Week of May 24, 2021- Cupcakes

Monday

We started off our week and day by heading to E.B. Rains Jr. Memorial Park. We saw some baby goslings, played on the playground, and found this amazing bench swing to cuddle on.

When we got home, it was time for our first day of mama preschool for the summer of 2021! 

We created some large cupcakes out of paper for practicing names. Since Clesse is new to letters and writing, I have him place his name using stickers. Charlotte is working on writing her name in proper case now that she's got upper case down. Next was our first craft! I sculpted some cupcakes out of model air dry clay and placed them into a cupcake wrapper. The kids painted them however they liked and added sprinkles (using real sprinkles was a hit!).

  We had a calm afternoon - a bit of TV, the boys napped, and then Charlotte fell asleep in our closet after storming off when I asked her to use the bathroom. Elitch Gardens on Saturday seemed to really tucker her out!

Tuesday

On Monday I grabbed some cupcake themed books from the library, like If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, Pete the Cat and the Missing Cupcakes, Libby Loves Science: Mix and Measure, and Bagel in Love. We took a handful and sat outside on our glider while reading them. Then the kids enjoyed some bubble and waterplay.

We came inside and practiced names on cupcakes, then went on to another craft. This time I made a cupcake "wrapper" using a toilet paper roll and let the kids glue cotton balls together to make the cupcake. They painted on the frosting and added sprinkles. Then we had another quiet afternoon with the boys napping, a little TV and playing on the deck outside with some water and Alka Seltzer tablets.

Wednesday

The kids woke up wanting to play, so that's what we did. A few rounds of hide-and-seek, and then we went downstairs altogether when I went to switch laundry and Clesse and Charlotte played with, I kid you not, a tape measure for about half an hour. We played outside and had Koko (Luke) in the swing for a bit because he's been a bit fussy. Once I put him down for a nap, we started mommy pre-school. I designed, printed, laminated and cut out these cute cupcakes with frosting on top. Yep, you're not the only one thinking it. Once I printed them out I realized they looked like poop emojis, and Charlotte and Kev both teased me about it once they saw them too.

I originally intended to have these cupcakes used like a puzzle on the floor, with big sister "helping" her little brother. But they weren't interested. So I went on to Play-Doh, hoping they could work on some motor skills standing the cupcakes up in Play-Doh. Clesse liked it, but Charlotte "already knows all the letters" and wasn't interested, so I let her just do whatever she wanted with the Play-Doh.

I tried again in the afternoon after the boys napped to get Charlotte engaged by saying two words no child can resist: scavenger hunt. She helped me place the cupcake wrappers in order on the wall and then set off to work. She eagerly took up the challenge to put the frosting letters on items in the house that started with that letter for her little brother and dad to find. It ended up being really exciting when Kev was done with work and we finally got to find all the letters together.

 

I made a "beautiful oops" and realized once I was placing the wrappers on the wall that I had forgotten to make a wrapper for the letter "M". I couldn't pass up the opportunity to show Charlotte that mistakes happen, because she's quite a perfectionist. To make sure I didn't mess with the color pattern I had made with the wrappers, I made "M" a beautiful rainbow. And honestly, I'm pretty proud of myself, because there was a time where I would have been super frustrated and just redid all the letters from M-Z. Woohoo for progress!

Thursday

Oof this morning started off rough. It started with sissy being mad that I wouldn't let her stand on a tray table, Clesse getting knocked off a rocking chair and Luke being upset that his siblings were so upset. So we got off to a slow start - I settled Clesse down first and let him watch Boopy (his name for Blippy) and then went with Luke to help out Charlotte. Once Luke was napping, we reset. I set out our science activity for the week, magic cupcakes! I love doing baking soda and vinegar activities for several reasons - it's pretty cheap, it's extremely entertaining for the kids, they work on it independently without much help from me, and then I get to rinse it down the sink which helps with the awful smell from the disposal! Woohoo! I mixed in some food coloring into the vinegar for Charlotte, and put a dot into each cupcake liner for Clesse and buried it so he wouldn't know what color would pop up.

It was Kev's birthday today, so naturally to wrap up our cupcake week we made....cupcakes! The kids inhaled them.

Friday

Friday we just had fun! I'm doing my best to enjoy these kiddos while they still enjoy me. I had a few more cupcake activities up my sleeve in case we had some down time where we were bored, but they weren't needed. I'll save them for next time we do cupcake week!