Our Playgroup

Ever since our Halloween party back in October, my fellow mommy friends and I have been talking about having more regular playdates together. At the start of 2014, we finally made something happen. The four of us moms established two days each month that we could get together. 

Since there are a combined 8 kids among our families (ranging from 20 months to 5 years old), we figured we'd need to have a bit of organization to make our playdates run more smoothly. Between the four of us moms, we take turns planning snacks, a craft or calmer activity, and a game or more active activity each time we meet.

In January, I forgot my camera for both of our playdates, but we enjoyed playing Hullabaloo, using dot painters, baking tortilla snowflakes (with cinnamon & sugar-- yum!), playing with a sheet parachute, and doing a sticker craft.

For our first February playdate, we planned Valentine themed activities. Unfortunately, our family missed that playdate since our boys came down with double ear infections (yet again!!) and had to visit the doctor instead. But, our friends enjoyed playing with homemade red playdough, hitting balloons through large cut-out hearts, playing a hide-and-seek/matching game with patterned hearts, and eating jello hearts & cheese hearts with crackers. We were bummed to miss the fun celebration!

Finally, for our most recent playdate, I remembered my camera! For this gathering, we planned to have a Dr. Seuss theme. Only 3 moms and 5 of the kids attended this playdate, but we still had a good time. Jenna brought some super creative snacks-- Dr. Seuss hats (with strawberries, stackable marshmallows, and blackberries) and green eggs and ham (with pretzels, white chocolate and green M&Ms). Not only cute-looking, but GREAT tasting! Jaden and Cody were huge fans! :) 

Little Ryder shows off his mommy's creation

Our first game was a sort of bowling game with Dr. Seuss hats made from plastic cups and duct tape. This was by far the most successful game of the morning (meaning, it kept the kids' attention for longer than 5 minutes!). Cody and Jaden had practiced the game at home ahead of time, so they demonstrated to the others how to play.

Ryder quickly got the hang of the game and won the award for knocking the most down when standing the farthest away!

Abbie and Landon also jumped right in and took it upon themselves to cheer on the other kids-- so cute!

Next, Ruth read the book "Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?" in preparation for our next game. The kids enjoyed imitating Mr. Brown's sounds from the book.

For this activity, the kids were supposed to take turns drawing picture cards out of the bag. They were then supposed to have their friends guess what card they had by making the sound of the object.

As it turned out, the kids weren't really excited about taking turns, so we all drew cards out of the bag simultaneously.

Then, instead of making the object's sound first, the kids would usually shout something like, "Ooh, FROG! Ribbit, ribbit." It was actually quite amusing. Not exactly the rules we planned, but, hey, these 2 and 3 year olds were having fun, so that's the most important part, right? :)

Jenna also planned our craft activity -- Dr. Seuss hats! Landon and Abbie were pros at using their glue sticks.

Ruth kindly helped Jaden assemble his hat (while Mommy was busy taking pictures!).

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Our last activity was "Pin the Hat on the Cat." The older ones did fairly well at actually keeping their eyes closed while sticking on their hat.

Cody, however, kept his eyes open the whole time and still put the hat on upside down and far from the cat's head. :) Gotta love it!

Our final product:

We were all thankful to have something fun to do indoors on this day, as the snow was falling heavily outdoors! We're excited for even more playdate adventures to come... what a great group!