A Fun Little Activity....

I would by no means call myself creative. I mean -- I have a business degree. I worked as an accountant for awhile. Then, I spent 10 years in the big ol' business world...NOT as a marketing person.

In other words, I probably see things probably more black and white rather than a little gray and creative.

So, sometimes I need a little help when it comes to being creative with kids.

Fortunately, we are a part of Parents as Teachers with Luke. I make every effort to read their newsletter -- which often times has ideas of things to do with kids.

I recently came across an easy idea...this was something I could do with Oliver as Luke wouldn't quite be old enough. If you don't know, I have the privilege of watching Oliver and his sister Lily 1-2 times a week. Oliver is almost 3, and Lily is 14 months old. Lily entertains herself pretty well. Oliver has a great imagination and LOVES to talk. He's very curious and eager to learn; therefore, I knew this activity would work well with him.

Basically, you take cream cheese and spread it across graham crackers. Then, you use other "snacky" type foods to make faces or pictures on the graham cracker. We used grapes cut in half, raisins, pretzels, and peanut butter chips (as I didn't have any chocolate chips).

First, I showed Oliver a face.



Then, he took off on his own with this project....



He was very precise....



And, he came up with this (not too bad)....



He ended up doing 3 more faces for a total of 4. And, you include the one I did...we had five faces fairly quickly.



In the end, I let him pick one to eat (Ollie LOVES to eat). He probably would've eaten all of them, but I told him he had to take the rest home to eat later -- with his mom's permission.



After that, I suggested we make letters our of pretzels (Ollie's really into making letters now). He didn't quite understand at first, but one I showed him, he was all over that activity.



He wanted to make a "K" for Kendall (his mom)....



Then, of course, we made his name and his sister's name....





And, of course, Lukey's (Ollie calls Luke, Lukey)....But, we left the "Y" off of Luke's name with pretzels....



Ollie likes to talk with me about all of his friends. This day, however, he wanted to specifically make Ava's name out of pretzels (so Ava -- this is for you)....



In case you're wondering -- Lily was sleeping during this time. But, to not leave her out, here's a VERY CUTE photo of her I was able to catch after her nap. She's such a content little girl. She mostly wonders around our home -- finding toys and carrying them around while jabbering to herself.



And, during this graham cracker/pretzel time with Ollie, Luke found things to play with while occasionally joining us in the kitchen for a pretzel snack. But, here's a photo of him I caught later in the morning. This photo is so "Luke." He has his blanket (the one he wouldn't survive without) up to his nose with his thumb in his mouth.



*****

And finally -- this one is specifically for Ollie and Lily's parents --- here's my "funny" Ollie story from the morning.

Ollie tends to notice everything around our house. He asks MANY questions, but I'm very amazed at how he remembers things and also how he notices if something's out of place in our home.

Anyways, Marc has these cereal containers on a top shelf in our kitchen.



Ollie's noticed them before, but this day, he noticed they were empty. He asked me where the cereal was.

I told him that the cereal was in bags way up high -- behind the containers.



I then explained to him that the containers were empty and that Marc needed to fill them up again (it's Marc's cereal -- I just stay out of it).

Then, Ollie proceeded to give me some instructions.

He said, "Oh -- well then, could you please tell Marc to fill up the cereal containers. Then, ask him if I can have some of his cereal next time I come here."

I promised Ollie I would do that, and I did just that last night after Marc got home.

After a few chuckles ourselves, Marc promised he would comply with Ollie's request.

So Ollie -- next time, you can have some of Marc's cereal as a snack.