Painting Potty Rocks

Potty training has been a back and forth process for us.  Daven will do great for a day or stretch of a few days and then he will just flat-out refuse to try to use the potty.  This has been going on for over a year now.  I know that some parents will force their child to sit on the potty for so long every so often.  But I don't want Daven to think of the potty as something negative. 

My mom suggested that he gets a coin every time he goes, and then once there's enough he can spend it at the Dollar Tree.  I took this concept, along with this good behavior rock jar from See Vanessa Craft and now we have potty rocks.  Basically, he will get to put one rock in the jar every time he goes big boy potty; two if it's a stinky.  After he has accumulated enough rocks in his jar, he will get to pick out something special at the dollar store.  The number of rocks needed for cashing in will start out small and as he becomes more consistent with staying dry the number will increase.

We painted our rocks outside today, since the weather was nice.  I got the paint and rocks at the Dollar Tree, so the total cost of this project was only $2 plus tax. 

I would love to say that Daven sat for an extended period of time and painted all of the rocks, but that would be a big fib.  After four rocks, he was done.  I think he put more rocks than he painted into the sandbox.  I was quite enjoying myself though, and painted quite a few.  I mean, I was already messy anyway.

After we finished with the rocks, we did foot prints.  My foot is so big that by the time Daven got my foot covered, the paint had already pretty much dried and didn't leave much of a print.  His turned out super cute, though!

Since we were outside for so long today, I told Daven that he could pee on the grass.  He thought that this was hilarious and he stayed dry the whole afternoon!  I just hope that any of our neighbors or cars passing by would be sympathetic to the cause.  Although he didn't understand why we had to go inside for mommy to go potty.  "Go on the grass, mommy!  Water the weeds!  You just pull your pants down and pee on grass!"

That would have been a sight.

Marbling with Shaving Cream Paint

I found this fun little project while mindlessly surfing the interwebs.  There are two things that you need to know before doing this project with your little ones:

1. It's super simple
2. It's really messy

Because of the messy factor, we did this art project in the bath tub.  The ingredients are basic: shaving cream, food coloring or paint, and paper.  I added to this by cutting our paper into spring shapes and adding tools to use, such as paint and toothbrushes (old ones, of course), a plastic spoon, and even a little shovel.

The prep work did take some time because I was using cookie cutters as stencils to make the shapes and then cut them out.  Daven enjoyed using the craft scissors to cut along side with me.

Swim wear isn't necessary - I put him in some old trunks because I knew I wanted to take pictures of the process.

First, you squirt out a generous amount of shaving cream and then drops of color.

Next, give it a swirl, and see how the colors mix and blend together.

Take your paper and press down onto the shaving cream paint.  Or you can also use a brush to paint it on as well, although that doesn't quite give the same marbling effect.

Here's some examples of what it might look like after pressing the paper into the shaving cream.

Clean-up is easy when you're working from the tub!

It's also easy to transition from crafting to bath time.

After the shaving cream has had a few minutes to rest on the paper, wipe off the extra.  Some blogs say to use a squeegee.  But I just used my hands.  No biggie.  I'm still trying to figure out what to do with our pretty shapes.  Ideas are welcome!