My mom has been visiting the past few days and while we were at the store yesterday we decided to wander through the flower section. Sweet Pea got very excited and asked Nana if he could have a plant of his very own. Much to his excitement she got him one!

We thought it would be fun to make a craft out of it so we went and got a flower pot for him to paint and put his plant in. Before bed tonight we got out all the paints and watching him create his masterpiece!

After he painted we went onto the balcony and scooped some dirt from my flower pot into his.

In goes the plant!

It is now proudly sitting on the shelf next to his bed.

Also, I saw this great movie trailer on the blog Mommy Life (which is one of my favorite blogs). It is a documentary that follows four babies, each from a different country, through their first year of life. It looks really interesting and I can’t wait to see it!

Last week (8/5) Sweet Pea painted for the first time! He was so excited and so serious about the whole thing. He did very well dipping his brush in the paint and actually making it to the paper. Although at one point he did try to pick up the glass of paint and drink it. My aunt swooped in and stopped him. Painting is now going to be a weekly thing for us!!

My mom was in town last weekend for a visit and whenever she is here we like to do a project with Sweet Pea. This time we searched through the archives over at Chasing Cherrios and found a really fun project. Making a color book with your child and his toys! We took the idea and kind of made it our own. To see Chasing Cherrios final product click here. We took pictures of Sweet Pea in nine different colors, printed the pictures, laminated them, and then put them together with rings. There are so many different ways this project could be done. Chasing Cherrios did more of a scrapbook of colors. Just take the idea and run with it! Here are a few of our color pictures:

And here is the final product:

Sweet Pea loves it already! He carries it around and points to everything in the pictures. We talk about the colors and the toys. It has really become quite the conversation piece between me and Sweet Pea. 

With my mom in town we have been able to do a few crafts. Yesterday we decorated a boring lampshade and today we made Christmas trees using Sweet Pea’s feet! We originally wanted to make Christmas wreaths using his handprint, but he would not let us paint his hand. So we went for the feet! Here is Nana painting his feet:

Here we are stamping it on the fabric:

Here are the two trees:

We used his little fingerprint to make ornaments and garland on the tree:

Here are the two trees with finished garland:

Here is Nana painting the star stamp to go on top of the tree:

Here is Nana stamping the star:

And here are the finished trees!! They turned out awesome!

My mom is going to take them home and make them into pillows or wall hangings. That way they can be decorations for years to come!

My mom came into town yesterday for a visit. She hadn’t seen the apartment since the family helped us move in. Therefore, the last time she saw it boxes were stacked in every room to the ceiling. It was fun for us to walk room to room (which didn’t take long) and look around. She was impressed. Well mostly. When we ran an errand to the fabric store it was there that she informed me that my lampshade could use a little sprucing up. So we picked up a adhesive lampshade, some fabric, and some trim and made a new one!

We started out by putting the fabric around the lampshade:

Then we folded all the edges down and glued them under:

Then we glued the trim to the top and bottom:

And voila! We made a lampshade! It was really easy and only took about twenty minutes to make. The only sad part is you really do need two people to do it. One to hold things in place the other to glue. But we had fun making it!! And my living room doesn’t look quite as dull.

A few weeks ago Sarah over at Tales from Oakbriar Farm posted about an art project that she did with her daughter and I decided to try it out with Sweet Pea.

We started the project last week and it has taken until today to get it done! Sweet Pea was not at all interested in sitting still long enough to get his hands and feet traced that many times. But today I got him more interested in it by letting him try to trace my hand before I traced his. This he absolutely loved and it paved the way for him wanting the same thing done to him. So I traced his hands and feet and glued everything together to make the turkey shown in the above picture!

Sweet Pea loved the finished turkey as well. He carried it around for quite some time after we were done. Every now and then he would stop and look at it and then move on again.