Marker fun

I am an awesome mom.

I tend to let the wee ones attempt things that I was forbidden to do...

like use markers frequently for artistic efforts. Both boys way prefer markers over crayons currently.

Well, after lunch, markers were out for drawing.

This led to me (awesome mom that I am) allowing them to draw on themselves with markers!

Yeah...Talking belly buttons!

We all had to give it a try. Yes, Tamlin's outie belly button became a nose instead of the mouth.  Oh, this was a hoot and we all ending up laughing like maniacs.

This quickly went downhill...
Both boys thought the idea of drawing on their skin = awesomeness.  Tamlin even attempted drawing on his back to marginal success.  Jude was drawing dragons all over his chest.  Tamlin gave himself matching anchor tattoos on the arms to make him appear like Popeye; note his strong-man pose.

Brian even helped foster this activity by providing marker tattoos on his sons that were similar to his own tattoos: the phoenix and the Cheshire Cat.

Oh, it was a wonderful family activity.  I told the boys they could use markers for paper, but with permission they could use markers to draw on themselves (arms, chest, and back only; no face).  Walls and toys were still right out as canvases.

It was a bath night so the artistic efforts were temporary :-)

I would say 90% of the marker came off with soap and water.  A bit more came off with some baby oil and baby wipes.  However, there are still faint red lines decorating Tam's skin and a bit of stubborn black lines on Jude's chest.  The blue marker came off the easiest.  I wonder what the daycare workers will say on Tuesday if any of it can still be seen.

Easter Bunnies

I have tried to make it a bit of a tradition to sew bunnies for Tamlin and Jude for their Easter Baskets.  I thought it was a sweet little thing I could whip together, even if time is short before the holiday.  I've done upcycled socks into bunnies and zipper-mouth bunnies and traditional bunnies.  The bunnies go into and out of favor throughout the year.  Currently, both sock bunnies are high on the love list and have been sharing sleeping quarters with the boys all this month. 

This year I have made them beanie bunnies. The inspiration was from a fellow mom blogger :
http://www.sewmamasew.com/2014/03/spring-bunny-tutorial/

I let the boys pick out the fabric from the stash and encouraged them to pick what they thought was soft like a bunny's fur.  Tam surprisingly went for the same green fabric that I have used for another one of his bunnies.  Jude went with a soft brown that I have also used for his beloved Monster. The resulting bunnies are very soft and filled with pellets so they are very squishy too.  I used hand-me-down buttons for the eyes and embroidered hearts on the back of their heads.  I think they are just reaching out for a bit of love and hugs.  I hope the boys like them :-)

Patches and Monster Mash

With going to school three times a week, Tamlin has been tumbling / playing more on the floor which has resulted in wearing out the knees of several jeans.  He's still young and growing and I have Jude following behind... so I decided to patch the worst pairs.


Four pairs of 5T jeans got their knees replaced with corduroy or jean patches.  (The scraps came from old pants in the spare fabric bin of ours.  Yeah, up-cycle!

I used inspiration from several fellow mom blogs, hence the stripes and the nod to the British flag.

I'm glad to have these still wearable but man-oh-man, sewing in those little legs and stitching one inch at a time is really a pain.


Tamlin seemed to like them and agreed to model a couple of pairs...

These are his "Monster Mash" dance poses.  He's been doing the Monster Mash on the Just Dance wii game and has been becoming quite good at dancing like a zombie. 

Easter Egg Hunt Chaos

 We attempted an egg hunt at a local park...a huge, chaotic, egg hunt... with a gazillion kids (I swear!)  Ok, when I decided to go, I didn't think it would be quite as many people since it was in one of the nearby cities that wasn't too large. 
The park had large areas of the field corded off and littered with little plastic eggs. At least they had the kiddos separated by age into different corals.  Tamlin was with the 5-6 year olds and Jude with 3-4s.  Oddly, the older kids were scheduled for their run 30 minutes before the littles.  Tam was excited to give it a go.  Jude was a fussernut... he was upset to wait, upset to stand, upset when his bag got twisted, upset with the mud, upset with waiting...did I mention he was a nugget-head?

 The whistle blew and the kids were off...Chaos!

 I swear the eggs were snatched up within 5 minutes... 5 minutes!

 Tamlin picked up 3 eggs.  Really, I was proud he at least got that many given how many kids were in the area competing for these things.  The eggs had coins and tickets for candy and prizes.  We attempted to wait for Jude's turn...but he was having none of that.  He really doesn't like being in places with lots of people (I think its because he is only looking at kneecaps!). 
Given the choice, Jude opted to get no eggs and to go play instead.  I wasn't going to put up with whiny Jude for the slim chance of him grabbing some cheesy eggs...so we left the hunt to check out the treats and crafts.

 Crafts went over much better for both boys.  They made pom-pom chicks, pom-pom bunnies, and bunny masks.  Jude really enjoys crafts so this was great.  Tamlin likes crafts, but was way more interested looking at all the live snakes and turtles in tanks around the room.

 Tamlin insisted on a photo!  Both boys ended the time playing on the playground with the other gazillion kids still here after the hunt.

On the way back home, look who we found outside the candy store in our town!

It was a sweet way to end the day.  I don't know if I would do a big egg hunt like that again...next time I'll stick to the local church gigs.

Happy Easter!