Thursday, January 24, 2013

Library Day!

Yesterday was one of those days that was just to go to go outside, but the kids had just too much energy to stay inside. And with such cold weather, the play ground, the zoo or even the back yard are out of the question. On days like this we usually go to the mall- they have a really cute, pretty big play area. But the mall is kind of far and since we are saving for Disney, I needed a cheaper alternative. So to the library we went.

Now, when I was a kid, the library was one of the last places I wanted to go to hang out. I'm not a big reader myself (ironic, right?), and the library was a place strictly to get book, but now at days it is so much more. It's one of my kids favorite places, with toys, puzzles, coloring pages, giant blocks, puppets and of course- books.

We love the library we have in town, but it is always busy, special on cold days, so we drive. Few more minutes to another branch of our library. One that is newer and emptier.

I call this "library hopping". If we go to the same library every week, pretty soon it will loose its appeal to the kids, but when I say we are going to the library, they don't know which one, so it's exciting. Not to mention that each library is near different stores or restaurants that I would not have an excuse to go to if it wasn't for the library.

Here are some pics of what my kids did. We were there for about 3 hours.



Another free activity ideas? What is your favorite about going to the library?
I love to hear from you.

















Friday, January 18, 2013

I'm back!!! With a countdown calendar

To my readers, my sincere apologies. It has been too long since my last post.
No long stories or excuses, just a hear felt "I'm sorry".

Now to the craft at hand. A countdown calendar.

We just booked our first ever Disney vacation. And my 3 year old son has never been more excited (and quite frankly, so am I). But since he is only 3, he has no sense of time and has been asking every night if we are going the next day- we are going in September.
I was going to get a calendar or a planner for him so that he could see the days, but knowing Truett, I figured that the page flipping would confuse him. So I decided I needed something with all the days (all 244 days) in on page for him to see, so I made my own calendar.





I put the day of the month on the top left corner and the countdown day on the bottom right corner. We will be checking off the days as we go.


And I marked the day we get there so he can have a visual.

It's nothing very elaborate, and it was not that hard, a little time consuming, but all in all pretty easy. I got one of those poster boards with the faint squares in it, so I didn't even have to measure anything, just count the squares.

What do you think? Yay or nay?

Keeping it crafty,
Nessy