Big Energy-Little Learners...Can I do it all?

  5 months I can not believe it has been 5 months since we brought our baby girl home.  So much has changed in that small amount of time and will continue changing quickly.  This month I have seen more drastic changes and much more personality from my baby girl then the preceding months.  Here are some things that 5 month baby's are doing and learning and some tips on how you can help them along.  Mouth This month really starts a discovery period and the mouth is the main way a baby discovers the world around them.  1 reason for this is because they have more nerve endings in their mouth then the rest of their body so they are not only tasting but feeling each object.   You will find that everything baby can hold she will want to explore with her mouth, including her toes.  As for me I have older kids and the challenge is getting them to make sure their toys, which are all miniature for some reason, are not in ba...

Dinosaur Tag This is a game we created for Little Dragons Dino Party.  We used this game as a kind of ice breaker/opener. I bought these awesome masks at Wal-Mart for $.97.  There were two of each face, which was perfect for this game. We had about 15 kids at the party which is a great amount for Dinosaur tag. To start the game you have to round up the kids. Next we picked 2 dinosaurs and they got to put on their cool dinosaur masks! The Dinosaurs had to chase around the other kids and tag them. When someone got tagged they had to stand in the cage (we used the climbing dome for our cage but you could use any area you designate as 'cage' or 'jail') Now the tricky part is tagging all of the kids quickly because the kids that have not been tagged can free the other kids from the cage by tagging them. This is a fast paced game and we played multiple rounds rotating who got to be a dinosaur.  I do have to say I had never played game of tag where so many peo...

This was a game we found on pintrest that Little Dragon was intent on playing. Although it is supposed to be feed the T-Rex but Little Dragons favorite dinosaur is a raptor so he requested we have a raptor instead. This is a simple bean bag toss game. To make this game you will need  bean bags foam board sharpie I didn't use a poster board because they are kinda flimsy and when you have kids throwing bean bags at something you need it to be sturdy.  I made the bean bags myself using some extra fabric I had in the house and some rice I had used for a sensory bin previously.  They took a total of 20 minutes to put together.  I found the foam board at Wal-mart for less then a $1.  My husband is the artist in the house so he drew the raptor face for Little Dragon.  As a mom this part was fun for me to watch.  Little Dragon watching with such anticipation for the finished project as daddy drew the dinosaur for him.  To pl...

Little Dragon recently turned six and requested a dinosaur themed party. To get started we sat down together and looked up ideas on Pinterest. Many of the ideas were a bit young for six. But we were able to pull some inspiration. Before getting to much in the planning stage we had to make a guest list.  Nowadays you cannot send invitations to school without inviting the whole class.  As a kindergartner Little Dragon doesn't have many close school friends yet anyway so we invited the whole class and a few other family friends. Now that the guest list was taken care of we could move forward to the venue. At this point we didn't have any rsvp's but I didn't want to pick a venue last minute.  I have thrown  many birthday parties at home but with more stuff because of Baby Dragon my house doesn't have as much space as it used to.  So we checked the weather and decided to have the dino party at the park. Little Dragon loved this idea! Day of the pa...

I will be trying to plan a group activity for the elementary school kids once a week.   I am doing this to give them something to look forward to each week and to help with some of the after school chaos.  It also helps the kids relax and let go of the stressful school week.  This week we had a Nerf War!  We planned the activity on Monday and talked about it all week. This reminds them a fun activity is coming.  I also needed some extra guns and the notice gave the kids an opportunity to ask to bring some extra guns.  Friday before the kids got home I had all of the guns out and loaded.  For this activity I had my two dragons and the two that I babysit after school.  Including me and my husband we had 3 girls and 3 boys.  The dragons all agreed boys vs. girls for teams.  We played a version of steal the bacon.  We had some extra nerf guns that we used for 'bacon'. Before we could start playing we had a ...

Each month we are doing a mini photo shoot for Baby Dragon.   Our overall goal is DND themed each month because, well, we are nerds. We also update her character sheet each month with what she has learned or achieved that month.  Month 3 we focused on character, Fey I really enjoyed this photo shoot.  Dressing up my Baby Dragon and setting the scene for her to be a little baby fey!  I put her in a tutu with little green bloomers and used a large headband for her top.  And a darling golden leaf headband to top of the nature look I was going for.  I attempted to do this shoot outside but it failed.  I was alone and with an infant.  It would take multiple people to pull that off, I think.  But thats alright because I took the shoot inside and got some good shots!  And had some of them edited because lighting was off and I wanted her to look fey like I think it was successful!  ...