Floam-errific

We had a cheap airplane pillow bust open a few weeks ago leaving a trail of little teeny tiny foam balls all over the house.  The kids were obsessed with how they felt and I was obsessed with getting rid of them.  We compromised and made FLOAM.  

RECIPE

2 tsp. Borax

1/2 Cup Warm Water

1/4 Cup White Elmer's Glue

1/2 Cup Polysterene Pellets or Beads

(If you don't have an old pillow like I did,  you can either order the foam balls from Amazon-see above link- or pick them up at a craft store)

Drop or Two of Food Coloring

Combine Borax and 1/4 cup of warm water stir until Borax is dissolved.

In a separate bowl combine glue and remaining water (1/4 cup) and then add food coloring.

Add the foam balls/beads/pellets to the glue mixture and then add the borax.  Mix will with little fingers.

ENJOY!

Rainy Day's and Tuesdays Never Bring Me Down

 (Do you have that Carpenter's song, Rainy Days and Mondays in your head now? If not than you are probably too young to be reading this blog.  There may be information not suitable for children under 35)

Wow! Sorry about that parenthesized tangent. In case you couldn't guess today was one of those dark, dreary, soaking wet kind of days.  Therefore, all of our fun had to be had inside of the house.  Nash loves days like this because he adores simply being at home. Atley and Harley on the other hand love to go, go, go and then they are ready to go again!  I had to find a way to keep them all entertained peaceably.  First, they brought their scooters in the house and rode them around the loop that is our dining room, kitchen, foyer, and formal living room until all of them had cried at least once and it became very apparent that the mother had better intervene.  So, we made these nifty little bouncy balls. Yes, they actually bounce. We have a gazillion rubber bands from the fleeting excitement of the Rainbow Loom fad.  We finally put them to good use.  We began by wading up a small piece of paper and then wrapping the paper with the colorful bands.

Then we built the most amazingly cool thing EVER!  With the help of an old floor fan and a king size sheet we built an air fort.  Nothing has made me want to be a kid again more than this little invention. It was like totally tubular to the max. 

(Again if you didn't get the Carpenter's reference you might be struggling with this last phrase as well.)

When the sun never even tried to peek out from behind the clouds and trees, we made Sun Catchers with our stash of plastic beads.  We placed the beads in mason jar rings on top of an old cookie sheet and put them in the broiler for 10 minutes or until all the beads were melted. Maybe tomorrow we will see if they really catch the sunlight, that is if the sun decides to actually come out.

St. Patty's

I spent the morning at the doctor's office where it was discovered that I have Strep Throat and a double ear infection-what am I, five years old. Anyway, before I left I managed to make the annual green waffles.  By the way, St. Patrick's Day is Nash's favorite holiday. He was up and dressed in green from head to toe by 6AM.

Harley was not real happy with the green waffles.  She ate a Pop Tart instead.  Notice the bandage on her chin. Yeah, she busted it open again right where she had stitches two weeks ago. She most likely needs stitches all over again but we put a band aid and liquid stitch on it. Now we are really hoping and praying that there is something magical happening underneath that band aid.

I gave the kids a St. Patty's treat-a jar of Skittles with golden wrapped Rolo's on the bottom.Taste the Rainbow and find the Pot o' Gold!

I also made them these little felt pins to wear on their church clothes!

 

Easter Crafts

While, it doesn't really feel like Spring around here, considering just last week we had school closures due to a SNOWQUESTER, Easter is just 3 weeks away. It was actually more of SLUSHQUESTER but the kids were excited and I had some time to work on a few Easter Crafts.  All of which are pretty self-explanatory.

 

Maps

I have this thing with maps. I love them, like I really love and enjoy them.  Every time we go anywhere I have to buy a map for me and the boys.  We thoroughly study it and plan our adventures.  I have lots of maps stored in a box under my bed from when I taught 9th grade geography and I am happy to say that I think my love affair with maps has worn off on my children.  The sad thing is they will probably never really need a paper map to get them from point A to B, but I am glad they like them anyway.  Here are two projects we have done with maps lately. 

 Mod Podged Map Table

Someone got sharpie on our coffee table. I won't name any names but she is little and really cute and she has a scar on her chin.  This seemed like the perfect solution. Nothing like kicking your feet up in Antarctica after a long day of work.  Hint:  Use outdoor Mod Podge to make it water proof.

Where Is It Made?

I used to play this game with my students and I thought the kids would like it too. We went through the house, looked at the tags in our clothes, the stamps on our dishes and the labels on our toys to discover where everything was made.  The kids were a little disappointed that so few of our things were made in the USA.  We marked where things were made with a star on our world map.  Atley's comment, "I guess if I ever want to make something I better move to southeast Asia."

Magazine Trees

After Family Home Evening last week we made some Christmas Trees out of Magazines.  There is a great TUTORIAL in this month's Family Fun. 

The kid's woke up to the toilet and even Harley's potty chair wrapped up in paper, all thanks to our naughty little elf.

Christmas Is Coming!!

It is that time of year again, when every spare minute is filled with shopping, wrapping, baking, eating, decorating, crafting, mailing and trying your very best to make the holiday magical. I am going to try to post what we are doing/making/where we are going every day until Christmas. Today, I thought I would share an easy and fun homemade holiday gift-Kool Aid Playdough with laminated play mats. What kid can resist playdough, especially playdough that smells as yummy as Kool Aid.  

Harley loves to help me in the kitchen and she had so much fun telling her brother's that she made her very own playdough.

Recipe:

1 Cup Flour

1/2 Cup Salt

1 Pkg. Kool-Aid

1 Cup Boiling Water

3 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Combine Dry Ingredients. Add boiling water and oil.  Stir with a spoon until it cools enough to knead with your hands. Store in the fridge.

Now onto the play mats.

You can print an entire booklet of pages to laminate. They include things like putting the spots on a dog, putting the flowers on the stem and of course more educational things like counting skills.  

HERE IS THE LINK to print your own.

Crafts & Cookies

Sunday evening Nash came to me and asked, "Mom, are you sick?" I replied that I wasn't. He continued, "Do you have a headache?" I answered, "No, Nash. What do you want?" He then says, "Well, Sunday is almost over and we haven't had any dessert." You don't have to ask me twice. I will happily hop to it if dessert is involved. I made our usual Sunday treat, chocolate chip cookies, and then we decided to work on some Halloween crafts-mostly ideas borrowed from Pinterest. I love crafting with my kids. Even though it is inevitably a huge mess, watching their little hands and minds work is pretty awesome.



We made SPOOKY skeleton shirts!

 (Can you tell it was a little bit chilly when we took this picture?)

Egg Carton Bats!

Q-tip skeletons-who somehow morphed into Ninjago Villains.  The boys also made spider webs by creating designs on wax paper with glitter glue and then letting it dry.  The spider webs have managed to disappear. 

Rolled Felt Fall Wreath Tutorial

Flubber

We had "THAT" family home evening tonight. You know the one about being aware of creepy people and the creepy things that can be found on the computer, and body parts. Yeah, I am too immature for that kind of stuff but it is important to keep them safe. It all went really well considering the context.  Anyway, to lighten things up afterwards we made Flubber. There are recipes for this stuff all over, but I thought I would add my own to the mix. If you don't know what flubber is, I can only describe it as a mixture of slime, playdough, and silly putty. The kids love this stuff and frankly, so do I.  I have been fiddling with it so much tonight my thumbs are getting sore. 

Recipe

1 Cup Elmer's Glue

1 1/3 Cup of Warm Water

2 tsp. Borax (found in the laundry detergent aisle)

Food Coloring

Glitter (optional)

Mix glue, glitter, and 2/3 cup of water in bowl. In a seperate bowl mix 2/3 cups of water and Borax and food coloring. Combine. The GOO will set in about 1 minute.