Don't get me wrong I love the other seasons too; seeing everything come alive in spring; lazy summer days at the lake (I'm also a fish when it comes to water, just ask my mom!) and my second favorite season fall, with it's crisp colors and excitement that comes with that time of year. But winter will always have a special place in my heart. I've just always loved winter...
until I had kids...or more specifically, until my first child reached toddler-hood. Now, I know, we live in Texas and very rarely get real "winter weather." It rarely snows and is still fairly warm in December. But the last month or so it has been either rainy or too cold to go outside. And even trips to the store or play area have been limited because I don't really want to get little Rowynn out much. And my outside-loving, born in the summer, rough-in-tough darling girl longs for warmer weather. She LOVES to be outside. And it breaks my heart to have to tell her it's too cold. Especially when she doesn't really understand why all of a sudden she can't play outside. All in all though, she's handled it pretty well. Much better than her stir crazy momma!
So we've decided to combat our cabin fever with some fun crafts. And we are getting out more, we are a family that loves to be out and about!
Anyway, here are some fun crafty things we've done. I'm not a crafty person at all. Well, not an original crafty person. So me an idea, and I can recreate it. Show I've scoured blogs, and pestered fellow mommas for some fun activities!
I cut out some cars from some foam paper and made a pretend car wash for Finley. She used markers to make the cars dirty and then she cleaned them! Water and cleaning, two of her favorite things...and no I didn't come up with this on my on. I found it here.
As you can see, it was a big hit!
There's one about the sun. I let Finley paint (yellow and orange) two paper plates and then I placed card stock triangles int between the plates and stapled. We attached our poem about the sun.
Now it brightens up our play room.
We also made a cloud. I let Finley tear up some tissue paper and glue it to some card stock. We then glued cotton balls to make our cloud:
There's one about colors that I just changed the font color and printed out. And one about a rainbow that I attached to a outline of a rainbow and let Finley use glue and glitter to decorate. And one about water that I put on the mirror in her bathroom.
And then we put this one above her bed. She loves to hear it every night. And if we forget, she points to it!
I love having little poems around the house for us to say together. They're short, fun, and teach her all about God's wonderful creations. We've also started learning scripture together. She repeats it after me, word by word. It's so important to lay a solid, biblical foundation when they're young.
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
-Proverbs 22:6
Some other fun craft projects:
We made an igloo. Basically I let Finley cover an entire piece of blue construction paper with white labels. And then I cut out a shape of an igloo and glued it to some bright blue card stock. For detailed instructions go here.
We also made a salt snowman. Easy-peasy. I drew a snowman and had Finley "paint" it with glue and then she covered it with salt. Oh and small tip, I reused a spice container for this and all glitter-involved crafts. I can control how much glitter or salt goes into the container and then she can sprinkle it without dumping the entire container of glitter. Live and Learn! Although we did sprinkle some glitter over us and fly around the house! Messy, but hey, they're only young once!
And then we made a butterfly! Probably gonna do some more and use them for decorations at her Eric Carle-themed birthday party!
So while I can't wait until warmer weather so we can play outside, I am enjoying winter weather once again, snug inside, crafting the day away!
