Does Anyone Else Miss Their Kiddos?

School started here on Monday and I already miss my kiddo, lol.  My son, Jaxon, started 1st grade this year.  I was so ready for him to go back to school.  I was about to go crazy if I had to hear about one more cool game on Roblox.  But he's only been in school for four days and I'm finding myself repeatedly looking at the clock around 3pm.  

Jaxon just missed the cut-off date for starting school the year before last, so he started Kindergarten a year late.  He turned six just a couple of months after school started.  No big deal though.  He has a lot of attention issues so I felt it was good.

Here he is last year:

And, here he is this year:

He can't be bothered to stand up.

He grew almost two inches in a year!  He's got tall genes from both sides of the family, so I hope he's over six foot.  I'm not working right now and we needed some help from friends to get school supplies.  We were (and are) blessed.  Two friends sent us paper, pencils, etc, one friend sent a backpack and a sweet couple  went to high school with brought over a bag of clothing and a pair of shoes.  My sis-in-law and brother are contributing towards a winter coat and my sister is picking my son up from school on most afternoons.  I have amazing friends and family.

So . . . Do you miss your kiddos yet?  Tell me I'm not alone in the comments!

16 Last-Minute Easter Crafts for Toddlers - A Roundup

Easter is upon us and I haven't even done any crafts with Jaxon.  Here are a few I found that look fairly quick and easy, and are done with items you probably already have at home.

Pinkie For Pink

Baby Savers

kids' craft ideas

Crafty Toddler Projects

No Time For Flashcards

Simple.Home.Blessing

Osito

Simple As That

Mum of One

Activity Village

Activity Village

The Active Toddler

What are your favorite art, crafts or activities to do with your child at Easter?  Besides egg-hunting, that is!

Thanks for stopping by,
Natosha

{Soap Cloud Experiment} Try-It Tuesday

Today's "Try-It" is a cool little experiment that I was skeptical of when I saw this picture.

The premise is that you can take a bar of Ivory Soap and place it in the microwave.  Start that baby up and the bar of soap will magically puff up into a cloud-like shape.

Supplies
Bar of Ivory Soap
Microwave

Instructions
Place bar of Ivory in the microwave.  Punch up 2 minutes on the timer.  Hit start and watch the magic.  Stop the timer once the "cloud" starts to fill the microwave.

I recommend placing the bar of Ivory on a big bed of paper towels.  This makes removal and clean-up much easier.

Does it work?  YES!!

My son thought this was so much fun.  My older nephews thought it was pretty cool too.  A word of caution.  The soap cloud is delicate and if you are not careful, you will get soap "crumbs" everywhere when you remove it from the microwave.  I put the cloud in a gallon zip bag for storage as you can still use the soap.

I call this one a win.

Thanks for stopping by,
Natosha

The Terrifying Threes

So if you have a 3 year old, you may have a clue as to what the title of this post is referring to.  My son turned 3 on November 24th.


He was such a good baby.  He slept through the night very early (although he was up most of the day and didn't go to sleep until 10 or 11p).

Then he hit the terrible twos at about 20 months.  We got through that.

But now he is three and can be quite a handful.

You can totally tell what words I use with him most frequently.  He tells me to "Hush"  all the time.  He says  screams "No" at me and generally ignores requests and rules.  (BTW, I never scream at him.  I think he believes if he screams it loud enough then he will convince me.)  Oh, and he has completely embraced the use of body function words.  If he says "poop"  once during the day, he says it one hundred.  Along with:  pee pee, fart, toot, and butt.  Boys, ya gotta love 'em.  I'm dreading the day he asks about his boy parts.

He drew this picture a couple of months ago and I feel it fits the way I have been feeling lately.

So, any advice?  Do you have a toddler who is going to assert his/her will no matter what?  Spill your secrets for handling them in the comments.  I would be ever so grateful.

Thanks for stopping by,

Natosha