This year, we did a photo scavenger hunt instead of a basket full of candy filled eggs and dollar store stuff.  I went around the house and outside taking pictures of recognizable places.  The stove, the clothes hamper, a toybox, the bumper sticker on my car, a ball in the yard…  I printed all of these pictures out as a contact sheet (the one that fits about 35 photos).  After cutting them up, I put one egg with a picture in a small bucket that had a few other eggs and some easter grass.  The place in the picture was where Caleb should look for the next egg…and so on.  He ran all over the house, then out in the yard.  It took an hour to complete our “hunt!”  He seemed to really enjoy himself, and it was reasonably simple, although it took me longer to place all the eggs than I thought it would.

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and we have a winner

Apr 13

Posted by: Rachel in: blog, current events, games, holidays

Congratulations to Cynthia, who found all of the eggs!  It took perseverance and determination to find eleven eggs, then accidentally close the window and start over!

I’m especially careful with last names and emails, mine and those belonging to others, so any such information has been edited out.

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The Hunt is on! You can begin hunting around the blog for Easter eggs any time between now and Sunday evening at 6pm EST.  For more details, see this post.

Click here to pull up your entry form in a new tab or window, then use the search feature in the sidebar to look for eggs.  Have fun!

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As promised, a game is on the horizon. Here’s the details.

I’m hosting an Easter Egg Hunt. I’ll be stashing a dozen eggs around my blog.

Who: Crumbs In My Couch

What: A Blog Easter Egg Hunt for Stellan

When: You are free to begin hunting at 6pm EST Thursday, April 9, 2009. Your deadline is 6pm EST Sunday, April 12, 2009.

Where: You’re reading the details right here.

Why: If you aren’t familiar with the Stellan’s story, head over to My Charming Kids and start reading on the right sidebar. Stellan’s SVT that he was first diagnosed with before birth recently relapsed and he has been in the PICU fighting a rapid heart rhythm. I find myself very thankful and blessed to have a healthy family. I wish to donate $10 to the MckFamily fund in honor of the egg hunt winner. I know that’s not much, but every little bit helps. A bag of jellybeans and a winner’s button (for your blog or website) are optional add-on accessories ;)

When the egg hunt officially starts, use the entry form found here.

~~~

You are more than welcome to snag either button here by copying the code and placing it on your blog. And if you’d like to write a short post to draw in fellow hunters, all the better! I can make that extra easy for you… Grab the code for a button below and paste it in the html section of your new post. Then grab the code from the larger box at the bottom of this post, and paste it in the html section as well. Click Post/Publish. That’s all you have to do!

Large Button:

Small Button:

Please copy this entire code to post the details on your blog:

Leave a Comment

Okay, so Val over at Stinky John Jones mentioned in a recent comment that I should do a Christmas List post. I’m always up for discussing this type of thing, because twice a year, it becomes my CIA mission (for those who know us personally, there’s a pun there) to find the most unique items in existence.  Seriously, it is like an addiction.  An expensive addiction.  I will spent countless hours scouring the internet for obscure toys.  I hit all up my major natural and European toy retailers like Oompa, Maukilo, and Moolka.  Let’s face it, everything is prettier in Europe, toys included.  Beautiful long lasting wooden pieces.  Higher toy safety standards to boot.  Take a look around the Haba and Selecta websites.  Why can’t Walmart carry stuff like that?  I might hate them a little less.  And be even more broke than I already am.  But other countries, the US included do manage to make neat things, they are just a bit harder to find.  I like to do a yahoo or google search for natural toys or wooden toys and see what pops up.  I’ve probably been through every toy store in its entirety for the first eight pages of search results.

Now just in case I hadn’t spent enough time finding the toys and games, I then try to research them and see what other parents had to say about them.  I can’t tell you how many games I’ve thought “looked neat” only to find them on amazon.com with terrible reviews.  People saying the pieces broke easily or didn’t work correctly, etc.  (If you haven’t noticed by now, Hi I’m Rachel and I’m addicted to the internet.  It is my best friend. Just ask my husband. He runs to the computer chair if I get up to go pee just so he can check his email!)  So without further ado…

*Tip: I keep up with all this crap using wishlist.com so my bookmarks don’t become overrun.  Okay well they are anyway, but wishlist.com is awesome!*

Neat things I’ve found, but have not gotten/tested:

Baufix: I think these are a neat take on a construction toy.  Sort of like K’nex, only not.  They are wooden (scores extra points in my book!).  Caleb is big on the tool thing.  He likes to feel like he’s using tools just like dad.  He will get his screwdriver out to work on something that needs fixing.  If you are trying to super glue something, he wants to be all up in the middle of what you’re doing, whether you want him there or not.

Cargo train terminal (by Maxim I think): My mom saved all my Brio stuff from my childhood.  I can still remember my ‘train table’ back before they were such a popular thing.  Mine was just a sheet of plywood with rounded corners on top of a table.  We added an eBay lot of trains and tracks to the things from my childhood, and Caleb has been playing with train stuff for over two years now.  I found this train cargo terminal add on that has little magnetic “packages” to be lifted on and off.

Castle blocks: These are incredibly gorgeous.  That’s just all there is to it. Handcrafted in Indonesia, they are made of mahogany, only available at finewoodentoys.com

Lacing Caterpillar Box: Lacing seems to be on the list of toddler skills to be mastered.  But most of the ‘toys’ look so boring.  I found this adorable caterpillar box that seems like it brings a lot of whimsy and fun to the activity though.

Diggity Dog:  It’s no secret, I love kid games.  I made a mission out of finding ones other than Hungry Hippos and Elefun, after asking some other moms about games and hearing that one woman’s daughter beat the crap out of Ele”fun” when she was a little girl.  She got frustrated with it, and the mom just stood out in the hallway secretly snickering to herself!  I was surprised to find what a wide assortment of games you really can play with three year olds once you look past the Walmart shelves

Hugg-a-planet: Bigger is always better, right?  Click the link to see an adult holding this huge Earth.  Caleb loves his map, I think this is a great way to bridge the 2-d flatness of the map to the concept that it is actually a sphere.  find it cheaper here!

Traffic Dominos: I’m always on the lookout for anything car themed.  Because quite frankly, I didn’t know that such a thing existed as “car genes” nor that they could be passed down from generation to generation.

Melody Express Train: Each color track makes a different note when the train rides over it.  Build a song, and start the train moving to hear it.  Comes with a songbook.

Martian Matter: Some people say playdough.  Martian mud sounds cooler though.  This is something you actually can find at Walmart!

Wooden ramps racetrack: Cuter, safer and nicer than their noisy counterparts.

Plan City Deluxe Road System: For those transportation enthusiasts, notice the train crossing piece.  Compatible with most of the wooden train tracks, just make sure you have your railroad crossing signs up for those Hot Wheels!

Sprig Discover Rig: I’ve previously written on this guy.  Sound and lights, but no batteries.  This one is kid powered with interchangeable explorers from different countries, each with their own story to tell.  Read more here.

Hearth Song Memo: I have tried and tried to find this elsewhere, as I don’t particularly care for the overpriced shipping, but it is not to be found anywhere else.  All wood.  Check.  Flexibility.  Check check.  You can start out with just a few pairs if you’re playing with a younger child.  You can substitute other small objects or stickers under the little caps to mix things up.

Spinning tops: Courtesy of Etsy.  Careful, if you haven’t been to Etsy, you will become addicted.  It is a homespun eBay for handmade items.  No big retailers here.  Just skilled crafters and fine craftsmen.  Looks like a great stocking stuffer!

Marble runs: Click the pictures for individual product links There must be 100 different takes on this activity now.  The block and marble set we have, similar to this one, has been a big hit.  I’m partial to the types that allow more flexibility rather than the ones that have little room for variation in set up.  I’ve even seen a few that are ball tracks which I would assume from the pictures are big enough to eliminate the choking hazard if you have younger ones wanting to play also.

I even found a car/city themed one!

Tried and true:

Moon sand: What?  Wait, where are you going?  It doesn’t grind into the carpet like playdough!  Yeah I thought that might get your attention.  We do keep this on our screened porch though, and I ditched the “no mess” playmat it came with and just got a shallow rubbermaid container.  It is really neat too.  Lots of extra molds you can get, one set being a monster truck…molds for crush cars and a monster truck…yeah Caleb loves it!

Froggy Boogie: Don’t poke your eyeballs out playing Candyland.  This is an adorable “green” game.  100% made of wood, and the company, Blue Orange, plants two trees for every one used in their products.  The baby frogs are trying to sneak around the lily pads in the pond without being seen by the  mommy and daddy frogs.  Each frog has one eye with a frog on the bottom, and one without.  It becomes a game of memory trying to recall which eye to pick up, and practices colors, by finding the frog coordinating to your two color dice roll.  The pieces are just adorable too!

Bunny Hop: Another big hit here.  Even Charley plays (which just allows Caleb two turns in a row!).  Roll the dice to see which color to press down and then press your farmer to see if your bunny hops.  First one with all four color bunnies wins.  Of course, when we’re done playing a few rounds, we have to press down all the bunnies at once and squeal with delight when 12 out of 20 of them fly up in the air all at once.  Then repeat seven times.

Books:

If you haven’t tried out Lookybook, head over there and look around.  You can actually preview and read (if you squint) full children’s books before buying them.  It is a reasonably new site, so they are gradually building their book database.  But I found several of these books through Lookybook. Click the books for individual links

The longest book you’ll ever ‘read’ with no words!  We checked a Polo book out from the library and it was an unconventional hit.  Much like your 80 page long cartoon newspaper.  Don’t let that number scare you, it ‘reads’ quickly.  It is just a unique take on a book.  You can look through some of it at Amazon for a better idea of what I’m talking about.

Did I mention a car theme anywhere?

Thanks to Val for introducing SkippyJon Jones.  I absolutely have typed in Stinky John Jones looking for the books and become so annoyed when I couldn’t find them.  Caleb loves Skippy and has taken to calling people Mr. McPooh and bunny boots.  We get some strange looks.

Also available, SkippyJon Jones in Mummy Trouble, which we already have.

Woody Click Sets: We have the fire station and police station sets.  You can also get a construction theme, a farm theme or a hospital theme.  These don’t seem to have been a huge hit (retail wise), as they are a bit hard to find now.  We love them though.  They are similar to Playmobil sets, except they are made of wood.  The vehicles and buildings come into several pieces so you can arrange it any way you want.  A few more pictures here.

Coming up next: More books I’ve found, with a Christmas tradition idea/theme.

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…we stop trying to outdo each other and work together?

“Yes! YES! They do have too much time on their hands!!”

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    = Done = Click to read about it = Pictures included
  1. Build a sandcastle
  2. Have a picnic
  3. Lay in the grass and find shapes in the clouds
  4. Paint those clouds see link
  5. Plant some flowers
  6. Hang swings from a tree branch high above, and swing as high as we can
  7. Take our first camping trip (which will probably be in the early fall, because Mommy doesn’t do hot well)
  8. Build a campfire, cook hot dogs and smores
  9. Make a Nature Box see link
  10. Paint the bathtub see link
  11. Make an ice treasure see link
  12. Use a Chore Bucket see link
  13. Paint with puffy paint see link
  14. Make a treasure map and go on a hunt see link
  15. Make a dress up corner with lots of gaudy, fun clothes
  16. Two words: homemade popsicles
  17. Three more: homemade ice cream (in a bag in just five minutes!) see link
  18. Make a big batch of colored rice, all different colors. see link Make rice art.
  19. Fly a kite
  20. Feed the Charleys (giraffes) see link
  21. Catch lightning bugs and figure out how to make them light up in a jar
  22. Build/make a wooden boat, tie a string and sail it on a lake
  23. Ride a paddleboat
  24. Wave sparklers around for the 4th of July
  25. Make bubble solution and giant bubbles
  26. Put out a bird bath
  27. Bake Cupcake Cones see link
  28. Play hide and seek with flashlights at night
  29. Celebrate National Ice Cream Day (July 20th) with friends
  30. :More To Come:

I’ll admit, this list is more for my own benefit than anything…my computer is in desperate need of restarting. When internet browsers came up the the ‘tabs’ idea to contain so many open windows into one item when minimized on your taskbar, they had me in mind. Only I tend to abuse the privilege and open so many tabs in one window that I actually have to hit the arrow to scroll over, because they cannot all be shown on a 24 inch monitor! I didn’t want to bookmark all of the pages, as my bookmarks are already a semi organized mess. One single link from a blog already on my blogshelf turned into a two hour adventure hopping around blogland last night while everyone else was sleeping. I will be adding a button to my sidebar within the next couple days to have a visual (reminder) link to this post. I found so many excellent ideas last night. I’m off to restart my computer before it curses at me. I’ll continue adding to this list as I come up with more ideas.

1 Comment

the movie game

May 18

Posted by: Rachel in: blog, games, me myself and i, ramblings

The Rules:
1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie (or write your favorite quote if you know it word for word).
3. Post them in bold for everyone to guess (comment with the number and your answer for that number – feel free to answer as many as you know!).
4. Remove bold and put quote in italics when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. No Googling or IMDb-ing. That’s cheating and that’s no fun!
6. Feel free to join in and post your own (and let me know if you do!)!

1. “This old gypsy woman once told me that if you jump backwards nine times before the sun comes up you won’t be pregnant. Well, I jumped so far I had to take a bus back and then I had twins.” Where the Heart Is – Andrea

2. “What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area.” The Fugitive – Andrea

3. “I’m pleasant. Damn it! I saw Drum Eatenton at the Piggly Wiggly this morning, and I smiled at the son of a bitch ‘fore I could help myself.” Steel Magnolias – Andrea

4. “In case I forget to tell you later, I had a really good time tonight.”
 HINT: V: “It was so good, I almost peed my pants!”
E: “She said she liked it better than Pirates of Penzance.” Pretty Woman – Amber

5. “Oh come on. You haven’t even tried donuts yet. You wanna store some fat, that is the way to store some fat, you’ll be sweating through the winter.”
HINT: “Do you wanna help me find my nuts?”
BIGGER HINT: This movie is very popular at our house right now, and I have mentioned it several times in the last few months! Over the Hedge – Amber

6. “Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can’t see.”
HINT: “ The thing about trains… it doesn’t matter where they’re going. What matters is deciding to get on.” Polar Express – Amber

7. P: “G*** Honey, how are you doing?”
G: “Oh great, considering I desecrated your Grandma’s remains, found out you were engaged, and had your Father ask me to milk him.” – Meet the Parents – Andrea

8. “Only one thing in the world could’ve dragged me away from the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window.” – A Christmas Story – Andrea

9. “I’m giving thanks that we don’t have to go through this for another year. Except we do, because those bastards went and put Christmas right in the middle, just to punish us.”
 HINT: G:<after an embarrasing moment> “So how fast can this thing go Tommy?”
T: “Like the wind baby”
Amber, you know this one! Yes! Home For the Holidays (if you haven’t seen this one, you need to watch it this Thanksgiving!) – Amber

10. “Are you telling me she’s the only one here? Nobody else? No aunts or cousins or uncles or anybody like that? A butler, security guard, something?”
“Nu-uuh”
“Does your Daddy have a safe?” Bad Santa – Amber

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If you have been visiting this blog for a while, you have probably picked up on the fact that I take A LOT of pictures. And I post A LOT of pictures.  I felt like you guys probably would have been right at home had you come to my house.  You probably would have know the layout of the house and where every light switch was from the background of my pictures.  I have had several requests for pictures of our new home.  I went in the bedroom, currently my favorite room because it is the only one we managed to get paint on before we moved in.  I’ve used this color before in an apartment and I loved being in the bedroom all the time.  It makes it easier for me to get my lazy butt out of bed with a warm yellow on the wall.  It didn’t get finished, we actually only got one coat put on over light tan paint that was already there.  It probably should have had a coat of Kilz, but it just so happened that I picked the thickest paint on the east coast.  And we have done our fair share of painting…this stuff is thick.  This color is actually a Laura Ashley signature color (cowslip 4), but since our landlord is buying the paint for us, I didn’t think she would appreciate me getting paint that was $30 a gallon!  I went for a gallon that was about $16 and had it color matched.  It came the closest to one coat coverage that I have ever seen.  That’s how thick it is.  But it does need a second coat, and then we have to go back and fix the trim because the paint edger for the trim didn’t like the thick paint.  I vowed that this would be the only picture I took in the bedroom, as there is a pile of linens to wash the size of a twin bed, boxes, a footboard for the bed leaning against the wall and we almost never make the bed.

But of course the kid had to climb up in the bed and decide he was in a “posing” mood.  “Take a picture of meee!  Cheeeese”

I missed a snapshot on his truck and when I tried to get him to do it again, this is what I got.

So I begged.  The same way he does when he really wants something.  He clasps his hands at his chest like he’s praying and says “Pwease pwease pweeeease” in this pitiful little voice and pokes his lip out.  He came up and gave me a hug and said “it’s okay Mommy, I wuv you,” and then he got on his truck.

He rides his truck everywhere.  I think he likes the sound of the truck on the floor.  He’s gotten pretty good at driving it too!

I like the shadows in this one.  Yes I know, he needs ANOTHER haircut.  I’ve been growing my hair out for Locks of Love for a LONG TIME, I’m just not used to this boy thing where they need a haircut once a month!

Calling the repairman on his imaginary phone.  Apparently there was a problem with his big wood truck.  “Hewwo, mit-ter wepairman?  Yes, I need my twuck fixed.  Tank you. Bye.”

The hard knock life of a toddler

This is an awesome toddler game, you know, when you’d just as soon poke your eyeballs out than look at Candyland…five minutes into the second game.  It is called Bunny Hop.  I wish the price was about $5 less, especially since I’ve never seen it in a local store, but it was still worth it.  The price seems to fluctuate $5-7 on Amazon if you keep an eye on it though.  We got this for Easter, since it happened to tie into the theme of the Easter bunny.  Caleb adores this game.  There are five bunnies of each color: Three will “hop,” two will not.  The object of the game is to get one bunny of each color.  Each player decides which color farmer they will be (although this does not affect game play).  You roll the dice to determine which color bunny to press, then press your farmer to see if your bunny springs up 5-7 inches in the air!  Almost every time, we have to press down all the bunnies at once before putting the game away.  This makes 12 bunnies go flying in the air at one time when a farmer is pressed.  That brings about big laughs at our house!

Mid game, Caleb decided that Charley wanted to play.  He wanted to be the yellow farmer.  See the blur by Caleb’s sleeve?  Charley made a blue bunny hop on his turn!  Good job Charley!

I mean, let’s face it…this is cute.  I love how much he loves Charley and how “real” he is.  I talk to Charley every day, and he talks back to me, gives me kisses and hugs good night too.

Old and new wooden toys.  Can you tell the difference?  Mom saved my inch worm pull toy from my toddler days.  Maybe my grandchildren will play with both of these.

No I don’t get everything I want.  Really.  Not with this face.

I think Charley won!

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My two year old (yes I know he is days away from being three, but just let me still call him two) routinely beats me at this game. It was a “birthday present.” So far I have stowed away 1 out of the 4 presents that have come in the mail!

In Gulo Gulo, the baby gulo (wolverine) has gotten stuck in the vulture’s nest. The vulture has an egg alarm to keep intruders from stealing eggs. The big gulos have to work their way down the path to the vulture’s nest to rescue the baby, but they get so darn distracted stealing eggs along the way. Sometimes they knock over the egg alarm and have to go back a few steps. At the end of the path, there are five tiles stacked up. The gulo must uncover a tile. If the baby is pictured on the tile, the gulo must steal a purple egg to rescue the baby. If the baby is not pictured, the gulo must continue stealing the appropriate colored eggs until turning over the baby gulo tile. All of this must be done without setting off the egg alarm, or else the gulo must go back a few steps. Not only did Caleb beat me to the end of the path, he uncovered all five tiles (the baby tile was at the very bottom of the stack), stole five eggs, thus rescuing the baby gulo all in one turn!! I was left sitting about ten tiles back after knocking over the egg alarm myself before his winning turn!

And if you look carefully, the red and the yellow egg (by his hand) are BARELY keeping the egg alarm from falling. This was how the nest looked when he won. You can see the baby tile there at the end with the purple egg.

Speaking of birthday presents…poor Daddy…Mommy was evil, I must confess. I wanted to open those blocks so badly when they arrived, but Scott thought we should wait.  Until his birthday, I mean, come on, who does that?  *rolls eyes and whistles* The boxes were heavy, much to heavy for me to move (even though I managed the 250lb TV cabinet a few weeks ago! Shhhh!). As predicted Caleb ask about every five seconds if we could open the boxes. And he may have had a little teeny weensy bit of egging on from Mommy. “You’ll have to ask Daddy.” I may or may not have sat at the dinner table and whispered for him to keep begging bugging asking Daddy about the “surpwise.” In the end, he lasted about 90 minutes. I’m so bad.

We have built houses, parking garages, ice cream stands, a barn, fenced in areas for the farm animals, ramps, and a robot. It is sad when you look at children’s blocks and say “Wow, these are more level than our floor!” We live in an older house that has settled a lot. If you spill something in the kitchen, you need to get it up fast, because it migrates quickly to the corner of the refrigerator!

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