Our Therapeutic Crafts

Today we worked on some crafts for me to try with my clients, that can also benefit the girls, their classrooms and several of my clients. (We plan to make a few for them to gift to their teachers for classroom use after Spring Break).

We made stress balls...with play doh and balloons.  These can be used to squeeze or play with when stressed or angry. These were somewhat challenging to make, but well worth it. Open balloon as wide as possible, roll out (into a long worm shape) one regular sized jar/tub of play doh, in several pieces--shove into balloon.  Then roll around and push out the air bubbles, the tie.

And, we made glitter calming jars. These can be used when someone is upset, angry, sad, frustrated, or stressed.  Head somewhere alone and quiet, like your bedroom, shake it up, and watch the glitter swirl and fall.  When all settled, hopefully some of the anxiety or frustration will have passed.  To make these, we used peanut butter jars--plastic so they won't break and shatter and make a huge mess.  Put in two tubes of glitter glue, 1 tube of glitter, 2-3 drops of food coloring, and fill with HOT water.  Make sure to seal the top good (we used super glue) and shake, shake, shake, to get the glue to dissolve.

At rest:

All shook up:

We had a lot of fun making these! Thanks, Pinterest!!!

SPRING...kinda. Well, Not Really

So, technically it is Spring.  However, the high temp today may have been close to 40, which means that due to the past few weeks temps, this constitutes spring in every sense...bikes, scooters, power wheels, and minimal jackets.  This then leads to coming in hours later with icicle hands and running noses, but huge smiles.

Pinball Wizard

He can *just* reach...

Spring Break! Day One.

We kicked off Spring Break this year with a fun-filled busy day!

We had a playdate with one of our favorite families ever, the Salkas'.  We did a craft with them too.

Then we did mani-pedis, played outside, watched a movie, read, played games, etc.  All in all, a great day...tomorrow we plan to head to the library, play outside, play some games, watch a movie, and read some more.  Looking forward to a wonderful 11 days with all the kids home!!!

Love These Kids!

Crazy Clothes Day

Today was "Wear Crazy Clothes" to school for Rowena.  She picked out her outfit, I helped pick out her socks and shoes, and she designed her hair, of which she was very proud and described it as "one pony tail on top and two pony tails on the sides."

SNOW DAY FUN!!!

Today was declared a snow day by most schools in the Chicagoland area.  We took full advantage and had a ton of fun.  My office was closed and Peter took a snow day too.

We had the neighbors over to play Barbies and video games, we shoveled...several times, we played in the snow, we watched Wreck-It Ralph, played in the snow some more, had popcorn and made (and enjoyed) chocolate covered potato chips, shoveled again, watched The Princess Bride, had a yummy dinner and some hot cocoa, shoveled some more, and headed to bed.  Everyone passed out really quick.

I didn't get as many pictures as I would've liked, but the snow never stopped and my camera was getting too wet, and I was enjoying the snowball fight a bit too much to stop to take pictures.  We got a total of 9" in about 19 hours or so.  It doesn't sound like a lot, but it was.  And we were SOOOO excited to get a big snowfall, especially since Sunday is supposed to be high 40's and rainy.

 

Very wet Snow Angels

 HOW GORGEOUS!!!

Around 2 we were just around 5" 

 Time for popcorn, chocolate-covered potato chips, and Wreck-It Ralph

 Charlie was mesmorized while swinging in the snow

Adding some fun to our slide

 By dinner time, we were up to 7"

After shoveling a 4th time, with the help of our neighbors and Delaney and Kate, they played in the snow one last time for the day...

 Night Angels

 All tuckered out!