Fisher Price Fun

Goodness me!  Haven't been posting much because I've been so anxious over Julian's birthday party this weekend. It was a modest success and Julian had a great time so I'm super happy.  Anyway, now that that's done with I can focus on other things.

I thought I'd write today about the Fisher-Price website and all the cool (and more importantly, FREE) features they have for parents.  I don't know about you, but I was definitely a Fisher-Price kid growing up--so naturally it's a brand I trust for Julian.

I started going on the website a few months ago to play some of the online games they have for babies when Juju first started mashing my laptop keys.  On a recent visit though, I found they have A LOT of really cool stuff for parents!

You can check out the site yourself to see all they have to offer, but I'm going to list my favorite sections here:

Online Games
Here you'll find a bunch of cool games for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.  I really like these because I do a lot of work on my computer and when I'm home alone with Julian he often wants to get on the computer and do things with me.  I haven't tried out the toddler or preschooler games yet, but the infant ones are perfect for babies who want to be just like Mommy and Daddy!  Watch out though, because if they hit certain commands on your keyboard they can shut out of the game and start messing with other things.  Try and make sure the babes are just playing with the main keys.

Julian's favorite games are the Hide and Seek games and any of the animal games--the noisier the better!


Crafts
This is actually the page that got me excited about writing a post on this website because it's SO what this blog is about!  Here's a list of cool art projects and activities you can do with your kids at little or no cost (they even have a fishing activity like the one I wrote about!).  I'm so excited to try some of these out (and put my own spin on them too haha).  Any of these activities would be great for a boring weekend or rainy day. 

I tried to pick out a couple favorites to list here, but honestly I love them all!

Birthday Party Ideas
I'm a little peeved I checked this out the day after I have Julian's birthday party (especially since they have a dinosaur theme and that's what I really wanted to do grrrr), but I will know better in the future. :P 

Anyway, they have lots of great tips and tricks for parents on holding a successful and fun birthday party.  They also have several party theme ideas that include food suggestions and decorating and activity ideas.  All the party ideas function on a reasonable budget and seem to be real low-stress which, given the anxiety I went trough over Juju's birthday party, is definitely an awesome thing!

Playtime Guide
This section focuses on the importance of play and how different activities help baby develop cognitive, social & emotional, and physical skills.  They even have sections devoted to baby's specific age, from 1 month to 5+ years.  In addition to great tips on different ways to play with your baby they have a section for parents that focuses on everything from pregnancy worries to potty training.  This is great for nervous first time parents!  There's a section dedicated solely to grandparents as well.  This is a really valuable resource if you're getting tired of playing peek-a-boo and want to try something fresh and new. 


There are also coloring pages, online videos, and of course plenty of info on fisher-price's toys and stuff.  So if you're bored and trying to think of something new to do with the little ones take a look!

Re-purpose Those Jars!

Here's another highlight of an article I did over on HubPages!

10 Creative Ways to Use a Jar

I love peanut butter and jelly.  That seems like a random fact, but stay with me for a moment.  I love peanut butter and jelly--so, I find myself with a lot of used jars!  If I was wasteful (like a certain hubby I know, ahem) I would just throw them away--but I can't do that.  Throwing away glass, honestly, breaks my heart--especially since some jelly jars are really pretty!

So, I could use them for the basic things...store my spaghetti sauce, stick pens in them, use them as cups, put little odds and ends in them.  Essentially, just use them to store things other than peanut butter or jelly.  

But that wasn't good enough for me!  So I explored OTHER ways I could use jars--and came across some really fun projects:

- snowglobes

- mini gardens

- lanterns

- candles

- and more!!  Check it out!

My next mission is to find projects specifically relating to baby food jars since I have a lot of those laying around! D:

Make Your Own Monster

This is a project I did while I was a camp counselor at the Boys & Girls Club.  I had to get pre-teen boys excited about art--not very easy, especially since they were so attached to their PSPs and Nintendo DS's (even though they weren't even allowed at camp grrr).  So I made this project.

I made a simple body template for a monster.  Then the boys needed to cut out shapes from construction paper to glue on to the body and make their monster.  Some were reluctant at first, but by the end of the class the boys were happy to have made 2, even 3 monsters of their own, some even ventured away from the body template I created and designed their own.  I was so proud of them!  My only regret is not getting pictures of all the cool monsters they made!

This would be a fun activity to do at a Halloween or birthday party or to make cards or decorations.  I think children of all ages could really enjoy this, maybe even a creative teen or two if they're want to do something fun with their younger siblings.

Construction Paper Jack-O-Lantern

Here's a template I made for you to make your own construction paper Jack-o-Lanterns.

Cut out 1 Large Pumpkin piece, 2 Mediums pieces, 2 small ones, and 1 top.  Glue the medium pieces on either side of the back of the large piece, then the 1 small piece next to one medium and the other on the other side.  Glue the top at the top of the large pumpkin piece OR make long green winding vines and add lots of leaves.

To make a Jack-O-Lantern cut out triangle, square, and circle shapes for the eyes and nose and a crescent piece for the mouth.  I didn't make any template pieces for this part because there are so many different ways to do this part, it's really up to your imagination.

This is a great project for kids that may not be old enough to carve pumpkins or for parents who aren't so keen on the idea of chopping up pumpkins.

These make great cards, party invites, or decorations you can save or scrapbook later. 

Tye Dye Cupcakes

For my birthday this year my sister and I had fun making rainbow cupcakes. Below are some pictures of what we made and tips & resources on how you can make your own!

We used this recipe as inspiration for our cupcakes.

 

First we made our dough then mixed in the food colouring.  The recipe we were following called for bold solid colours, but I really wanted pastel girly colours, so I used much less food colouring.

Red: 4 drops red 

Orange: 2 red 2 yellow

Yellow: 3 yellow 1 red

Green: 3 green

Blue/Green: 3 blue

Purple: This colour took several tries to make, I used a lot of red drops and a lot of blue drops, until I had a shade of purple I really liked.

If you're baking with kids, let them mix the colours to see how colours are made. :)

I had a blast mixing, so I know kids will enjoy it too.

 

We realized too late the recipe we were following was for MINI cupcakes so we didn't have enough to make perfect rainbow cupcakes.  So instead we mixed a bunch of random layers by pouring a layer, letting it sit, then carefully pouring another.

 

 

The colours of the cupcakes looked so cool once they were baked!

 

 

We added homemade frosting, sprinkles, and enjoyed.  Yum!

 

 

The outside of the cupcakes looked like rainbow layers, but the insides were tye dye!

 

This one was really fun to make.  My sister had the purple dough, I had the pink and at the same time we poured it in the pan so half would be pink and half would be purple.  It turned out great!