While I'm on here...

I'm going to take a minute and catch up on other things now, too. I made a couple goals for the summer. Hah. So the first one was that we'd be up, fed, dressed (and showered), teeth and hair brushed, and ready to go by 10:00 every morning. Hah. I think we've done it once, and that was just 'cause we were going to a hot air balloon festival (very fun, by the way). And actually, we didn't even do it then, I had to eat breakfast on the way and none of the boys hair was combed. But they're boys, it's ok. So getting over that completely naive goal, and on to the next one. Felicity and Caleb wanted to be in an art class this summer, but we decided swim lessons was enough of an official activity, so I decided to do an art project with the kids each week. And we've actually done it! The first week we made craft aprons for them (so that I wouldn't freak out too much...hah. that flew out the window when Joseph finger painted his legs.) I wanted it to be as easy and cheap as possible, but I wanted them to have sleeves and to tie in the back so we wouldn't have to pull them over the kids heads, thus distributing paint, chalk, etc. into their hair. So I took an old t-shirt of Farris', one for each of them, slit up the back and cut off two strips to use for ties. I folded up the bottom about six inches to make simple pockets. I did hem along the back where I cut, but since it's an old t-shirt, it's not going to fray so you really don't need to do that. After they were all ready I had the kids decorate them with some fabric paint I had. First I spread out newspaper, which was good, now we only have a small spot of green on one of the chairs and a very small spot of purple on the table. Don't tell Farris, he worked really hard refinishing the table. And it's really not that noticeable. The next week we made yarn octopuses: http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/yarn-octopus-674047/
(does anyone know the plural to Octopus? Honestly, I feel really stupid when I say octopuses, it just doesn't sound right) for the library. They are decorating the children's section with underwater creatures and each family can bring something. We used cotton balls for the heads instead of the tennis balls.
We've also made chalk. http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/craftsupplies/ht/SidewalkChalk.htm
(We found a couple web sites that used the regular liquid tempera paints, and since Robert's was out of the powered kind, we used the liquid). Julie told us about it last summer, and I thought "how fun is that!" So I was all gung ho about it. One word of warning: we made our first batch too runny and the toilet paper tubes dissolved and left a nice little pile of chalk stuck to the sidewalk. The next batch wasn't runny at all and we had to stuff it into the tubes, which was harder than pouring it in and left big holes through the chalk. I think next time we'll try paper/Styrofoam cups, as they will not dissolve. The tubes were also hard to clean off the dry chalk. So that was a little more than one word of warning, and here's more: Watch all the kids all the time. Hah. While I was helping Felicity pour hers, Joseph was adding lots of paint to his. Then while I was helping Caleb, Joseph tried to pour his into his tube by himself and was unsuccessful (!!!). Then when I was trying to figure out why our tubes were dissolving, he put a bunch more paint into his bowl. Then when I was mixing in the plaster of Paris so we could use his paint that he put in his bowl illegally, he rubbed paint all over his hands and arms so he could paint his legs with his fingers. Matchy, matchy. While this was going on, Seth was dumping out Felicity's not dry chalk all over the sidewalk and Caleb's back (At this point I realized that the aprons didn't cover enough of their bodies). So, as you can see, to successfully do this project, it needs to be when half the children are asleep or tied up or you need a couple more adults. Or just older kids. Like 18 year olds (no, I'm not bitter). Oh, and good news, the chalk mixture does wash out of clothes. And hats. And shoes. And the sidewalk.
We're having fun (besides a few tense moments) doing these projects but I'm always on the lookout for other projects. Any ideas? For you guys, I did find this blog that is showing a child's craft every day during June:
http://www.skiptomylou.org/craft-camp/

Happy Summer!

PS Our grass is growing! The Owl scared away the silly birds, and Farris actually mowed it on Saturday! I think this is the point were Farris realized that he now had twice as much lawn to mow. Oops. Maybe we'll dig up the front and just have a field of flowers....hmmm, lets see what next summer brings.