Found Art

by Sara

It has been a long winter!  You can tell by the dregs of what's left in our arts and crafts cupboard that we're long overdue for some nice weather so we can get outside and play.

Our recent art and craft endeavors have involved 'found' items from our recycling container.  The firefighter used an empty egg  carton and leftover lollipop sticks to create a transport truck.  He used the same sticks, a yogurt container, and tinfoil to create a rocket ship.

For 'found' object arts and crafts projects you really only need glue, tape, scissors, crayons and markers.  As the project evolves, you might get out other supplies from your arts and crafts cupboard like pipe cleaners or stickers.

The 5 year old firefighter created a rocket ship for his brother out of an empty plastic bottle and tinfoil.  We've made bird feeders out of plastic coffee containers and binoculars and periscopes out of empty paper towel rolls.  Empty Kleenex boxes are great for making buildings and vehicles and small plastic containers (applesauce or yogurt) can be added as wheels are compartments.

What items from your recycling box have you used for arts and crafts projects?

Sara is a photographer and mom to a 5-year-old ” firefighter” and 2.5-year-old “monkey”.  You can also find her at her blog, My Points of View.

Nursery rhymes and fairy tales

by Brie My four year old daughter is learning about nursery rhymes and fairy tales at school. I love this unit. She is coming home every day with great songs and stories. Like Hey Diddle Diddle.

One of the activities they did in class was to make simple puppets of the characters from Hey Diddle Diddle. These have been a huge hit in our house. Not only does she like to act out the song with the puppets, but so does her two year old brother.

You could make your own puppets by printing off pictures of the characters for your kids to colour or drawing them yourself and then attaching them to popsicle sticks.

In fact, this is exactly what we had already done for the girl's fairy tale show and tell for school. The girl decided to tell the story of Goldilocks to her class so she made these three pictures to use as prompts as she told the story.

I love the idea of breaking down nursery rhymes and fairy tales into puppets or story boards so that kids can act them out. This would be a great craft for almost any story or song!

What nursery rhymes and fairy tales do your kids love?

Brie is the mom of a 4 year old daughter “the girl” and 2 old son “the boy”. You can read her blog at Capital Mom.

The revival of date night!

 by Joanne Before we had kids, my husband and I actually saw movies in a movie theatre, we went to Montréal for the weekend and enjoyed gourmet meals in the Market weekly!

Boy things have changed – now when we watch the Oscars we might have seen one or two of the nominated flicks. Weekends away have been replaced by weekend taxi duty and I now cook those “gourmet” meals. When we plan to go out for supper we no longer head to the Market but to St. Huberts or Pizza Hut.

With our kids are getting older, we are more comfortable leaving them with a babysitter.  But once you pay the babysitter there is not much left for dinner and a movie!  We were easily paying over $100 a date night when you add up babysitting, dinner and the movie.  A few years ago, my sister and I came up with solution to revive date night and not break the bank at the same time.   We started a babysitting co-op!   My sister has 3 boys very close in age to my 2 kids.  They love spending time together and they often ask if they can have a sleep overs… actually they normally ask if they can switch families and move in with my sister or have her kids move in with us!  Our co-op gives the kids more time to play together on a regular basis and us parents get a much needed date night.   What we do is, once a month the kids have a sleep over party!  Sometimes it is at our house and sometimes at my sisters – we alternate months.  The kids get to play and have their sleep over. We get to see movie, go to a party with friends or even tackle a home renovation.   Our co-op is “unofficial” we don’t have a contract signed and we are the only two participating families.   There are many resources out there if you wanted to set up your own co-op with family or friends in your area. We do a sleep over every month because my sister lives at the complete opposite area of the city than I do. But you can organize it any way you would like.  Today’s Parent did an article on babysitting co-ops a while back.   It works wonderfully for us!  Not only do the kids get excited to stay with their cousins but we get to enjoy a night to ourselves.  But we also look forward to having the whole gang at our house too… my baby is 5 so I am looking forward to the snuggles I will get from my 15 month old nephew!   Joanne the proud mom of Amélie (8 years old) and Mathieu (5 years).  She is new at blogging and you can find her at Our Money Pit.

Mother's Day gift ideas : Mom jewellery

by Lara I don't tend to think of myself as overly sentimental in general but I will admit, there is no jewellery I like better than the jewellery that commemorates my kids.

With mother's day around the corner, I thought I would share some of my well loved mom jewellery in case you are looking for ideas for your spouse (either as a gift or a request :))

Rings

I had a ring made when Kiernan was about a year old with his name and date of birth and loved it so much I had ones made when Juliette and Quinn were born.  I wear them more than my wedding rings (gasp!) although my wedding ring is smaller and pinches my "will never be the same after having three children, short and stubby" fingers, so it's hardly my fault ;)

But that is neither here nor there.  Back to the rings. I ordered them online from a store on Etsy called Accessory a la Mode and they are just lovely. I wear them on my thumb so I can stack all three on at once.

Necklaces

The last two Christmases my husband has bought me necklaces that commemorate my kids.

Last year I got a gorgeous necklace with a mama and three baby birds on a branch (in retrospect, we didn't realize there was one with a daddy bird too which would have been nice).

This year, I saw Mel's connection necklace and fell in love. I'd seen the pictures of them before but in person they are even more stunning.  I asked for one for Christmas and love love love it.

I asked around and got sent a couple of images of other lovely mom jewellery other moms have.

Like this ring with one mom's son's birthstone:

And Maranda had this lovely necklace made for her daughter:

Mom jewellery is fun, not terribly expensive, and a great gift for Mother's Day!

Do you have any mom jewellery? Do you want any?

Lara is mom to 4.5 year old Kiernan and almost 2 year old twins Quinn and Juliette. You can read her blog at Gliding Through Motherhood.

Parents in the Capital: Meet Sara

Ottawa has some wonderful bloggers and we are lucky that many of them are Kids in the Capital contributors and readers! We want to share some of our favorite Ottawa parent bloggers on a more regular basis so we are introducing a series of posts called Parents in the Capital. Say hello to Sara!

Tell us about yourself and your family I am the proud mom to two boys, the firefighter, who is 5, and the monkey, who is 2 and a 1/2.  My husband, who does not have an endearing nickname other than ‘DH’, and I have been married for almost 9 years.  We recently moved further out into the suburbs and I joke we now live closer to Montreal than Ottawa.  Orleans really is that far east.

Since the firefighter was born I have juggled part-time work and at-home motherhood.  I am a photographer who specializes in couples, children, families, maternity, and newborns.  The very same photographer who does not have a recent picture of her entire family together and instead decided to include this outtake from our Christmas photos.

What is your favourite activity to do with your kid(s) in Ottawa? We love the newly renovated Museum of Nature and our favourite outdoor haunts are Parliament Hill (“the place with all the grass and cats” according to the firefighter) and the Mer Bleue boardwalk.

What is your favourite at home activity to do with your kid(s)? Both boys are at a place where they live in a world of make-believe.  More often than not we are firefighters and rescue personnel of some sort but depending on whatever dress-up outfit or accessory they’ve unearthed we might be construction workers, hair dressers, secret shark divers, or cooks.

What was the biggest surprise that parenthood has brought into your life? I am incredibly tidy and neat.  I even blog once a week about my neurotically clean and organized ways.  However, I also embrace the mess and chaos of being a mom to two small kids.  We play in the puddles and the mud, we paint almost everyday; I fill the sink with soap and bubbles for them to play in; and there is always play-dough stuck to my kitchen floor.  Despite my preference for all things orderly, I’m surprised at how easy going I am about all the fun and mess that makes childhood so great!

What parenting tips/advice do you wish you'd known when you first became a parent? It gets better.  Parenthood is wonderful and full of joy and amazement.  It’s also exhausting and can be the source of so much despair.  So many times my friends reminded me “this to shall pass”

Tell us about your blog and how you discovered blogging. Less than a year ago I discovered Kids in the Capital and contacted Lara and Brie, asking if I could write some guests posts.  I had kept a password protected family journal for three years but wanted to write for someone other than my immediate family.  Two months later I started My Points of View.

I am also one of the bloggers at Losing It in Ottawa.  Last but not least I have a blog for my business, Sara McConnell Photography.

I have Kids in the Capital to thank for my discovery of blogging :-)

What do you love best about being a parent in Ottawa? Other than the fact that my entire family is here as are all our friends, I love all the green space.  Both my husband and I love the outdoors and there is no shortage of fun things to do with kids outside in Ottawa, irrespective of the season!

Thanks Sara! We are so glad that you found us and blogging.