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Thursday, December 24, 2015

Pipe Cleaner Christmas Ornaments

It's Christmas Eve. We've made Christmas cookies, We've read a few Christmas stories (e.g. Llama Llama Jingle Bells. Cute book). We've watched quite a few Thomas & friends Christmas episodes. And we've made lots of Christmas crafts at the library. Among them, Little Guy liked and was good at making these pipe cleaner ornaments, so I got the materials and we've been making lots more at home. I was impressed that he threaded the beads through with little difficulty and was actually enjoying doing it. This seems to be a good practice for fine motor skills and to learn colors. And the end results are beautiful ornaments. Love it.

Materials
12" Pipe cleaners (need three 6" pipe cleaners for each ornament)
Beads
String (if you hang from a tree)

How to Make
1. Cut a pipe cleaner in half by scissors and make three half pieces (Mama did this in our case)

2. Lay the three half-size pipe cleaners like a snowflake and twist them together at the center to keep its shape (Mama did this too)

3. String some beads

4. If hang from a tree, fold one end a bit to make a loop and put a string

That's it!

To my adult's mind, I thought clear sparkly beads on silver pipe cleaners would make the prettiest ornaments and suggested that we buy clear beads. But Little Guy insisted on colorful solid color ones, so I obliged. It seems Little Guy was right. What he made were most beautiful, if I do say so myself :)

I hope everyone will have a wonderful Christmas/winter holiday :)

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Happy 3 Year Old!

I hope all of you are having a joyous holiday season :)
Our family celebrates one additional event during this fun but busy season, which is Little Guy's birthday! And he turned three! He's so proud he's three now and telling everyone he meets that he's three years old using his three little fingers. so cute.

If you've been following my facebook page or instagram account, it's quite apparent that Little Guy LOVES Thomas and his friends. So naturally this year's birthday theme was set to Thomas and his friends. I found a few Thomas themed cakes on pinterest, but Little Guy liked this one the most so we decided to make one. It turned out really fun and cute! 

Following the original picture, I used graham crackers and mini oreos for the trains to carry the cupcakes, a whole piece for the top base, two quarter pieces to connect the mini oreo wheels. Differently from the original, I used melted chocolate to connect all the pieces (and this was super yummy).
Little Guy's new train buddy, Stephen. Looks like he's quite a popular guy among Thomas fans. I heard a few boys saying "Look! Stephen!" when Little Guy was carrying Stephen while shopping.

For the main meal, I used this train onigiri kit we found on our recent trip to Japan to make some sushi to keep the train theme.
And a couple of train sandwiches, cut out by train shaped cookie cutters.

Little Guy loved his birthday so much that he kept saying "I love my birthday!" for the next few days. We're so happy he liked his birthday party. Happy Happy Birthday Little Guy.