Monster Themed Painting Session

This entry is featuring Brandon! (the newly 2 year old boy)

Ever since the kids watched Monsters Inc. at a friends' house. Brandon has been fascinated with anything that has monster prints on it, whether it be t-shirts, sippy cups, you name it. Today we're focusing on Brandon for using watercolor to paint monster characters, because he did such a great job!

I simply outlined the monsters with black crayons and I just let them go wild with color choices and how much to paint and where to paint, giving zero instructions.

As I have mentioned earlier on another post, kids at this age do not need to be taught how to draw or paint. They should be let free to explore and enjoy the process of creative arts.

Mike Wazowski definitely has to make his appearance when we're painting monsters, right?

"Um-hum!" Says, Brandon.

And of course, his buddy, James P. Sullivan.

Here are the final products: 3 by Brandon, and 1 by Sophie (She was painting other animals besides monsters, so maybe we'll feature her on another post later). ^^

Whole Wheat Mango Cake

I had a little bit of frozen mango chunks left in the bag, so I thought the kids could do something with them. 

I stumbled upon this recipe  and made a few modifications. The kids really enjoyed making this cake with me as well as eating it after it had came out of the oven. 

Mix 1/4 cup butter with 3/4 cup sugar

Puree about the amount of an actual mango

Add the mango puree into the butter and sugar mixture along with 1 egg, 1 tsp vanilla extract and 2 tbsp lemon juice

Next, mix 1 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp baking soda in a separate bowl, then fold it into the wet ingredients.

Chop up about another real mango worth of mango pieces,

and fold them in with everything else.

Grease the baking pan and transfer the batter into it

In about 39 minutes (yes, it was 39 minutes for me and not 40 =P), it was completely done, it smelled heavenly and tasted... well, let's just say the taste was definitely approved by Sophie and Brandon! ^_^

Kangovou

I recently came across Kangovou. It's an American company started by two mothers. They designed a set of stainless steel kid's dish-ware that are BPA, PVC, lead, melamine, phthalate free. The products are made in South Korea. When I ordered them on the internet, I had to wait at least 5 weeks to get the products due to backordering. 

Here are the two sweet boxes when they arrived at my door. I ordered the Ice Mint colored set for Brandon, and the Peaches and Cream colored set for Sophie.

The dish-ware set was packaged very artistically and securely.

After opening the lid of the box, the compartment plate with lid is neatly tucked under. 

The second layer is consist of the sippy cup, cereal bowl and the snack bowl. 

 The bottom layer is the flat plate.

 Here is the whole family together =)

So far,  the kids and I have been enjoying the dish-ware set quite well.

On the other note, poor Brandon has been having fever for the past 3 days. I am thankful for all the people who cared and prayed for him. He's doing a lot better this morning. Hopefully he'll be fully recovered in no time.

Creatology

I found these for buy one get one free at Michael's. Each box is consists of pre-cut craft foam sheets at different thickness and shapes, which can be used to put together a 3D structure. 

Sophie was excited to begin building. 

The foam sheets when they were first taken out of the box:

We found different stickers and figured out their places according to the instruction, and so let the building commence!

The egg-shaped house is up!

Making the landscapes for around the house

Putting Easter animals in front of the house

Brandon is helping too!

After one hour, the cute Easter house is done! Sophie remained focused during that whole hour from start to finish. She was so proud when everything came together so beautifully.

Here are some details of the house:

The next day, we decided to go ahead and finish the 2nd box.

Sophie loved the goggly eyes on the owls and the bunnies. She was the one who put them on for the animals, actually. ^^

This Saturday our church is going to host an Easter egg hunt! Both Brandon and Sophie are super excited, especially after they built these two houses and got into the spirit of Easter!