Make an Obstacle Course for your Kids!

The boys asked Daddy to make an obstacle course today... or as my three-year old said it, "Dad?! Can you make us an awesome horse?"

So, off my three guys went into the back yard to see what they could make with what we have lying around.

[There's supposed to be a video here... but we are having technical difficulties... sorry!]

Step #1 -- climb up the ladder and go down the slide.
Step #2 -- ride the tricycle over to the t-ball station and hit a ball.
Step #3 -- zig zag through the traffic cones
Step #4 -- step on pots and across a raised plank of wood (on cinder blocks)
Step #5 -- jump over a post
Step #6 -- crawl through the tunnel
Step #7 -- go over the firepit (they asked for real fire... yea right.)
Step #8 -- swing on the monkey bar

They were having so much fun doing it over and over again to see if they could do it faster the next time! What do you have at your house that you can use to make an obstacle course with?

Create a Popsicle Stick Doll House

You know you want to use all those craft sticks you have laying around, since it turns out that the box of 1000 is only a bit more than the package of 150.

I wrote about making this house a few years ago.  This was a fun project, though it sure took a lot of time...  which isn't necessarily a bad thing, right?

Here's the original post where it was originally posted.



































My youngest daughter, Caroline, was 10 when she made this house.  I don't remember the exact steps but here are a few notes about how it was made:

1. It sits on a base of cardboard.   We figured out how big the house would be and created a floor of sticks.
2. The walls were made by laying and then gluing the sticks one on top of each other, flat-side down. Yup, that took a while, and used up a lot of sticks!  
3. Openings were left for the door and for windows on each of the other 3 sides.  The openings were "finished" with the craft sticks.
4. The roof and chimney were designed and crafted by Caroline's loving and helpful Daddy.  It is a separate piece and sits on top of the walls -- so you can easily remove the roof, put things inside the house, and then set the roof back on.

The inhabitants of the popsicle stick house are small twig people made by Caroline. They have (rather oddly shaped) acorn heads and leaf clothing. Their friend (in the photo above, "standing" on the right) is some kind of twig-only dude.



A really awesome book for being crafty with kids is Family Fun Crafts.  The how-to for making the little stick figure dolls is on pp. 108-109.

We chose today's post for our weekly link-up!

Please visit our She Links Up! page and check out the other places you can go for great recipes, ideas and encouragement!

Busy Bags

Some women in my church recently got together and created a series of busy bags for our kids. I wasn't able to be with them the night that they created the projects, but I contributed a set of supplies from home. It was a great system! There were 5 of us participating, so each person made 5 of the projects and then we shared them all. My 3yo son loves his new busy bags! The ones that we did included laminated blank faces with tubs of play dough (to create silly eyes, noses, mouth, etc.) ~ color matching ~ puzzles ~ pipe cleaners with soft beads to string on them ~ velcro jumbo sticks to create shapes ~ felt cupcakes with decorations, etc. I plan to add to our collection with more activities. These are great for the car or for church because they are portable and they are QUIET activities for him to enjoy. Here is a great resource to check out with amazing ideas for creating busy bags. My plan is to make up a box for him to store these in so that he can pull out a few at a time to take with him in his Church Bag. I am also working on a Quiet Book for my kids, but that will be a long process and hopefully sometime later this year I can post about it! Enjoy these great ideas and share with us if you try them! We would love to see some pictures of the activities you create!

Family Game Night

If your family is anything like mine you probably have a lot of time to be together this time of year. My husband's job brings him indoors during the winter months and he has lots of opportunities to spend quality time with our children. One of their favorite things to do is play board games together [and/or wrestle]. We love to give our kids games for Christmas gifts each year and our stockpile of board games is growing steadily! I thought I would share some of MY family's favorite games, as well as EMILY's family choices [since her kids are older] ... therefore giving you a wide-range of game ideas!

What are some of YOUR favorite games to play???

Card Games:
Hand and Foot
Rook
Nertz [aka Peanuts]

Party Games:
Apples to Apples
Quelf
Origins
Catch Phrase

Board Games:
Ticket to Ride
Settlers of Catan (Emily says that this is a "great strategy game for geeky people" Haha.)
Labyrinth
Clue
Risk

Two-Person Games:
Scrabble
Yahtzee

Games to Play with Young Ones:
The Ladybug Game
Memory
Candyland
Don't Break the Ice
Dominoes
Guess Who?
Connect Four
Battleship
Checkers [and/or Chinese Checkers]