Potluck Art Picnic

Continuing in our summer tradition of party-style events, like our Water Olympics, yesterday we hosted a Potluck Art Picnic.

 It was exactly what the name implies: a potluck-style gathering where everyone brought their own art project to share with all of the children. The kids wandered freely between the many projects, accomplishing each at their own pace. When everyone was finished being artsy, we threw out some blankets and broke out the sandwiches and had a fun, grassy lunch. The kids played and enjoyed each other's company for several hours after that. Our playset got a good workout!

 The arts and crafts varied greatly.

 The kids and I made colorful icing for everyone to paint onto shaped sugar cookies.

One friend dyed pasta, and the kids strung it to make colorful jewelry. Another brought colorful papers to make paper quilts, as well as shaped objects to dip in paint and stamp. She shared a table with a mom who brought suncatchers and paint. Another friend did marble painting and then brought supplies to turn the painted papers into bookmarks. 

This mom brought tie-dying materials and helped each child dye their own t-shirt.  They really loved this!

 After everyone had finished painting their cookies, I made chalk paint. I tied the cups of paint onto the back fence with bread ties, and then the kids used foam brushes to paint large pieces of black-painted cardboard. After they realized that the paint splattered, they were finished using the brushes traditionally and became graffiti artists. They had such fun!

 This was a great way for our kids to get to do multiple art projects without any one parent being too stressed about supplies or messes - and with everyone pitching in to clean up, it happened very fast! What are your favorite sorts of art projects?

Chalk Paint

At the beginning of the summer I made a list of fun and creative things for us to do over the warm months.  Chalk paint was on the list, and a few weeks ago we finally tried it out.  I wish we had done it sooner!

This is definitely a fun art project, and it's one that we'll do again and again.  It's easy to make, couldn't be simpler to clean up, and you can use it on lots of mediums.

To make your own street paint, you'll only need a few things:  water, cornstarch, and food coloring.

Mix equal amounts of water and cornstarch, and then dye to your favorite colors with food coloring.  It can't get much simpler than that!

As the paint dries, it whitens and lightens in color a bit until it resembles chalk.  Once dry, you can almost brush it away, and a good rain wish wash it all off.  If you paint with this outside, you have absolutely no cleanup to do, and spills won't matter!

We painted my parents' driveway when visiting a few weeks ago.

We also used this paint to create large cardboard masterpieces on our recent Art Day.  We painted the cardboard black in advance to help the paint show up.

Who's up for some outside art?  

I think we'll go paint the neighbor's driveway this morning.  Fun times.  :-)

2012 Water Olympics

In honor of this year's Olympic Games - and for the sheer fun of it - a group of us decided to hold our own version of the Olympics in our yard.  We decided to have as many water events as possible.  We also wanted to mimic the real Olympic Games closely, as well, so that our children could learn about this historic event.

As each family RSVP'ed to the Evite invitation I sent, I grouped the children into two teams and assigned them a matching color to wear.  This made it easy to tell the teams apart on the day of the event.

Although I've been using Evite for years, I'm enjoying it.  This site lets you make a special 'comment' to your invitation in the form of a list of requested items.  Then each invitee can reply with a simple click as to what she can bring.  This feature made it really easy for all of us to know which items were still needed, and it took the burden off any one of us to provide everything.  

As each family arrived, the teams split up and began work on their team name and flag.  They really got into this!  Soon we had the Red Vikings competing against the Blue Dinosaurs.

When the flags were complete, the children lined up and marched into the backyard to the national anthem.  (Since we lacked an audience, we did have to do a few things out of order.)  As the "Chairperson of the International Olympic Committee,"  I went over the rules of the day with the kids and introduced our "nation's president."  She then opened the games, and then the kids all stood and took the official Olympic oath.  After that one of our youngest Olympians carried in the torch.  He and his mom lit the cauldron, and the games began.  

**We used my husband's iron fire pit as our Olympic cauldron.  Shorter and simpler than the real one, of course, but the kids didn't know that - and they really got into it!  We used the above tissue paper creations as our 'fire' and stuck more into the end of a paper towel tube to be the torch.  It all worked.)

I thought that the kids might find this all a bit cheesy, but they were really into it.  They planted their flags in the dirt, lined up by teams, and began to cheer.

First up was a three-legged race.  The kids found this to be really difficult!

Carrying water balloons on flat wooden spoons isn't exactly a piece of cake, either.

The "discus" throw had the big kids really excited, and they gave lessons to the younger ones.

No water day would be complete without playing "fill the bucket with the sponge."

They absolutely loved trying to be fancy ladies at finishing school, carrying around the soppy sponges on their heads.  This event was a team relay race.

They were more than ready to race on the slip 'n' slide, though, and they couldn't get enough of this one.

Then we got a bit more strategic.  We laid out our own rules for Capture the Flag ...

but instead of having tails to grab, each team had to defend a lone bandanna - and its' two protectors guarded it with cans of shaving cream.  Whenever anyone got sprayed, s/he had to sit down and count to ten before running again.  We really had fun with this one!  We played for three points.

What water day would be complete without water balloons?  We ended our events with an old-fashioned water balloon fight.  The kids took out more than 50 balloons in 2 minutes flat.

Group pictures and a picnic lunch followed.  

While the kids ate, the adults compared notes on the day.  I kept score for each event, wherever possible, and we determined a winning team that way; but we also gave small trophies for those kids showing excellent character throughout the day.  We gave away Spirit Awards (for encouraging teammates), a Good Listening award, a Strategic Planning award, and a Team Helpfulness award.  The kids were so excited to earn these!

We passed out the winning team's medals and our character trophies at our closing ceremony.  At this time we also 'doused' our cauldron and closed the games, all to patriotic music.

After our closing ceremony we celebrated the day with these Olympic Torch Cupcakes.

Now my kids are really excited to learn more about the Olympic Games and what's happening.  We followed the torch's webcam yesterday and will watch the real Opening Ceremonies tonight.

**All pictures in this post were taken by my friend Susan B.  Thanks, Susan!

How are you celebrating this year's Olympics?

* Shared at I Can Teach My Child.

Ten Ways to Stay Cool (Adult-Style)

I need to run errands today, and it just so happens that we're facing record temperatures here in NC.  With a heat index projected to hit 115 degrees, being out and about in a hot car is not my favorite way to beat the heat.

So naturally I started listing all the things I'd rather be doing in this kind of weather.  Although I really am excited about knocking out this part of my to-do list.

When it gets hot (and my definition of 'hot' begins around 85 degrees) I like to:

• Go swimming.  My favorite version of this involves a fun floaty and a good book, but any sort of cool water will do.
• Make smoothies.  I made this Sweet Strawberry-Watermelon Smoothie yesterday, and it really hit the spot!
• Eat ice cream.  My waistline really doesn't need it, but it sure tastes good on a hot day.  If you want to make your own, you can find a fun recipe to make with your kids here.  
• Find someplace cool to read.  As far as I'm concerned, there's not really a bad time to read a book, but when it's crazy hot all around you, being transported somewhere in the Artic or to a refreshing beach works for me.  If you're doing that physically in front of a fan or with your feet in a bucket of water, so much the better.  Need some recommendations?  Check out my book review page!
• Go see a movie.  We don't see many movies, but most theaters have great AC units.  While exploring a nearby town during another heat wave a few days ago, my husband and I decided to visit a second-run theater.  We saw a movie that premiered a few months ago for only $4/ticket and spent some time together cooling off after our hike around town.
• Visit a book store.  One of my errands today involves a book store, and after speaking to an employee on the phone yesterday, she advised me to be prepared to stay a while.  Me?  Spend a few hours amidst stacks of books?  Yes, please.  :-)  Many stores encourage 'extreme' browsing, and some also have coffee shops or snack bars where you can treat yourself to something cool or chocolatey while you browse.
• Turn off the oven.  I love to cook, but when it gets hot, cooking happens either in the toaster oven or outside - I refuse to heat up the house any more than necessary.  Who wants to eat when it's 115 degrees, anyway?  Serve fruit salad and granola bars or a fresh green salad with some grilled meat and call it a day.  :-)
• Take a bath.  This feels uber-indulgent to me now, but when we were kids and it got hot, my mom would run a cool bath and let us play.  It felt like I'd be in there for hours, playing with boats when I was little and then reading (of course) as I got older.  Why not try it now?
• Unplug the hair dryer.  This may sound wacky, but I hate drying my hair.  No matter how nice and cool I feel after a shower, drying my hair always heats me up and makes me sweaty again.  In this kind of weather, I'm happy to pin all my hair up in a clip or a pony tail.  It may not be super fashionable, but it keeps me cool longer, and I'm all for that.
• What about you?  What's your favorite way to stay cool in a heat wave?

Come back soon for our favorite ways to stay cool as a family!

GratiTuesday - Rejoicing in Creation

Last week our kids went on their annual trip to my parents' house for the week.  This is the fourth year they've gone, and they look forward to it all year.  This year my husband took a week's vacation at the same time and we went on our own mini-vacation.  We traveled a few hours' north and took a ride on the Virginia Creeper Trail.  


The Virginia Creeper Trail is a former railroad track turned biking/hiking trail.  It's almost 34 miles long and winds through national forests and mountains.


During my morning quiet time just before heading out on my bike, I read something that really stood out to me:


Be glad; rejoice forever in My creation.  ~ Isaiah 65:18


My husband and I decided to make our 19 mile bike ride a scavenger hunt, looking for and photographing beauty in God's creation the whole way.  Here's just a bit of what we found:

What in His creation are you rejoicing about today?

For more GratiTuesday, visit Heavenly Homemakers!

Sharing Thanks

As I mentioned last week, we recently finished attending a fabulous week of Vacation Bible School at a local church.  Running six full nights, not counting months of prep work and home visits afterwards, this church puts forth serious effort into their VBS - and it shows.  It is the by far the best VBS I've seen in years.

Our whole family attends - they even have classes for us adults!  By the end of the week, we're all exhausted - and we figure the teachers and other VBS workers must be even more tired than us.  After all, many of them work all day and then volunteer their evenings to help out.  We decided that we must thank those people working so hard to give us a good VBS experience - but how?

After talking to the kids, we settled on cookie bars.  We used a basic Hershey cookie bar recipe and then wrapped them individually in colored plastic wrap.

To make the cards, I cut copy paper in squares and pulled out all of our rubber stamps and ink pads.  The kids used 'thank you' stamps on the front and either wrote or stamped their names on the back.

After the ink had dried, we punched holes in the corner and threaded curling ribbon through the hole.  Then we used the ribbon to tie each little 'bag' closed.  We packed them in a market basket and took them to VBS.

We arrived a few minutes early and we traveled around together as the kids passed out their cookies.  They were excited to tell their teachers 'thank you, ' and the VBS workers seemed to appreciate that someone noticed their efforts.

Our cookie bars in no way made up for all the hard work that the volunteers put forth, but we think it's important to teach our children to thank those who help us.  By being involved in the baking and card creating, they felt ownership of their project - and they were extra happy to hand them out.

How do you teach your children to express their gratitude?

GratiTuesday - Tractor Pools and Ice Cream Cones

Last Saturday my husband took our Little Man to a tractor pull for some boy bonding time.  That meant that My Big Helper and I got to have some girl time.

We had to run some errands, too, so we got those out of the way.  While we were out, she chose a movie for us to watch together.

After that, we headed to The Sugar Shack for an ice cream cone.  We don't do that often, and My Big Helper was quite excited to choose her flavor.

As the clerk handed to the cone to her, she exclaimed, "That's not one scoop!  That's TWO!"  The clerk assured her this was only one.  Mental note: never order more than one scoop at The Sugar Shack unless you want a cone the size of your head .  :-)

We moved outside to eat our cones in the courtyard.  The weather was surprisingly pleasant, and the breeze kept us cool as we frantically licked our dripping cones.  It was a great night for hanging out outside, and I loved sitting there, laughing with My Big Helper and just enjoying the night.

(She asked me to take her picture beside the purple flowers she liked so much.  Great setting, huh?)

We stayed up way too late to watch our movie and ended just about the time the guys came home.  They returned full of stories about big wheels and loud engines and dusty smoke, both talking excitedly, eager to share about their outing.

My husband told me later that when the event was over, Our Big Helper turned to him and said, "Daddy, I saw the tractors, but where was the pool?"  I love the innocence of four.

So today, I'm grateful for a husband who chooses to invest time in our children.  Who will take them to crazy events to spend time with them and who seeks out ways to invest in their interests.  I'm grateful for a husband who encourages me to make dates with our children, as well, whenever I'm craving some special time with them.  I'm grateful for big ice cream cones and excited six-year-old voices and sugar highs that induce crazy giggling.  I'm grateful for purple flowers and cool breezes and round iron tables.

I'm especially grateful for my husband, who got mildly jealous at our stories of ice cream and took the whole family out a few days later.  I might've missed this face!

For more GratiTuesday, visit Heavenly Homemakers!