Things We Do. . .

The following are a few things we do at this stage of our life with little girlies. . . trying to keep them busy, productive, exploring, learning etc.

Face painting. Usually I just paint cheek elements, but she found a full picture in a library book and so we got a little more involved.

Artist Bath Soap. (See here.) My recommendation: follow the recipe, instead of using an entire bar of Ivory just because grating it is so fun! We ended up with WAAAYYY more than we wanted, so we divided them into little containers and made a service project out of it. Tessa was able to deliver them to lots of friends. Also, by the time I was done, my hands were really dry from the Ivory so if we do it again, I'll use a soap with moisturizer. We used food coloring instead of dye with superb results (except the colors with red in them faded over time.) Easy and fun project!

Story time. This has improved since we increased our library visits. I lose Tess after too many rereads.

Kitchen experiments. Usually just safe things Tess can mix together. (At this point I only let her do this while Greta naps---Greta would want to eat!) This day was a bowl of ice, salt and pepper shakers, soda, vinegar, an almost dried glob of play dough and an old tube of yellow decorator frosting. On other occasions I've given her lotions, shampoos, baby powder, decorator sugar, rice, partially dried pancakes from breakfast . . .just whatever I can think of. I also change up the tools I give her each time. She loves this!

Cardboard creations. This one---a little vanity with a drawer. Amazingly I didn't lift this idea and it only took about 1 1/2 hours to make (minus spray paint drying time). Even Tom was impressed!

Looking at all of this makes me feel exhausted (as does the fact that I've still got to keep coming up with more things to keep little Tessie going. . . ) But not doing anything is more exhausting and emotionally draining. Preschool has come to a bit of a stand still. It hasn't been worth the fight so we're taking a new direction for a while. We'll get back to the more formal process after she's ready again. I've done more research and ordered a few more things to throw into the mix so hopefully we can jump back on track again soon. That little 4th child just needs so much direction and attention.

Then just for records sake: the other morning we woke up to a partially eaten bowl of cereal and a warm jug of milk on the counter. Guess who was up in the night taking a snack into her own hands? When we asked her what time she got up she said, "Later".