felt Christmas tree

So I saw these felt trees all over pinterest and since I feel like I haven't done hardly

anything Christmas-y with Lincoln, and I was headed to Joanns already anyways, 

I thought I'd make one for him to play with and decorate.  

I got lucky and the felt was only $2.99/yard.

I bought 3/4 yard of green felt and 1/4 yard of a couple other colors.  I also had

some here at home to use as well.  

I just used some stick pins to attach it to the wall.

The ornaments, star and presents then just stick to the tree.  

You know like those Sunday school felt boards used to tell the story?

Yep, just like that. 

"Here mommy, you do it"

It'll be fun to pull it out each year.  This way he can decorate his own tree instead of

 "helping" me decorate mine :)

finger painting fun!

Last week we were finally able to do the finger painting project that I had seen at "No Time for Flash Cards" for a baby's first Christmas but I figured even though it's Lincoln's second Christmas, in a lot of ways it feels like it's his first, just because he's so much more aware of what's going on.  This was his first try at finger painting and I think it went pretty well!  He was a little unsure at first, of what it was and why his hands were all green but he quickly got used to the idea and started clapping (which sprayed the painting everywhere!) and having fun with it.

For our project, first you start by cutting out a side of a paper bag (or use any kind of heavy paper)

Draw a Christmas tree on the paper bag and tape it to the table (I used NTFFC's idea and taped it sideways so he could reach most of it) and some green finger paint.

Here is another view of the taped Christmas tree all ready to go!

I started by just putting a glob of paint in the middle and watched to see what Lincoln would do....

....and he knew EXACTLY what to do with it, you just make a mess right? 

After a little while of painting I think he finally realized something weird was on his hands and so he inspected them...

...and what better thing to do with paint all over you hands, then CLAP!

The happy artist with his masterpiece! (I helped him get all the spots on the tree covered but he did a pretty good job on his own!)

When he was done making a mess.....right to the bath tub he went! He thought that was great....two fun things right in a row?!

Waiting for the paint to dry....it didn't take too long.

I didn't get a picture of us doing it but then I traced his painted clean hand onto red and yellow paper, cut out the hands and glued them to the tree!

Here is our his finished project!  He didn't get the privilege of holding the tree for very long, as you can see the star was being ripped off as I took the picture!

Now it hangs beautifully on our fridge!  His first artwork to hang on the fridge....*tear*...he's just growing up so fast.

I also let Lincoln try to color on the hand ornaments and he did a little but you can't really tell a whole lot.  Not sure who had more fun doing this project Lincoln or mommy! :)

sensory tub [oatmeal]

I'm so excited that Lincoln is finally getting to the age where we can do planned learning activities during the day.  The teacher in me finds this UBBER exciting!  My friend Julie has blogged here about doing an activity with her son Ori called a "Sensory Tub."  I think she found the idea at "I Can Teach My Child," which has tons of great ideas of learning activities to do with your kiddos.

 I have been meaning to do a sensory tub with Lincoln for quite awhile now since he's seemed ready for something like that. So today we finally did it.  "I Can Teach My Child" defines a sensory tub as, "simply a tool for children to learn about the world around them using their sense of touch. It allows children to explore different textures."  I decided to start with oatmeal and since we've been trying to work on learning animal sounds I decided to put Lincoln's animals in the tub. 

 "What is this?"

He wasn't quite sure what to do with it at first

Checking out the oatmeal...

"This looks like something I should eat...nom, nom, nom."

 I worked with him a little on the animals and their sounds but he was more interested in filling things up with the oatmeal and spreading it all over the floor! 

Notice how he's dumping the oatmeal out onto the floor here? :)

An Oatmeal mess!  It wasn't hard to clean up though just a quick sweep and voila! a clean floor!

Poor rooster didn't get to enjoy the oatmeal for very long.

The tub kept Lincoln busy for almost an hour and then he was getting bored with it and started wanting to dump it all out and carry the tub around so we put it away and listened to "Old McDonald" a few times.  Lincoln had fun dancing to the music!  I can't wait to try some other kinds of sensory tubs!