A Leap Day Celebration

I'm a big fan of celebrating little things and it gives me a focus for some activities and crafts. So naturally celebrating a day that only happens once every four years seemed like a good idea. And hey, it's Maddie's first Leap Day! Things have been a big frog-centric around here ever since we saw Princess and The Frog, so that was a good jumping off point (hehe!)

These pictures are terrible, as per usual but hey, you get pictures. First we made some frogs.


Then we had a dinner: Those pancakes are supposed to be shaped like frogs and lilypads; kiwi (aka more lilypads); and flies on a log (obviously celery, pb and raisins).

We did an awesome science experience which I found here, that I renamed "Catching Flies."

You drop raisins into a glass of sparkling water and the raisins give off lots of bubbles and then gradually pop to the surface before dropping back down. Maddie liked trying to touch them and fish them out. She made me repeat the experiment over and over again, and probably would have stared at it all night if we didn't have a Leap-lympics to get to.

Ok, the quality of the photos above was bad, but this is worse -- and it all has to do with my badly lit apartment and a little girl who is constantly on the go.
I set up a little obstacle course that included jumping off a little stool, over a ruler, into a circle that I had taped onto the floor and hopping from lily pad to lily pad.

Every time I tried to take a picture, Maddie would walk up to me and stand in front of me, like this.

And lastly, we did a clothespin drop, but used clothespins that I had glued little froggies to. It's an easy enough game: You just stand next to a bucket, hold the clothespin to your nose and try to drop it into the bucket. Maddie loves to kneel on a chair and drop stuff into buckets, too.

It sounds like a lot, but they were all little activities with very little prep time at all. And there was even time for some cuddling with Aunt Dode:


Happy Leap Day!