Lemonade Stand

After hearing about the lemonade stand from over at Oh, Pickles (her inspiration came from here), I knew immediately that I wanted to try something like this some day!

As I was attempted to clean out the garage, I noticed some spare wood and decided it was time to take on the project. After searching various do-it-yourself stands and getting input from my two little entrepreneurs, I decided to mainly use the plans from This Old House (mainly because I had the right amount of wood on hand for this plan AND the plan allows you to fairly easily disassemble the stand for storage...a must in our house!), but adding the awning from this site.

I didn't take pictures as I worked, so I only have finished product pics.

I will say that the poles I used for my awning are too long and I cut the tulle a little too short, so my awning doesn't look as cute. (I also could stand to add more!) I may just make a cloth awning at some point in time...perhaps end of summer fabric sales! I also plan to paint a frame around the chalkboard. The spray paint has worked wonderfully...it wipes down so easily! All in all, a fun project and my girls love playing with it!

Card Table Tent

While snooping around on etsy once back when I was pregnant with Little Sis, I fell in love with these card table tents. This gal is so talented and her tents are so cute!

Upon seeing it, I decided to try it out myself and give it to Big Sis when we came home from the hospital with her new sibling. I searched around other sites to get some ideas as to how I might want to make ours. Not only am I a self-taught cake decorator, I am also a self-taught and pretty inexperienced seamstress. Therefore, this is no where near perfect or as cute as hers, but for as big a project as it was, I was so excited with how it turned out. The girls still enjoy playing with it. In fact, the pictures below are from this past week, not 3 years ago when it was first presented to big sis. It has been through some wear and tear, and some of the accessories are missing (letters for the mailbox, some apples, veggies from the veggie patch, and the watering can for the garden). Regardless, I thought I'd still share. Not something I will likely ever do again, but it was fun and rewarding to try it once!

Game of Life

We are starting to be stuck indoors a little more and as today was feeling a little long, I was grasping for something new for Big Sis to do after she had her "rest time." She stated she wanted to play one of "Daddy's games", meaning a board game. (Daddy had played a couple with his family over Christmas while I was still in the kitchen or recovering from my time in the kitchen...ha!)

I raided our game cupboard for a "daddy game" and emerged with "The Game of Life." Just as I thought, she loved the little cars, people, play money, and game board with buildings.

The first thing she did was fill every card with people...what a great fine motor activity! She did ask me to help with a car or two, but she filled most of them on her own. (Those people are so tiny, sometimes I even struggle with them...ha!) Then she had them drive around on the roads and had the people get out at different buildings. She used the pictures on the job and house cards as well. It turned out to be a fun little activity...not one she'd want to do every day, but in a pinch on a rainy or snowy day, I think I'll be pulling this one out again!