Jumping for Joy

But actually just jumping for exercise. How can I say no to this request:
"McJessica, I need to jump. I need exercise today."

Love it!

I can't remember what this little thing is called. Santa brought it to the playroom. But it has three speeds, each with its own music. Speed #2 is known as the "ninja song." The pieces fold away for easy storage- and I love it on unexpected drizzly days, or super hot afternoons when we can't make it outside.

Picture of the Day: Number Dash

This week we are working on numbers 1-10. At the park I chalked rows and the children took turns calling out numbers. Who ever dashed to the correct number first got a hooray. Mr. C loves the number 5 and Ms. H loves the snowman number 8.

Picture of the Day: Flying High

This was great exercise for all of us. The wind seemed great but for some reason I couldn't get the kite much higher than 15-20 feet from the ground. Even then we were all running back and forth furiously to keep it up. A fair amount of the time it was just being pulled by the children across the grass.

Picture of the Day: Umbrella Walk

With the park all soggy from on-again off-again rain showers we needed a busy activity to get the wiggles out. We saw a few bugs, lots of flowers and had a great time with a few rounds of "A marching/walking/skipping/hopping/creaping we will go!" (To the tune of The Farmer in the Dell)

Picture of the Day: Friendly Flowers

Forget long walks on the beach- a short walk to Lowe's garden center for flowers in valentine colors helps beautify our planters and usually means a great nap time. That is my kind of win-win. Dirty crafts? A kid's favorite, hands down (in the dirt).

Picture of the Day: Little Hoops

I am thankful for the beautiful weather we had today! Some how we skipped Winter and went right to Spring. The children loved the time outside while we waited for a few sleepy heads to finish napping.

Art Walk

Now that the weather is so lovely we are taking so many more walks. Sometimes we go out looking for something specific and other times with nothing in mind. Today we were searching for butterflies and luckily we found a few. The girls made these when we returned home.

Indoor Obstacle course

Crawl under the table, over pillow mountain, hop on carpets, roll the cart the the food station and load it with something from each food group!

Great for those hot days when you feel stranded inside.

Homemade Watercolors

I came across this recipe for making homemade watercolors. It seemed like a fun art project for the kids to both make then use. Luckily, we had all of the supplies on hand, and even an empty plastic egg carton (though in the future I would buy little individual toss away tupperware with lids.)

Watching the vinegar and baking soda mix.

Each of the girls picked an individual color to make, then with the leftover mix I made a few other colors.


The paint we mixed in the small tupperware containers and left uncovered became very dry. It was difficult to use and the children were sort of frustrated with it. The colors we mixed and kept covered in the egg carton remained somewhat runny after 2 days. The colors were bright and vibrant.

Flower Press

We were the lucky recipient of a new flower press a few weeks back. I have always wanted to try one but never had anything better than phone books. Miss A was REALLY excited to use it. The waiting part, the drying- not so excited about that. But after a week, we opened our press...

This little white flower was the only one to make it.

We had a pile of not so good. And a few that were moldy- boooo!

So we laminated it to keep it nice for as long as possible. And started the press again.

Sacramento Children's Museum

Painting on the walls- who doesn't love that?

(I love this. Because who isn't?)

We have gone two days in a row- the kids love that the museum 1) is so close and 2) so fun. It is pretty small and relatively simple, all things considered. But because they can touch everything inside, they love every inch.

Trampoline Time

Jumping on the trampoline is a great way to get energy out when we are stuck inside. Counting by 1, 2, 5, or 10 helps the children cycle through turns while learning.

Sacramento Children's Museum

I am excited that the Sacramento Children's Museum is 1) within walking distance and 2) opening later this month!

Indoor Fun Ideas

The weather is officially H-O-T! When we can't spend hours outside, or we already have- it is nice to have a few fun indoor activities. Familyfun has a few games we will try out, including this one:

Marble (or ping pong ball) relay with paper towel tubes.

Turtle Pool

This relic has been around since I was a wee one. It is just big enough for floating little boats or putting feet in and perfect to pull out on our first warm afternoon.