Feed the Birds

For a winter craft project, Malcolm and I strung generic Fruit Loops cereal on yarn to hang in the trees to feed the birds and squirrels. He was much more excited by this than I imagined he would be. As he was threading cereal onto the yarn, he kept talking about how this one was for the baby birds, and this one was for the daddy birds, and that the mommy birds were really going to like this one. It was insanely cute. We made three very short loops, two medium size ones, and one very long string. That evening, he kept decorating one of the chairs with his creations, still talking about feeding the birds.

While we were making them, we came across a few pieces of cereal that were broken and unable to be strung. He insisted on collecting them up, then throwing them out the back door so that the birds could find them and have them now.

Today after school, we hung up our handiwork.


Holding up a medium size one. You can see the others we made on the right.


Hanging them on the tree.


The long string in the tree.

He is now very anxious for the birds to come and eat them. This was a great project that he really enjoyed. We may have to do this one again sometime.

Party Time!

We had a birthday party for Dorothy yesterday afternoon. Scheduling was a nightmare and it ended up being about 2 weeks after her actual birthday. Then, another friend had an issue with the bowling alley where her son's 4th birthday was being held, and the parties ended up on the same day at the same time. We had quite a bit of overlap in the guest lists, but it seemed to mostly work out in the end. A couple of families split up and took the older kids bowling and the little ones cam here to play and eat cupcakes.

Since Dorothy is too little to have any interests of her own beyond mommy, milk, and getting into whatever her brother is doing, we went with a generic cupcake themed party. Who doesn't like cupcakes?

The kids played for a little bit while waiting for everyone to get there.

The birthday girl wore her cupcake dress again, and played with her gumball machine.




The kitchen set was very popular with most of the kids.




Making friends and playing cars & trucks.




Then it was time for cake!


The birthday girl got to eat her cake right away while the bigger kids sat down to decorate their cupcakes with sprinkles, M&Ms, mini marshmallows, and mini Reese's Pieces.




The spread before the kids sat down.




Diving in.




Sprinkles are serious business.




After the cupcakes were decorated and eaten, it was time to open some presents.

Dorothy is a big fan of curly ribbons.




She got lots of great play food for her new kitchen.




Reinforcements were standing by in case she had trouble opening the big package.




I know there is a funny caption that should go here, but I'm drawing a blank. These two were born about 12 hours apart; one on Christmas Eve and one on Christmas Day.


It was a fun party and both kids were just exhausted when it was over.  I had to poke Malcolm awake the next morning so that he wouldn't be late for school.  I was amazed at what a good night's sleep they both had after eating all those cupcakes and sprinkles.

Possibly my favorite thing to come out of this is how Malcolm says, "Pupcake," when asking for a cupcake.  He's too cute to say no to.  "Please, may I please have a pupcake, please?"  Who could resist that when combined with him looking up at you with those big brown eyes?