Books of the Month–Richard Scarry

Ok, so who doesn’t love Richard Scarry books?  Anyone?  These books take me back to my childhood.  I remember getting lost in these book and spending hours looking for Gold Bug!
I was thrilled when J was given Cars and Trucks and Things That Go and The Best Word Book Ever for his birthday.  Since then, they have been J’s favorite books.



So much so, that they made our 10 hour drive to our new home, bearable!   Since being in our new home, J has loved finding Gold bug on the pages, and looking at all the funny antics of the characters.  He’s really into anything with wheels, so the Cars and Trucks and Things that Go, is always close by.


Do your kids love Richard Scarry Books too?  Which ones are their favorites?

Back into the Swing of Things

I unpacked my last box today, and we are getting closer to being completely moved into our new home.  We have been super busy, and trying to find a new routine in our new place.  Because of all the changes in my personal life, I feel so removed from the blog.  I haven’t sat down to write a post in almost 6 weeks!  I have been so blessed with some wonderful guest bloggers that have kept my blog afloat in my absence.  I hope you enjoyed them and found some new blogs to follow.

I must admit that I’ve been having a very hard time sitting down to write.  Don’t worry though, I have been doing some great stuff with J and have lots to write about.  I can’t promise that I’ll be writing every day, but I do promise that I’ll have some great posts up soon!

Rainy Day Sensory Play: Guest Post From Mama Smiles

Today I get the joy of introducing you to MaryAnn from Mama Smiles!  I have loved her blog for the longest time.  She has some great ideas over there, and some really good parenting stuff too.  Make sure you check out all the wonderfulness of Mama Smiles!

Take it away MaryAnn!
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Hi! I’m MaryAnne from Mama Smiles! I love staying home with Emma (6 years old), Johnny (4 years old) and Lily (2 years old), and I blog about fun activities that my three (soon-to-be four!) kids enjoy.

Getting Messy with The Good Long Road

Today, Jennifer from The Good Long Road.  She is the Mom to two little boys who love messy play.  I wish that she lived a bit closer, I bet J would love getting messy with these guys!  Make sure you head over to her blog to see all the fun stuff she’s been up to!

And don’t you love the pic of her boy with dirt and boogers!  Ha!

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Photo also inspired by Dirt and Boogers!

Frog pond water sensory tub: Guest Post From One Perfect Day

I am so excited that Ness from One Perfect Day agreed to guest post in my absence.  I absolutly love her beautiful blog, and I know you will too!  She comes up with some really great activities with her 3 year old boy, R.  I am so happy that she decided to share one of her sensory trays today. 

Take it away, Ness!

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Hi, I'm Ness, and I blog at One Perfect Day. I'm so excited to be guest posting here at Dirt and
Boogers today, one of my favorite blogs! I love all the fun, creative play ideas that Amanda
shares. Sometimes I wish we lived closer - I think our boys would have some amazing play
dates!



At One Perfect Day, our tagline is "Play. Learn. Create. Explore." The activity that I'm sharing
here today features all of those elements. My three year old son, R, is very much into frogs
at the moment. Almost every day he announces "Frogs are my favorite animal" and he is
constantly saying that he would love to own one as a pet. His other great love is water play.
He will spend hours with a water sensory tub or even just the garden hose. So, I thought
I would combine his two great loves, frogs and water, and I created this frog pond water
sensory tub.

Chewy Pastel Chocolate Chip Cookies with B.Inspired Mama

Today I host Krissy From B.Inspired Mama.  Her blog is one of my favorites.  She is a former art teacher who now stays at home with her 3 kiddos.  Her creativity shows through her blog and all the wonderful stuff she does at home with her kids.

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My daughter, Priscilla, and I love to bake using my Grandmother’s old recipes. Grandma’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies are by far our favorite. But we get a little bit bored with the same old recipe sometimes. So we try to add different things to make them a little more exciting each time. We used our leftover Easter candy instead of the chocolate chips once. And this time we decided to add some pretty spring colors.

Discovering Treasure at the Beach: Guest Post from Kitchen Counter Chronicles

Today I bring you Jenn from Kitchen Counter Chronicles.  She is a crafter, baker, and gardener and a stay at home mom to two girls.  She writes all about the fun stuff she does with her girls and all the things that she makes and does on her kitchen counters.  Make sure you head over to her blog to see her amazing blog. 

Take it away Jen!

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I am very excited to be a guest on Dirt and Boogers today...I love this place! 

I don't know about you, but I am always looking for new ways to get my kids outside. One of our family's goals this year is to spend time outside playing everyday. It's a challenge. My girls are actually pretty keen outdoor kids. However, I have learned that is best to give them some sort of task or activity to do when we are outside. Simply walking to the store is not good enough. Sometimes they take along a camera or sketch book and other times we launch a scavenger hunt. Last week I decided to incorporate another love of my girls Kinder eggs. 

Edible Finger Paint: Guest Post from Plain Vanilla Mom

One of my good blogging buddies, Jen from Plain Vanilla Mom, is guest posting here today.  She has one of my all time favorite blogs, and she takes the most amazing pictures!  I am so lucky that she has decided  to post here today.  I hope you find some inspiration and a wonderful new blog to follow.

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Hi, I'm Jen from plainvanillamom.com. I am so excited to be here doing a guest post for Dirt and Boogers! Amanda's blog is among my favorites and I find it to be so inspiring when it comes to looking for ways to play with my little guy. I love all the sensory play she does with J and I can't wait until my munchkin man is old enough to try out some of her ideas. In the meantime, what I have learned from her is that all kids need to make a mess…regardless of their age. So I have tried to get creative with the way we play with the babes. Here's a peak at the most recent mess Amanda inspired me to make with my 7 month old.

I really thought it would be fun to let Mr. C loose on some finger paints. I figured for sure they would end up in his mouth though so I needed something that would be safe. I eventually found this recipe for edible fingerprints over at Hands on As We Grow. I can't imagine it tastes all that good, but there's nothing in it that would harm the little one if swallowed so I decided to give it a go.  It was super easy to make. I have never used homemade finger paint before so I really didn't know what to expect, but it was fantastic dried nice, and stayed colorful. 

Get Organized: Car Stuff

I’ve found that since having a child, my car is constantly dirty.  Anyone else?  There’s cheerios everywhere, sippy cups under the seat, markers and crayons strewn about…you get the picture.  I know, it sounds gross.  I’m normally a very organized person, but I can’t seem to find a good system for my car. 

Normally, I just clean it out once a week. However, we are in the middle of a big move and are going to be in the car a lot.  So, I need some car organization help…stat!  So, I did some research and here are some great ideas for getting your car in shape!

Pockets

1. Over the Seat Car Organizer: How to – The Mayfly

2. Car Caddy – Sew4Home

3. Car Seat Organizer – IKEA Hackers

4. Pink Over the Seat Car Organizer – 1 Sew Green Mama

5. Shoe Organizer for Car – Décor-ganize Crafts

Boxes

1. A Place for Everything – Brown Paper Packages

2. Car Boxes – Counting Coconuts

3. Boxes between the seats – Organizing Made Fun

4. Organized car (lots of good hints) – The Shafer Family

Emergency Kits

1.  Tips for Moms, Car Emergency Kit – Simply Modern Mom

2. The “ineeda” box Car Kit – Rips in my Jeans

3. Revamping the Car Kit – Safely Gathered In

4. Car Kit for Dads – Holidash 

Paper Organization

Paper is always an issue in the car.  I searched and searched and this is the only paper organizer I could find…that was cute :).

Car Documents – Elementary Organization

Hope this helps you out.  What was your favorite?  Do you have any other helpful hints to organize the car?

Favorites and The Weekly Kid’s Co-op

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There were some pretty amazing ideas linked up last week!  Amazingly enough, I went through all 139 of them and found my favorite 3!  Hope you love them as much as I do!
We travel a lot with J and I’m always looking for great travel activities with him.  These travel sensory boxes from Famiglia&Seoul are perfect!   They are so small and compact, but are so much fun!

Exploring Nature: A Guest Post From Mum of Twins, a Toddler, and a Teenager

I am so very excited to have one of my favorite Aussie bloggers, Amie from Mum of Twins, a Toddler, and a Teenager (or Triple T Mum), guest posting for me today.  As you can tell from her blog title, this Mom is busy!  She does some really cool stuff with her kids and …you must go check out how she does it all.

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Hi! I am Amie and in the blogosphere I blog in a little place called Mum of Twins, a Toddler and a Teenager. Here you'll find me musing about day-to-day life with 14 month old twins, Strawberry and Ooffa. A 31 month old toddler, Chook and a 13 year old teenager, Gamer. Dirt and Boogers is one of my favourite blogs, I mean how cool is that name! I love that Amanda shares the play successes and the play failures.

March, April and May are the months of Autumn in Australia. As part of our seasonal celebrations we to do some seed collecting from our garden. Chook loved rubbing the flower heads between his fingers and letting the seeds fall into the bucket. This activity could take place in your garden or on a walk around your neighbourhood, through a park or a nature reserve.

On your marks…

Envelopes for storing your seeds
A bucket to collect the flower heads
Scissors (optional but handy for those tough stalks)

Get set…

Invite your toddler to come on a seed hunt.

Go…

Talk about the plants you see on your hunt.
 

Sensory Play: A Guest Post from Enjoying the Journey

Today I’m so glad to introduce you to a great blog Enjoying the Journey.  This Mom loves sensory play just as much as I do.  She puts together some seriously fun stuff for her girls.  Check out some of the great sensory play she and her daughters have done.

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Sensory play has become an important part of our preschool lessons. Sensory play is not only fun, but also an important part of the learning process. Toddlers and preschoolers both enjoy activities that allow them to use several of their senses.

A wonderful example of one of our favorite sensory activities is chocolate pudding. It not only smells wonderfully yummy, it also smooth and cold to the touch. My two year old will quickly discover the sense of taste as well with this sensory activity.

Here are a few our favorite sensory activities we've done

20 Tips for Traveling with Kids

J is quite the traveler for his age.  He’s been on several plane rides and lots of long (like 10-16 hour) road trips.  All in all he’s traveled to 8 different states (some more than once) in his first 2 years.  We’re heading out again next week for another 10 hour road trip and I have been thinking of everything that needs to be done and how to make the drive easier on all of us.

I feel like I have a pretty good handle on how to travel with a kid, but I thought I’d ask some of my friends over at the Kid Blogger Network for some of their advice too.  There was some really cool ideas given, so I thought I’d share them all with you too!  So, here is a list of our best tips for traveling with kids.

Playing Outside for The Weekly Kid’s Co-op!

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It’s getting warmer outside and summer is coming.  That means there’s more time for outside play!  Check out these great outdoor ideas from last week.

Play Create Explore built a Hidden Fairy House in the Woods for kids to find.  Look at how stinkin’ cute this is!

A Slide and a Sensory Box

I put this together on one of those days where I needed something new for J to do, so I threw anything I could find in a sensory box.  I started to call this sensory box “Everything but the kitchen sink” because there were so many random things inside.  When I spotted the random cardboard tube, I remembered this post from We Can Do All Things.  I taped that bad boy to the side of the box and I knew we were in business!

Zoo Birthday Party!