Shaving Cream Skating

It's amazing how much fun you can have with a tarp (less than $6 at walmart & target), 2 cans of shaving cream, and 2.5 year old! We've done this since our older two girls were very little and I knew Emmy would have a blast with it also. From the very first second she felt the slippery shaving cream squish through her toes, she was giggling! We had so much fun watching her delight in the wonder of slipping, sliding, falling, rolling, and making "snow" angels in the shaving cream. With our older girls, we would let them bring the rectangle pool floats and slide across the shaving cream like sledding.

Jumping in Rain Puddles

Texas is in a drought. Seems like we are every summer, but this drought has been a long one. When we get rain, it's all the reason we need to celebrate! It was fun to take a walk through the neighborhood and do a little jumping in rain puddles.

Handlebar mustache

I'm not going to share the pics of my older girls in their mustaches because I'm sure they would die of embarrassment. But I cannot resist sharing the pics of Heath and Emmy.

Sidewalk Chalk Painting

Sidewalk chalk painting is so much fun and so inexpensive when you make it at home. It is simply cornstarch, food coloring, and water.

The general recipe is:

1/4 cup cornstarch
few drops of food coloring
1/4 cup water.

However, I find you can add more water than that and it works fine-at least doubling the water. The tip is to use hot water because it will make the cornstarch easier to mix. If you have a bake shop near you, you can find ENDLESS colors of food coloring.

I apologize for the quality of the pictures. It's summertime in Texas which means we save most of the outdoor activities until after it gets cooler in the evening.

Yes, I'm sure we got plenty of looks when people went by and saw my (almost) 3yr old with a big paint roller painting our driveway and walkways, but that never bothers me a bit. They just don't know what they're missing out on ;)




She asked several times why she couldn't paint Daddy's work truck ;)

Salt Painting

This activity is interesting for all ages including mommas! It is great for working on colors, color mixing (yellow and blue make green), and creative experimenting.

QUICK DIRECTIONS:

I recommend using white construction paper so you can see the colors mix.
Make a design on the paper with glue. I just squirted it straight out of the bottle in a design.
Sprinkle salt generously on top of the glue and then shake the excess. Yup, just like with glitter.
Dab your paint brush in watered down food coloring.
Gently touch the brush onto the salt design and lift quickly.
You will see the color immediately spread.
If you want to practice color mixing, simply dab the two colors close to one another.
The colors will run together and mix.
So fun!

SUPPLIES:
salt, food coloring (mixed with water), paintbrush, and white construction paper.

Considering you can buy salt for 33cents a container, you could do this activities endlessly.

Emmy's first sewing project

A while back, I found a small embroidery hoop and used a piece of cloth from my fabric stash to show Emmy how to sew. Embroidery needles are blunt tipped so there's no threat of poking themselves with a sharp needle.

Octopus Spaghetti

We never have any problems getting Emmy to eat spaghetti, or any other pasta for that matter. We found this fun idea for Octopus Spaghetti and thought we'd give it a try.

Split the dry uncooked spaghetti noodles in half. Push the noodles through the meatball. Don't bunch the noodles all together or it will split the meatball or crack it as the noodles will obviously expand as they cook. But, as you can tell from the following picture, it's so easy, a baby could do it ;)

Just like this....

Yes honey, that IS the way it's supposed to look.

Now show how proud you are of yourself!

Now you just throw the noodle meatballs into boiling water and cook until the noodles are done.

Toss in spaghetti sauce and eat up.

Yes baby, I PROMISE, that is what it's supposed to look like. Hehe.

Now giggle like crazy when the noodles tickle your chin when you eat your Octopus Spaghetti.