Roses are red, violets are blue...

Yules had a playdate the other day with the sweetest little boy! He rings the doorbell and when I answer, I look down to see this sweet boy holding flowers for my Yulli! Oh my gawwdddddd! Just about the cutest thing I ever did see! He proudly presents the flowers to her and the little monster runs off! Ummmm probably not the reaction he was expecting!! Haha! But she actually ran off to get a card that she made him and was just as eager to give it to him! Eeekk this is just too stinking cute and I'm kicking myself for not running to get my phone to capture this moment! His mom said it was his idea to get the flowers... how on earth does a 2 year old come up with the idea to buy flowers? His dad must  be a total romantic!

Husband cannot believe there are boys knocking on the door trying to woo his little girl already! Hahaha!

Cabin Fever!

It's been a sad, sad, sad couple of weeks around here! I have been deathly ill and pretty much confined to the house and we also dismantled Christmas! BOO so sad... therefore nothing terribly exciting to report. The monster has pretty much been keeping herself busy exploring and creating!

Painting!

Beading!

More Painting (stamping with cardboard tubes)

More Beading! *Side Note* Use a pipe cleaner when you are beading with the little monsters. It's easier for them to hold and the beads won't fall off. Seems like common knowledge but a lot of people actually don't know this useful tip! It will save you lots of headaches and tears!

Drawing Portraits!
This one is called "Jenny"! She's fancy because she got ears and red hair!

And this one is called "Sam Sam"! No ears!

This one is called "Mama"! She accidently got some glue in the middle of the heart and decided it looked like a nose. So she turned her lovely heart into a portrait of me! I also got ears and purple earrings!

Collaging

More drawing!

And of course Party Time at the top of the stairs with Kalbs!

And what has the Kalbster been up to you ask? Snoozing away of course!

Do you wanna build a snowman?

I saw something similar to this on Pinterest the other day and it looked simple (which I like) and I already had everything laying around at home (which I really like)!

Here's my invitation to play: (those round white things are cotton pads in case you can't tell from the pic)

And here is what the monster created:

And here's an extra little something for you to chuckle at...

This is the pic I send out of the awesome Snowman "Yulli" made:

And this is the "Actual" snowman she made:

Meh Close enough! Hahahaha...

Masterpiece!

I wanted Yules to create an original piece of art this Christmas for her Auntie and Uncle! They have a new home with empty walls that needs decorating and what better way to decorate then with Toddler Art... Ahahaha I'm so evil!

Anyways, the little monster LOVES to paint and create! This huge project took her weeks to create and has many layers! So if you want to attempt this, keep that it mind... It will take a loooooong time, so be patient!
We used one of the awesome giant sheets of paper that I "stole" from Costco! I helped her paint the background and that's about all I helped her with. She picked the paint colors and tools. Each time I let her pick only 2-3 colors to prevent the paint from mixing too much and just looking like brown shiezzz! She used all different sized paint brushes, foam brushes, her fingers and even an old toothbrush! For the last step, I folded and taped an old wrapping paper cardboard tube so she could stamp hearts!

Hopefully they enjoy it as much as Yules enjoyed creating it! 

Snow + Squeezie Bottles

Quick and easy sensory play: Snow + squeezie bottles

Mother nature gave us a good dump of snow but also freezing cold temps to accompany... so no playing outside! Therefore I brought the snow inside and into the sensory table. Here is my invitation to play:

The bottles just have water and food coloring in them. I stayed away from making a yellow one... Kalbs creates enough yellow snow and I don't want Yules thinking it's ok to play with yellow snow!!! The bottles also have different squeezabilites, allowing her to work on her hand strength!

She had a great time and loved it! Plus we all got to stay warm inside!!

And then eventually we made a mini snowman together!

Unwrapped!

The holidays are officially over for us... parties are all done and no more Christmas presents to wrap and unwrap!

Miss Yules loved unwrapping presents this year and stole all my joy. Last year she could care less and I had the pleasure of unwrapping all her presents! She also really wanted to "help" wrap presents too! So I let her wrap some left over Halloween candy to occupy her while I wrapped the real presents. Here's some tips if your little ones want to wrap presents too:
-Give them something small and easy for their little hands to hold... like left-over Halloween candy ;)
-I gave Yules green painters tape... because removing scotch tape from wherever she gets it stuck is a friggin pain in the butt. You can totally be "trendy" and let your monsters wrap with brown craft paper and cute washi tape. Maybe next year...
-Yules is also starting to learn some of her letters, so she put an alphabet letter sticker of each persons name. Surprisingly, she was able to remember which present belonged to which person. This present was for her Papa, so I told her to put an A for his name. She searched for a foam A sticker (which is a hot commodity and we actually didn't even have any left) and came back with a V that she held upside down. I was so amazed that she was able to make that connection!

She really enjoyed wrapping and sticking the letters on the presents. I loved doing this activity with her because it was a real and concrete opportunity to teach her the alphabet. She made real connections and there was no boring, developmentally-inappropriate rote learning involved! She had a second opportunity to make those connections when she had to go and find each present and hand it to the correct person!

Yules also received a present from one of her buddies this Christmas and it was by far her favourite. The gift was a kinder surprise egg which she didn't care for because she doesn't yet know it contains delish chocolate and a toy! Haha! She actually was more obsessed with the way it was wrapped because it had her picture on it! Being completely ego-centric, she carried it around telling everyone who it was from and stared at it all day, everyday!

This idea is so genius on so many levels that I am so stealing it if I am that on top of things next year! A photo helps the child with facial recognition and allows them to know who they are handing it out to! And an added bonus is the recipient will loooove it if they are conceited like my monster! Soooooo smart that I'm jealous I didn't think of it!