Plan B

Well on Wednesday this week, Amelia and I had big plans to head out to Busch Wildlife to attend a nature presentation through Parents as Teachers.  I had talked up the program BIG TIME to Amelia, explaining how we were going to take a hike in the woods and how she was going to be able to see and possibly pet snakes, frogs, and turtles.  We even had plans to meet her friends there.  For the first time in a long time we were both dressed, fed, and ready to walk out the door at 8:30 AM when much to my dismay I realized that Amelia's car seat never got transferred back to my car from Jason's car the previous day.  Oops!

Now, I had a whiny, disappointed toddler on my hands who wanted nothing other than to "go in car, pet turtle mommy!".  I also had an ENTIRE DAY ahead of me to fill with car-less activities.  

Luckily, I have a rough list in my mind of new activities I have heard about or read about that I want to try with Amelia.  The tricky part is making sure I have all necessary supplies on hand--something my cheapskate self is not very good at doing.

But, I remembered a little treasure I scored a couple of weekends ago at a neighborhood garage sale.  A brand new, unopened box of foam stickers for $1!  I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with them, so I have kind of been saving them and storing them out of site.  Since I was looking for something fun and easy, these stickers were perfect!

This project was inspired by this picture we made at a library story time a few months ago.  Miss Julie, the librarian, read a book about transportation, sang a car song, and then we made these pictures.  She had drawn the scene on the paper and the kids added the stickers.

So, I decided to draw a little farm scene for Amelia. She added 3 cats, 2 dogs, a pig, and a cow.  Then, I drew an entire page of stems so Amelia could add the flower tops.  It was great, she loved it!  It lasted approximately 4 minutes....

I drew another picture of some of the shape's outlines so she could match the sticker to the shape.  (2 more minutes down).

I didn't like where this fun, but incredibly short-lived activity, was going, so I reapplied my thinking cap.  Desperate times call for desperate measures, I concluded.  I threw Amelia in the stroller, added a few choice snacks, and then headed to the produce stand near our house.  We went mainly to pick up some much needed fruit and some vegetables for dinner.  But, since the walk was 2.4 miles round trip, we really wasted a good part of our morning too!

Shortly after we returned, Amelia's friend stopped by to bring us some information from the Busch Wildlife event we missed.  The girls got to play a bit before lunchtime.  Then, we all settled down for a nice long (time-consuming) nap!