Being away from friends and family is hard, even more during the holidays. One way we try to cope with this is FaceTime. Thanks to FaceTime our boys are remembering voices and faces of our loved ones. So this year, as the mail carrier keeps dropping off packages at our home, I had to come up with a way for our boys to know who kept sending all these packages. So I decided to incorporate pictures to their gifts to help the boys understand who gifted to them. Here I go again. Coming up with more “arts and crafts” as my husband teases. Ahhh…I can’t help it! Ha. Hopefully this works and if it doesn’t well, I tried and had fun with my arts and crafts.

One of the things we love to do as a family is travel. Whether it is a weekend trip or a day trip, it is something that we enjoy doing. My boys, currently 2 years old and 10 months old, are at an age where road-tripping as a family is getting easier to do. Sebastian is such a boy and it definitely shows in his energy level. He is always on the go and seems to never get tired. I wish I knew his secret! Alexander, on the other hand, is very mellow and will fall asleep any chance he gets. Give him 5 minutes in the car and he can be out for hours!

We just recently did a San Diego Road Trip and I had to get creative to find things to keep my energetic two year old toddler busy and happy on the 6-7 hour drive from Tucson. We’ve done this drive before and we definitely struggled in keeping our toddler happy. From that, we have learned that we definitely need to get a little bit more creative and personalize his activities to things he’s into.

I decided to make a few things to make him comfortable for the drive. One being a coloring activity from an idea I got from a facebook video here and simply personalized it to my toddler’s favorite books and characters. I found free “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See” printables while browsing on pinterest here and Paw Patrol printables here. I decided to use colored pencils instead of crayons because I did not want crayon wax all over our van and my 10 month old likes to eat crayons…sigh.

Simple supples needed

Sebastian’s current favorite books

Paw Patrol coloring pages and stickers

Shaded in the color per word

Drawing pictures per the book

Final product

The second activity is a play mat for his cars, since he loves loves loves playing with cars. I found this idea on Pinterest here. I simply printed two pages of this free printable and used a glue stick to adhere it to a piece of cardboard. We were gifted a travel tray by a friend a while ago that fits perfectly over the car seat. It was just perfect for this activity since it has edges that prevent the cars from sliding off. You can find a similar one on Amazon here.

Simple supplies needed

Final product

I am happy to say that, along with plenty of snacks and movies, these activities kept my toddler pretty happy and busy! Alex, currently at 10 months old, was easy peasy! He pretty much slept most of the time. I occasionally gave him a snack to munch on but he was pretty content most of the drive. I plan to keep these activities in our van so that we can use them anytime and if needed we can even take them with us when we dine in at restaurants. I would love to see any ideas that you all may have for traveling with kids! I am sure these activities will keep changing as my boys get older, which is excellent for me since that means more crafting!!

I’m not a huge fan of sports but I am a huge fan of nails! So I got creative for the NFL season kickoff and featured the Chicago Bears with nail decals. They were very easy to apply and I had fun adding bling to my nail design because well…we can never have enough sparkle.

I wanted something simple yet fun, since I have two little ones at home, so I only added bling to two nails. I bought the nail decals on Amazon about a year ago. They are water slide decals, so they are applied similar to temporary tattoos.

These Revlon nail polishes are some of my favorites! The best thing about them – no gel lamp needed and it lasts up to two weeks just as if they were UV gel polishes. Win win!

Now that football season has officially begun, I’m prepared to lose my husband on Sundays but that doesn’t mean I can’t have fun with it too! My nails are cute and ready to represent our home team!! Go Bears!

I can’t get enough of how cute these crochet helmets are! Being miles away from my home town Chicago, I don’t always get to find the fun Chicago gear that I would normally find in almost every store. That’s why I was super excited to work on this project. I found it on Pinterest and had to figure out a way to make it featuring our Chicago Bears.

I started by making the helmet, using 5 Little Monsters free pattern found here. The pattern can be found in several different sizes. I decided to use the pattern for 6-12 months and decided not add the circles in the ear flaps since I planned to add the beard to the helmet.

I then did the beard using Ashlee Marie’s free pattern found here. She includes different sizes as well. I used the extra small pattern for my 3 month old baby boy pictured.

Originally, I attached the beard to the helmet but my little one kept trying to eat the beard (HA) so I thought it would be nice to be able to remove the beard once in a while and still use the helmet. So, I added buttons to the inside ear flaps to easily remove and attach the beard.

I then found several patterns for the letter “C” but couldn’t find the right one to resemble the Chicago Bears logo. So I played around a little and finally came up with something that may work. I’ve included the pattern below. I’m sure it will motivate me for future crochet projects.

Using M hook

Using orange yarn for the letter “C”

Chain 16

2 hdc on 2nd chain from hook, 2hdc in next stitch, hdc, 2hdc each in the next 3 stitches, hdc in the next 2 stitches, 2 hdc each in the next 3 stitches, hdc, 2hdc each in the last 2 stitches. (24 stitches) Fasten off

Using white yarn for the edging around the letter “C”

Sl where you finished off

Sc in the same stitch as sl, sc in the next 10, 2hdc in the next 2 stitches, sc all the way around, fasten off.

I had a lot of fun creating these for my boys and hope to continue making them as they grow. Unfortunately, my almost 2 year old toddler doesn’t like to wear hats and wasn’t having it but I’m sure eventually they will all be wearing them while they cheer for our team or even as they play a little defense against their dad. Ohhh what a great sight that would be.

Hope you enjoy these patterns and please share your creations with me. I would love to see what you all come up with.

  
  Alexander Villa – 3 months old