Family Pictures From July

Just a few of the family pictures my cousin took last month during our family reunion.

Summer Is Starting To Fade A Bit

 Art time has been extremely relaxed lately.  We've been doing a lot of drawing at the kitchen table.  We've also been using a lot of sponge brushes for painting.  We have some with different textures and tips.  Mostly the girls are loving using roller brushes.  We have a dozen or so paintings made almost entirely with a roller brush.

Red Fish

New Fish

This little table has gotten a lot of use the past few years.  We use it for projects and lunch and everything in between.  It's a great stopping place between the swing set and the wading pool. Sitting outside with the girls is my favorite part of summer.  I may have to upgrade to a little bit larger table next year.  I probably should have just sprung for the larger one in the first place.

More Four Wheeling

We spent the weekend at the cabin with friends.  I should have been home cleaning my house and being responsible but escaping sounded so much better.  I love going to the cabin where there is no laundry and no internet connection so I can't feel the stress of all of the things I should be accomplishing.  Plus the girls get to run around and we all love it.  We can't keep Red Fish off the four wheelers.  She just loves riding around on them.  New Fish actually enjoyed riding this time but she will only go with Mommy.  (I guess she knows I am the best driver right?)

My favorite part of the weekend was laying on the back deck with Red Fish and watching for animal shapes in the clouds.  Summer is slipping away too fast.

Ballerinas At The Park

 Red Fish declared today "Ballerina Day" and New Fish happily agreed.  So they donned their tutus and we went to the park with Mimi for a picnic.  We've tried to go half a dozen times this summer but something has always ruined it.  I was really happy we finally made it!

Shaving Cream

We've tried shaving cream marbling twice before but this was New Fish's first time. This is a fabulous bathtub project (easy cleanup) but we did it outside and then used the hose.  We filled our trays with shaving cream and used an eye dropper to add liquid watercolors to them.

 Then the girls swirled the paint around with the tip of their eye dropper to create a marbling effect.  Then we pressed watercolor papers onto them.

The second their papers left the trays their hands went in.  I ended up with two naked children covered in shaving cream and dyed slightly blue.  They thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed the process though.  It's a great sensory activity.

These are their papers.  As soon as they've had a chance to dry more I will scrape the shaving cream off.

Dinosaurs

We made paperplate dinosaurs yesterday with friends.  The kids decorated their plates and cut out some dinosaur parts to staple onto the plate with pipe cleaner legs.  This was a good reminder of why I don't do many crafty projects where the product is important.  Red Fish cut out her dinosaur but I ended up cutting out tons of body parts and putting things together.  I like it so much better when they can do the projects entirely on their own.  We all enjoy it so much more and I feel like they get more out of it.

Explosions

 For cubscouts last week, we were working on our science belt loop.  I decided to focus on explosions. 
 To help the girls be included, I had them make a volcano out of clay earlier in the day.  We used air dry clay around a plastic cup.  Red Fish is fascinated by lava right now so she was really excited about the project.  They thoroughly enjoyed painting on the red lava.

 We had a scientist (one of the boy's dad is a doctor) come and take them through some explanations of the scientific method I posted on our back fence.  Then he drew some of my blood and showed the boys how blood clots.

 After we had talked through doing an experiment we errupted the girl's volcano.  We discussed what we thought would happen if we combined the vinegar and baking soda in an enclosed space instead of letting it fizz out of the volcano.

 We put baking soda in tissues and vinegar in ziploc bags and then dropped the tissue in an zipped it up. 

 The boys were very excited about their "bombs."

The highlight of the night was trying out the diet Coke and Mentos experiments.  The video is very short but if you pay attention you can catch me being shot in the face by our first attempt.

BFF

I got to see my BFF (Yes, I just seriously used that term) Lovely L for a little bit on Saturday.  We snapped a quick pic of us with our three girls. 

Bus

So I found this rusted out double decker bus sitting in the middle of our town and I've been freaking out.  I love it.  I want family pictures taken in front of it but I'm terrified they will move it.  Because, who knows what it is doing there anyway right?  So I forced my family to run down to it on our way to church, propped my camera up and set the timer for like 5 pictures.  Nothing fabulous obviously, but I may have to talk them into going again with a better photographer... Please, please strange junky bus...stay put!

Pig Day

Today, Red Fish woke up and said she would really like to go for a walk a ride a horse.  So we did.  We used our membership at a local farm to ride horses and take a wagon ride with horses and it also happened to be pig day.  We made pig ears and noses, pig puppets, pig cookies and a bunch of other things. 

Finding a Rhythm

 Sometimes I think I get a little too grandiose with project ideas for my kids.  Sometimes I need to remind myself that simple is better, that they are little and they enjoy the same processes over and over.  Today New Fish and I pulled out the Crayola twistable slick sticks for the first time in forever and she just drew pictures for quite awhile.  I had forgotten how much I enjoy the slick sticks.  They have great pigment and toddlers get a lot of satisfaction out of them. 

New Fish and I are looking for a rhythm now that Red Fish has started school.  It's time to wind down on the craziness of summer and find our schedule again.  New Fish has been really clingy lately and hasn't been sleeping.  After some thinking and praying, I'm pretty sure she needs some focused attention from me.  Sometimes a kid just needs their mom to just sit and hold them and spend some good quality one on one time. I spend a lot of time with my kids but there is something about keeping things simple that really works better. So this morning we drew pictures, talked about animals, read books, played the piano and danced to some music.  Just simple stuff but I could tell that New Fish soaked it up.  Fingers crossed for a good nights sleep.

Fountain

 We are desperately trying to cross all of the to dos off our summer list.  I've bumped many things to our Fall list but the water activities have to be done NOW.  We went to run through the fountains at a local mall again this year.  I can't figure out why my Mom and I are always the only two adults running through the fountain?  I'm sure all of those moms sitting around edges think we are crazy people but I think crazy is a lot more fun.

 New Fish liked it more than Red Fish.  She was dancing and laughing her head off.

If you decide to go, make sure to make the noon fountain show!  It's a lot of extra water.  

We finished our outing with lunch in the park and I think the girls had an awesome day.

First Day Of School

 

 Today was Red Fish's first day of preschool.  She was really excited but also pretty mad she doesn't get to ride the bus anymore.   We decided to put her in a different preschool this year and see how things go.  I never imagined that she would be attended 3+ years of preschool!  It makes me a little sad to miss out on the time she could be home with me but she really loves school and it seems to be really good for her.  She picked out this rainbow skirt to wear to school and she was happy to learn that she gets to ride with Daddy on his way to work. 

After school, Red Fish was invited to a birthday party.  The girls were supposed to be princesses and the boys were to come as pirates.  Red Fish wanted nothing to do with the princess idea and asked to be a pirate instead.  This is what we could come up with at the last minute.  She is sort of a Tinkerbell/Lost boy. 

 
New Fish was pretty sad she couldn't go to school with her sister so we ran errands together this morning and then decorated some cookies together.  Notice she is wearing a backpack like a "big kid."

We are trying to start some back to school traditions.  Two Fish gave the girls a special Father's blessing last night.  My Dad always used to give my brothers and I one before we started school for the year.  We also wanted to have a special dinner for the girls to celebrate how exciting it is to start school and make a big deal of it.  New Fish and I bought a couple things at the dollar store to make it seem festive.  The girls think it isn't a party without some sort of party hat so we made crowns.  We even bought fancy lemonade and crazy straws.

Funnies from Red Fish

"I think I just turned four!  Can you check?  I'm pretty sure I just felt it!"

"My [New Fish] fell in the potty, but we DID NOT flush her down." (New Fish was sitting on the potty and she did accidentally fall in.)

"I hit my baby with the broom, but I didn't get her dead.  She just crying."

"Daddy movies are called baseball." (All sporting events are baseball in her eyes.  I find especially funny because Two Fish hates baseball.)

"I taking a good nap mommy so you go eat your cheese and crackers and wait for me."

I told the dog to be quiet and Red Fish said: "Why aren't you screaming mommy?  You need be mean at him like usual!  You say: 'Shush up puppy!  Come here!"  Gee....thanks!

Weekending

Notice Red Fish's shorts.  She wanted to wear them so she could look like her Daddy!

Last night, Two Fish took me to dinner and to see the final Harry Potter movie.  It was so nice to be out on a date!  The summer has been so crazy that we haven't been on a date in months.  Then this morning we took the girls to a waterpark.  Red Fish has been begging to go since last November so we figured we had better hurry and go before summer is over.  My Mom came with us. 

New Fish went on 5 different slides (in my lap) and she would giggle the whole way down.  She stuck her face in all of the fountains and splashed her little heart out.  Red Fish knows no fear.  She went on every single slide including the "high speed" scary ones she wasn't technically tall enough for.  She wanted no assistance and she absolutely loved the slides.  Some of the tunnels were completely dark and had huge drops in them but that didn't seem to phase her at all.  After I followed her on a couple of them, I couldn't believe she would keep going!  She claimed the scary slides were extra fun.

Summertime And Watercolor Resists

 The girls have been doing some watercolor resists again.  It's a favorite activity around here.  This time we tried using a glue/paint mixture and tracing over one of their drawings.  It worked well but I think the oil pastels are my favorite resists.  I think the lines are more interesting, although they don't always create such a contrast.

A Few Things I've Been Working On

Electricity

 Cub scouts is back in full swing again.  Red Fish is thrilled that "her cubscouts" are back.  She loves feeling like a part of the group.  Last night we learned all about electricity.  We talked about maintaining a loop, giving the battery a load and experimented with conductivity.  We also built a little buzzer and practiced typing out our names in Morse code.  They thought that was pretty awesome.

Look how excited they were when they completed the circuit and got the light-bulb to light.  It was so funny to watch them.

Losing Our Marbles

We decided to try out marbles in paint again.  The only time we have done it before was in art group and the girls only got to make one.  It was great fun but very messy.

 Red Fish

 New Fish