I recently got a new book called 'First Art' and it is full of great art project ideas for toddlers and twos. A few weeks ago I decided to give one of the projects a try. Finger painting! I wanted to let the kids be able to do it however they wanted and experiment with whatever way they thought they could get the paint onto the paper. I tried to remind myself to give them as little instruction as possible, just sit back and let them create. I have to admit, I have definitely shied away from any sort of painting with Owen and Mason because of the thought of four little hands flinging paint everywhere. We usually stick to cleaner types of art. I gave it a try though, and they had fun getting messy. They hate dirty hands and usually ask several times during meals to be cleaned off. Today I made them stay messy until the we were done which they loved and hated me for...they kept saying 'all messy!' We started off using our fingers and of course, Mason must have thought the paint was ketchup because the first thing he did was lick his finger. Once he got that over with he really got into it. Owen loved it too and actually made more of a mess than Mason at first. They moved from one finger, to two, to the whole hand...smearing, slapping, dotting...anything they could think of. Eventually I gave them a paintbrush and they figured out how to flick paint off of it, which they thought was super cool!