Pipe Cleaner Friends

Oh, how time flies! I feel like these last few weeks (OK, nearly a month and a half) have gone by in the blink of an eye! We moved. My son started at a new school. We had to trade in our summer ritual of eating a relaxed breakfast in our jammies for clock watching and lunch packing. We packed and unpacked a sea of brown cardboard boxes. And to top it all off I went back to work full time. To say the least it's been nuts!!

BUT, there's always a silver lining in everything. Even though our time was limited, we found a little of it here and there for some fun. One of the things we did was really quite simple, even amongst the moving chaos. I bought some pipe cleaners and pompoms at the store (they actually came all together, even included some googly eyes). And we got creative twisting and turning, gluing and giggling, and came up with some very neat creatures.

The one piece of advice I have for you if you find the same combo pack in the store is this: Directions for how to make the cute animals on the outside of the package are NOT included. I assumed they were, and it wasn't until we got home and I read the small print on the back that stated the pictures were only ideas... one of them even used products that weren't supplied in the pack. :( At least it was only a minor set back, but now I'm a little wiser.

 

Here's what our pile of supplies looked like. We used tacky glue.

 

 

County Fair

It seems like I've made so many outings lately, but there's just so much to do over the summer that it's hard to stay home! And I realized this morning that we hadn't been to the county fair yet, and there aren't that many days left to make the trip.

I piled the kids in the car at around 10am, stopped at the ATM to make sure I had cash just in case I needed it to park (which I did), and about a half hour later was going through the entry gate. I thought we'd only be there for about 2hrs, but there was simply so much to see and do that we didn't leave until over seven hours later!

We saw lots of different animals; in petting zoos, livestock show barns, and educational farm mock ups. By far my sons favorite was the baby pigs. He could have spent the entire seven hours petting those pigs if I let him!

We found a mini circus that had shows every hour and a half, so we had to watch. I was really amazed at the quality of those performers. They had good tricks, were fast paced, and very entertaining. Well done!

We found a pottery wheel demonstration. They even let the kids take a little dollop of clay to shape. Unfortunately they didn't get to keep it, but add this one to the list of things my son wants to learn now.

There was an area that explained how weaving works. They had a large table set up that let you feel how different fur feels from different animals. The other side of the table had tufts of plant based fuzz to feel, like bamboo and hemp. I thought this area was really interesting, I liked how hands on it was.

A guy selling knives was demonstrating how sharp they are by making some really cool vegetable sculptures. I'm going to have to try some of these for myself.

There was an area set up with all sorts of good info for people to grow their own plants at home. There was this really neat picture frame box to make a vertical garden. This is another thing I want to try and make now.

I still can't believe that we stayed there over seven hours! But it was well worth it because we all had fun. My feet ache now, and the kids stayed up way too late, but oh well. That's what summer's for, right?

A Trip to the Zoo

The last few days I might not have posted anything, but like before it's not because we weren't busy. My sister flew into town (whom I haven't seen in three and a half years) and the kids and I have been showing her the town. We've done many of the things I've already written about this summer, like paddle boarding and swimming. And we've done things that we don't normally do either, like take the time to look at the little unique shops in town. You know the ones. They don't have anything on your weekly grocery list and as you pass by them you think, "One of these days when I'm by myself and can take the time to look and not worry about the kids breaking anything". Well, I did those shops with the kids. But the highlight of the week was our trip to the zoo.

The kids couldn't wait to get there. Days beforehand the questions were coming, "Are we going to the zoo today?" "When can we go to the zoo?" "Is it time to go to the zoo yet?" Unfortunately my husband couldn't get the time off work, so I was flying solo with the kids. Thankfully the only thing I was worried about was getting overly tired (which I did).

We got there at about 11am and met my sister and her husband at the flamingos. We wandered around the monkeys and stopped for lunch after we found the tiger. I packed sandwiches and food I knew the kids would eat, but treated them to the biggest ice cream cones ever! Seriously, there was this teeny tiny cone stacked with a half gallon of soft serve on top! I put my daughters' in a cup for her to eat upside down before she dumped it on the ground. Score one for Mommy diverting the problem.

My brother in law really wanted to see the polar bears. What we thought would be an easy walk to their exhibit ended up being a 4 hour detour around a broken walkway! We were all so beat, and just pushed onward and upward on our mission to find those polar bears! We passed by some really cool animals along the way, elephants, this weird looking bird, and in the end we met our goal and found them!

I was so beat at the end of the day! After dinner and the highway drive I made it home at about 11:30pm! I spent most of today moving as little as possible recuperating from it all. But we all had so much fun, and I would do it again in a heartbeat! Thanks sis!

Play Dough Dolphin

The local Regal Cinema theater is doing their annual summer movie festival for the kids, showing dollar films on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Today's selection was Dolphin Tale. Both of my kids love animal movies so I thought this would be a good activity for us. It was. They both loved it! Even my younger one that can sometimes have trouble sitting through an entire film. (Although she had to go to the bathroom at the very end, causing me to miss last 5 minutes! Ahhh!)

As we were leaving the theater the kids wanted to keep the fun from the movie going. So in the car on the way home we came up with the idea of making dolphin sculptures just like the dolphin we just got done watching.

First we made some homemade play dough. I've tried many recipes over the years and like this one because it's not gritty like some homemade versions can get.
Mix together with a wire whisk:
          1 c flour
          1/4 c salt
          2 T cream of tartar
          1 c water
          1 T vegetable oil
It should look like thick glue.

Cook over med heat stirring with spoon constantly for about 3-5 minutes. You'll know you're done when it turns into a solid ball. Remove from heat.

Add food coloring. We made the whole batch a blue-ish color, trying to make a blue-gray for dolphin skin. Then we started shaping. My son's turned into a shark somewhere along the way, because he thought sharks were "much cooler than dolphins". My daughter made about 8 different versions before she asked me to finish it up for her. (Although she gave me explicit direction while I was sculpting on exactly how it should look.)

We're letting them dry over night (they'll probably take a couple of days) and then we'll have our dolphin keepsakes!