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I hosted a playdate to make felt flower hair clips so that we were all ready to show our pretty May flowers! Each of the kids made two and then were off to play. I saw that Molly was still at the table and realized that she was glueing the rest of the flowers together all by herself!

This is what happens when you ask three year olds to hug to pose for a picture!

The big kids were sweet to make hair clips for their little sisters too.

Leah was taking a nap during most of the playdate, so I had the girls model their new hair clips together.

Molly has proudly worn her flower hair clips for days now. We've even found them in bed with her!

Edit: This project is super easy! Cut two different size flowers out of contrasting felt. Stack the flowers and sew a button on top. I had the kids glue the pieces together so they had more to do than just pick out colors. Then hot glue on to your choice of clip. Happy crafting!

We began our T week reading The Little Engine That Could,

then making our T for train.

Molly's concenrating very hard inserting toothpicks into dotted shapes.

We met some friends for a playdate at a recycled tire playground to celebrate Earth day.

Molly continued to celebrate Earth Day by creating her own Spring tree.

We finished our week with some turtle learning. This was Molly's first experience with size sorting. She did well, but we'll definitely work on this again.

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

This week, we focused solely on U is for umbrella. Molly made a letter U and added raindrops with an eye dropper. She loved dropping water with the dropper so much that she asked to keep using it on another piece of paper.

For our stART project, we read The Umbrella Queen. It's about a little girl whose village is known for their hand-painted butterfly and flower umbrellas and are anticipating the arrival of the King to name the umbrella queen.

Molly made a paper umbrella with butterflies and flowers, just like the book!

She walked around all day under her umbellla, hiding from the rain.

I wanted Molly to practice patterns again, so I made her these umbrella patterns. (You can download them here.)

She is getting better at her counting and matching. (These were part of the number flip book at Home Grown Hearts.)

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

To make our letter J for jaguar, Molly painted spots with a q-tip then helped glue all the pieces together. We didn't have kid-friendly black paint, so we created our own brown-spotted breed!

We used Molly's new zoo foam stickers to create our own jungle scene.

I purposely planned J week after Easter since I knew we'd have plenty of jellybeans. Molly had fun counting and matching them, but the best part of this game was eating the jellybeans when we were done!

Molly made a jellybean prayer cross to hang in her room. It says:

Red is for the blood He gave.
Green is for the grass He made.
Yellow is for the sun so bright.
Orange is for the edge of night.
Black is for the sins we made.
White is for the grace He gave.
Purple is for His hour of sorrow.
Pink is for a new tomorrow.
A handful of jelly beans,
Colorful and sweet,
Is a prayer, a promise,
A loved one’s treat!

We also made some jewelry. Molly has loved wearing her new beaded cross necklace. (You may have to look closely. It blends in with her colorful shirt!)

And lastly, Leah has started playing on Molly's little keyboard in hopes of making it into Juilliard!

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

While most of our week concentrated on Easter, I couldn't pass up making this cute E for elephant.

This was Molly's first time working with patterns. I tried to relate them to the patterns that are on Team Umizoomi.

Molly also worked with clothespin count and clip cards for the first time. Opening the clothespins is also great for fine motor skills. (Both of these egg printables were found at Home Grown Hearts.)

Molly participated in her first egg hunt at our church, but we also had our own egg hunt in the backyard. We probably hunted the eggs 5 or 6 times because Molly enjoyed it so much!

As Molly opened the eggs, there were E items for her to match: eye, elephant, ear, egg, letter E.

For our stART project, we read What is Easter? and talked about the real meaning of Easter.

Then, Molly, Leah, and I made these handprint Easter lilies to give to Grams on Easter morning.

A funny story from this week...A wasp flew into the house, so I sprayed it with Raid and it flew into the dining room. Molly kept asking where he was, so I told her that it was not alive anymore and she says, "But Jesus is alive!"

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

To begin our 'S' week, Molly and I read The Very Busy Spider...

and made an S for spider.

She did some abstract painting using a straw. There was also a bit of splattering with a spoon.

G'Mom, Grampa, and Molly enjoyed some S'mores after dinner.

Leah got in on the theme of 'S' week too. We started her on solid foods. She's doing great and even seems to enjoy sweet potatoes, unlike her daddy and big sis!

Most of our week was spent preparing for Molly's 3rd birthday party, so I didn't quite get to everything I had in mind.

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

Today our little girl is 3! We've had a fun year. She's still the little dancer and now really gets her hips and arms into it! She also loves to sing and enjoys making up her own songs. It makes me happy to hear her singing the songs that I learned as a child. The best part of the year though has been watching her become the best big sister to Leah!

This weekend we had her Dora the Explorer birthday party with family and her friends.

Come on! Vámonos!
Everybody let's go!
Where are we going?
Molly's party!

All the food followed the theme with fruit salsa, monkey bread, apple and cream cheese quesadillas, and monkey mix.

The kids created their own personal piñatas to take home as party favors.

One of the hits of the party was this Dora guitar. Molly spent much of the time she was supposed to be opening presents distracted by her new toy.

Molly was really excited have "Happy Birthday" sung to her. In fact, she got to hear it twice, as a couple of the kids missed the first time while they were in the bathroom.

We of course also celebrated today on Molly's actual birthday. Chad and I tried to sing Happy Birthday to her first thing this morning and she started crying saying, "No, you can't sing without my cake!" Molly was very excited to do the cake thing again.

There are a lot more pictures of her party here.

I chose to concentrate on the letter C this week because of all the clover activities I could do around St. Patrick's Day, and we didn't even do any of them!

We started our week by reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar,

and then creating our C for Caterpillar. Apparently Molly thought the caterpillar needed whiskers like Daddy! (I saw this idea at Explorations in Learning.)

Leah has started exploring a lot of Molly's toys and especially likes the "McComputer" (as Molly likes to call it!).

For our stART project, we read Spot Bakes a Cake.

We extended the story by baking cupcakes. I think we need a little more pouring practice! (I saw this idea at April Flowers.)

We decorated our cupcakes for St. Patrick's Day. Molly worked hard on "tap tapping" the sprinkles on top.

The rest of our week consisted of a lot of celebrations! First, St. Patrick's Day...

Then we celebrated the arrival of spring at the playground. I think Leah is a big fan of swinging, just like her sister. What do you think?!

And lastly a special trip to the zoo for Samson the baby elephant's 2nd birthday.

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

We had a sick house this week, so our activities were limited. Our 'Q' week began with some q-tip painting.

Since K was for king, we had to make his partner, Q is for queen. Don't you just love Molly's nice, fake smile?!

I cut small 2x2 fabric squares for Molly to make her first quilt, though it wasn't exactly the softest!

By Thursday Molly really needed to get out of the house. We had planned to meet some friends at AirMania, so Grams came over to watch Leah, and Molly and I were off to jump off some energy on the inflatable toys!

But mostly this week we enjoyed being able to play outside! As you can see, Molly is very happy to be swinging again.

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

We had a lot of fun learning about 'G' this week! Molly loves music, so we made a 'G' for guitar. I saw the idea on Always Something to Learn.

Molly has been very interested in games lately. We've played Uno Moo more times than I can count! It's great for her matching skills. She kept asking for something else to play, so if you have suggestions for your favorite toddler board game, let me know!

We celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday with a reading of Green Eggs and Ham.

We then used Molly's great-great-grandmother's recipe to make green egg-shaped sugar cookies. They were yummy! Real green eggs would not have flown with this toddler!

I hosted playgroup this week and involved them in this week's stART project. We read Go Away, Big Green Monster!

The story build's a monster face by talking about the all the different features of the big green monster, so as I read the story the kids glued on each of the parts. The book's pages provide great stencils for creating this craft. I found the idea at Teaching Two.

Molly was excited to show off her big green monster.

I organized a gymnastics playdate in honor of ‘G’ week. Molly and her friends had a great time.

And we couldn't go through 'G' week without playing Daddy's guitar! We have started singing songs before bedtime from The Christian Children's Songbook.

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.