted stuff... it's a lot easier to work with! I of course had to make things difficult and picked a pattern that had to match up perfectly! Haha! It's a tiny quarter millimeter smidgen off, but not too shabby for a first attempt! Thanks Husband!

I tried to upload a BEFORE pic that Husband sent me, but it was taking too long! It was just a plain ol' boring grey wall, nothing special! It was also hard to take pics because it's such a small space! But here is the super fabulous AFTER:

 

This Snow Blows!

Mother nature decided to give us a stupid amount of snow this past week... and it's still coming! So in keeping with the sensory play, I let Yules play with it! Let's just say she's not begging me to play with it again!

Cookie Swap

What better way to kick off the holiday season and stuff our faces with sweets than have a cookie swap!! Some lovely ladies and I had a mini cookie swap last night! It was some yummolicious fun!! Is it gross that I am almost finished all my cookies? YIKES!!!

 

It's time...

Halloween: Check!
Remembrance Day: Check!
That only means one thing... Christmas is on it's way! Time to play Last Christmas by Wham all day long! And time to start DECORATING! We are still debating whether or not to put up our big tree this year! We might just put up the little one and see what the little monster does with it! That little terror-bot is so curious now and likes to touch and eat EVERYTHING! Hmmm... any suggestions of how to keep that monster away from my tree? Besides decorating only the top half, or putting a giant gate around it or actually watching my child?

 

Give-away Winner!!

I am a total little brat... asking you all to inflate my giant ego and tell me how awesome I am! Haha! You all lovingly obliged and are so majorly awesome! Thank you so much for all the super sweet comments, messages and emails! It really means so much to me!

As shady and corrupt as I can sometimes be... I was surprised at how many of you wanted me to rig the contest in your favour... especially for an unknown prize!! Haha nice try guys! I am an honest, legit person and this is a totally legit contest! NOT!! Bahaha none of you persuaded me enough! Not even Husband! 

Thank you to everyone that entered the contest! Anyways, without further ado... the winner is....

CONGRATS "Bubbles"! You are the winner of a "something lovely but unknown at the moment" prize! I will send you an email with all the details! 



Sensory Play continued...

Keeping up with the sensory play... here's what the little monster has been up to this week!

Our sensory table has been filled with leaves! We've spent time collecting them during our walks and examining them afterwards in the garage!

 

She loves to play with the water in Kalbi's bowl! Not really sure how to get her to stop! So one day I just had enough and let her have at it in the pantry sink while I put stuff away! She made a GIANT wet mess! This is exactly the reason she has the sensory table outside in the garage!

 

This is a quiet activity, hence the pom poms! You can easily adapt this for older kids by adding more tubes and angling them to meet one another! I made a marble run for the classroom similar to this. I also added magnets so it was easy for the kids to move the tubes around to where they wanted it to go! We stuck it to a magnetic white board. It could easily work on your fridge! I just used tape on the side of the kitchen island because there was no way Husband was going to let this stay up for very long!

Yulli also liked transferring the pom poms into her various lids and containers. You can adapt this activity for the older ones by having them sort by color or using different tongs, tweezers, scoops and spoons to work on fine motor strength. To be honest, the monster was most interested in transferring the pom poms to her mouth!! Haha

 

I also made Yules a Mystery Box! It's basically a big box that I cut a few random holes in. (tape the edges of the holes so that it isn't sharp) I threw a hole bunch of her junk in there. Little toys, balls, spoons etc. nothing fancy! Easiest entertainment for a baby ever! She loves to reach in there and pull out random things! She also likes to shove random things in there too. I had grand plans of wrapping the box so it looked prettier, but Husband also has grand plans of throwing that box in the recycle come next garbage day! Haha!

 
Look! Kalbs is curious what's in the box too!

 Did you play this week?

5 more days to enter!

Hey Peeps!
Just a few more days to enter my great amazing fabulous unknown give-away! I'll make the draw on the weekend!
I am definitely NOT feeling the LOVE though!! BOO on all of you! Husband has a very high probability of winning this contest!! Haha!!
Don't be shy, send a little love my way either by leaving a comment or sending me an email kalbsandyules@gmail.com

Gonna Party like it's my birthday....

Kalbs & Yules is ONE!! Happy Birthday to us! WOW I can hardly believe it's been one year since this blog has been created! This is also my 100th blog post! WOW I can't believe I had that many things to write about! WOW I also can't believe how many of you actually read this blog... over 22,000 page views in the last year!
Oh yah this is where I was supposed to insert a super cool celebration-like picture, but I obviously didn't get to it!
So to celebrate, I'm doing a give-away... well sort of! Haha!
This is how to enter:
Leave a witty comment/message telling me how super fabulous this blog is! You should probably leave an email address so I can contact you (if you're the winner) and where you're from, especially if you live somewhere better than here! If you aren't into PDAs, then feel free to send me an email kalbsandyules@gmail.com
Don't worry I won't spam you all... I'm not into that! Haha
I will use one of those random generator thingies to pick one of you! If you are the winner, then I'll send you something super cool! Not sure what yet, but it won't be an elephant or a monster or Kalbi! Haha!
If I receive NO love from you guys then this will sadly be the end of the road for Kalbs&Yules! No point in blogging if you guys aren't going to inflate my ego once in a while!! Haha So send some love this way and maybe you'll be the lucky winner that will receive some love back!