Kid Career Exploration and Recap!

So, much apologies for not posting sooner this week. The festivities of the beginning of the week really threw off my normal schedule and I just haven't been able to get around again until now, so here I am, back again for more sharing fun and I should be back to a more normal routine next week!

Since I am finally now posting this lovely Friday, for this week, I am gonna kinda forgo the normal "fun find" and share what I have planned today, and it will be more of a reflection day and just recapping, and then I still plan on coming back on tomorrow for a lovely "Sun up Saturday" especially since I didn't get one in last month. Again apologies for being inconsistent, I am trying to get better at this, we'll see. . . .
First off I thought I would do a little catch up of how some of these most recent sort of posts/ventures went and then share a little kid career fun, some things you could do with the little kiddos (or big kiddos too) if you are looking for some time fillers this lovely summer.

Remember my Father's Day post? More specifically, the puzzle I got my hubby? well we finally found the time and finished it, here is how it turned out :

I am a little annoyed that after spending $20 on this thing there are two pieces of the puzzle that absolutely do not belong, the two spots that need pieces are lighter looking and the only two left are pretty much black looking. . . so ya, they really don't fit- Yeah walmart, mehh

At least we still enjoyed it, I think my little girl likes it too, what do you think?

Then as promised, here is our little fam, wearing our matchy matchy fourth of July festive shirts

 Silly me, I am blocking both my shirt and my little girls shirt, oops! :0)

 Aren't they just precious!?

Like how is she is pointing to her shirt? I don't think she is doing this on purpose, but we can pretend that she is :)

Now for the Kid Career exploration. The following pictures are of some things I put together for my internship a year ago when I worked in the children's museum. The theme for the month was careers so we put together some things that kids could come in and play with and "explore" a little in that career (I did a little recap about this on my regular family blog HERE, if you care to read about it). The main reason for sharing this is if you have kids or work with kids and you need something fun to fill your time, any or all of these would be great fun and it wouldn't take much work to throw these things together.

 This was the cook's corner, all we did was paint an old cardboard box white and then wrote on the lines with a permanent marker to make it look like a stove. Then I pulled out some old pans we don't use very often, an old apron and a hot pad, this was a big favorite section, maybe because  alot of the kids could relate to cooking from watching their parents at home. And if the kids are older, they might enjoy making/decorating the box stove themselves.

 We were able to get the fire department to let us barrow a fireman outfit. Though this part might not be as easy to do at home, the box car would be. All I did was make the box empty or hallow, put straps on for the sides and then painted it while also adding some paper plate wheels. Depending on the age level of kids you are trying to entertain, they could maybe even paint and do their own thing here too, they might appreciate it more too :-)

Here we had a postal worker section, again we got the post office to let us barrow a mail carrier hand bag and hat, but for at home you could probably do any bag or any hat and they wouldn't really care. Then the actual mailbox we made by using an old cardboard tube that had paper wrapped around it (like an old wrapping paper or even paper towel thing works, depending on how tall you want it), then made a plate form from cardboard, painted black, and the top is just construction paper that we tapped in the round looking shape. With a little different sort of creativity you could use a shoe box instead.

Here was a little construction zone. I got the orange cones from the dollar store, and found the yellow hat and toy saw at the local thrift store for really cheap. I don't know if your local thrift stores are this supplied, but every time I go I usually see one of these hats. Then the construction zone tape is just yellow streamers that I wrote "Caution" on, or "Construction Zone", or you could put whatever you'd like. We weren't able to get it going, but I wanted to bring in some lumber or building blocks, so that the kids could actually "build" in this construction zone- so if this would be something you'd do with your kids, I hope it works out better for you :-)

Here is the little Doctors section, it was really simple, we just put down a white sheet, and then pulled out some basic medical sort of tools. Again I got lucky and found the stethoscope and blood pressure gage really cheap at the thrift store, but you could use other things like the thermoniter, maybe some Popsicles sticks or something of the like (we didn't use these for this because if might have been a little unsanitary at this more public area).

Here is some police box cars, same idea as the fire truck boxes.

We also go the police department to let us barrow their hats, but this wouldn't have to be a necessary part of the set up. But we made this little "Stop/Go" paddle from a ping pong paddle

I know it isn't much, and it only covers a very few amount of careers of the millions out there, but it's a start and it can also give you chance to start thinking and getting creative if you want to do more than some of this more basic stuff. Kids love dressing up and doing dramatic play, it is a great way for them to act things out and make sense of their world and what is normal to them, so even if it isn't career related- have fun doing some kind of dress up with them, I know they'll love it, and you just might too!

Anyway, that's all today, I'll be back tomorrow and thanks for stopping by!

Have a great day!

Until next time! . . . . .

Yeah Free Stuff!

Being the cheap kind of person I am, I love those free stuff opportunities. So on this fun find Friday, I thought I would share a little delight in my "free" find. I also will finally put up the lovely Father Day presents my sister, April Hoyt, did, to show off her great ideas, and if you'd like, could even be good ideas for next year. Just to mix things up, I will show her loveliness first, then my fun find!

 Here is the lovely tie she made- cute huh? She put her children's names in on the squares in a crossword puzzle fashion- such a great idea (although I think I will have to wait on doing something like this, I think it would look cuter with more than one child's name on it)

Then from the inspiration of the tie and puzzle I made, she made this darling shirt for her hubby. I love it! The stick figures are so cute, such a brilliant way of making such a fun shirt!

Oh and one more thing before sharing my fun find, the puzzle I ordered for my husband finally came in (two days after Father's day, yeah Walmart), want to see how it turned out? Well this is your lucky day, cuz here it is:

 I love that it came in a nice fun tin box, that will last a long time! Now we just need to sit down and put it all together, I am excited to see it all finally together!

Okay, now the moment you've been waiting for....drum roll......(bum, bum, bum, bum, - this is my drum rolling, can't you hear it?)

I went on campus to meet my husband for lunch and grabbed the school newspaper, and there was this blazing beautiful coupon attached on top- could it be any more of my lucky day? What are the odds I would find this lovely thing in the same week, in just a few days prior to my birthday!? (if it was any farther down the road I would probably forget to use it) I have never eaten at this ice cream/frozen yogurt place- so it will be a fun treat to have my first experience be free! Well anyway, I hope your Friday will be as fun as mine! Thanks for stopping by!

Until next time!....

Father's Day Present

You will have to excuse my recent absence, long story short- it has just been a crazy last week with extra errands, hubby's jumbled work schedule, and my little girl getting sick and to top it all off, quit frankly, I just wasn't in the mood to  blog amongst all of that. But here I am, back and ready to roll!

Now I know that because today is Wednesday, I should be sharing a reflecting of past ventures, but with Father's Day right around the corner I thought I would share a fun Father's Day present idea that my little girl and I did in case you need any ideas, and just to share our fun! (now lets just hope my hubby doesn't look at this before Sunday! :)

Since Father's Day is on a Sunday I thought it would be fun to do something he can show off at church. So I made him a tie...

 I got one of his regular ties and laid it on top of the material that I wanted the tie to be made out of and then cut, giving myself plenty of extra, so that I could fold it over. Then I cut and sewed around, but left a little hole about the middle of the tie so that I can turn it right side out as seen below

After turning it right side out, I sewed off this hole

Then I ironed the whole thing nice and flat to get ready to fold it over

Now to fold over the sides, I ironed it nice and flat, and then hand sewed it to stay together so that you can't see the seams from the front (like a tie normally is)

Now with the lovely assistance of my 6 month old girl, we put her hand print on the tie....ya she didn't really want to help, can you tell?

I tried doing some of my own touch up so you could kinda still tell it was her hand, and then I made it look like a flower

Now for the lovely words to go on the tie, I printed off these words on a piece of paper, then I taped freezer paper over the top, just on the top and bottom to hold it in place, and then using an exacto knife I cut out these words- you could paint the words free hand if you want, and after doing all this I prob should have, I think it would have been easier, but I was nervous I wouldn't have very good free hand skills, you could also probably do iron on paper sort of stuff- but that was one more thing I didn't want to buy

Now for painting on the words...

See how it turned out!? I don't know if it was because my words were smaller or I wasn't slow and patient enough, but it still kinda bled through funny even with the stencil, thus my wondering if I should have just done free hand in the first place, oh well- you win some, you loose some! :)

The finished product! Well almost....before officially putting it away in a special box, I realized I made a little typo- see the "Daddy's", well it should actually say "Daddies"...ya something I should have looked at a little closer before painting...but when all else fails...

Paint pretty butterflies to help hide your mistakes, right?- what do you think?

Then for a fun extra $20, at Walmart online, you can upload a picture and have them transform it into a puzzle- cool huh? So this is the picture I sent in, hopefully we will get it in before this Sunday! We love doing puzzles together, so I thought it would be very fitting and fun, and matchy matchy to the tie :)

So there you have it! A fun, cheap easy present for the man! And if you feel crunched on time you wouldn't have to do all the extra tedious things like making a tie, making a stencil, and painting- I am sure there are lots of easier simpler ways of doing this, I guess this was more of a trial present- hope you can learn from it and enjoyed it! But even more so I hope my hubby enjoys it!

Anyway, sorry again for being a slacker, but thanks for stopping by! Until next time!....