Monday was Circus Day!!! You know that annoying little organ ditty that is circus music, yeah I had that in my head all day long.
After a structured morning of chores, getting ready, cleaning up etc. Grace dressed as a clown as best she could by wearing silly mismatched colorful clothes and Sophie was a circus zebra. Then they worked on some circus coloring pages, God bless the internet you can find coloring pages on just about any topic! To up the educational factor I have them write one or two sentences on each of their coloring pages. We also wrote letters to our penpals on this day during learning time.
During morning play time they went out to create their circus show which ended up having 3 showings, I caught all three but these pics were from the matinee. There was a hula act, a clown car show, the zebra jumping through the "ring of fire" and the daredevil act. I wish I had gotten a pic of the evening act by then Grace rode a tricycle with Sophie on her shoulders! It was awesome and thankfully no one got hurt! Considering none of my children have ever actually been to a circus I was quite impressed with their imaginations and coming up with a show for me and the neighbors and Daddy who caught the late show after work.
For lunch we had "Lion Tamer" sandwiches. Which is really just a turkey and cheese sandwich on a bed of cheese-its, with a little mozzarella cheese stick and olive face. I have discovered I am becoming a food artist this week. This is a fun way to get picky eaters to try new things too, my kids have not complained at all about any of my creations this week whereas normally I would get "I don't want a sandwich!!!" from at least one of them.
For afternoon snack we had a treat of Ringling Brothers Circus Mix: Popcorn, peanuts, colored marshmallows = cotton candy, red hots = clown noses, animal crackers, and fruit loops.
Also on circus day we had corndogs for dinner. I know healthy! But they seemed appropriate. We read a few circus books from the library. We watched Madagascar 3 during Charlottes nap and this night after a swim in the pool we got a little bucket of cotton candy from the dollar store to split. It was a fun and exciting first day!
Tuesday was Ballerina/Princess day!
Mommy was working so I try to plan lower key activities for the kids because I can't expect our "Nanny", my Aunt, to be as crazy as me and do all this stuff! Haha! But she did do this adorable ballerina craft with my girls with their handprints, they turned out so cute! We had some ballerina/princess books from the library as well. I also told them they could pretend to be royal at meal times. I pulled in the driveway that night to see them frolicking through the neighborhood in full ballerina attire! Sometimes it's enough to give them a theme/topic and let them use their imagination.
Wednesday was fairy day! This was another fun one. Again after our morning routine items the girls got into their fairy attire! Grace was a water fairy, she got a manicure in all shades of blue, Sophie was a rainbow fairy and so got a rainbow manicure and Charlotte is just about the cutest chubbiest little tinkerbelle I ever saw. She got her very first manicure in pink with "pixie dust" sparkles!
We also did more coloring pages, this has been good practice for Charlotte as well, she is actually happy to sit and color when she sees her sisters doing it and not just eating the crayons, haha! Although the picture I snapped does have her with a crayon in her mouth. It's a process!
For morning snack they decorated "Butterfly bodies" and we had butterfly grapes and goldfish. Plus I saved their little clothespins for next time they need a little more special snack!
We had the Tinkerbelle movies playing as we did various activities on this day. We made several different crafts in addition to the coloring pages. We made little mushroom houses out of plastic cups and bowls. We cut a door out of the cup and decorated both the body of the house and the bowl. You can see a glimpse of one in our afternoon snack picture.
For lunch we had "Twigs and Mud" aka pretzels and hummus and "Flutterby fairy sandwiches" which are really just PBJ with a little sprinkle on the outside. Again, my kids groan at the thought of PBJ usually because well frankly old standbys like this get a little overplayed. Well it's amazing how shaping a sandwich like a butterfly and putting a tiny sprinkle of fun on it and everyone gobbles their food with no complaints. People may think I'm going overboard, but having kids that are mostly behaving themselves and not complaining so far this summer because they are so excited is worth the little bit of extra effort on my part.
Afternoon was craft time while Tinkerbelle was napping. After the mushroom houses we made "Fairy Rainbows" out of waterbottles and sharpies. We had 3 bottles saved up and then we each drank one more so we could make six, so craft time got my kids to each drink a whole bottle of water without complaining, another score for Mom! I love how this turned out, I plan to keep adding to it whenever we have another empty bottle!
After all that exhausting crafting the fairies needed a snack, so Momma made Toadstool Treats, which as you can see are just strawberries on marshmallows. Simple yet fun and delish. We each had three. I also had found this teeny tiny tea set at the dollar store which was perfect for a fairy party. I figured their American Girl dolls could use it after today too. Here you can see a picture of the Mushroom Houses in the back.
Once again we also had some fairy books from the library we read on this day. Even after a good nap little Tink was still tuckered out. She isn't used to having these big kids home all the time. She loves it though, don't get me wrong. In the evenings Mom usually gets a little break although Daddy had to be out this night but happily the little fairies just did sidewalk chalk and then fluttered off to bed.
Thursday was another work day for me. I told them to focus on Traditional Play Pretend ideas, like playing house, grocery store, bank, etc. I also bought them a little cash register with play money from the dollar store. And I figured this would be a good day for them to play a little with their American girl dolls. There was supposed to be a craft but we couldn't do it. Good thing my planned out weeks end mid Aug so I told them we could revisit anything we missed along the way at the end of summer if we want. The craft is pretty clever though, it's for their dolls but the one item I need for it I didn't find at the dollar store so I will have to keep looking.
Finally Friday arrived! I wanted to plan a really fun one to end the week so we made it Pirate day! Once again we got in costumes! Good thing Daddy has a stash of bandanas.
Even I got in on the fun, right down to wearing my gold hoops! Not everyday you meet a pregnant pirate!
Again more coloring pages and pirate themed library books. For morning snack I made Pirate ship parfaits! This is yet another example, my kids don't really like blueberries except in pancakes and they hardly ever eat bananas anymore, I think because they all ate so many as babies. But I told them if they wanted a "flag" (fruit roll up) they had to eat their yogurt and fruit and they gobbled it up! It was a huge banana so we split it!
Afternoon snack was pirate-y also. And this one Daddy made because he got out of work early. He made these little cheese and apple pirate ships. I know I sound like a broken record but we often try to tell the kids that apples and cheese go great together and they never will try it, but shape it like boats and they were fighting over these. And no one asked for a treat like they usually do in the afternoon!
Grace made an eye patch from construction paper and string and gave piggy back rides to her sister. We played a game of ISpy pretending to use a papertowel roll as a "spy glass". They watched Tinkerbelle Pirate fairy in the afternoon while coloring and playing with polly pockets. After Daddy came home we had to go to the grocery store and so Daddy put on a bandana too and out we went, a scraggly band of pirates.
The kids were good sports at the store, I had my cooking group this weekend so we had three big shopping trips this week two of which they had to accompany me on so I did a little treasure hunt for them when we got home. Plus a treasure hunt is kind of a good segway to next weeks theme...I used the map, riddles and prizes found on this lady's much more elaborate example for her child's birthday party and seriously whipped this up in like 5 min with all stuff I had in the house minus one special surprise I bought at the store....
The map...
The reading of the first clue...
They found tattoos! (We always have a stash of those in the house so we put some on after the hunt!)
I cut some bones out of paper for the "Boneyard" and sprinkled money under there for the gold dubloons. I was going to use chocolate coins but since meijer got rid of all their bulk candy I don't know where to buy things like that! So they each got a random assortment of change to add to their piggy banks, they were happy!
The top of the stairs in "Croc cove" a toy crocodile was guarding their Lick-a-stick treats, they had to fight him off to rescue their reward. And the final stop led them to the treasure chest with new toys for the big girls. Honestly I realized on the way home that I didn't get anything for Charlotte. She could care less, I put bath toys in there, she really had no idea what was going on and was happy as a clam, clapping and smiling. You can get away with that when they are two! The girls have a new obsession with squinkies, I couldn't find them at Meijers but Lalaloopsies have a teeny tiny variety that is comparable size. Seriously though someone help me out and tell me where to find squinkies!?
The little scalleywags enjoying their booty! What a fun week we had!!! Momma doesn't have too much fun stuff planned on the weekends, we catch up on big chores with Daddy like yardwork and Momma has her cooking group this weekend. So hopefully by stuffing them full of fun during the week I will get more helpfulness on the weekends with less complaints. A girl can dream anyways!
We did our second Fruit of the Spirit devotion this morning by of course singing our song again. We read Philippians 4:4 and pointed out the importance of the word "always" and talked about that, how difficult it is, how we don't always feel like rejoicing but that it needs to be a choice we make. And we also read John 15: 9-17. We pointed out the correlation between love and joy in this passage. Discussed the importance of obedience to God in that equation and how being obedient to God is one way we show him love, and by loving him "our joy will be complete." We decided we would encourage one another to choose joy this week, and that joy must be important because Paul said "I will say it again, rejoice!" We figured he must be beating it into our heads for a reason, haha!
So that was it. Next weeks theme is Luau/Beach, it has at least 5 crafts and a LOT of fun recipes, we will see if I get to them all! And we are hoping to cap the week off by getting out to the actual beach next week. Let's hope! I would say all in all "dress-up" week was actually pretty easy to implement once I had a plan. Obviously you have to be intentional when shopping for snack items but even the craft items were mostly stuff I have around the house. And telling the kids, "it's circus day, go pretend you are at the circus" is sometimes all it takes! So if you are already hearing whines of death and boredom early on in the summer. Take an idea or two from here and run with it! Hopefully it buys you a little Mom sanity in the summer! And now to have one last pirate moment because that was a fun day....Argghh Matey!!!
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