Easy Paint Stick Sign

I am loving this "&" sign I made the other day! It was so easy & pretty cheap too.

What you'll need: 

- paint stirrers (got mine FREE @ Home Depot)

- stain (any color you want) 

- glue (I used hot glue in this case)

- canvas or something to mount sticks on

First I stained all the paint stir sticks & allowed them to dry completely. I also used wood sealer on these to give it a shinier look. Next I just glued them onto an old canvas I had for the last couple years. These stirrers taper a little on the end so I made sure alternate sides as I lined them up - this way the gaps were on both sides instead of one. On top of the sticks I glued on my "&" sign - this one was around $2 at michaels but you could use whatever you'd like. I think this would be cute if you stenciled on the stir sticks or even wrote a cute saying! 

The Amazing Letter A

For the letter A we were all about apples!

Gracie's favorite project was Apple painting. What can I say? The girl loves to get messy. Claire enjoyed helping with the Apple painting too! We read all about the lifecycle of apples and apple trees and we read the Dr.Suess Classic - 10 Apples up on Top! 

Fancy Nancy & the Mermaid Ballet

Fancy Nancy is one of Gracie's favorite book characters. I am always on the look out for these books at the library because they never sit on the shelf for very long. During our last trip to the library we found Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet. I loved that this story dealt with jealousy and someone else getting what you want. We have had this type of trouble more frequently in the last year with Gracie becoming a big sister! In the story Fancy Nancy gives her friend a beautiful shell tiara and Gracie and I decided to make our own. I didn't have any shells at home or a real crown so I improvised with construction paper and a shell coloring page. The end result was the same - a beautiful crown to practice ballet in AND Gracie was occupied for a good chunk of time. Win-win if you ask me! 

2old2color - Review & Giveaway!

I have to confess that I've stolen some pages out of the girls coloring books and took them for myself. When I was little I loved coloring with a passion. I loved the smell of crayons and I day dreamed about being the person who got to give each color its crazy name. If you're like me then you are in luck! No more stealing the princess pages and sneaking crayons. 2old2color is an incredible shop that I found on Instagram (@2old2color) and I am excited to announce I have teamed up with 2old2color to giveaway one of their amazing coloring books for grown ups! I have never seen books like these ones before. The pictures are so detailed and so much work has gone into making each page that its like coloring in a masterpiece. Check my instagram (@ashtonwitz) for details on how to enter the giveaway! Its one you won't want to miss!

Finding Peace

This week marks our first back to school season - Gracie has started PRE-K! I can hardly believe it. After a jam packed summer (more to come on that later!) our family is more than ready to get back to a routine. Gracie is already in love with her teacher and all her new friends and I am so thankful this has been an easy transition.

On Tuesday morning while we are getting into our morning groove we found a FROG in our house. How does no one notice a frog in the house?! I successfully scooped the little guy into the backyard after chasing him for what seemed like forever. We got Gracie to school on time and I googled the meaning of frogs because it had been in the back of my head all morning. Did you know frogs bring peace and tranquility in times of change? I had no idea until now. I am choosing to believe this with my whole heart because it fits our life so well for the moment.
Some of my favorite ways to find peace in this crazy life are listed below. What helps you guys?! I'd love some new ideas!

 

Yoga - I always feel more in tuned with my self after yoga whether it was by myself or in a yoga class.

 

Books - There is something about getting lost in a good book that makes me just feel better when I come back to the real world.

 

Art - Coloring, drawing, painting. I love creating things and this is something Gracie and I love to do together. She always laughs at my drawings and I'm always inspired by hers. There is a peaceful quietness to this activity that helps me go to my happy place. I know of some great grown up coloring books too - check out my review of 2old2color here!

#WitzontheRoad

Hey ya'll ! I am writing to you from sunny Wisconsin. The family and I packed up our truck & hit the road for some summer fun. Taking a little break from blogging while we are on vacation but check us out in August for lots of new ideas for kids crafts, activities and fun! Follow me on Instagram (@ashtonwitz) to check in on our trip - I'm also having a few giveaways that you won't want to miss!

With love, Ashton

MOSH

 

MOSH stands for museum of science and history. Lucky for us that museum is pretty close in downtown Jacksonville! Prices are decent, they have military discounts and if you plan it out right you can get in for just $4 on certain days. My Mom is here visiting this week (YAY!) so we decided to head on over to MOSH. This summer they are all about dinosaurs and ever since they covered dinos in preschool Gracie has been all about them too. When you walk into the Dino exhibit it's like you're in Jurassic Park. The models of dinosaurs are HUGE, they move, they roar and I'll admit I thought it might be a little scary for Gracie and Claire. I was sure wrong. Claire is obsessed with waving at the moment and she waved at every single dinosaur (and human!) she saw that day. Gracie's favorite part was pushing the buttons that controlled the dinosaurs head, arms, tail and ROAR!

We also visited the planetarium and watched the star show. The showing we went to was perfect because our host was Elmo! The museum also had an exhibit where you walk through time, not as exciting for Gracie and Claire, but  my mom and I found it so interesting. I love exploring this new city with my girls!!

Dazzle and Daze: Product and Shop Review

Our 10month old Claire Bear has never been a fan of big bows or big flowers on her head bands. The only cute head accessories the girl will keep on are hats and these adorable top knots. Finding good quality, appropriately priced, cute patterned top knots is no easy task. Fear not friends, I have the solution! The Dazzle and Daze shop has the best top knots I have found. These are great quality products that can put up with the wear and tear of everyday life. They are soft, lightweight and fit comfortably on baby. What amazed me most about this shop was how quickly I received my order! Talk about fast service! I also received the sweetest note in my package advising me how to keep my top knots if tip top shape. Those little touches make shopping hand made the absolute BEST!! Make sure you check them out and follow them on Instagram @dazzle.and.daze

Favorite Book Series for Preschoolers

If you couldn't tell from our previous posts, our family LOVES books! We have been reading stories to Gracie since she was a baby and her love of books has grown from there. I am so excited now that she is older and recognizes the characters and really seems to connect with them now. There are SO many books out there for kids that it can seem overwhelming at times. Gracie's attention span is what you'd expect from a four year old - SHORT! Not every story holds her attention but the listed book series below keep her engaged until the very last page!

Pinkalicious by Victoria Kann
An adventurous little girl who LOVES the color pink. Her stories cover everything from arguments with friends to fun family days at the beach.
I Love You Through and Through by Caroline Jayne Church
Not exactly a series but these books are a very short read full of sweetness and heart. These were Gracie's favorite about a year ago. Now she knows them by heart and loves sharing the poems with her baby sister.
Flat Stanley by  Jeff Brown
The story of a poor boy who was flattened by a bulletin board. Don't feel too bad for him, he can still have fun and save the day even though he's flat as a pancake. Click here to find out how we used Flat Stanley to inspire our indoor camp out!

Fancy Nancy by Jane O'ConnorYour little one is sure to pick up some fancy vocabulary after reading about Fancy Nancy.

Pete the Cat by James Dean
This crazy cool cat teaches readers about keeping a positive attitude and keeping calm. If you go online to Pete's website you can let your littles listen and sing along to Pete's songs! Click here to listen!

Hope y'all enjoy these series as much as our family does!!

Indoor Campout With Anna, Elsa & Stanley

Last week we read all about Flat Stanley and Gracie was instantly hooked! Flat Stanley is a boy who was flattened by a bulletin board and now can travel through the mail and slide under doors - how fun! Luckily for us we found some more stories that feature Flat Stanley! The book we chose last weekend was all about camping. This Mama did not want to set up a camp site in our backyard - just too many bugs and critters in these parts of FL! So we decided on an indoor camp out. Gracie put her Frozen tent and sleeping bag to good use - thanks Gama Lisa and Granny! We popped popcorn and sang some camp songs and we even made our own fire. Don't worry we built the fire out of construction paper scraps and I loved the way it turned out! I love reading books and incorporating themes into our day to day lives. 

Jax 5/30

Greetings from Jax! Our family is brand new here to the Jacksonville area. I am a huge supporter of being active in your community and in that spirit I am going to start a blog series on exciting and fun things to do around our new home! If you are in our area I would love new ideas on what to do - you can email me at bloggingwithwitz@gmail.com

One of our weekly activities here in Jax has been a weekly trip to the library. We love the preschool story time the public library near our house puts on every week. It's a great way to get Gracie socialized with other kids while we are still new to the area. The ladies who work at the library are phenomenal as well! They always have good stories and truly keep the kids engaged. Have you looked up library reading times at your local library? 

We made our own brides!

This morning we read one of our favorites - Fancy Nancy! I love the "fancy" vocabulary words and love that Gracie has incorporated words like Zany and Brilliant into her everyday language! This installment is titled Fancy Nancy and the Wedding of the Century! For our project we designed our own fancy wedding gowns with some materials around the house. Some materials we used were toilet paper, cut up plastic bag, straws and cotton balls. Gracie felt all the materials and we discussed differences in textures. She decided a wedding dress should be smooth, soft and fluffy and off she was to create something glamorous. The finished product was pretty fancy if I do say so myself!

The Letter "M"

I'm not sure if preschool adventures is exactly accurate but for now it works. I may change the name of this blog series in the future but who knows - life here in Jax is BUSY. I thought all my days would be spent at the beach and frolicking in the surf and sand. Boy was I WRONG!

My favorite activity we did during our homeschool time this week involved the letter M! We read our favorite letter book featuring M. Gracie traced her letters and practiced writing M. We talked about all the things we could think of that started with the mmmm sound. For our craft we went through the local grocery ads (we get too many of these weekly if you ask me!) and she cut out anything that started with the letter M. Gracie needed a little help with the products but she did a great job cutting and pasting to the page!

Greetings from Jax

Greetings from Jax! Our family is brand new here to the Jacksonville area. I am a huge supporter of being active in your community and in that spirit I am going to start a blog series on exciting and fun things to do around our new home! If you are in our area I would love new ideas on what to do - you can email me at bloggingwithwitz@gmail.com

This past weekend our family traveled about 45mins away from our home down to beautiful St.Augustine FL for the 2nd Annual Gathering of Friends: Children's Arts Festival
This festival was 100% FREE! Everyone knows how much I love free stuff! The whole amphitheater was transformed into a kid friendly atmosphere. Lots of balloons and color and even pirates! Gracie got to explore many different booths and got to try her hand at many different art styles. My favorite by far was the booth that let the kids paint using leaves, sticks and other things found in nature as their paint brush. Gracie loved meeting Clifford the Big Red Dog and decorating her own drinking cup. Not too much for Claire to do except lounge in the sunshine, but since that is her favorite thing to do she was a happy girl!

I heard about the Kids Art Festival just by googling fun things to do in the Jacksonville area. I suggest going out and trying as many things as you can in your own community!

You never know how much fun you can have until you try!

Preschool Adventures 5/19

I am not by any means a trained preschool teacher. I am just a Mom trying to teach my 4year old skills that will help her succeed in preschool and having some fun along the way! follow me as I try to navigate through a world of numbers, letters, songs and crafts! This week my favorite preschool day was all about pirates! We practiced tracing and writing the letter P, practiced our P sounds and discussed what we thought Pirates liked to do out on the seven seas!

 


We read Do Pirates Take Baths? by Kathy Tucker
 

What a funny read! Gracie was giggling the whole time. I had made a treasure map of our neighborhood and after our story Gracie grabbed her pirate hat and we embarked on our little journey! The map had a few special markers like our street sign and the park near our house. Gracie's "treasure" was a Hershey's Chocolate kiss that was buried in the sandbox. Unfortunately it was a little melted in the 90 degree heat but Gracie had no complaints! After our adventure Gracie wanted to create her own treasure map and spent the afternoon exploring our house with her dolls. 

Check back next week for more adventures in preschool!