Games.

Jonathan LOVES to play board games. Up to this point, we've been playing traditional toddler games, Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, things like that. This week, after yet another request to play the endless Chutes and Ladders, I decided to try something different. I pulled out the Sorry! game, a technically one of our adult games, (its an ages 6+ game...) and we taught him how to play. It was wonderful. I lost both games, but Chris, Jonathan and I were all entertained for the full length of each game! (Chris and I get bored pretty quick with 'ruled by the spinner' games.) While Chris and I have different tastes on what a game night should look like, (we can agree on the toddler inappropriate poker night...) its nice to find a game we all enjoy.

Picking up.

As I type this, Jonathan is picking up his blocks for bedtime, jumping from place to place rather than walking. He looks as though he's practicing for the long jump each time. He falls down every other jump or so, and just says, "Whoa..." and gets back up and jumps again. He throws his arms back in classic superhero fashion before dashing between rooms to look for more blocks and pauses for a drink of water when he needs it. The actual pick up time is probably tripled by all of this, but I don't really mind. All I can think is that he's not a toddler anymore. At 3 1/2, he's really a little boy.

Update:

Almost as soon as I hit publish, Jonathan took to spinning while jumping, with poor result. He fell and scuffed his nose. As I said, really a little boy.

Making Crayons.

Jonathan loves to color. He also keeps anything he can, from rocks and pinecones he finds outside to the crayons given to him at restaurants. When the majority of said crayons ended up broken and therefore untouched at his coloring desk, and we found some lovely (read: nearly unbreakable!) crayons at a bookstore a few weekends back, I was faced with the question of what to do with all those extra crayons. Thankfully, I have a wonderful mom who taught my siblings and I how to make "homemade" crayons with broken crayon bits, a cupcake liner, and the microwave. Remembering this, I sat down one morning and whipped these up for my son.

Normally, when making crayons, you simply toss your spare bits into the cupcake liner, microwave for short intervals, say 30 seconds, and stir with a toothpick every so often to make sure everything melts together. Because I wanted to be difficult, or rather, because I didn't want to make four brownish gray crayons, I chose to shred the old crayons finely and layer by color. I WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN. The crayons turned out relatively cool, but the rainbow layering didn't hold completely as the cheap crayons I was working with were more wax than coloring and that extra wax floated to the top when they melted, mixing the rainbow layering as it went. I do think it would be fun to try this with mini cupcake liners and make really thick single or double color crayons.

I also chose to bake these, again, so I wouldn't have to stir and mess up the layering. However. If you choose only a few colors, and especially colors that go well together, that BLEND well together, swirling your crayon in the microwave can have really cool effects. I know, I became an expert at this as a kid. :)

As it is, next time I could go either way on baking vs. microwaving, but I will never shred the crayons again. Chop them to little bits, perhaps, but I never want to have to clean wax off my shredder again.

If you'll forgive the close-up of my fingers, here's a better shot of the rainbow layering that did survive the baking process.

A final word of advice: double line your cupcake liners. Some wax can seep through, especially if you bake, so it makes for easier clean-up. Enjoy!

Snack time in the Tent.

Picking out Breakfast.