Wren Being Cute

Earth Week Activities

We've had a fun week full of activities to celebrate Earth Week! Here are a few of the projects we've been working on...

Butterflies made from coffee filters:

We don't use these coffee filters anymore since we have a Keurig, so this was a good way to make use of them. I wish I could have gotten a picture of Wren's face when we hung them on her art wall. She was sooooo proud of herself!

Earth Day Coloring Pages:



Wren is completely into anything having to do with writing, coloring, using chalk/markers/crayons/pencils. She loves coloring, so I printed out these sheets and the three of us colored. Wren was in charge of keeping track of all of the crayons (we have a little hoarder on our hands!): 

Painted Earth:

This turned out so cute! It was really easy, too. I cut out a circle with construction paper, globbed green and blue paint around it...

...and then Wren helped me spin it around and around and around... 

...and then she decided to transfer the paint from one paper to another. With her hands.

We love getting messy!!

We've also been reading this book:

This is the cutest book! It is about a little town of animals and it talks about each of them doing their part, from using their cloth bags, hanging their laundry out to dry, making crafts with recycled paper, etc. It's really cute, has beautiful colors and pictures and also is a counting book, which is something we know will be a big lesson coming up.

(Thanks for the book, Smith Family!!) 

Today we went to Indy for the Great Cloth Diaper Change, and we'll be celebrating tomorrow by starting to plant our garden! I'm so thankful for my crafty little lady!!

Little Birdie Cottontail

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to turn Wren's cute little fluffy bum into a little cottontail. Tell me this isn't the cutest thing you've ever seen!

Little bunnies still have tantrums...they just look really adorable doing so... 

Afternoon Activities~Pinterest Inspired!

We've discovered that Wren is a *much* happier girl if we're able to do an activity of any sort to entertain her throughout the day. She loves spending time in her playroom and is becoming quite the little craftaholic, which makes for one proud Momma!

She's really into anything having to do with painting, drawing, coloring, etc. We had several unexpected hours of free time this afternoon, so I turned to Pinterest and came up with a few fun activities for she and I to do together.

It's really amazing to see how cranky and unhappy Wren can be when we're downstairs, versus the happy-go-lucky little thing you see in these pictures. And thankfully, the happy girl stayed the entire rest of the day! I'm convinced she just needs a little bit of creative stimulation each day, which I'm happy to try to provide.

Check out that little tongue! This girl is very serious about her art, apparently.

First up, we tackled this fun little activity, which, honestly, as simple as it is, I would NEVER have thought of on my own. Thank the great Lord above for Pinterest, I tell ya!

Nothing beats quick, easy and FREE when it comes to entertaining your child!
Wren absolutely loved this activity. She did pretty well with keeping the water on the chalkboard, but she did venture over to one of her Little People sets once, and she decided to "paint" the wall and the large roll of paper on the back of her chalkboard, but the great thing is it's JUST water! Clean-up was a breeze.
She did get a little wet, but that's because I was encouraging her to dip her fingers in and make handprints on the chalkboard.

~~~~~

After a quick sweatshirt change, we headed downstairs to prepare our next activity.
While donwstairs for just a few minutes, we had no less than 2 meltdowns and one boo-boo on the forehead.
Like I said, she prefers to be up in her playroom!

But I quickly gathered the supplies for our next project, which were some colored balls and some food containers. I cut holes of different sizes in the top of the containers and we were ready to go. 

This activity occupied Wren for probably 30 minutes, maybe more. 
*I will say that close supervision IS needed for this one. Wren still likes to "taste" anything she has, so she didn't ever keep anything in her mouth, but I had to tell her a few times that it wasn't for her to eat. I wouldn't let her do this without being right there with her.*

She would pop them in all the different holes, then pick it up and shake-shake-shake-it, 

then we'd dump it out and start again... 

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat.
You can see how much she loved it: 

I also like that there is a learning component to this one. We're really trying to work on colors, so this was a great activity for that. As we do it more, we'll work harder at separating the colors out. But it was also good for having her put the larger pieces in the larger holes, and vice versa.

This silly little thing loved her this activity so much that she needed to rock with it. She has this quirky little habit of wanting to "hoard" any small items that she really likes. She'll shove them behind her while in a chair, so I knew she loved this activity when she decided that it was "hoard-worthy." 

Happy Little Hoarder: 

~~~~~
Our final activity didn't go over quite as well. 

The plan was to lace pipe cleaners through the colander, but not only was Wren disinterested because she was busy hoarding her colored balls, but I also think this was a little bit advanced for her. I couldn't find my colored pipe cleaners,so maybe that would have made it more interesting. They're not hard to get in the holes, but Wren just wasn't catching on to the concept of putting them IN the holes. She was great about taking them OUT of the holes! So I think we'll hold off for a few weeks/months and revisit this one.

All in all, Pinterest wins again.
Happy Kid=Happy Mommy.

Future Boilermaker

I came across these pictures a few weeks ago while working on a photo book for Wren and wanted to share. They're from August and she's changed so much, but they are so cute!

We took Wren to campus for some photos in her cute little Purdue outfit. It was actually the day of Summer graduation. Here she is hamming it up:

 And I'm pretty sure she's telling the graduate in the background off with baby babble. He's ruining her shot!

 Cutie Bootie!

 Spidergirl Boilermaker:

 Here she is in the Block P.

Thanks for the adorable outfit, Annette! It's hard to believe that these were taken 5 months ago! I am so behind!! Aaah..

Wren's First Birthday {Decorations!}

We had a really fun first birthday for Daddy's little ladybug!
I had so much fun planning all of the details.

Here's the invite, it says:
"Come for the cake, stay for the fun,
our little lady is turning 1!"

I know she's only 1, but this was a huge deal for us. Wren's first year of life was reason for serious celebrating! I have a feeling all of her birthdays will be packed full of fun, but this one was extra special.

I put together a little dessert bar... 

Ladybug suckers: 

I got lots of clear jars from Goodwill and we had all sorts of candy in red, black and aqua. 

I made these chocolate covered ladybug pretzels. Josh helped with dotting the eyes... 

Auntie Shellbell special ordered this cake for Wren. It turned out SO cute! The ladybug was Wren's smash cake, and she even had a little bow in her hair like Wren. So sweet! 

I also made these cute little ladybug cupcakes.
See...I have a smidge of Martha in me when I want! 

Here are some more ladybugs, ladybugs, ladybugs. 

These were the chocolate covered oreos...

We printed out most of the weekly pictures we've taken of Wren and we stuck them on the wall with a little ladybug that had the corresponding week written on it. It was so sad, yet amazing, to watch her grow week by week. It was funny to watch her chunk up from that teensy weensy little thing with no chub at all, to having cheeks for weeks, and back to slimming out as she learned to crawl. I'm so glad we stuck with this little weekly tradition. 

I wanted to play a game of some sort, so I decided to make "Pin the Spot on the Ladybug" using felt and some pipe cleaners. She turned out so cute and the kids had fun playing.

We're so proud of our little bird!

Next up...lots of pictures from the party!

Ponies and Piggies and Frogs

We have waited sooo long for Wren to have enough hair for ponytails.

The time has come, finally!
And isn't this little sprout the sweetest thing you've ever seen?

I didn't think she had enough for piggies, but I picked her up from daycare and they had been playing with her hair and this is what they came up with: 

(Can't handle the cute.)

Here's what happens when she takes a nap with a pony in: 

And, just a smidge more cute--we are frogsitting for Josh's mom and Wren likes to pester poor little Bouncer by hitting his cage.