Maisy often asks to do activities.  There are so many kids activites on Pinterest I've been eyeing, that I was happy to try a few of them out.  Most of these activites below are my version of other people's fancy crafts.  

1.  Christmas Button Tree

I had some green felt that was already cut out in circles.  I just drew  the outline of a tree and glued some ribbon to the outline and had Maisy fill in the middle with buttons.  

She really liked this activity.  When it was all dry, I stuck it in a frame from Target.  Now we will have a piece of Maisy art for years to come.  It will be fun to bring out each year.

2.  Make your own Snow Globe

I used a cleaned out small little mustard jar.  

I hot glued a plastic little zebra to the top and Maisy filled the globe with glitter, fuzzy balls and water.  Maren goes crazy watching the glitter settle.

3.  Make an Airplane out of popsicle sticks and a clothes pin

Maisy painted all the parts and we sprinkled glitter on them.  

Then I hot glued it together.  

We decided it was missing a pilot, so we glued a giraffe to the top.

4.  An I-spy water bottle

I had a clear 1 liter bottle.  I found a bunch of items that could fit in the bottle and put them out on a plate for Maisy to put into the bottle.  Maisy put in lots of things, feathers, a straw, sequins, beads, fuzzy balls, rubber bands, a penny, a clothes pin etc.

Maisy fit those all in the bottle and poured in the glitter.  

We added water and I super glued the top on.  Both Maisy and Maren LOVE looking and playing with this. 

5.  Gel Sensory Bag

I got a cheap bottle of hair gel.  Maisy and I sqeezed the gel into a large ziplock bag.  We added some glitter and a few drops of red food coloring to the blue hair gel.  Maisy then got to see the colors mix as she played with the gel.  I took clear packing tape and taped all edges of the bag to reinforce it a bit.  

Both Maren and Maisy really enjoy playing with this.  I had them play with it on a white background so they could see the imprints their hands make when they stamp or make lines in the gel.  We are going to play with this with flashlights when the girls wake up from their nap.  

On a side note, we did an interesting study with UC Berkeley, where a researcher came to our house to video us for 3 hrs.  They wanted to watch second children in their second year of life, with their siblings in their normal environment.  It was a bit difficult at first to act normally, but then after a while, we just got into our thing and forgot the researcher was there.  They want to do a follow up taping about three months from now.  I'm very curious to ask the researcher more infomration about what they hope to learn after our next session.

Just a quick update on Maren at 15 mos, she's still not walking but has taken as many as 8 steps several times, she's just not ready to go for it yet!

A pretty picture I took of Maren yesterday at the park.  Just too sweet not to share.

More later!

Todd, Becky, Maisy and Maren