Monster Mash

 After I saw THIS post on Pink and Green Mama I knew exactly what Maddie and I would be doing after reading one of her favorite books; Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberley.

Armed with an assortment of goodies (beads, popsicle sticks, googly eyes, marbles and buttons) 

 and a few fresh cans of Play-Doh we set to work. Don't you just LOVE being the first one into a fresh can. The perfectly formed lump with no stray colors mixed in. Lovely. 

Maddie and I designed monsters at the kitchen table for well over an hour. Sometimes I forget how relaxing Play--Doh really is!

I am so in love with all of the monsters we made! Aren't they ridiculously cute?!

If you haven't had a chance to read Go Away, Big Green Monster! we highly recommend it. Maddie and I are huge fans of Ed Emberley books. We also have Glad Monster, Sad Monster and Bye-Bye, Big Bad Bullybug! which we LOVE too!

stART: A Brave Spaceboy

We are officially at less than a month now before the movers come and pack everything up, YIKES! With the impending move sneaking up awfully quickly it has been a topic of discussion in our house and we have been trying to ease any reservations Maddie has about it.

I stumbled upon A Brave Spaceboy: Moving Is An Adventure at the library yesterday and thought it would be a great book to help Maddie with our transition. The book doesn't overtly talk about moving but we did talk about the pictures of packed boxes and a new house. Madison's new desire is to use our moving boxes to make a rocket ship at the new house!

With lots of our crafting materials packed up we went for a non-messy crafting session to go along with the book! I printed off a magnet printable from Making Learning Fun to keep Maddie busy while I cut out a few rocket ship shapes.

Next up Madison set to work coloring her own personal rocket ships. We added a few small squares of tissue paper to complete the look! One rocket ship got attached to a craft stick to use as a puppet,

and the other accompanied star stickers on a piece of black construction paper. Nothing fancy here today but Maddie was still happy!

Stop by A Mommy's Adventures for some other fantastic stART, or Story Art projects!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

In honor of such a special day Madison and I read 3 of our favorite Dr. Seuss book and did a little craft to go with each one.

Dr. Seuss's A B C

After we read the book I had Madison chose any letter she wanted and name three things that start with that letter. Madison chose A and said Aa is for alligator, apple and ant and then drew her own illustrations to go along with it.

Green Eggs and Ham

Such a classic and one of my favorites!

After reading the book Madison made her own plate of green eggs and ham!

The Foot Book

Time to get a bit messy!

Of course we had to make a print of Madison's feet! At least the best we good, she such a wiggler!

Polar Bear Day!

How about another obscure holiday celebration, today happens to be Polar Bear Day! We have a certain love of polar bears at our house. I had a small collection as a child and Madison now has all of my stuffed polar bears and one in particular has been named and gets toted all around. I am sure I have mentioned Maddie Mae Bear before....

So we certainly couldn't let such a special day go by without a little bit of fun planned!

Madison had fun pulling about cotton balls to make her polar bear picture fuzzy.

He certainly does look fuzzy!

We had a special polar bear snack too! A powdered mini doughnut with chocolate chips, mini marshmallows and a bit of black food gel made for an adorable snack.

That was gobbled up!

We finished up our polar bear fun with my new favorite children's book Panda & Polar Bear by Matthew J Baek! I fell in love with the story the first time we read it and we have been reading it over and over again since! The story is an adorable tale of two very unlikely friends; a panda and polar bear of course!

Carnival Day

Nope. There is no carnival in town {although we will be hitting up the ChowderFest tomorrow} but that is no reason not to celebrate Carnival Day!

Who even knew there was such a day?In honor of such a special holiday Maddie and I had a bit of fun at home.
Okay technically we did all this fun stuff on Wednesday but TODAY is Carnival Day.

How about some puffy paint cotton candy! Mix equal parts shaving cream and glue. Add a bit of red paint and paint away!

How cute? Looks awfully tasty too!

Madison had fun using her dotters to decorate this E is for Elephant coloring page.

No carnival is complete without hot dogs, cotton candy and popcorn!

We finished up the day with two adorable circus themed books.

Circus by Lois Ehlert is short and sweet with bright colors and lots of shapes. Each page is illustrated with an amazing and spectacular sight to be seen! Watch out for a daring final act by Bruno the magnificent!

To The Big Top by Jill Esbaum is an adorable tale of two boys who dive into the excitement with the circus comes to Willow Grove. Fun is to be had with candy apples, the circus parade and a sneaky monkey!

stART - Runaway Mittens

It has been awhile since I posted a stART project but with my new blogging schedule I hope to a little more often!


Last week Madison and I read Runaway Mittens by Jean Rogers. Madison adored this story and asked to read it over and over again. Of course a story that got so much attention deserved it's own craft project too!

We went super simple and easy for this activity. I printed out mittens on a piece of cardstock and Maddie went wild with her crayons. We finished up with the hole punch and bit of yarn.

A perfect decoration for the Winter window we have going on!

Stop by A Mommy's Adventures for some other wonderful stART activities!

The Blahs

You may have noticed that the blog has been seriously lacking this week and that is because I am currently suffering from my one cold of the year. That's the way it tends to work for me, I get one seriously nasty cold every year although it did show up a bit earlier this year. To be completely honest Playhouse Disney has been the babysitter at our house this week. Sure to some it may seem like a 'bad mommy' thing to do but when I can barely keep my eyes open Mickey Mouse and The Imagination Movers are my best friends! Really isn't that the worse part of being a stay at home mom? No sick time! Ugh!

Thankfully I think the worst of my cold is over and now I am running on coffee and DayQuil - what a combination! Yesterday I was feeling well enough to take Madison to story time at the library.

And before you start shouting at your computer screens that how dare I spread my germs I swear (cross my heart!) that I am not sneezing, coughing or snotting all over the place! Plus hand sanitizer is always in my pocket these days!

While browsing for new books at the library I found only the most perfect book for our house this week! Iris Has a Virus is the beautifully illustrated tale of a young girl who comes down with the flu! Like I said PERFECT for our house this week!


Madison giggled away at bedtime last night listening to this story! On another note I LOVE Madison new found desire to 'read' us her books. Every night after we read our bedtime story Madison says "I can't read the words yet but I will tell you the story" and she then goes through the book telling us all about the story. I love listening to her tell the story because then we get to find out what parts she really pays attention to!

Fingers crossed I am feeling up to some craft time in the next few days so we can get some fun Thanksgiving projects done!

Patchwork Project & Books

If the rest of this post makes no sense please forgive me. I am living on Dayquil and coffee at the moment and may have even fallen asleep while typing! =)

I mentioned last week that I had some project ideas to go along with our latest batch of library books and I am in love with how this one came out!

We recently read Peter's Patchwork Dream by Willemien Min and The Quilt Story by Tony Johnston. Bonus: The Quilt Story is illustrated by Tomie dePaola! Madison and I really enjoyed both of the books and all of their beautiful illustrations.

For our quilt project Madison made a construction paper quilt. I did have all intentions of making a small fabric quilt with fabric markers but I have been feeling rather blah this week so we opted for the construction paper route.

I cut up three different colors of construction paper into 3x3inch squares and Madison decorated them as she saw fit.

To give them a bit more of a quilt look I took a crayon and added stitching along the sides of the squares.

Next up was assembling the quilt. For this part Madison and I layed and glued all of the squares onto a large sheet of scrapbook size cardstock. Madison was so thrilled with how her 'blanket' turned out!

Giving Thanks by Jonathan London

After yesterday's trip to the library we are over flowing with Fall and Thanksgiving themed books for the week! We did our first book related project yesterday to go along with Giving Thanks by Jonathan London.




Madison was a bit confused with the story the first time we read it. She wasn't sure why we would be thanking the sky, bunny rabbits and mushrooms! With a little chat about being thankful for all that we have and all that surrounds us she was more than eager to write down all the things that she was thankful for.

I have seen quite a few different styles of a Thankful Tree but I wanted to incorporate our family into the tree along with the things we are thankful for. I ended up tracing all of hand's onto a piece of brown construction paper for the top of the tree and now when ever Madison looks at it she likes to point out everyone's hands!

Then we each took a set of colored leaves; Madison chose red, I had yellow and daddy grabbed orange. Now we are able to tell apart everyone's Thankful Leaves. Now onto the good stuff!

Madison is thankful for: Mom & Dad, Maddie Mae Bear, The Playground, Friends and Milo
Daddy is thankful for: Amanda, Madison, His Job, Good Friends and Family!
Mommy is thankful for: Our Family, The US Navy, The option to be a SAHM, Our Home and Good Coffee!

I was a bit surprised at how involved Madison became in this project and at bedtime last night she was still listing off the things she was thankful for!

The Little Scarecrow Boy - Margaret Wise Brown

We recently found The Little Scarecrow Boy in the seasonal section at our library and Madison has been reading it over and over again since. Of course I couldn't return the book to the library without a fun craft first!

Materials: Construction paper, glue, scissors
Really it doesn't get easier than this!

This was also a perfect time to discuss shapes and colors - granted this is something Madison knows VERY well but a refresher is always good!

My only role in the project was glue distributor! Madison knew exactly where every piece belonged and directed me in the glue placement.

Mad was so thrilled with her new friend and has been cozied up in the living room with her picture and book all morning!

Muffin Tin Monday!

I can't express how happy I was to see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs as our theme this week! As a child I LOVED this book, hubby on the other hand had never even heard of it. Yes clearly he lived under a rock. Anyways, we don't actually own this book so as soon as I saw the theme pop up it headed straight onto our library list. We have read the book over and over again this week and Madison thinks it is hilarious every time.

Yesterday we even did a cute little project. Maddie decorated an umbrella and then we sat down together to find some good food pictures to rain down on the umbrella.

She opted for a hamburger, hot dog, ice cream, pancakes, broccoli and of course spaghetti and meatballs!

The big topic of discussion at our house this week are the sorts of food she would like to fall from the sky too. When I asked her what she would do if rained food she said "I would RUNNNNNN"! Of course she would!

So here is the muffin tin we came up with for today.
Top: Spaghetti and sauce, broccoli (not limp!) and Jell-O
Bottom: A Meatball of course!, soup and mini pancakes

My personal favorite is the picture food pick of Madison "RUNNNIINNNGGG" from the falling food!