Life's Doodles

A Blog About Scheduled Life Going Unscheduled

Lego Birthday Party

I love planning birthday parties. It is so much fun to look through all the options and decide on a theme based on what your child likes at the moment. Ronin has always loved Duplo Legos and this year he has shown more of an interest in the little Legos. So, we decided to make his birthday party Lego themed.

We always buy a birthday banner, themed table clothes and helium filled mylar balloons for our birthday parties. We picked these up at Party City. For the banner we hung it in the opening to our sun room area of our house. We also hung 3 plain yellow balloons on each side of the banner to give it a pop of color. We placed each balloon on the tables with the table clothes.

I knew I wanted to build some party decorations out of legos. I built HAPPY BIRTHDAY RONIN 4 out of Duplo Legos. I put the letters on the tables.

I also built this napkin holder out of little Legos.

To add to the decorations I filled a vase full of Duplo Lego people.

I absolutely love these lego head storage containers. I purchased a large and a small one for the party. I put plastic silverware in the small one and homemade party mix in the large one. They were a perfect addition to the party and can also be used after the party for lego storage.

I made lego minifigure and brick crayons from these silicone molds. These were super easy to make and so fun for the kids.

All you do is break crayons up into little pieces and place them in the silicone molds (fill the molds overflowing as the crayon will melt down into the tiny spaces of the mold). Bake them at 250 degrees for 15 minutes. Take them out of the oven and let them cool for 1 hr before removing from the silicone molds.

I also printed some minifigure coloring pages for the kids to color on.

We ordered the cake from a local bakery and sent them a Lego image to put on top of the cake as an edible image. We also ordered pizza from our favorite local pizza shop.

Fun was had by all at Ronin’s 4th birthday party. I can’t wait to plan the next birthday celebration! Do you like to plan celebrations? What has been your favorite one to plan? Thanks for stopping by and I will talk to you again soon!

-Kim

Homemade Moon Sand

Our kids love playing in the sand so I decided to make some homemade moon sand for the kids to play with. Moon sand is so easy to make, all you need is 2 ingredients that most likely already have at home.

  • 8 cups flour
  • 1 cup oil (I used baby oil)

All you have to do is mix 8 cups of flour with 1 cup of baby oil. Mix it until it is well mixed. The moon sand will be really crumbly after it all mixed up.

Ronin & Ripley had so much playing in the moon sand with cups. It is a little messy so we made sure to play with it outside. If you want to store it for future use make sure you put it in an air tight container. We will definitely make this again in the future.

What are some things that you like to make at home instead of buying at the store? I am always up for making things out of ingredients we already have at home, so I would love to hear your ideas! Thanks for stopping by and I will talk to you again soon!

-Kim

Kids Hooded Towel Tutorial

I love those hooded baby towels, but our kids both grew out of those towels way too quickly. Below is a DIY hooded towel tutorial that I used to make hooded towels for kids. I got this tutorial from the following link: https://projectnursery.com/2017/04/diy-hooded-towel-tutorial/

Materials List:

  • 1 Regular Sized Bath Towel (any size bath towel will work)
  • 1 Coordinating Hand Towel
  • Matching Thread
  • Sewing Machine
  • Rotary Cutter, Self-Healing Rotary Mat & Clear Acrylic Ruler or your can just use scissors
  • Rulers
  • Sewing Pins

Instructions:

1.Start by creating the hood. Folder your hand towel in half, matching up the short sides.

2. Measure 11.5″ down from the folded edge and cut off the bottom edges.

3. Open the hand towel and fold 1.5″ up on one long side. Using your coordinating thread to sew a straight stitch right below the finished edge along your fold.

4. Then go back and sew right on top of the finished edge. This will prevent the edge from flapping up and gives it a nice edge.

5. Fold the hand towel in half again, matching up the short sides. But this time, make sure the long finished edge you just sewed is inside. The finished edge you just sewed will be the hood front.

6. Measuring from the hood front, mark 8″ along the top folded edge and 12″ along the bottom edge. Align a ruler on the two marks and cut diagonally. Save the piece you removed to make hand pockets later!

7. Pin your diagonal edges together. Use a zig-zag stitch to sew them together with a 1/4″ seam allowance. Then turn the hood right-side out.

8. Find the top inside center of your bath towel. Pin the bottom center of the hood to the top center of your bath towel, with the hood piece overlapping the bath towel by 1/2″.

9. With the hood piece still overlapping the bath towel by 1/2″, pin the remaining bottom edges of the hood along the top edge of the towel. You will have to fold the hood a bit in order to get the straight edges to align.

10. Use your zig-zag stitch to sew the hood on with a 1/4″ seam allowance.

11. On the back side of the hood, you’ll notice the top edge of the bath towel has made a flap. Use a straight stitch to sew this down along the hood.

Instructions for Optional Hand Pockets

12. Cut along the fold of the discarded triangle from the hand towel. Measure down 8″ from the top and cut off the bottoms.

13. You should now have two pieces like below. Run a zip-zag stitch along the diagonal edge to keep it from fraying.

14. On the inside of the towel, align the pocket just inside the top corner. Pin in place.

15. Sew a zip-zag stitch along three sides, leaving the diagonal side open. Repeat with the other piece on the other top corner.

You are done! Don’t you just want to make more. I am definitely going to make more of these for our kids.

Our kids absolutely love these hooded towels. Our son loves to play with his and loves the hand pockets! Aren’t they just the cutest towels that your kids will be able to use for years. These make really nice beach towels as well. It is a great way to dry off and get warm after getting out of the pool!

Do your kids love hooded towels as much as our do? I would love to hear about where you buy your hooded towels or how you make them. Thanks for stopping by! I will talk to you again soon!

-Kim

Chocolate Popsicles

Do you love chocolate milk? If you do then you will love these quick and easy chocolate popsicles. All you need is chocolate milk and some popsicle molds.

You can use whatever type of chocolate milk you prefer. I used 2% chocolate milk but I think the whole chocolate milk would be really tasty. Fat free chocolate milk can be used but I think that at least 2% should be used to give it a creamier taste.

To make this chocolate summer treat just pour your chocolate milk into your popsicle mold (I used the koji Ice Pop Molds for the larger popsicles and the Nuby Garden Fresh Fruitsicle Frozen Pop Tray for the smaller popsicles, perfect for a toddlers small hands). I love the koji Ice Pop Molds because they are really simple to use and the popsicles come out of the molds really easy. I also love the Nuby Garden Fresh Fruitsicle Frozen Pop Tray because they are perfect for small toddlers to hold on to and the perfect small size for a small toddler as well. You could also use ice cube trays if you don’t have any popsicle molds. It would be really tasty to put chocolate ice cubes into chocolate milk to keep it cold!

Place in the freezer overnight and enjoy the next day. To remove the popsicle from the mold just run it under some warm water until the popsicle releases from the edges of the mold. Our kids absolutely love these popsicles. They both ask for more after their popsicle was gone.

I hope you enjoy this quick and easy popsicle recipe. This is one of our favorite popsicle recipes in the summer. What are some of your favorite popsicle recipes? We love popsicles in our house so I would love to hear about your favorites. Thanks for stopping by and I will talk to you again soon!

-Kim

National Zoo Keeper Week Hats & Dear Zoo Activity

Since this is National Zoo Keeper Week, I thought it would be fun to do a couple little zoo activities with the kids.

We first made some homemade zoo keeper hats. These hats are super simple to make and so much fun to make with kids. All you need for this project is paper plates, paper bowls, hot glue, brown crayons or markers, paper punch and yarn.

Zoo Keeper Hat Instructions:

  • First you color the back of the paper plates and paper bowls brown with crayons or markers. You could also use paint if you want.
  • Then you cut a hole in the middle of the paper plate big enough for the bowl to fit inside.
  • Now you hot glue the paper plate to the paper bowl
  • Next using the paper punch, put a hold on each side of the hat to attach the string to the hat.
  • Finally cut a string that is long enough the the person wearing the hat and attached is to the hat using the holes you just paper punched.

The cutest little zoo board book ever is Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell. This book has been around since 1982 and is still a very popular book. It is a Lift-the-Flap book that has an animal behind each flap. Kids love guessing what kind of animal is behind each flap.

I put together an activity to do with the kids while reading them this book. All you need is the 8 animals in the book (Elephant, Giraffe, Lion, Camel, Snake, Monkey, Frog and Dog), some brown craft paper, tape and labels that say FROM THE ZOO. Wrap each animal separately with the brown craft paper and put one of the FROM THE ZOO labels on each package. Then I placed all the packages in a small basket.

As you read the book, have the kids open each animal as you come to that part of the book.

Reading this book to the kids was so much fun. It allowed them to interact with the book. They loved opening each animal as we came to that page in the book. You can do so many different activities with this book. Depending on the age of the kids you are reading it to, you could use wooden letters to match up with each animal and/or you could talk about specifics about each animal (like what color they are, where they live, what they like to eat, what sounds they make or what they look like).

Dear Zoo has been a wonderful addition to our children’s book collection. What are some of your favorite zoo themed children’s books? We absolutely love books at our house, so I would love you hear your favorites. Thanks for stopping back and I will talk to you again soon!

-Kim