New Picture Books About Dad and Bedtime

 

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in exchange for honest reviews. All opinions are my own.

Father's Day is quickly approaching and today I get to share two fun new bedtime books where Dad is in charge of getting the little one to sleep. The first is by blogger and co-founder of Multicultural Children's Book Day/Read Your World, Mia Wenjen. The book is Boxer Baby Battles Bedtime and is illustrated by Kai Gietzen. It is recommended for ages 3 and up. 

Some New Books for Younger Kids (Babies - 7)

 

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Today I am going to share some multicultural books for younger children. They include a prayer book for babies, a board book and a picture book. The board book and picture book are new ideas on some classic songs. We will start with the book that has babies in the title. It is a religious book. It is Pray with Your Baby Every Day edited by Claire Grace and Rachel Robinson and embroidered by Chloe Giordano. It is recommended for ages 0 to 4. 

New Board Books for the Spring

 

Disclosure: I was sent copies of these book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Spring is basically upon us and as everything awakens, I am noticing I know several people who just had babies or about to have babies. It is the perfect time to look at board books to read to little ones or gift!! Today I have four new board books (one being released tomorrow) to share with you. The first is Hey, Little Night Owl by Jeffrey Burton and illustrated by Joy Hwang Ruiz. 

No Is All I Know! -- Learn the Power of Yes!

 

Disclosure: I was sent a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Is your child in the no stage? It is a normal stage for toddlers who are exploring their boundaries and discovering their own voices and world. To learn more about this stage and some coping strategies check out this article. If you want to show them the power of yes, read on. Today I get to share with you a new picture book from Chris Grabenstein called No Is All I Know! and illustrated by Leo Espinosa. It is recommended for ages 3 to 7, but it certainly could be read to a two-year-old. 

Picture Book Round-Up -- Picture Books for Everyone

Disclosure: I was sent these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Today I am going to clear off my picture book shelf and share with you eight books for younger kids! We will start with a book that is perfect for the new baby or mom. It is To the Moon and Back for You by Emilia Bechrakis Serhant and art by E.G. Keller. The suggested ages for this book is 4 to 8 but I am thinking that is for the child to read the book him or herself. 

Spring Board Books Round-Up

Disclosure: We were sent these books in exchange for honest reviews. All opinions are our own.

So I decided to share with you some board books today that have been sitting on my shelf. Since one of them is about spring I figured I better hurry up. Although it is just feeling like spring here, we are half way through it on the calendar. These books range in ages from baby to 3.

Books for the Young

Disclosure: I was sent these books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

Today I am going to share books for your youngest kids. The ages of these books range from baby to kindergarten. They are a variety of board books and picture books. The topics range from travel, family, transportation and more!! I hope you will check them out for your little ones!!

Silly & Feel Good Books for the Young

Disclosure: I was sent these products to review free of charge in exchange for an honest review. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review.

Tonight I am going to share some books for the younger readers. These books are board books and picture books and are for our youngest kids. They leave the reader with a good feeling or are just really silly. The first book is Vegetables in Underwear by Jared Chapman. From the title you can tell it will be a bit silly.

Books for the Younger Kids

Disclosure: I was sent these products free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As always I am providing links to the book for your convenience.

Do you have younger kids? Are you looking for some good books for them? I have a few suggestions today (like most days). Today's grouping is for the younger kids through beginning readers. The first is actually a new series by Brian Biggs: Tinyville Town. We will start with two board books from the series. The first is Tinyville Town I'm a Veterinarian.

Fun Books for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Disclosure: Penguin Random House Books gave me copies of these books free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Yesterday we shared some great religious books for babies. Today we sharing a couple of books for toddlers and preschoolers. The first book is by Oliver Jeffers and it is The Hueys in What's the Opposite? This fun book teaches about opposites. It is a fun introduction to the concept. 

Sharing Saturday 15-16

Thank  you to everyone who shared last week!! Once again I am blown away by all the great ideas! This week our features consist of  Earth Day & Mother's Day Features, Art Features, Toddler Features, and Other Features. 

Salad Spinner Firework Art

This morning we had the best time making firework paintings. I found on Pinterest Mom's Crafty Space: Salad Spinner "Fireworks" Tutorial. I figured I had an old salad spinner that leaked and Hazel loves using it, so why not. We added water to her red and blue paints including her red sparkle paint. We also added our own touch with some glitter at the end.

 I gave her old medicine syringes to add drops of color. She had two different shades of blue and red and we did them on paper plates. She dropped the colors on the plate in the spinner. One red was almost empty so we just added water to the bottle and used the squeezer. It got a little more liquidy than the others.

Then she spun it. She loves this.

Then she loved pushing the stop button and checking how it looked.

Then we added glitter. Another favorite activity for Hazel.

We made large plates and small plates. I took all the small plates and added letters/words to say "Happy 4th of July!" Punched a hole in them and made a banner for the mantle. The large plates I am thinking of putting "Freedom" on and hanging them on our outside stairs for our barbeque.

After spin art we tried marble painting. We tried it on plates, but didn't totally like it. You can see the small plate above with "of" on it. We tried it on white paper.

Then we did some handprint fireworks. Hazel did not quite get the idea of them, but we had fun. We added glitter to make it a little more realistic.

We have some more ideas for painting fireworks, but they will have to wait for another day.

This is where I share...

T-Shirt Weather

Reminder: Sharing Saturday is still open!! So is the Teacher Gift Link Party! Please stop by both and share your amazing ideas!!

Hazel's Mermaid T-Shirt

My Mermaid T-Shirt

Summer has finally hit here in New England. So since it is t-shirt weather, we decided to paint our own. T-shirts were on sale this past week at Joann's (4 for $10) and AC Moore ($2.99). We bought a bunch in different colors for both of us and a few for gifts. I also used my 50% off coupon at Joann's to buy some metallic and glitter fabric paints. Needless to say we will be making some for the various holidays this year. I had seen a few places using freezer paper stencils and read somewhere that contact paper would also work. I also had seen a tutorial in Family Fun Magazine to make your own silk screens so they would be reusable, but I didn't want to invest the money and time into this. Since I had a piece of contact paper cut that wasn't used for its original intention, I went with that. It was so easy! I googled for free stencils and for certain pictures. We had decided we wanted mermaid t-shirts to enter in the Mermaid Project Competition.

So to start I traced the stencils onto the clear contact paper. Then using an Exacto type knife I cut out the portions for each color. (On some of the multi-colored ones if the colors were not too close I would cut them both out of one as to not waste Contact paper.) Then we chose the color for the first part and I put the stencil on the t-shirt with a magazine inbetween the layers of the fabric. We put some paint in a plastic egg carton and Hazel dabbed it on with sponge applicators I bought the last time we painted t-shirts for Valentine's Day.

Hard at work on her mermaid!

Close up on the mermaid painting

The mermaid was the only one we used twice. So we did these together each layer. First we did Hazel's and then I would remove the stencil and put it right on my t-shirt and dab the stencil with a paper towel since I wanted different colors.

Stencil Removed

Painted stencil

In between colors we had to wait four hours for the paint to dry completely. So we did all the first round and then waited. Did some second round before Hazel went to bed, but finished the second round in the morning as well as the third round from the ones we did the night before. Here are some of the ones we did. (There are more methods below!!)

We bought Hazel a new sun hat which she loves and she wanted a t-shirt to match it so I copied the fish and used the picture as a stencil. It came out pretty good. The unicorn I want to fix. I let Hazel choose the colors and the white she chose doesn't really show up well and neither does the pink mane and tail. Still thinking about what I will do with it though.

I bought some large farm animal stamps ages ago. Hazel wanted to use the duck one and I let her paint it whatever colors she wanted and as many times as she wanted. She wanted to make a mommy duck, a daddy duck and a baby duck so there are three. This was probably among the easiest method and the one she could basically do by herself!

Then for Father's Day, we made my father a t-shirt. Or at least I should say we started him a t-shirt. We did the front. We will bring it to him and give it to him but when my nephew comes for his visit this summer he will complete the back for him. I will leave him some of the paints to do it. We used Hazel's handprints to make a heart. I saw this idea at Craft Passion.

Hazel put paint on each of her hands and we made handprints. Then I used the paints directly from the bottle and drew the heart around her hands and wrote the words. Hazel calls my dad Pop. My nephew calls him by his first name so his will be different on the back.

We have some more ideas to try, so stay posted for another t-shirt post. Enjoy!

This is where I link up...

Summer, Beach & Mermaids

So my mother-in-law asked me to print her a copy of the picture above in as an 8" by 10". I did, but it got me thinking about beach frames. So while at Michaels the other day I picked up two inexpensive frames on clearance. I knew I would cover them with shells and such so I didn't worry about their colors. I also bought some more shells and sea glass. Then I saw the Mermaid Contest over at Taming the Goblin.

Over the weekend, we made the frames. We decided to start by covering the frames with sand. We had some from last year's fairy garden. So our first step is to spread some glue on the frames. Hazel loved doing this!

Then we did our best to cover them with sand.

At this point we should have let the glue dry, but I had an anxious three-year-old helping me so we went ahead. She could not wait to start gluing on the shells, rocks and sea glass. (Sorry the picture came out a bit blurry.)

Then we let the glue dry for a few days (and it still wasn't completely dry--guess I globbed it on a bit much). By the way we used craft glue. I called my mother who just made one of those shell wreaths to see what she used and she used a hot glue gun, but didn't recommend it with Hazel helping. She thought craft glue would work fine and it did.

Mermaid Taking a Nap Framed

While it was drying I looked for pictures of mermaids. I found several at Graphics Fairy, but they were more vintage and not as kind looking as I hoped for. I did a search and came across Deviant Art. My favorite there is Mermaid Taking a Nap. Of the four I showed to Hazel, her favorite is one I found on Graphics Hunt. There are so many out there and I tried to look for friendly and not too sexy ones.

Hazel's Favorite Framed

Then I hung them in the family room to get some pictures. After that I put Hazel's favorite in her room and I changed the picture in my favorite to the beach picture. After all this is what I bought the frames for.

I do think we are going to use some of the wooden frames I bought ages ago to make some more shell frames for our mermaid pictures and for her beach picture as gifts.

So how do you like our mermaid inspired craft? I'm off to enter it in Taming the Goblin's Contest.




This is where I share...

Baking Muffins & Growing Magic Beans Part 1

This weekend Hazel and I baked some banana muffins and we planted magic beans. First our muffin recipe. I adapted this recipe from Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious. As last week, I am trying to include more nuts, whole grains, fruit and vegetables in our diets.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar (brown or white)
1/2 cup almond butter
2 medium carrots pureed (you may want to add a bit of water to puree them raw or you can cook them)
2 medium very ripe bananas mashed (Hazel is my masher!)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 egg
1/2 cup flax seed meal
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup of ground walnuts and almonds (I ground mine in the blender more to hide the walnuts from Hazel)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 350 and spray a muffin pan with a cooking spray (do not use paper liners or the muffins will stick to them).

Mix sugar, almond butter, carrots, bananas, egg and applesauce in large bowl.

Mix the remainder of the ingredients in a smaller bowl.

Add dry ingredients to liquid ingredients and mix well. Then scoop into muffin pan. This is the first time Hazel successfully helped scoop them. I can see her improving each time we bake together and with age!

Bake for 20-25 minutes (the recipe said 15-20 but I found mine took closer to 25 and still were a bit moist). Then cool on a rack and eat warm or cool. Yield 12 muffins.

Now on to our magic beans!! For the first part of this project (the part I'm sharing here) I got the idea from StrongStart which was featured on Sharing Saturday #14. Over the weekend we planted some magic beans. I had to go out and buy more jelly beans because my dear husband got into the magic beans that I set aside without realizing they were for a project.

Magic Beans Planted (Left: Magic beans = jelly beans) (Right: I will share another time)

So I put some garden dirt into an egg container and we planted one of each color of jelly beans. I added the two later after I bought more magic beans. Then we put them by the window. In a couple of days we had this:

Hazel decided we were growing candles at this point. We drew in her garden journal. I drew a picture and wrote candles and then she added to it. I had labeled the page Magic Beans and added the date. Later in the day we had:

I put a jelly bean on each lollipop stick for this phase. At this point Hazel guessed lollipops, which of course is what we are growing. The next morning she woke up to this:

If you try this, make sure you wet the soil and pack it around the sticks to get the lollipops to stand. She was so excited this morning. She wanted to pick all of them and have one after lunch each day and we had to call Daddy at work to tell him about it.

Checking out her lollipops that she grew!

Overall this was a fun gardening activity to try especially with the cold wet weather we are having and having our yard sprayed for ticks so we can't go on the grass for 3 days. This definitely entertained her for a few days.

Oh, and I bought a copy of Jack and the Beanstalk today which I'm going to read to her soon. Hope all is well with you!!


This is where I link up...