Rainbows Welcome Spring!

First of all happy first day of spring everyone! This day has come after a very snowy winter, and so of course we are welcoming spring in with another 3-6 inches of it… Don’t get me wrong if you have read any of my other posts you know I have a deep love for snow, but this past week was just so warm and sunny! Alright well anyway that’s not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about how much fun Penny, Jude, and I had making our St. Patrick’s Day rainbows.

After nap time, I cut out all the paper strips while Jude ran around like a mad man and Penny ate her snack. Jude wasn’t interested in anything other than expelling his energy and I let him run wild while Penny and I made the rainbow chains. I was impressed with how little help Penny needed from me. She practically made the whole chain herself, I only had to hand her the tape. She really enjoyed making them with me and Jude loved the finished product so I call that a success! And then we made one really big one which they both helped me with, and by help I mean that when it started getting long they held it while I continued to make it. No matter what it was a fun activity. The only thing that didn’t make it perfect was that I couldn’t find any string so we had to wait until their mom came home to attach the pots of gold to the ends.

The rainbow chains are so bright and colorful I would say make them even though St. Patrick’s Day has past because they look fun and whimsical, just forgo the pot of gold at the end. Looking at them is making me smile even now, as it is snowing outside… Have a bright and beautiful first weekend of spring everyone, even if you have to get creative as I will.

~The Pinning Nanny

Rainbows and a Pot of Gold

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! First of all Penny and I did color on last week but on Friday I succumbed to Spring Break fever and wasn’t productive at all during nap time hence no post about it. This week however will be different! We are going to make St. Patrick’s Day rainbows.

The rainbows are super cute and at the same time really easy to make. I love making chain decorations and so when I found this craft I knew immediately I wanted to do it with them. Also Penny and Jude love colorful things so they will have fun with this. I am expecting them to like this craft because it is hands on in a way that they can do most of the work themselves. I will of course do all the cutting and such but I want to challenge them and their hand eye coordination by having them make the chains with as little assistance as possible.

I’m going to pull the luck of the Irish and say that while we are making our rainbows nothing wrong will happen. I think that because all three of us are Irish, and the number three is the holy number in Irish tradition that our craft will go off with no hiccups.

So come back Friday and I will tell you if our luck held out, or if a leprechaun will mess things up for us.

We Will Color!

Last week I thought I was going to use Octonaut coloring pages to get a little break because school has been really tiring. However I forgot about the circus and had to rally. This week is the week before spring break and so naturally I have papers/assignments due in all five of my classes. Because of my heavy school work load I’m going to pull out the Octonauts to save the day, again. This time though we will actually be using the coloring pages.

Of course I could tell you how much I really need Penny and Jude to love these coloring pages because I’m so exhausted and have so much to do. And all of these things are true, I dozed off reading two hours ago. But the reality is that just by writing this post I am spending time on something other than homework that I really shouldn’t be, no matter how much I love it, simply because I don’t have time to spare. So we’re going to keep it short and simple today. The kids and I are going to do some coloring this week. On Friday I will be on spring break and will be able to write a more lengthy or at least more interesting and thought out post.  So until then enjoy the sun that has once again appeared in the sky!

Sweet Love

Happy Wednesday everybody! I know I usually don’t post on a Wednesday but this week I am only going to post once because school is starting to speed up and I need a little break. So I’m going to tell you all about my last minute Valentine’s Day party with Penny and Jude. Now usually I am good at planning ahead, even for blogging I have all the crafts that I want to do for the next few weeks written down in my planner. However somehow Valentine’s Day slipped my mind completely! It wasn’t until last Wednesday when my friend, Janet, who is also a nanny told me about the Valentine’s Day craft that she was going to be doing with her kids that I remembered. It isn’t really an exaggeration when I say I had a moment of panic. Of course I wanted to do something fun and homemade but I had a paper due Thursday morning and didn’t have time to plan anything extravagant. Janet suggested I just make the cut a bake cookies with the hearts in the center, she even offered to go buy them for me. I agreed and Janet saved the day!

Come Friday I had the cookie dough, plan cause the store was all out of hearts, in hand when I walked through Penny and Jude’s door. The morning was a crunch. Penny had school earlier than usual because they were going to have a Valentine’s Day party and then get out early. Plus Penny hadn’t finished all her valentines for the kids in her class. We spent the morning glueing, glittering, bejeweling, and trying unsuccessfully to not get it on ourselves. The valentines came out great and they were just dried when we had to pack them up and get to school. 

After school, lunch, and nap time (which I even got to be a part of as a valentine to myself) it was time to make the cookies! The kids loved cutting them out and placing them on the sheets. And I pulled out sprinkles as an extra special treat! While the cookies were in the oven I set Penny and Jude up watch American Tale as another treat, and also so that I could clean the house for their mom. When the cookies were done I brought them down each a cookie and they just loved their Valentine’s Day treat! It was so simple and I was happy, I even got to watch part of the movie! So even though I usually like doing homemade things I’m here to say that in a pinch it’s ok to go store bought, there’s no shame! Have a great week everyone and I talk to you next week about our next adventure!

~The Pinning Nanny

Snow Rainbows

So last week I tried something new, and it failed. I wrote this post ahead of time and then scheduled it to be posted last Tuesday, while I was at school, from my phone. Needless to say it never posted. Which actually turned out alright because when I realized that it hadn’t posted was around the time that I realized the kids and I had played all day and not done the activity. And so we’re going to try again this week! As I’ve said before I simply love the snow! Seeing it fall from the sky and cover everything gives me such a thrill. This week I am going to take advantage of the snow and go out and play in it with Penny and Jude. However I will not be going outside empty handed, I’m going to be bringing along snow paint. As always I found the recipe on pinterest, it originally comes from a mommy blogger One Little Project At A Time. And like all my favorite projects it is super simple! There are only two ingredients, well three if you consider the snow, water and food coloring. You put the water and food coloring in water bottles and then take them outside to paint pictures in the snow.

I’m hoping that the kids will really like this craft because I’m really excited about it. I think that this could be really fun. It reminds me of coloring with chalk in the summer. Also the kids love being allowed to go wild and make things messy and this is a craft I feel I can allow them to do that. I can see them now a bottle in each hand shaking the bottles and spinning in circles spraying the colored water all over the snow. It should also be a fairly exhausting activity as well which means Jude will take a good nap and Penny’s teacher is just going to have to deal! I think this is going to be one of the crafts that we laugh the whole time we do it, and I really love those crafts.

I can’t imagine many things going wrong with this craft, but there are a few. Bottles could spill before we get outside, which would mean I would have to clean up before we went outside cutting into our play time. It could be bitterly cold outside and the kids might only be able to bear it for a few minutes before the cry out in protest to go back inside. I know their parents wouldn’t care if we got a little bit of the colored water on their snow gear but I’m sure they wouldn’t be too thrilled if say Penny rolled in the painted snow dying all of her snow gear.

As long as I can avoid those three problems I think this craft is going to be a hit! Ugh! I hope it goes well because I really want to laugh and play with them in the snow like this.  I’ll let you know how much fun we have with this one on Friday!

 

Snow Day Painting!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all enjoyed your celebrations and these first few days of 2015. This past week has been wildly busy for the kids and me, but I am excited to get back into the swing of things with the kids starting this week. I was inspired this morning when I woke up because glorious white snowflakes were falling from the sky! I immediately wanted to do something snow related with the kids this week and when I looked at the weather for the rest of the week and found out that the snow will be staying I was even happier. Thursday is also supposed to be really cold so I as much as I will be wanting to be outside all morning I know an indoor craft is probably best considering I want to be able to hand kids not icicles off to their mom at the end of the day. Luckily yesterday I had a pinning binge session on Winter and Spring crafts for kids and found the perfect one for Thursday!

On Thursday Penny, Jude, and I are going to make snow paint. This is probably one of the simplest crafts I have done with the kids yet considering difficulty and ingredients. All it takes is snow and food coloring to make the paint and paper and brushes for the kids to enjoy it. The blogger that I got it from, Growing a Jeweled Rose, said that the snow will slowly melt creating fun designs on the paper. I’m really excited for this craft because I absolutely love seasonal crafts, and snow is one of my all time favorite things. Penny and Jude also really love painting using anything, like I talked about in my last post, and so I’m excited to see how they react to the snow paint.

This craft seems pretty air tight right? I mean I love snow, they love painting, the recipe is easy, and it’s going to be cold enough for everyone to want to stay inside, what could go wrong? Well right now the biggest problem I can foresee is if the weather app on my phone lied to me. What happens if I wake up Thursday morning and there is no snow?! I’m on Winter Break guys my brain has been shut off to quick thinking for over three weeks now, what if I can’t think up a back up plan? Another foreseeable problem is that food coloring dyes everything that it comes in contact with, everything! I can see Penny and Jude now holding their paint brushes aloft waving them back and forth splattering snow paint all over the room and furnisher. That would not be a fun day for me.

However, it’s snowing outside. Snow is like magic to me, I can’t be pessimistic for long when it’ snowing. In the spirit of snow I’m going to say that the snow will stay and Penny and Jude will behave. Come back on Friday to see if all my snowy dreams have melted away or not. 😉

Painting Fun

Happy Almost New Year’s everyone! Since Thursday is New Year’s Day and I am only working a half day on Friday this will be the only post I will be writing this week, and no craft. 😦 I have to admit that now that December is coming to a close and it has been a few weeks since the kids and I have done a craft I actually miss doing the crafts. So next week we will be getting back into the swing of things and starting out the new year with a fun craft, that I haven’t decided on yet… But for today I’m going to talk about a craft that Penny, Jude, and I did this Fall that hasn’t made it on the blog yet.

At some point this Fall, I’m not going to try to remember when because Christmas killed my brain, Penny made up her mind that she wanted to do face painting. When I arrived at their house that morning their dad had already set Penny up with the paints and water and she was painting Jude’s hand. She also painted her hands, Jude’s belly, her own belly, and finally my hands. 

At this point I can’t exactly remember what each of the paintings were but I do remember that mine was a butterfly. Can you see the butterfly? I’ve always loved letting them play with face paints because I like how it encourages their own imagination and hand and eye coordination, especially now that I don’t have to do all the painting. Over this past year I have seen Penny’s painting dexterity improve so much. She can now easily handle the paintbrushes and make if not perfect at least somewhat clean lines. Jude also enjoys playing with face paints, I hope this next year his dexterity will improve as his sister’s has. Face painting will definitely be something we will be doing in the new year. So have a great New Year’s celebration and the kids and I will be back in the new year with lots of fun new crafts!

Snow Globes

It’s the first week of December! The weather is frightful, it’s snowing right now! The semester is coming to a close. The Christmas music is playing. And everyone is getting into the holiday spirit. I simply love this time of year. I love snow, Christmas cookies, buying presents, getting presents, spending time with my family, getting the tree, the glow of Christmas lights (done tastefully) and did I mention snow? To me, snow is one of the most magical and exciting things in the world. I act like a kid when it snows. This week I am going to be channeling my inner child to make the craft. Penny, Jude, and I are going to make snow globes!

I originally found this blog through pinterest and thought it would be perfect for this week. It works perfectly with the season we are going into and who doesn’t love a snow globe. This fun and cost effective craft came from the blog The Pink Doormat. It looks like it is a bit of a more time consuming and work intensive craft than we usually do but I think we are up to the challenge. They look really pretty and have the feeling of Frozen which will thrill Penny, and Jude he’s a big Kristoff fan. If we can pull off this craft they will look awesome! We will have to do it in parts because the glitter glue snowflakes need to dry before we can put the glitter and water into the jar. I’m think we will start them in the morning before Penny goes to school and then finish them after her nap. There are no ornaments in these globes but I am going to try to find something to glue on to the lid of the jar, and in the original post she says glycerine can be added to make the glitter settle slower so I might try to get some of that too. I am also adding super glue to the lip of the jar so that they can’t open up the jars once all the stuff is in them, cause that would be a mess!

These snow globes look so fun to make and play with, so what could go wrong? Glitter glue. Glitter glue is a staple in any house with crafty kids, the only problem is they’re kids. Glitter glue is messy. It could just as easily get everywhere but on the jar as it could get on the right spots on the jar. The same goes with glitter, I might be spending the whole day trying to extract glitter from every nook and cranny in the house. And then there is always the fear that we will successfully complete the craft and one of them will either drop their globe or open it before the super glue sets and all the glitter and water would go EVERYWHERE! I really don’t want one of them to break or open. It would be such a mess. And there would be so many tears. My goodness I don’t want one to break!

Wish me luck everyone. Finals are setting in, and all I want to do is sit on my computer looking through pinterest finding crafts for this blog. Plus this craft could end in disaster! To find out what happens with the craft come back Friday, hopefully I wouldn’t still be covered in glitter.

Fox Fun!: Result>Experience

Yesterday Penny, Jude and I tried our hands at making the fox masks I talked about on Tuesday. I’m going to say it right now the result was awesome! Honestly I’m really proud of these masks, they’re really cute and fun. However the whole experience of making the masks was not as fantastic as the end result. Was it worth it? Yes, but I wouldn’t want to repeat the mayhem that was making the masks. So what happened you may be asking, well let me tell you.

Today the kids and I were at my house, which was nice in the morning because my sister and friend, Helga, were there so I got to hang out with them. My mom also had kids today she didn’t just have Amy (the little 2 year old) who she usually has but she also had Amy’s brother, James (5 years old), and two sisters Beatrice (5 years old) and Jenny (3 years old). It was a full house, to say the least! Plus Penny’s school had different times this week so she was home to eat lunch and nap with her brother by 11:45 am. So with all the kids and the changed school drop off and pick up times my head was swimming a little bit. Penny took a long time to fall asleep so she was still out when the rest of the kids got up from their rests and wanted something to do. I knew I had to make the mask with Jude, but I also knew the rest of the kids would want one too. I told my mom she was going to have to handle their masks. So Jude and I started out and it was going ok. I had found a template for a mask on pinterest, and it was good I just resized the width and eye hole so they fit him better. We cut out the mask, I cut out the mask he made jokes with the girls, and the little ears. I only had regular glue so I glued on the ears so they would dry while Jude and I colored in the mask. I used a pen to mark where I wanted to use the marker to be safe and then went over the pen lines with a sharpie. Every once in a while Jude would put his hand on top of mine but for the most part it was me working alone on the mask. It was while I was coloring the white around the eyes that the other kids started demanding my attention, Beatrice wanted the white marker I was using, James wanted to know how to spell the word Jewish, and my mom was having trouble following my instructions. I calmed the storms and went back to my coloring. Around this time Penny woke up and I quickly get her an apple and went back to my work. I finished the coloring, handed over my marker, and threaded the yarn through the sides of the mask. The result, ADORABLE!

Now I had to do it all over again. Penny took one look at her brother’s mask and wanted her own right away! I quickly found my little fox who was in his den, the stairwell, growling, and took his mask from him to use as an advanced template to save me some time and effort. I speedly traced out the new mask and gave the mask back to Jude who ran off back to his den. At this time my mom needed me to coach her through attaching the yarn to James’ and Beatrice’s masks. I gave instructions while cutting Penny’s mask out. Luckily I didn’t need to glue on ears and so after cutting it our I could get right to the job of outlining where the white would go. Penny wanted to do the coloring herself and so even though I wanted it to come out perfectly I told her what colors went where and sat back. I have to say she did a good job. By this time I could hear “What Did The Fox Say?” playing in the other room as Jude, James, Amy, and Beatrice danced around in their masks. Penny finished up her mask, adding polka dots. I threaded the yarn through her mask and voila we were done! It was an exhausting craft but the result is so cute that I can’t help smiling even now. Try these masks out, but just do it when there are less kids present or more adults! Have a great weekend everybody!

How can these faces not make you smile?!

“The Fox Face”

There’s this thing that my sister does when she is around to hangout with me and the kids, she makes this fox face. Well she and the kids call it a fox face I don’t really see the resemblance but it’s funny no matter what. Anyway the kids love the “fox face” and try to make it themselves. Jude also loves all things animals, he has a huge fish tank in his room with fish named “Beautiful Fish” “Kissy Fish” “Handsome Fish” and more that I can’t remember. Penny doesn’t love animals as much, but they both LOVE the song “What does the Fox Say?” We have had many a dance party with this song making an appearance, they have often asked for it by name. And so this week the kids and I will be making fox masks.

From Handmade Charlotte

I originally found this diy craft on Pinterest, however the blog that it originated from, Handmade Charlotte, is really cute. The mask was part of a larger post on crafts that you could do using the fall theme, such as leaf crowns. The instructions are a little vague so I might be doing a little guess work while making this craft with the kids. Even though the instructions might be vague, I think that I will be able to figure out how to make these and if I am able to pull it off the result will be worth it. The mask are super cute and I feel like the kids will love playing with them. As Penny and Jude are incredibly imaginative I can see them putting these masks on and playing for a long time!

The items needed for this craft are almost all items I keep around my house, so that is convenient and I love being able to save on crafts. I’m going to need a brown paper bag or two, white and black markers, elastic cord (but I’m going to use yarn), glue stick, a mask template (I’ll either find one or make it up), and scissors. I love crafts that utilize household items because it makes them that much easier.

So what could go wrong? Hmmm well, last week I forgot the yellow gloves for my craft and that was almost a disaster, sorry I forgot to tell you about that, so I could forget a vital item at my house that I will need to make the mask like the brown paper bags and not be able to find one around the house. The kids could be uninterested like last week. Colds could persist. Tears and snot could rain down on the table. A fight could break out. Flesh could be sliced with the scissors while my back is turned, they maybe kiddie but that doesn’t mean they’re completely dull! I might not be able to find a mask template and completely botch the shape or eye holes.

However I am going to choose to believe that this craft is going to go off marvelously! I believe optimism is key to getting things done and being happy while it is getting done. That’s what being a nanny has taught me anyway. Well if you want to know how these fox mask turn out check back in on Friday. And since I mentioned it earlier enjoy the song!