Easter Egg Letter & Number Matching

A-Z & 1-10

I'm constantly looking for ways to help Lou become more proficient in school, especially since she is tested along with her NT peers (tho her tests are different & she gets assistance). Now that Elizabeth is 4, she is wanting to learn too, and I couldn't be more thrilled. I'm not a super pushy mom on learning, because I don't want it to become a huge issue later (as I've seen so many times), but now that the kids are actually wanting to learn I've decided to make it as fun as possible! 

In my attempt to DO at least part of what I PIN on pinterest, I decided to give this fun Easter Egg Letter & Number Matching activity a go! I added the number part because I had exactly 10 eggs left over after I did all the letters. I got 2 packs of 18 eggs at the Dollar Store, plus a pack of perm markers and the popcorn bucket (Elizabeth picked that out! LOL). So $4 in total for this activity! SCORE!

Easter Egg Number & Letter Matching Activity

Numbers: 1-10

Dots on top & numbers on bottom!

Letters! A-Z Upper Case on top & Lower Case on bottom. 

These eggs were attached, so I merely twisted them to snap them apart easily. 

Letters all ready to match!

Jack Jack, my late night helper! 

Numbers & Letters all mixed up and ready to be sorted & matched!

I think this is going to be a great hit in the morning! Mommy has some catching up to do on reading and homework for my online classes, so this is definitely going to be a hit while I work on that! If I can pull myself away from snapping some pictures of my wee ones matching that is! 

Water Beads!

The Dollar Tree Alternative

My kiddlets love looking at blogs with me, and often when I look at Play At Home Mom Elizabeth tells me that she wants to try EVERY SINGLE THING. Who can blame her? They do some fun stuff over at PAHM! I wanna try it all too! The big thing I've been wanting to try out is water beads. Everyone has been doing them, so it was definitely our turn to give them a go! The problem for us was the cost. Lots of the beads cost an arm & a leg, and since they are easily destroyed when playing with, I didn't want to pay a ton on them. 

While at the dollar store getting craft stuff I ran across these!

Well, I had to give them a try! The beads in the vase are teeny tiny and needed hydrated, so it was a fun experiment to let the girls dump them in the vase and watch them grow over night. Lou dumped them in, but wasn't interested in them growing. Lizzy however, loved watching how big they were getting every few hours. They grew bigger than the ready hydrated clear ones. We got a total of 2 of the vase beads (green & blue) and 2 containers of the clear beads, and they came together in a big bowl wonderfully! 

I'm very pleased that the dollar store beads work so well. They don't have as many colors, sadly, so we will most likely be looking at a multi-colored set on Amazon to get the kids as stocking stuffers (who wouldn't want water beads in their stockings!), and to have some on hand for when we just can't go outside (getting cold here!). But for now, these are great! We haven't played with them too much, but we have big plans this weekend! 

Midnight Sparkle Playdough

What to do when your sweet girl is having nightmares/night terrors and you are up and down with her so much you just decide to stay awake until she's calm? Try a new playdough recipe of course! 

I ran across this wonderful playdough recipe tonight while on pinterest and decided to give it a whirl, only...I didn't have baby oil, so I did use regular EVOO because it was still sitting on the counter from when I made dinner....how convenient! 

This was my first time making this recipe, and it's been FOREVER since I've actually made dough that you have to cook, so it took me a bit of time to really get the hang of it, but really...what you need to remember is to cook until it's no longer sticky. Kneeding it afterwards was kinda fun for me! The house was quiet...the kitten was attacking a potato he got free from the bag (hey...who was I to stop this fun potato attack?)...and I stood there kneeding warm playdough and adding sparkles to it! 

Since it was almost midnight I decided it needed to be purple so it could be called....midnight sparkle playdough. I know the girls will LOVE the name...not sure Xander will care, but at 22 months, he's just happy to get to play with anything his sisters don't steal from him. Poor kiddo. 

No actual pictures of making the dough, my phone (camera atm) was charging and I just didn't want to stop! But here is a wonderful blurry picture of it finished. There are two good sized balls in their own wonderful containers (2 for $1 at the dollar store!) and all ready for tomorrow! 

The kiddlets will love this while at home with our respite provider while I run to an SSI appointment (oh the pure joy of the social security office just days before Thanksgiving....shudder). Maybe tomorrow we'll make another color! Now that I know the size batch it makes, I'll do it 1/2 colors next time. 

Welcome to "Life with Lou" !

This is our family blog where I plan on blogging about our daily life with our children, Olivia, Elizabeth and Alexander. Our oldest child, Olivia (aka Livey-Lou or just Lou) is 6 years old and autistic. Currently, 1 out of 88 children is diagnosed with some form of a spectrum disorder. This blog is dedicated to our 1 out of a million...our sweet girl, Lou, who through all of life's difficulties reminds us to smile, laugh, twirl, and just be happy.

Within these online pages, you will find posts on all my children, on our family, and more! All too often we see all the stories about people with autism, but rarely do we get to see the life of their families. I think it's important to remember that behind every autistic child, there is a family standing as strong as they are able too. This blog is not going to be 100% about Livey-Lou, this blog is for our life with her, even the times when she is at school or off doing her own thing. I'm a crafty, online gaming mommy who loves her children more than the world, and I'm excited to share that with you.