March Playdates

In March, Mommy and the boys were glad to have another couple playdates with our friends. Our first playdate was actually on St. Patrick's Day, so of course we had to have green-themed activities. Jenn was our creative planner for this playdate. First, she set out green fingerpaint that she had made from pistachio pudding. The kiddos were excited to jump right in!

This was Cody and Jaden's first experience with fingerpainting, so they didn't exactly know what to do at first.

The older kids showed our boys just what to do...

...and even demonstrated that the fingerpaint was safe to eat. Yum! :)

After a tasty snack of apples and homemade green fruit dip, Jenn told us the story of St. Patrick. She told the kids how St. Patrick's goal was to spread the love of Jesus to many other people. The craft that we did was based on this story-- a shamrock made from 3 hearts, to remind us of the love of our triune God.

We loved hearing about the reminder of God's great love for us through Jesus. Thanks, Jenn, for planning such a wonderful & creative green morning!

For our next playdate, we centered our activities around spring. While it may not look like spring outside quite yet (We're still getting occasional snow flurries and finally reached the 100 in. mark of snow for the season!), the official calendar tells us that it IS spring. Maybe it's just wishful thinking on our part! :)

Before starting our spring activities, the boys loved exploring all the new toys at Jenna's house. They enjoyed playing with new blocks and pretend food, giggled like crazy while playing with a mini-jackhammer, and constantly dumped out these fun magnetic letters.

Best of all, though, Kody and Ryder own a rocking horse! Cody and Jaden pretty much monopolized this toy whenever we were downstairs. :)

Cody got the hang of the cowboy "thang" pretty quickly. Is he a little Montana boy or what? :)

Ride 'em, cowboy!

Jaden, too, loved bouncing wildly on the horse...

...although he wasn't quite sure what to do with the hat.

For our snack, I had put together some butterfly snacks that I found on Pinterest. I ran out of time to add the pipe cleaner antennae, but I still think they came out pretty cute.

For our first activity, Ruth got super adventurous on us and decided to have the kids plant flowers. This is definitely not an idea I would have attempted on my own with the boys at this age, but it was so great doing the activity with other mommy friends! (In addition to our regular playdate mommies, my good friend Janese was also back in town from Thailand. It was so fun to see her at this playdate AND to have her extra helping hands! Thanks so much for joining us, Janese!) After getting the table all set and the kids organized, Ruth explained the planting process to all the kiddos.

Cody and Jaden listened very carefully (or something like that) to her directions.

Then, we all dug in to the potting soil and filled up our pots.

Of course, in the brief moment I was helping Jaden fill his pot, Cody thought the large clod of dirt looked delicious to eat! He soon found out that looks and reality don't always line up...

Poor Cody-boy! He was such a good sport (no real tears, just a lot of whimpering and spitting!). And he certainly learned his lesson-- he didn't want anything to do with the dirt after THAT experience.

Next step was digging a hole for our seeds and dropping them in the soil.

Mommy held out the seeds for Jaden to place in the pot... and, yep you guessed it, the seed went right into his mouth! It wouldn't have been so bad except that Jaden tried to bite right into the super-hard seed. Either out of surprise or pain, this little boy DID start to wail. Poor Jaden-man! Thankfully, we had no morning glories coming out of his ears later that week. :)

The planting experience was certainly an adventure, especially for the apparently very hungry Schleicher boys. :) Having a team of other women around to help and laugh right along with us kept it a fun experience. I was happy the boys could have their first lesson in planting! And, just a few days ago, our seeds started sprouting through the soil. What a joy to have green growth inside our home while the snow is swirling outside! Thanks for the perfect spring activity, Ruth!

Our final spring activity was making coffee filter butterflies. The kids started by coloring with marker on their coffee filters.

Then, we sprayed the filters with water to allow the colors to spread and added our butterfly antennae when dry. Tah-dah!

I'm certainly enjoying having regular playdates with these other fun & creative mommies. It gives us a good excuse to plan special activities for our kids and provides a perfect outlet for playtime and socializing!