Pros and Cons of Stickers!

    Kids love stickers. Mine certainly do, anyway. I know I did! The poor walls and furniture in my childhood bedroom were covered smartly decorated in all sorts of colorful, sticky-backed shapes and characters. My Mama loved our creativity. haha! Really, you can do so much with them. They are simple and cheap. Think about it. Here's a quick rundown of the pros and cons:

Sticker Pros

• Awesome
• Pretty
• Benefit Fine Motor Skills
• Available in a plethora of colors, shapes, characters, and things
• Cheaper than dirt
• Easy to use
• Super fun

Sticker Cons

• Sticky
• Sometimes difficult to remove
• May rip easily and break your kid's heart
• Possibly terrible for the environment
• Inedible

 All this basically means that stickers are a win. Here's a bunch of ideas for having fun with them:

- Potty Chart (Easy peasy: Write their name on a plain sheet of paper and put it up on the fridge where they can see it with a few magnets. Let them pick and place a sticker for every successful potty trip. Just explain how it works!)

-  Practicing Counting  or "Tracing" letters

  
- Practicing making lines from left to right

- Make pretty things to send to friends in the mail

- Decorate the plastic wipe box

- Decorate your face OR your baby sibling's face

- Decorate ugly-ish furniture

- Just fill up a blank book or page for the fun of it! (Keeps the littlest ones occupied for a while)


For more craft ideas from other awesome sites check out pinterest.

By the way, I almost always take a peak at the dollar section at the front of Target. That's where I found these little LeapFrog activity books AND a booklet of 405 stickers for $1 each!

What do you (err . . . and your kids too, I guess) like to do with stickers?

Sinuses, more shopping, and sickness

    What would summer be without at least one lovely sinus infection and some random sickliness? So boring. Not.

     N just got over some random bug. She's back to her normal cheery, crazy, bossy self after a couple days of being fussy and sleeping all the time. No one else has been sick with the same symptoms so who knows what it was.

     Regardless, I made it out ALONE (*hallelujah chorus*) for groceries yesterday. Target had some awesome deals. I had my coupons and cartwheel too. I managed to save $40. The total at the end was $197 plus I got $15 in gift cards back. Best part: that $197 includes a month's worth of diapers, two months worth of wipes, and a month's worth of toilet paper. So, I'm pretty happy with that. The only things I didn't buy yesterday was our meat, produce, and butter*. I'll go to Aldi, Fresh Market, and the farmer's market (fresh local tomatoes!!) this weekend for those. Anybody know about pricing for organic grass-fed beef? This week's ad is showing it for 4.49 per lb. I'm guessing it's a good deal for what it is but I have no idea. I usually just get the regular stuff (actually I buy ground turkey more often anymore) and try not to ever spend more than $3 per lb.

   So, yeah! One last thing,  I found this gem in the $1 bins at Target. There was another one for math too. They are starting to get all the school stuff out in the store all ready so I'll be keeping me eyes open for more of these things. I haven't tried it yet but N knows all her letters so I think she might be able to play it even though it's marked for ages 5+ and not 2 or 3+. I think we'll try it tomorrow while E is still down for her nap.

      I'm sure I could've been super crafty and made these up myself but I feel that my $1 bill was well spent. All my craftiness gets spent on my scrapbooking to the point that I have none left.

    Maybe I'll make a more interesting post another day . . . *blows nose for the 15 millionth time*



* I take that back. I got 5lbs of frozen chicken breasts and 3 dozen eggs but whatever.

Yay Target!

These were $1 a piece at Target!