Birthday Gift

Today was Emma Claire's birthday party at the pumpkin patch. I'll post some photos from there later, but I wanted to share some photos of the present we got her. Recently, I came across two projects that sounded like fun. The first was a set of alphabet blocks that a mom made by taking photos around the house of different objects. She put the photos onto a set of blocks and labeled the names of the objects on the back. The second was a memory game made with wooden blocks and scrapbook paper. I decided to take my own spin on the two ideas and make her a set of blocks with photos of her family on them with scrapbook paper on the back. I saved a bunch of photos off Melissa's blog and had them developed. I ran into some difficulty, though, when I tried to find some blocks. Apparently it is really difficult to find a set of plain wooden blocks! Finally at Toys'r'us I found an all natural Jenga game made with bamboo blocks. I thought I'd give them a try. It actually worked out much better because each set of blocks became like a little puzzle. The scrapbook paper on the back serves as a "control of error" (that's for my Montessori buddies :) so that Emma Claire will know which blocks go together. Anyway, I cut the photos and scrapbook paper into thirds and glued them to the blocks using ModgePodge. I think they came out great and hopefully they will be a fun & special activity for Emma Claire & the whole family! Here are some photos: