When the boys are in a bad mood for no good reason, Greg asks them if their butts are crooked. I guess my butt was crooked yesterday. I was an ass, or more accurately, a cockeyed ass, all day long. Sorry about that. I'm over it now. It's a new day and I'm choosing to be positive, or at least give it my best girl scout try...never mind that I wasn't a girl scout. I ate enough thin mints in my life time to be an honorary member.
So, in an attempt to start the day off right, here are the photos from the weekend that I intended to share on Sunday. Take a look at what we did:
On Friday, we visited the local elementary school playground. They just built a new all-abilities play area last summer, and it's really a nice place. It has new and different equipment, and instead of wood chips, the ground is that rubbery corky stuff (I'm sure it has an official name that I am unaware of) so the kids don't get a bunch of gunk in their shoes. They had fun climbing and playing, and there were two other four year olds there for Andrew to play with. Bonus!
Jacob, my dare-devil, climbed 1/3 of the way up and decided that was quite far enough for him! When it comes to physical risk taking, he's a mother's dream child!
Andrew practiced his Kate Winslet impersonation. You know, the one from the scene on the front of the boat in Titanic? "Oh, Jack! This is exhilarating!" I think he could win an Oscar, don't you?
Inside the tree trio.
Isn't this tree thing neat? It's three ceramic (or something like that) trees with mosaic designs, leaning against one another to form a little hide out. It's so pretty on the outside and the inside. What a cool place for the kids to explore!
Later on Friday, we made bubble snakes at home with both boys. Jake wasn't there the first time, so he enjoyed the activity this time around.
On Saturday, we made soap for the grandmothers for Mother's Day. My boys had a lot of fun with this experiment. I think even older kids would have fun with this activity too.
You need:
Ivory soap (must be Ivory)
Wax paper or paper plate
Food coloring
Electric mixer or food processor
Warm water
Microwave
Cookie cutters
Place a bar of Ivory soap on a piece of wax paper (a paper plate would work too) in the microwave, and nuke it on high for about 3 minutes. There's no set time, just watch your bar and see what happens.
As the soap "cooks" it expands into this giant cloud of cleanliness! It's a really cool process to witness. I think this was the boys' favorite part.
It takes about a minute for the soap cloud to cool after removing it from the microwave. When it's cool, let the kids crumble it into a fine powder. It's brittle and breaks easily, so don't give it to the kids until you are ready for them to break it.
The boys enjoyed smashing the cloud to smithereens.
When it looks like this, add just a little warm water. I made the mistake of adding too much water to Andrew's batch and ended up nuking another bar of soap to compensate for the excess liquid. I used less than 1/4 of a cup of warm water in Jake's and that worked well. You really only need enough so that the soap flakes stick together. You can also add a few drops of food coloring if you want. If you only add a drop or two of food coloring, you don't have to worry about any future staining. (I researched the food coloring before I let the boys put any into our molds, and I can give testimonial that it didn't stain anything with the little amount of color that we used.)
Beat the soap, water and food coloring with an electric mixer for a few moments until it all comes together. Gather the soap "clay" and press it into cookie cutters, kind of like play dough.
Allow the new little soaps to air dry for a day or two, turning them over half way through the drying process. Viola! Super cute and fun soap shapes!
Now, I will say that while this is a "clean" activity, it's also a real mess! The soap flakes were everywhere. I don't have a very big microwave, so the soap cloud smudged the inside of my microwave on all sides. I scraped the soap off, collected it with a dry cloth and then wiped the rest of the microwave down with a wet washcloth when I was done. The flakes were all over my kitchen from the boys playing too. They swept up easily enough with a broom, though. I think this would be a fun thing to give them to take into the bathtub, or to play outside with in the summer.
My mom spent the weekend in New York City with my sister and my niece, so we watched her dogs for a while. Sam also watched them - from the window - pretty much all day on Saturday.
"Hi, Mom. Remember me? Sam? You're purrfect feline? How can you sit out there with those mangy canines while I am all alone inside this cold and dark house? I'm hungry." Yeah, even the cat makes me feel guilty at times.
So how's that for a better tone? I think I removed the wild hair from my ass...for now, anyway.
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