Spring Returns!

Life has been finally slowing down for us after the winter season, which is great!  I can finally let my kids go outside without having to worry about getting snowpant legs over boots, finding misplaced hats, searching for dry gloves, and then hearing "I have to go pee!"  Sometimes it feels like I live in a Robert Munsch book.  I have actually contemplated renaming our little dude to Mortimer!

We are finishing up Kindergarten for Sweetie.  I am so proud of her.  She is already able to read and retain chapter books!  She is a wiz at math.  She picked up the piano way faster than I ever imagined.  And most importantly, she is an amazing big sister.  She loves to try to teach everything she knows to her younger siblings!  She has become quite the little momma hen this last year.

Little Dude is my little tornado.  He is always doing something.  Seldom the things he's allowed to do.  He has such a beautiful soul.  He is a genuinely caring, loving, amazing little man.  I am so  excited to see who he becomes as he grows up. 

And my little Munchkin has really blossomed this last little while.  She has a wicked sense of humor (I mean that literally, her favourite thing to do it bonk people on the head with stuff and laugh like crazy).  She loves to giggle and laugh, and generally spends most of her days doing just that.

After the last couple years, I am just busy soaking it all in.  They won't ever be this little again, so I want to be there for as much as I can.  Which is why I haven't really been focussed on keeping up here.  I want to watch them learn and discover.  I want to get as many hugs and kisses in as I can before it isn't so cool anymore.  I want them to grow up knowing that they are a priority, not a bother, not something I'll get to when I'm done typing.  I won't disappear from here, but I will be continuing to focus on them.  And I'll say hi when I get a chance.  Thank you so much for sticking with me.  I hope as we start our new routine this fall with 2 kids in school, I'll be much more regular!

Enjoy the beauty in today!

Play Dough

Okay, so this one was really only an experiment for me, but I'm still counting it.  

My Mom used to make edible playdough for us when we were kids (not that we ate it, it tasted pretty much like salt).  I asked her for the recipe last year, and decided to try it this morning.

Here is the recipe:

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup iodized salt

1 cup water

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

food colouring is desired

Cook until it forms a ball.

These were the instructions she gave me.  Cook until it forms a ball?  Alrighty.  Here we go.

I mixed up four "batches" so that I was ready to go with the cooking portion one right after the other.  I had blue, red, yellow and green food colouring in the cupboard, so, you can probably guess which colours we ended up with... ;)

RED!  Just thought I'd point that out.  Anyways, I had four of these bowls of mess sitting on my counter when I started.

Obviously, had not reached "ball" status yet.  I have a gas stove, so I cooked mine over medium heat.  Be aware that you kind of have to pay attention to this, but you don't have to constantly stir it.  I tried adding different extracts to each batch, but they really just smell like salt, so unless you want to add a LOT of extract, I would jut skip this step.

When it finally formed a ball, I put it on the counter, scraped the pot, then started on the next.

As you can see, there was flour on the counter so that it wouldn't stick, then when it cooled enough, I just shook off as much flour as I could, then kneaded what was still stuck on, and let it finish cooling on the counter.

TADA!!!  I know, not that impressive.  But WAY easier than I thought it was going to be, and I like the feel of this play dough much better than the store bought kind.  This is way cheaper, and at least I know when Little Dude wants to eat his "pretend" food, it isn't going to have any long term effects.

Happy cooking!

Man Dough

This one might be a little strangely titled, but since it involves men's shaving foam, it seriously made me think of their Daddy the whole time!!!

I was surfing pinterest one day, and saw that people were mixing corn starch with shaving foam to make kind of a light and airy version of play dough.  So, outside we went.

Just a note on corn starch, it gets EVERYWHERE!!!  This stuff is so light and sticky, I am tremendously happy that we didn't attempt it inside.

Anyways, I digress.  I had measured out equal parts of corn starch and shaving foam, and let the kids have at mixing them.

I let them play with the corn starch to start off with, thinking that they might find it neat that even though it was really hot outside, the corn startch managed to feel cool the whole time.

Then we added a little food colouring to the shaving foam, and we were off to the races!

I had given them each a spatula, a plastic spoon and a bunch of different cookie cutters from their play dough bin to try out.  The mixing took way longer than I had originally planned for, mostly because it was more fun to wear it than it was to actually mix it!!

I'm not sure if I did something wrong, or if my shaving foam was thicker, but we ended up with more of a 2:1 ratio of shaving foam to corn starch, so be prepared to have extra on hand to get the right consistency of dough.

We also found an abandoned wasp nest while we were outside.  We had set up under the deck, just to not be in the direct sun for an hour, only to find something else had once liked that spot too.  Thankfully, no insects were actually inside, so after a quick discussion aout wasps, it was back to mayhem and destruction!

And voila, we have dough!!!

We are going to try the conditioner and corn starch dough next, so stay tuned and we'll let you know how it turns out!!!

Mini Fizzers

So, for our next experiment, I decided to see if I could freeze coloured vinegar.  It kinda worked.  It freezes, but just barely.  And the colour in it was REALLY vivid, even though I only added a couple drops of food colouring to each.

Then I set the frozen vinegar, a container of baking soda and a paint brush on a tray for each "kid", although it seems I could have put one out for the biggest kid...hmmmmm.

Daddy got in one this one too!

It turns out that this experiment is great for all ages!!!  

They had lots of fun making it bubble, then got distracted finding out what happened when they started mixing both colours together. 

All in all, they may have spent about 30 minutes before everything melted and fizzed itself out.  Then it was back to the trampoline.

By the way, how many of you could spent all day jumping on a trampoline and then have energy left to terrorize a sibling at the end of the day??? Seriously, 10 minutes is my max, then a good nap is needed!!!

Frozen Jello

So, since the container of "friends" was rather large, I decided I might as well freeze some more.   This time, I was a little more creative and froze them in Jello.

This was pretty easy to do, I just followed the instructions on the side of the box, except instead of chilling in the fridge, I stuck them in the freezer.  I chose lime jello as my "sea water".

Then I got even more creative and added sprinkles.  I even learned something with this one.  Both containers on the table that are green are made with lime jello, but the tree sprinkles that I added to Little Dude's jello made his go darker.  The plain old cake sprinkles that went into Sweetie's didn't alter the colour at all.  :)

For this experiment, we simply took the Jello out of the freezer, gave them each a plastic spoon and fork, and let them go at it.  The weird thing about Jello is that once it is gelatinous, it never really goes back.  And it makes for a really strange consistency once it starts to thaw, FYI.  They played with it on and off for a couple hours before it just wasn't fun anymore.  

And the call of the sprinkler was just too much to resist...

And next we....

Science Experiments!!!

It has been quite the hot summer here for us, and since science experiments are almost always messy, we have decided to take advantage of this beautiful weather and make messes outside!!!

Our first science experiment was pretty simple, just ice and salt.  I had found a huge container of plastic beads of all different sorts at walmart for $6, so I simply froze different beads in different shaped containers so the kids could "rescue" their friends.

I had some packaging tubs left over from other purchases, so I used those to freeze the beads in.  Then I gave Sweetie and Little Dude small containers of salt, and a paint brush.

Little Dude had way more fun eating his salt, but, well, what else is a 2 year old suposed to do???  Lol.

And do you know how hard it is to get both kids smiling at the camera, with eyes open, at the same time???  As you can see, I didn't manage it!!!

Anyways, it took them about 45 minutes, much more salt than I had originally given them, and lots of patience, but eventually, all new friends were rescued.  Then they found the trampoline and that was pretty much the end of it.

As a starter science experiment, this one was pretty awesome.  It even appealed to all their senses, all all parts of the experiment were child "safe".  I say this because I was there to make sure no little friends were ingested.  

Stay tuned to see what happens next...  ;)

Science Bottles Part 4 - Magnetic

So, on day 4 of the science bottles series, I will show you my take on the magnetic bottles. 

Sweetie helped me out today!

The first bottle was cotton balls and large paper clips.

Here are the paper clips at the top.

The second bottle it black buttons and left over jewelry pieces.  I make bracelets and bookmarks and have lots of spare pieces.

This is what the button bottle looks like.  You can see the metal at the top stuck to the magnetic wand.

The third bottle is made of plastic pony beads and coloured thumbtacks.

You can see the pink thumbtack at the top.

The 4th bottle is sand and a nail.

These are just the items that I had around the house to use.  These bottles do not need to cost any money, just find something magnetic (could be bolts, screws, nails, etc.) and something else (marbles, cotton balls, plastic items, etc.). 

ALL bottles have been glued shut using hot glue.  This is a VERY important step since inquiring little minds will want to know what is inside, and probably want to know what it tastes like.  If you choose to make these, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure they are adequately sealed.  Magnets can be especially dangerous if swallowed, so never leave a child unattended while playing with these toys.

Science Bottles Part 3

So, I found this really cool idea:

http://familylicious.com/layered-density-discovery-bottle/

Now, I have this habit of seeing something, thinking it looks cool, then I go about trying to make it.

I hardly ever check to make sure I have the appropriate supplies before beginning.  As a result, my version looks a little different.  This was right after I made it, so maybe it will still separate.  If not, it still looks pretty neat.  And shows density too!

And here is what I used:

Honey

Light Corn Syrup

Palmolive Dish Detergent

Blue Coloured Water

Vegetable Oil

Baby Oil

Body Lotion

What ideas have you tried?  Any ones you want me to try with common household items?  I will post any others that I do in Part 4.

ALL bottles have been glued shut using hot glue.  This is a VERY important step since inquiring little minds will want to know what is inside, and probably want to know what it tastes like.  If you choose to make these, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure they are adequately sealed.

A Great DIY Gift to Include the Kids On

I have been scouring the internet for gifts that would inspire both the kids, and the recipients, and I think I finally found it.  And it was amazingly simple to get ready, and almost free, so you really can't beat that!

I had been reading online about "Gratitude" and "Joy" jars.  All you needed was a jar of some sort, embellishments for said jar, and paper.  Well, I just happened to have all of those supplies on hand, so one day last week, we "worked" on our creativity and motor skills, while making presents for family.

Here is what we did:

I washed out some of our peanut butter jars and gave them to the kids.  I had envisioned beautifully decorated glass, but thought maybe plastic was a better idea for kids who like to see how things bounce...

Then I gave them the stickers that keep coming in the mail from the Disney movie club.  We still haven't signed up, but I won't say no to free stickers!

Each kid got their own jar to decorate, and a full sheet of stickers.

And started their own masterpiece!

Little Dude got an airplane that morning from Grandma and Grandpa, so he finished his project ASAP!

I cut 11 pieces of 12" x 12" scrapbook papers into 2" x 2" squares for each jar (22 pages all together).

After they were finished, I put instructions in for each family to write something at the end of the day, be it a great memory, or something they were thankful for.  Then next Christmas, they have a daily scrapbook of the last year.  And reasons to look for great moments!

I Did NOT Fall off the Planet

I've just been hibernating.  You would probably think with the miserable weather we've been having here (-30 last week), I would have nothing but time to do crafts and then post about it.  And you'd be half right.  We've been doing lots of stuff with the kids.  Even taking pictures.  Then spending my evenings cuddling on the couch with my Hubby rather than telling you all about it.

He's working tonight, so here's a little catch up...

I found this great double sided puzzle at a local second hand store.  The kids played with it for an entire afternoon.  I think Little Dude just loved at the different cars and buses on it, but either way, he still played with it.

It was $1.00 for an afternoon of fun.  Not bad!

This is what the puzzle was.  ^

  

Little Dude's birthday cake.  I swear he really did get to taste some of it, not just wear it all!

And Sweetie's matching smile!

And then we did these Q-tip painting activities this afternoon.

The idea was to use the Q-tip to stamp in the circles on the letters.

He was way more interested in what the paint felt like, and tasted like.  Maybe we'll call this one a science experiment instead... :)

Sweetie made sure to savour her cookie before working on her sheets!

And there you are.  We haven't done anything amazingly photo worthy the last week, just made sure to cherish the extra family time we were given.  Stay tuned for more!

Elijah

Today we read the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal.  I found this great printable to read to the kids, and then they could add their own pictures to tell what they remembered from the story.

Then Sweetie has apparently gotten too big for simple colouring activities, and instead wanted to play with playdough.

It was a pretty simple day today, since I really wasn't having luck with anything.  I tried making bread this morning, but the first batch didn't rise and somewhat resembled...well...not bread.

So I opened a brand new package of yeast, and tried the bread machine this time.  Except after the first 30 minutes, my machine started to smoke and smell like burnt plastic.  It is now sitting outside.  After this morning's expeditions, I decided to keep school pretty simple for my own safety!

Foam Castles

Well, my love affair with Dollarama continues...  We are doing a royalty theme this week, and I found these cute foam sticker castle sets for $0.50.  That's $0.25 per kid!!!

Here they are:

Sweetie was thrilled that she didn't have to colour anything today!

Little Dude really couldn't have cared less, so Mommy did most of his project.  But he did come along at the end and put a couple of his stickers on.

I promise, her head really is attached!  And she is saying "Cheese" behind the foam!

Little Dude spent most of his time driving around our school cart.  Motor skills, right?