Sensory Play and Liquid Watercolors

Liquid watercolors are something I've wanted to check out for a while now but I never wanted to spend the money on them so the other day I made my own.  My husband cracked open a few markers and we let the insides soak overnight.  L is really into spray bottles lately so yesterday I set him up with some spray bottles of liquid watercolors and some paper outside.  He loved it, he sprayed the papers, his pumpkins, his sandbox and a big white sheet I laid out in the backyard.  The painting turned out really cool looking.

I have also recently decided to make his sensory materials more available to him so we spent this morning playing in the sensory bin.  First he wanted to play with the polyfil pellets.  Plenty of scooping and pouring going on.

Next, he chose the green sand.  I jumped in on this one and together we put sand through the funnel and he really seemed to like watching it funnel through.

Next he wanted water beads.  He really enjoyed swishing them around.  He also had to jump into the bin for the full water bead experience lol.

Shortly after that he found a bottle of glue I bought for him the other day and I explained how glue worked to him.  His first experience with glue went great!  I started him out with colored cotton balls and I may introduce glitter to him tomorrow.

Then he wanted more liquid watercolor play.  I pulled out the spray bottles from yesterday but I also added in some cups of the watercolors and an old medicine dropper.  He loved using the medicine dropper!

Pumpkin Madness

L loves pumpkins.  He points to their stem and says, "hat" because he remembers when he and his dad carved out the last pumpkin and we told him the top of it was his hat.  He loves to carve and paint pumpkins and he gets excited every time he sees a pumpkin.  So the other day I took his and J's pumpkin into the playroom to see what L would do with them.  I sat them on his table and L got busy.  First he pulled the markers down and began to draw on each of them.

Then his face lit up, he said "paint," and he got his paint down.  Only blue though this time.  (BTW He knows and can identify his colors on various objects now and he also counted to 3 the other day.)

Today my husband took the day off and we decided to carve another pumpkin only this time with a drill.  L was a pretty big fan and one of the most exciting things for him was to cut out the "hat" LOL.  He only needed a little help holding the drill up and he loved watching it make a hole.

J is really into this partially deflated helium balloon lately.  He will stare at it forever and try to manipulate it.  The other day he figured out how to make it move really well and he was so intensely focused for a really long time; I was impressed!

On a side note, I got a picnic table for my birthday and we had our first family picnic in the backyard today!  I'm looking forward to many more.

J's Smile

Baby J is the happiest baby ever.  He loves to lay on the floor and kick his legs as hard and fast as he can kick them.  He has been smiling for a while now but today was the first time that I caught it on camera.  His smile is so precious and sometimes he will coo when he smiles and that just completely melts my heart.  Here is the progression of the precious smile I caught on camera today, by the last picture he was cooing.

I love how happy he is!

The other day I also caught a glimpse of L's baby face on camera, it seems like his baby face moments are fleeting and that makes me so sad but I will always cherish these pictures and I love the little boy that he is becoming so much!

While my husband and I were cooking dinner tonight, L got a spray bottle of cleaner and a rag and he cleaned the bottom half of the kitchen.  He's really good at it too, it looks and smells great!

Pumpkin Carving

We decided that it would be fun to carve a pumpkin this year.  My husband did all the carving though because it was pretty tough to do, but we let L give it a try.  He kind of liked pulling out the inside of the pumpkin.  

He really liked trying to fit the "lid" on the pumpkin just right, and cutting around where my husband had already cut.

Our finished product turned out pretty cute.

After pumpkin carving we took a short break to play in the corn pit some more.  This corn pit has been such a huge hit; I'm so glad we did it this year.

Then we decided to plant our pumpkin seeds.  We know nothing about when or how to plant pumpkin seeds so hopefully we get a cute little pumpkin patch next year!

J has also somewhat warmed up to the idea of a corn pit lately.   He likes to just stick his feet in and slowly wiggle his toes around in all the corn, it's the most precious thing in the world.

Corn Pit

Today we made a corn pit and it was awesome!  L was busy in it for hours and he kept pointing to it for me to sit in it with him.  I love when he invites me to play with him, it makes my heart melt.

He loved laying in the corn and rolling in it.

He also loved stomping and jumping in it.  We made up a couple of fun games together.  He liked when I would bury his feet in the corn and then he would raise his foot out and smile so big haha.  He also liked to bury my feet and would crack up when I wiggled my toes under the corn.

After we had played in the corn for a while I decided to go get some toys from the sandbox to use.  He worked with his shovel and bucket for a long time.  He also enjoyed burying his truck in the corn and then trying to find it.

Even J enjoyed the corn pit, although he didn't enjoy it long lol.  Maybe it was sensory overload for him.

He was much more content to lay nearby and look at the grass.