DIY Ikea Ramvik Kid's Lego Table - and a fun Duplo game!

It's finally finished!!!

I used contact cement to glue down the 8 lego bases, ordered on sale from Barnes & Noble with free shipping. I attached the lego bases together using Big Kid's legos on all the seams, to make it easier to handle and assure the seams could be built on. I painted both the lego bases and the tabletop with contact cement, which dried in about ten minutes, and adhered once pressed together. The boys started building as soon as I brought it back inside! Contact cement is rather smelly. The lego bases also fit duplo blocks on them, so we figure they can use them with their duplos and then use the table with legos eventually! They are turning four soon, maybe they'll get legos for their birthdays :)



This is my very first Ikea hack!!! I did paint the two little Rast dressers, but that's not really a "hack" it's just color. This is an entirely new purpose for the table, yay!!! I freecycled the glass tabletop, it's now part of someone else's table :) I love how well freecycle works like that! Freecycle is an awesome organization - it's a yahoo group, every area has one, and it's sort of like a craigslist but everything is free. We have received more items than I can remember over the years - the perfect blinds for our new sliding glass doors, toddler beds, slides and picnic tables, routers, a beautiful set of Christmas dishes, you name it! We have given away tons and tons of items, from a mint condition game boy to a broken gas stove - all were happily received by someone who needed it! Freecycle rocks and I can personally attest to it keeping a huge amount of items out of the landfill, which is it's main purpose.

*Update* The boys and hubby have created a game with the Duplos and some dice they found - reinforcing counting skills and taking turns ;) They roll the dice, move ahead the rolled number of blocks, and the winner is the duplo character who reaches the pyramid first! I love seeing my family being so inventive - using their noggins!

Bakery On Main

If someone would have told me when I was a teen (ok, even 25) that I would jump for joy when I found a bag of granola at a store I would have laughed in their face! Yet there I was at the grocery store today freaking out because I bought not only two bags but two DIFFERENT varieties of Bakery On Main's gluten free Granola. Yep, I'm officially an old lady now, getting excited about eating granola in the morning. It's the little things apparently. I just got home from a grocery shopping trip and I'm all stupid with excitement - I shopped for myself for once! I'm all Oooooh I can eat granola in the morning, or have mac and cheese tonight, or make kettle corn popcorn for a snack, or eat a fruity pebbles bar for a snack... yes I get that excited over food. Normally I buy the absolute minimum I need, since gluten free food is so expensive and I try to stick to a tight budget. I don't eat much along the lines of snacks, and only have breakfast food until my box of chex runs out. However this trip for some reason fell on a ton of sales, and I was able to spend $160 (seriously it's usually $300) at two stores and get three week's worth of meat, boxes of cereal, snacks, sodas, 4 gallons of milk (lasts 4 days!), I could keep going! I got everything we wanted and stayed well below my budget - that meant I could splurge and get gluten free noodles, snacks, and cereal. I almost got myself a 4 pack of the oh so yummy Udi's blueberry muffins but couldn't stomach the $6.99 price tag. Yet. Don't worry, I'll drool over them just enough to pounce on them when they lower the price even by a dollar HA!

Did everyone else have a good gluten free Christmas? Ours was awesome - kids had an absolute blast and got a ton of presents they just love. Big Kid and I have been having a great time playing Skylanders, he has of course been lost in his new Skyrim game too. Hubby has been staying up late playing his new game, Battlefield 3, while I can no longer keep my eyes open past 10pm. Thing One and Thing Two got a walk in kitchen from Grampa, which they absolutely love. They take turns being the dad and being the son, and make pizza and donuts for each other. They'll spend hours in there with their Mario and Luigi and Toad figurines, doing this or that, making pizza with them or pretending the pizza is a pile of pancakes. It's so fun to see them pretending so much!!

Off to eat some yummmmmy gluten free findings :) Happy New Year everyone!!!

Ancient Times

So far this year Big Kid has blown through the Asia and the Pacific text, the Medieval Times text, and today we started Ancient Times. We're using the Prentice Hall World Explorer series. I have two other Ancient Times books, Usborne and Kingfisher, to supplement with. I think we're going to love them! Today was the first section of chapter one, and it was about early humans and specifically Iceman. So I got out my national geographic and he read an article about how scientists can now tell that Iceman was not being chased when he died, because his stomach was full when he passed away. Then he watched an hour long special we recorded awhile ago on PBS about Iceman. COOL! Next month we start studying Mesopotamia, and I have a ton of supplemental info for him to use with the text. I hope he enjoys it, I can't wait to get to studying ancient Egypt - that is my favorite subject to learn about! I know so much about so many of the Egyptian Pharaohs, I can't wait to start showing him some. I know he won't be as into it as I am, but I'm hoping he will enjoy learning about them and remember at least a little of it. I'm thinking we'll fit a museum trip in at some point, to see some Egyptian artifacts - maybe even some sarcophagus... sarcophagi? Ha!

Preschool projects

Each month I go by a theme for the twins. I use two of the curriculum programs I still own from teaching pre-k to write my own preschool curriculum, but it's a loose "schedule". This month is of course holiday themed, and we decided to talk about a few different ways people celebrate this season. We covered Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. There is an awesome Blues Clues episode that talks about the same celebrations, we have it on dvd and it definitely hit home what we talked about! We have made wreaths, santas, moose, and menorahs so far. Oh and we made gingerbread men using fun foam and glitter ;) The moose were cutting projects, they did an awesome job cutting on the lines!! I'm having so much fun doing projects with the boys, they are finally able to make recognizable shapes when they cut and draw! Even with glue they made faces on the gingerbread men, they were actual faces. I show them my drawing of each project, then let them go at it. I guess I'm just happy the noses and eyes are where they should be finally. I do miss the projects where the eyes were ears, the nose was hair, and the mouth was on the forehead :)

We decided to skip doing a specific letter this month, so they have been using the magnetic letters on a cookie sheet and playing "chicka chicka boom boom". Thing Two spelled "monster" but sat there going back and forth between "monster" and "monstur". Kids are so cool! The twins are making presents for our oh so awesome neighbors, they pawed through my supplies bins until they found "just the right things". They're so crazy!