Happy Mother's Day!

Every day you learn something new right? Well today I learned that it's Mother's day in Latin American countries! So, happy mother's day to all you spicy Latinas out there! Haha. Anyways, JAM is in this stage where he's forever making me crafts. My brain almost exploded a little bit the other day when he presented me with a "your the best mom ever" card decorated with the expensive crafting beads I just bought that morning. *sigh* How can you get mad for him attempting to do something nice? Even though he knows better not to touch other peoples things without asking....

Well, he's been hyping up this awesome project he's supposedly concocting for mother's day. I hid everything I didn't want included in his "concoction" by the way haha. I never really get surprises since I'm the one in my family that organizes all events and celebrations so I'm actually excited to receive his little project. Last year I volunteered in his Kindergarten class a lot and I led his class' mother's day project. It was super easy to do with the kids. When I say easy, I mean EASY. I was the only one making this with a class of 26 kiddos while JAM's teacher got some "teacher" work done.

 Clothespin Butterflies

What You'll Need:
* A clothespin
* A long pipe cleaner
* Markers
* A pair of small googly eyes
* A snack-sized sandwich bag that ziplocks (regular sized bags work too)
* 1 or 2 snacks of  your choice

Directions:

1. Have your child color the clothespin with markers. Try to guide them with color choices and overlapping colors so that the clothespin doesn't end up being a black or brown mess of overlapping color.
2. Help your child add the tiny googly eyes to the clothespin on the end where the clothespin pinches or clamps down (NOT the side that you squeeze to open the clothespin).
3. Fill the sandwich bag halfway with the snack(s) of your choice. If your adding two snacks, put one snack on each side of the bag. 
4. If you have two snacks, keep them separated as you ziplock the sandwich bag. Release all the excess air inside as you zip it closed as well.
5. Vertically pinch the sandwich bag in the center and place the clothespin where you are pinching. The sandwich bag full of snacks should now look like the wings of the butterfly.
6. Take the pipe cleaner and have your child fold it into a "v-shape". Take each end of the "V" and have your child twirl it around their finger once or twice and release to give the pipe cleaner spiral ends.
7. Take the tip of the "V" and pinch it with the clothespin.
8. Voilà! A cute butterfly to give to mom!

JAM's teacher found a poem online to pair with the clothespin butterfly. We folded and decorated construction paper to glue the poem into to make it look more presentable. 

The craft was a hit in JAM's class! So much that we had to make another one just for the kids to enjoy during snack time so they wouldn't eat mom's. I'd say that only tedious part was the googly eyes. Those suckers had sticker backs and the backing refused to peel off! It didn't help that they were so small either and I had acrylic nails on so I had no way to pick off the sticker well. Besides that, we were good to go! We let the kids choose between filling the sandwich bags with cheez-its, fruit snacks, or fruit loops. You can fill it with some of mom's favorite snacks but these snack choices were the easiest for their nut-free school. Hopefully you can just redirect dad to this post so you don't have to help the kid's make it. It is a gift for YOU after all. Well, again, Happy Mother's Day to all you lovely superwomen out there. We don't always get the credit or recognition we deserve, but that's not why we do the things we do. Not many people can say that they'll cook, clean, referee, drive, teach, or look after children for free or get paid with love and backlash. We're a special group of people that I feel make the world go round. If you're like me, I'm sure you won't have your feet up 100% of the time on Mother's day, but I hope you get a little TLC on your day. You deserve it!

What are your Mother's Day plans?