Salad Spinner "Fireworks"

It's been awhile since we've done any salad spinner spin-art, so I decided to let Sutton give it a whirl (haha!) while Sawyer and Mitch were off at karate class last night.

First we watered down some red and blue tempera paint so that it would be easier to suck up with the eyedroppers and easier to spin.

Sutton has really mastered his dropper skills since the last time we tried this activity! Note: now is the time to put down some plastic/newpapers/paper towels/etc underneath your spinner. The paint will start to accumulate and puddle, and in the end it will end up ALL over your work area if you don't put something down...just sayin' :)


Give your paper a few good squirts of paint to ensure that you'll get the "fireworks" results you want.

Now it's time for the fun part...spinning the heck out of the salad spinner! This part was a huge hit because Sutton now has the coordination to do the whole project by himself...such a hit, in fact, that we made about three times the amount of spin art that I was expecting to!

Voila! Red, White and Blue Magic! Every time Sutton opened the salad spinner to check out his work he'd say "Boom! Look at that cool firework, Mom!"

We added some patriotic star garland from the dollar store and gave our stairs a sparkling 4th of July makeover!

$1 Home Decor: Paper Flower Wreath

I like to call this one my "Homage to Pregnancy" because guess what...it's made up entirely of empty toilet paper rolls! Granted, I could have saved up toilet paper rolls at any point, but being pregnant certainly made collecting them a lot faster thanks to the fact that Baby No-Name loves to sit directly upon my bladder these days :)

I was inspired by the wreath created at Creative Jewish Mom (she has all the directions on her blog for how to make your own if you're interested!), and since it's made of recycled materials you have laying around the house, all I needed to purchase was another bag of glue sticks for my glue gun (from the Dollar Tree, hence the $1 spent).



I was surprised with how fast and easily it came together. I cut a strip of flat cardboard to size to use as a template, and then started snipping away at the toilet paper rolls while the boys watched Wall-e. I didn't actually count, but it took around 16-20 empty rolls to create my wreath. Gluing them together was even faster - it took me under an hour to get it all assembled. Unlike the inspiration wreath, mine didn't stay in its natural cardboard state, simply because the inside of empty Costco TP rolls are filled with tons of black printing that didn't look quite so nice. I opted instead for a coat of brown spray paint that we had on-hand.



I thought about adding a ribbon, but none of the ribbon that I have matches well enough. I thought about adding buttons and other embellishments, but frankly I couldn't get motivated. It's 103 degrees here today, I'm pregnant, exhausted and still trying to get over my lingering summer cold. For now, I'm calling this "Homage to Pregnancy" good enough! :)

Glue Batik Shirts

I ran across a fantastic blog post awhile back on That Artist Woman that detailed how to do batik printing using glue instead of wax, but at the time the boys were still too young for it. Thank you to Childhood Magic (whose children made glue batik shirts a few days ago) for reminding me about this awesome technique! Luckily we had all the materials on hand, even the white t-shirts, so I didn't have to go out and buy anything before we got started.


If you want full detailed directions on how to do glue batik, click HERE...I'll just give you the shorthand version :) First we chose simple designs that we wanted to create on our shirts and outlined them in Elmer's blue gel glue. Note: it has to be the gel glue for this to work properly!


Sawyer chose a sailboat in the water, Sutton picked a palm tree and waves, and I chose a lotus design for my shirt. I applied the glue while the boys watched since I didn't have a ton of glue and wanted to make sure that we all got enough for our designs. We let the glue dry overnight.


This morning the boys were eager to get back to their shirt project, so I set up their shirts in the yard (on plastic bags so we didn't completely paint the grass too!) and provided them with spray and squirt bottles of watered down acrylic paint. I chose to use only shades of blue and green so that the colors wouldn't get too muddied.

They loved this part! Sawyer especially got into it and had a lot of fun mixing the colors and making sure his shirt was 100% covered in paint.

We left them out to dry in the sun for awhile, but it soon became apparent that the shirts were drying really funky on the plastic bags - it was creating the bag texture imprint on the back of the shirt, and even though we had completely sprayed and saturated both sides of the shirt, all of the paint was leeching back into the front of the shirt (weird, I know, since you'd think it would all have pooled underneath and gone to the back side of the shirt) and making the back of the shirt mostly pastel and white again.

A makeshift clothesline and a few extra squirts of paint soon got us back on the right track though!

I didn't take any photos, but after the shirts are dry, you need to soak them in water to remove the glue, and then wash and dry them. There are some good tips and tricks on the website I linked to above if you want more in-depth detail.

Sutton's finished shirt! The colors faded a good deal from their original brightness since the acrylic paint was watered down, but I like the results...it looks a little vintage :)

Sawyer's shirt (it's folded up on itself a little in the picture, but the design came out nice and crisp). His shirt has a few brighter spots from one of the paints that we used that wasn't quite as watered down as the others. I definitely learned a few things that I'd do differently next time, but we had a TON of fun in the process! They both asked if they can wear their new shirts to school tomorrow, so I'd call that a success :)

Bread, Butter & Jam, Oh My!

Today we made all of our breakfast and lunch food entirely from scratch, and it was so rewarding to know everything that went into making our meals. For breakfast we ate some of the yummy zucchini muffins that I made yesterday (the boys still have no idea that there are vegetables hiding in their special breakfast treat!), and then for lunch we decided to make our own loaf of honey wheat bread.


While our bread was baking we decided to make our own butter to go along with it...who knew it was as easy as this!?! All it takes is some heavy cream, a mason jar and a few marbles.


...and some muscles to do the shaking! The boys took turns shaking the jar for about 5 minutes until their little arms got tired, so then we finished off the job in the Kitchenaid mixer.


Easy peasy and super yummy!

The boys topped their warm bread with the homemade butter and a generous dollop of the strawberry jam that we made a couple of weeks ago (from the huge crop of berries we grew in our garden!).

Delicious! I love getting the boys involved in making their own food - they always appreciate it more, and it makes them much more willing to try new foods, which is always a good thing in my book!

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins

It's that time of year again, and our garden is overflowing with goodness, especially zucchini and yellow squash. I finally broke down and bought myself an inexpensive food processor so that I can stop using the hand grater every time I want to shred something...and I figured that was the perfect excuse to try out a new zucchini bread recipe. I scoured the internet and found a few recipes that sounded promising, and then tweaked and combined them like I usually do.

The result...well, let's just quote a few of my favorite guys:

Sawyer: "This muffin is so SO good, I just chowed it down!" [Without realizing he just ate a good sized serving of vegetables. I feel like The Sneaky Chef right about now!]

Mitch: "How did you make these? Did you just add zucchini to a muffin mix? [as if!] They're ridiculously good!"

Sutton: [was too busy trying to shove the entire muffin into his mouth in one single bite to comment] :)



Note: Since I followed recipes that were intended to make zucchini loaves instead of muffins, it ended up making 24 muffins. You might want to half the recipe and just make a dozen, but trust me, even if you do make 24 muffins they won't last long!

Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar (packed)
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
2 1/2 cups grated zucchini (packed loosely)
[Note: I chose to peel my zucchini before shredding it, just to avoid most of the telltale green bits in the muffins that might tip the kids off!]

Directions:
Line 24 muffin cups with baking papers (I wouldn't recommend just using cooking spray on the pans since the muffins come out so moist that you might run into trouble with them falling apart if you don't contain them in the papers). Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugars together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and chocolate chips until well combined. Batter will be really thick and chock full of zucchini shreds...don't worry though, the zucchini literally disappears during cooking and becomes the liquid needed in the recipe! Pour batter into muffin pans. I filled mine almost all the way to the top of the muffin papers because there was a ton of batter, and I was surprised that the tops didn't really rise very much (maybe next time I'll try adding an extra tsp of baking powder and see if it makes them a little fluffier?). Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

YUM!

We Have a Date!

I just scheduled our induction date for Baby No-Name, and I'm SO excited!!! Baby will be induced on Tuesday, September 21st - unless, of course, he decides to come earlier on his own. The OB will still be checking me early, and we still have the option of an even earlier induction if necessary, but if everything goes according to schedule he will be here in exactly 3 months - YAY!!! Since I've never had a labor longer than 3.5 hours, it's pretty safe to assume that he'll actually arrive on the 21st, which means that he'll share a birthday with my cousin Kelley :)

First Day of School!

Today is Sutton's first day of school at MMS (Sawyer's Montessori preschool), a day that he has long been anticipating! He woke up happy, early and ready to go, proclaiming all morning long "I'm excited!" Sawyer, on the other hand, had to be pulled out of bed at the very last possible minute, complaining the whole way that he'd rather stay home with me and play in the pool. Once I reminded him that Sutton was going to school with him today though, he quickly perked up and even offered to take a nap at school today, "to show Sutton how the big kids do it."



Once we were inside the gate they both quickly put away their lunches, found their new cubbies, and dashed off to stake their claim on the tricycles. Sutton barely batted an eye as I gave him a kiss and hug goodbye and dashed out the gate. Hopefully he'll have a great first day, because I have a day full of doctors appointments to attend to (I'm still battling a horrible cold that I think may have turned into a respiratory infection - no fun, especially when my lungs now seem to be residing above my baby belly and in my throat!).


I ♥ these goofy guys!

EDIT: First day of school was a success! Sutton had no potty accidents at all, even during naptime - yay! I was a little worried since it's a new place, and we've only recently been 100% dry all day long, so that was a tremendous relief. Sawyer laid down with Sutton at naptime, waited for Sutton to fall asleep and then tiptoed out of the nap room to go hang out with the big kids. They both said that they had "sooo much fun" today and that they did "a hundred different jobs" together. Sawyer even told me that I was going to miss out on all the fun while I'm working because him and Sutton are going to do water play tomorrow. They're both all smiles and in a great mood tonight - sounds like a fabulous day was had by both of them!

Upcycled Montessori-Style Crayon Holder

One of my favorite things in the Montessori classroom is the way they set out their art materials as though they are something to be treasured and displayed. The colored pencils are organized into matching colored holders (like these), and I've always wanted a set of my own (but not for $75!). Truth be told, my boys will use colored pencils and markers any day of the week, but crayons seem to always get passed over in favor of practically any other medium. Those poor, poor crayons needed some love and respect around here. I thought that maybe if I set out the crayons in a pretty display that the boys would be more apt to use them on a regular basis - and I was right!


While packing school lunches one evening, I realized that these fruit cups would be the perfect size for crayon holders. So, instead of being patient and waiting for a bunch of empty cups at the end of the week, I started opening and dumping seven containers of fruit into a big Tupperware for storage - hey, they can always be reportioned into little Tupperware containers for lunches - I've got to get moving on this inspiration!


If you're lucky enough to have a rainbow of spray paint, it would really come in handy right about now. I only had about half the rainbow, so after removing the labels, I used acrylic paint to give each can three coats of paint followed by two coats of glossy varnish to seal it. Mitch rummaged up a piece of scrap 1x3 for me, and I made use of my white spray paint to give it a quick coat.


Mitch screwed each can to the piece of wood for me (thank you!), because I'm not quite as handy with the drill as he is.

Now it's time to add the crayons!

The boys are loving crayons these days - yippee! I've been able to leave them sitting out on their art table for over two weeks now without a single spill or crayon mess mishap...though you might find yourself getting into serious in-depth discussions with your three-year-old over whether aquamarine belongs in the green or the blue container :)

Soda Bottle Flower Stamping

I love art activities that make use of things in our recycle bin, and this one was a huge hit with Sutton too. I gathered up several different sized soda and sparkling water bottles, making sure to choose only the ones that have the "flower" shaped bottoms. Set out a few plates of tempera paint and let the kiddos start stamping!

When Sutton was finished stamping we went back and used his fingers to add yellow centers and green leaves to the flowers. Super simple, super cute, and it kept him entertained for a really long time!

Splatter/Monster Truck Painting

...and now back to our regularly scheduled program...haha, with our vacation over and done with, we're back home and spending this week on Summer break from preschool. Naturally, it's time for more art projects!


I gave the boys each their own canvas, some tempera paint and brushes. I had intended to do some splatter painting with them, but since they were both insistant upon wearing their swim clothes to paint (you know, the better to hop straight into the pool for clean up, right?), neither one of them was too keen on getting splattered paint on their new rash guards.


I decided to just let them do their own thing, and before I knew it they had gathered up a small pile of cars and monster trucks and were painting the wheels to create a new kind of artwork.




Look at that proud smile! Sometimes the best kind of art direction is NO direction! :)

Malibu

I know, I know...you've seen too many pictures of us at the beach already! Here are just a few more from our last day of vacation, on the beach in Malibu.

Mitch reminiscing about one of his old favorite surfing spots

Sawyer burying my toes in the sand