Crafts are Fun!

My First Muffin Tin Meal

So, since my mom left (3 months ago!), I have been wanting to start Muffin Tin Meals with my boys. If you haven't heard of them, go here. I don't plan on taking part in the blog carnival, but I do plan on getting ideas from the archives.

Basically, it is just a tradition where you serve your kids a meal in a muffin tin once a week. I know, sounds a little crazy, but it is fun. Sometimes, you are trying to teach them something (a meal where everything is red, or square), other times, it is just fun (a meal where everything has something you can dip it in).

Anyway, it is something I have been wanting to start for a while. I like the idea of a meal that my kids look forward to each week that help start conversations etc. So, I had decided to start last week. Well, the boys had been put on a special diet by the doctor (they have had chronic diarrhea for 6 weeks now...we CANNOT figure out what is wrong) for that entire week. They couldn't eat any fruit, veggies, dairy, or fat. So that basically left clear liquids, pasta, bread and rice. So I made a muffin tin of all different kinds of crackers



and we talked about how crackers come in lots of different shapes and colors and sizes. We had at it out on the patio and had a little picnic. Here are the boys reactions:



Hopefully that is just their reaction to me trying to take pictures as opposed the their reaction to the whole muffin tin idea...they can't think I'm crazy yet, can they?

Another Cute Haloween Craft

Here is another fun craft for kids this Halloween...especially if your kids are too young to participate in pumpkin carving. So cute!

Halloween!

I thought these and these were some cute Halloween food/crafty ideas to do with your kids

Creativity

My mom is very creative and talented. She always coming up with fun creative things that she does for those she loves. Her latest creations were Micah and Noah's birthday cards. They were adorable, and I wanted Micah and Noah to be able to appreciate them in the future. I should also say thanks to my Dad for being such a good sport.

The outside:


The inside (they each got their own):


Another, which she actually made almost two years ago, is this ABC book. I've been wanted to post it forever. I actually think she could sell these books. It has become one of the boy's favorites over the last few months as they have been learning their letters. Basically, she made an ABC book with pictures of our family. The boys just love it, as do I.

The Cover:


And a few of the pages:

G: Green Glasses, Grapes, Goofy, Ghost, Grandma & Grumpa:


T: Turtle, Twins, Train, Tree, TrTractor, Truck, Toes:


N: Nest, Napping Noah, Nut, Nose, Nickel:


M: Moon, Micah, Messy Melissa, Mom, Mouse, Mittens:

Stuff

We are loving our little Samantha. She is a beautiful baby, and so far is much happier and easier
than the boys were at this stage. She sleeps a lot, eats a ton, and seems to only cry when she is hungry or gassy or needs to burp. I'm not getting my hopes up too much yet though ... I know there is a honeymoon stage with most babies. We never had one with the boys though (they struggled to sleep/be happy without being held from the first night in the hospital), so even a few days of this will be nice nonetheless.



It has been wonderful having my mom here. She is such a Godsend. Micah seems to be having a rather tough time adjusting to this change. He is super clingy to me, has stopped taking naps, and struggles going to / staying asleep at night. He won't go near her, and basically pretends like she doesn't exist. So, having my mom here has been wonderful b/c it allows me to still give him some attention. Or, he gets attention from her while I attend to Samantha. Noah is clingy as well, but he has also been sick (103 degree fever and a cough). He is still sleeping well, and is super interested in kissing/touching Samantha (yeah, that's been fun with him sick...). So we think his clingy-ness is due more to his fever than insecurity.

Anyway, back to my mom. She has planned a bunch of stuff for each day around different themes: their lunch; a book that she gives them; and some fun activity. The themes are things like: "Big and Little," or "Counting," or "Yellow" etc. She has 14 different ones. You would never believe all the time she has put into planning this. And the boys are eating it up. Here are just a few pictures of their fun activities so far:

The theme today was "cold." They painted with water popsicles that she dyed with food coloring. They enjoyed painting with and eating them (they weren't even flavored!). They also got to make Snow Cones (which were flavored and very yummy since it has been pretty warm lately).



The first day, the theme was: "Inside, Outside, Upside Down" She brought box cars and let the boys decorate them with stickers. Then we practiced getting inside and outside the boxes. We hung them upside down in their boxes. (She gave them the book "Inside, Outside, Upside Down")


Each day, they have lunch in a muffin tin that has to do with the theme for that day. We were supposed to help the boys put their food inside and outside the muffin tins, but things were a bit crazy at that moment, so we just let them eat it, but the pictures are still cute. I'll post pictures of some of the other muffin tins later. A lot of them are really awesome.



She even brought a pool! Yay for Nanna!

Look what I made!

As I have stated before, I am not very talented when it comes to being crafty/artsy. I just don't have an eye for it. But, man I am good at copying! We had our super Saturday in our new ward and I loved this cookie/candy jar. So, I copied it exactly like the original. I didn't change a thing. Everyone else was either adjusting this or that or making one that was completely different. I, on the other hand was simply thrilled just to make something that turned out so great. Usually, when I attempt such things it just never looks quite right. The whole time, I just kept thinking: "Man, my mom is going to be so proud of me! (She is super crafty). Anyway, I love it.

Talents

So, I have a few talents...however, being artistic/crafty/creative is NOT one of them. Not only do I not do well at it, I just don't really enjoy it. Maybe that is why I don't do so well....but whatever the reason, I usually leave such things up to people like my mother who is great at it.

However, we had a Relief Society Super Saturday last week and there were actually a couple of crafts that I really wanted (for GREAT prices), so I signed up and decided to give it a try. Although it was a rather frustrating process, I was actually very pleased with the results:



Not too bad for someone with little to no artistic talent, eh?