Days 178, 179, 180

Friday:

We were at Jo-Anns on Friday and Iris found the "free craft ideas" sheets at the front of the store.  She picked out two things that she really liked, 1 being Popsicle stick butterflies wrapped in yarn.  Well, if there are 2 things we have PLENTY of in our house, it is popsicle sticks and yarn!  What an easy craft too.  I glued the popsicle sticks into X shapes, then gave the girls the choice of yarn colors they wanted.  Once i started the center, they were easily able to wrap the yarn to the outside.  I glued the ends with hot glue and then we picked out antenna colors.  Iris was even able to wrap her antennas around a pencil to get them to be curly.  Penny needed help with it.  Here are the instructions and our finished products.

Saturday:

I have wanted to do this for a long time, but have always found a reason not to.  But finally, i bit the bullet, bought a canvas and a box of crayons and we sat down to make the melted crayon art.  It was definitely closer to an Iris aged project than a Penny aged project.  Iris helped me sort all the crayons into color families, then we worked together to put them in order lightest to darkest.  Iris really picked up on it quickly, and I feel that she learned quite a bit too.  Then, I hot glued the crayons to the canvas and Iris and I used my hair dryer to melt the crayons.  We worked until Iris told me it was "enough" and this is what we ended up with:

Sunday:

Today, we did "caterpillars" or, according to the craft sheet, they are actually bookworms.  I modified the craft slightly and instead of using all buttons, I used mainly beads and gave the girls a few buttons to spread out throughout.  I started ours by hot gluing a bead to the "tail" to keep all the rest of the beads in place, then the girls strung their beads and buttons on as they saw fit.  It was a great project for Penny and I think it really helped her hand-eye coordination.  We finished by hot gluing a big button with googly eyes to the "head" and here they are.  (Note: the blue one is mine... Penny has lost hers somewhere in the house, of course!):

On a side note, i've been giving myself a little break from blogging on the weekends, it is kind of nice to have mini vacations from this.

Day 177: Rainbow Cake

Alright, where to begin:  First and foremost- this craft was WAYYY too ambitious!  I started this at about 12:30 today and we finally got to eat it at 6 tonight.

First, I found a picture of a rainbow cake that I REALLY wanted to make, so I figured out how to make it... everything says "2 boxes of vanilla cake mix" but i didn't have vanilla cake mix, so I had to make a cake from scratch.. thankfully, i always have cake flour on hand... I found this recipe for the vanilla cake, and I will absolutely use it again: http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/food/recipes/buddy-valastros-vanilla-cake/  The only thing I will say is that to make a rainbow cake, you need to actually make THREE 9 inch round cakes, and the recipe only made 2... so I made 1.5x the recipe.  If i can multiply it and make it come out right, i am sure you can :)  After the first step, the cake mix looked like crumbles.  I was adding the 4th egg before it suddenly started looking like a cake mix.  So, don't get discouraged!  The kids love pouring everything in and helping with the mixer- love my Kitchen Aid mixer!!!

Then, i had to split the batter into 6 even amounts... i'll do the hard part for you, it is approximately 1.5 cups plus 1.5T per bowl... well, at least it worked.

Then we had to dye it.. i used gel food coloring.. the only color i wasn't happy with was the red.  Any bakers out there that can give me a suggestion on how to make the red brighter???  The girls were fascinated with the process, they fought over who would hand me the tooth picks to mix the food coloring in and Iris wanted to help blend it in.

Then the long part:  I baked 2 "cakes" at a time for approximately 13-14 minutes each at 350*.  Then, I had to let them cool for a little bit, turn them out, clean the pans, re butter and flour the pan and start all over again.

It took TWO cans of whipped icing to cover the cake, and that was a JUST BARELY covered.  But, we threw some rainbow sprinkles on the top and enjoyed.  It did turn out very pretty.

Day 176: DOMA/Prop 8 Celebration

Well, in order to celebrate the over turning of DOMA and Prop 8, the girls made rainbow hearts.  I didn't have a lot of bright rainbow colored beads, or paper, so, we made them with some of our previously dyed noodles.  I love the way they turned out.  Mike made hearts with 2 pipe cleaners and hot glued them to the paper and then they filled the heart with glue and covered the glue with noodles.

Day 175: Banana Peanut Butter Chocolate Sandwiches

Ok, this was a recipe just BEGGING for a 3 and 4 year old to tackle!  It was absolutely perfect for them.   One of my friends posted this "recipe" on FB today, and I decided, then and there, that we HAD to try them IMMEDIATELY.  This could have also been an ad for Pampered Chef too haha!

We opened 3 bananas, grabbed a cookie sheet, some parchment paper, my favorite PC nylon knife and my big PC cutting board.  We started by lining a cookie sheet with parchment paper, then Iris cut the bananas into about 1/2 inch slices- give or take- with the nylon knife... and as an added bonus, no worry of her cutting a finger off!

Once the bananas were sliced, I smeared a small amount of Chocolate PB (I bought crunchy pb by accident and the only smooth we had was dark chocolate- but really, am i going to complain??? haha) and Iris topped them with the another banana slice.  Once all the sandwiches were made, then Penny helped us put a tooth pick in the center of each sandwich so that once they were frozen for an hour, we could easily dip them in melted chocolate.

A note on melting chocolate:
Something has changed with Toll House recently.  I have used Toll House my ENTIRE life, i love the way it tastes, and that is what I was raised on.  Store Brand pieces just don't cut it here (i am really really picky about what chocolate I like anyway).  I mention this only because I have used Toll House for making buckeyes for YEARS.  I have NEVER had a problem with it turning into a brick as soon as it melts, however, the last two times i have melted chocolate (2 separate bags too) I have had a problem with it turning into a brick, sort of like this:

Today, as I was annoyed and getting ready to throw it out, I saw on the bag that it says "add 1T shortening for each C of chips" well, i figured, it was shot anyway, what harm could it do at that point?  I added the shortening and it melted PERFECTLY!  it was smooth and covered well.  About 2/3 of the way through the process, i had to add about 1t shortening more, it started clumping up on me.  I don't know if Toll House has always recommended this, but I have never had to do this before and I have never had a problem with it turning into a clumped up brick of semi-melted chocolate before the last 2 bags of chocolate chips.

After we got them dipped in the chocolate, we put them back in the freezer again for about an hour.  I am just storing them in a Glad container in the freezer.  I don't think they are going to last TOO long.  Next time, i'm going to make them with dark chocolate chips, i think they would be better that way!

Well, here is the finished product... and I can tell you from experience, DELICIOUS!!!!

(the toothpicks didn't want to come out of a few of them)

Day 174: Finger Painting

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've done it before.  But come on, i am almost half way through the year and I am FINALLY running out of ideas.  But, this time, Coraline got in on the action!  I don't know what got more finger paint, the paper, or her face lol.  So, here are the girls pictures: in order, Coraline, Penny, Iris, enjoy!

BTW, i uploaded the scimtar (i think?) plane that the girls made with Mike yesterday.

Day 171, 172, 173

Sorry, we had a very busy weekend, so I haven't really had a lot of time to blog, so here it is:

Friday, we decided to go to the Summer in the City parade in Middleburg Heights, I thought that it would be a great time to let Iris play with my camera a little.  We have never allowed her to play with it before, because it was our only camera, and while it is still our only dedicated camera, this one is 6 years old, it has been dropped countless times, the sensor is a little wonky, and now we use our phones almost exclusively for picture taking.  I figured that if it took a drop or two while Iris was holding it, it really wouldn't hurt it much, if any, more.  So, here is a parade, through the eyes of a four year old.  (btw, she was really interested in taking pictures, how to hold it, how to actually take pictures, and how to turn on and off the camera.. i was really impressed)

(First car of the parade)

County Executive 

Cool stilt walkers 

Of course she had to get a picture of the tractor :-p 

So after looking at these, i'm really impressed, I think she can focus a camera better than i can! 

Saturday:  We went to Buckin' Ohio which ended up eating up most of our day (and night) thankfully, the girls sat down at the table early in the day with a bunch of foam stickers and made amazing "bug" murals (if you can call them that?) with a bunch of old bug foamies that I was getting ready to throw away.  I think they found every single one in the bucket that actually stuck to use on their papers.  It was super cute, they were both very proud of them, however, sorry, I didn't get pictures :(

Sunday:  Today, Iris came up with the idea of making a "Sword Plane" I told her, "Sorry kid, I don't think that is going to happen" but her daddy, the amazing man that he is, happens to be an RC plane enthusiast, found a plane that looks somewhat like a "sword".  So, they sat at the table and diligently drew, cut out, and colored the entire plane.  The girls absolutely loved it.  They thought it was really cool, though I think they like doing crafts with him because it is something different- and they absolutely adore him.  Once Mike e-mails me the pictures of it, i'll add them to here.

Day 170: Birthday Card

Well, tis that time again!  Nana has a birthday coming up on Monday, so today, the girls made construction paper, foam sticker, and crayon birthday cards for her.  We even had to find out her favorite color for iris.  Unfortunately, she is a reader of this blog, so no pictures can be given :-p  However, there was a lot of work and thought that went into them.  Now, if i can just remember to put them in the an envelope and mail them tomorrow!!

Day 169: Bedtime Craft

I will admit it, I have been totally unmotivated to do craft lately.  I think it is because a lot of the things I want to do with the girls are getting too involved/expensive, so, i've been pushing it off and pushing it off.  Well, today, I pushed it off until after dinner, then we went to the park, then we got home and Penny goes "We didn't do craft" and I think "oh $#!^ we haven't done craft, what will I do?"  So, i google "Bedtime crafts"  I came up with some really fun ideas to do for craft in the future, but none that can be done DURING bedtime.  But, one of the "ideas" sparked another possibility, so I grabbed some foam sheets, some foam stickers, and my Glow In The Dark foam stickers that I bought at Jo-Anns on a whim last week.  I took them all upstairs and, for a treat, while we read a book, I let the girls decorate their foam sheets.

Here is what they looked like when they were done :)
Penny's is the one with less on it.  They look really amazing lit up.  I like Iris' especially because she layered a few and it makes a really cool special effect look to it when it is glowing.

Day 168: Coloring outside

Iris told us today that she was going to get stuff to make craft with, and came back with a box of crayons and a coloring book.  I felt like we could maybe take the opportunity to get outside a little.  So, we took our coloring book and box of crayons outside on the driveway.  I failed to take into account that there was a 15mph wind, so coloring as a bit of a challenge, however, the girls both had fun.  Iris colored a picture of rhinos and Penny picked a pretty peacock.  I liked the texturing the driveway gave the pictures.  It honestly worked well until Coraline came over and sat on all three of our pictures... then coloring sort of came to a grinding halt... oh well, that is what happens when you have a 1 year old!

Day 167: Strawberry Shortcake

Well, last week, we picked strawberries with some friends in Medina... but, we still have a patch of strawberries in our backyard that is producing copious amounts of strawberries.  So, we have been picking, eating, and freezing strawberries for about three and a half weeks now.  It has been a vicious cycle.  We have eaten more strawberries lately than I think we have ever eaten in our lives.  Which, is not a bad thing, but there are only so many strawberries i can just sit and eat at any given time.  Today, we decided to make shortcake for craft/dessert.

I found this super simple recipe on allrecipes.com, i mean, just a handful of ingredients and you're good to go.  The thing is, the cake turns out NOTHING like the picture!!! http://allrecipes.com/recipe/strawberry-shortcake/ I knew something was off when i read that it should be done in an 8 inch round pan (btw, we used a 9 inch pan) It is more lumpy and looks more like a super large drop biscuit.  However, it was delicious, i let it cook for 18 minutes, i think we should have let it cook for 20 though, it was just a hair underdone in the center.

The nice thing was, Iris was able to help me from beginning to almost end with this project.  The recipe is so easy, that she was able to pour ALL the ingredients in the bowl, and she was able to mix.  She really enjoyed using my pastry blender to cut the shortening into the flour mix.  She then helped me mix everything until it was "just" combined... which for this meant "large lump o' pastry dough".  She helped spray the pan and spread the cake and even opened the oven for me.  I think she was really excited and proud of her work... sorry we forgot pictures.

Day 166: Happy Father's Day

Totally almost forgot to post our crafting for the last few days:

So, yesterday- we bought a 6 pack of soda (glass soda bottles) and then proceeded to empty 5 of them into a 2 liter bottle and wash and dry them.  The girls then worked on painting the box them came in black while I worked on painting the D A D letters white.  I got a picture of each girl holding a letter- Iris held D, Penny A, and Coraline D...  then, somehow, lord knows how!... I got them to each sit still on a step outside long enough that i got ONE good picture of all three of them spelling out "DAD" and put each of them in a frame. It worked really well.

After the bottles were dried, we filled them with candies purchased from my first trip to B.A. Sweeties.  1 bottle remained filled with Black Cherry cola, and the others got filled with gum, snow caps, jelly beans, Reese's, and chocolate covered sunflower seeds.  Then, on the outside of the box, i wrote Happy Anniversary/Father's day (since they fell on the same day this year... and, in case you don't know, the 6th anniversary is Sweets :-p)

Today, we made Father's Day cards.  I simply cut ties out of construction paper, let the girls decorate them, and then we put hand prints on them... in Penny's case, she didn't want paint, so I traced her hand....

Overall, it turned out to be a wonderful day and a very nice surprise for mike... Sorry for the vagueness yesterday! hehe

Day 165: Top Secret

So, tomorrow is both Father's day AND our 6th anniversary.  We have been VERY busy today, and you will find out why tomorrow :-p

Day 164: Paper Airplanes

Why didn't I think of paper airplanes before today?  I mean, really, how simple, and FUN!  I only know how to fold 1 type of paper airplane- you know, the kind that you fold in half long way, then fold 2 edges together in the center, give it "wings" by folding the long edges over an inch and flying it.  They have a tendency to either fly straight up and crash or sort of flip over and not do much.  Iris made her own airplane too, then she wanted to "cut it" for some reason, so, her plane just sort of flipped and flopped and fell over.  Unfortunately, no pics of Iris' plane, because we re-used it by accident when mike got home to make more planes.  Thankfully, Mike knows more about paper airplane making than I do, so he made a few.  And the girls had a lot of fun soaring them through the house.  Penny just took a piece of paper, folded it in 4s and threw it around the dining room... yup, that's penny!

ok, i told the girls to put Mike's planes on the table, but they aren't there, so you get a pic of my purple plane and Penny's orange plane... how does one go about appropriately photographing a paper airplane?  Because I know i did not do it well!

Day 163: Strawberries, Bowling, Flowers, and coloring

What a day!  We started off bowling, then we decided to go from there to pick strawberries, by the time i got home, i had an hour of strawberry cleaning to do, so I was totally prepared to call craft picking strawberries, cleaning them, and eating them, as well as the beautiful "flowers" iris picked for me while we were picking strawberries, but when we got home, they both insisted that they wanted to color, so today's craft was a very simple coloring book page.  Mainly because we were gone almost all day, i was exhausted, so where the kids... and I am DONE.

More tomorrow... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Day 162: Jet packs pt 2

Well, we (or should I say: I) completed our jet

packs today.  Unfortunately, most of the "craft" involved pointy scissors and hot glue, so the kids watched for some, and I just did the rest.  Though, i think they will enjoy them.

All we had to do today was glue on flames: and I found some sparkly gold and yellow foam that I thought would work well for flames.  And glue straps on so the girls can wear them on their backs. As an added touch, I added their names to their jet packs, just for fun :)

Here is the completed project:

Day 161: Jet Packs, Day 1

This is apparently going to be a week of many 2 part crafts.  Today, we started making our own Jet Packs- obviously fake :-p

We taped 2 two liter bottles together and painted them gray.  Tomorrow we will put "flames" coming out of the necks of the bottles and put straps on it.  Easy, but I think the girls will enjoy pretending to "fly" once they are done :)

Day 160: Flip Flop Wreath pt 1

This is a craft that I have wanted to do for quite awhile, but I have been too cheap to spend 2+/pair of flipflops and needing 5+ pair, plus a wreath.  But, yesterday, Michael's had flipflops on sale for 1.50/pair.  So, i bit the bullet, bought 7 pair, and used a 50% off coupon for a cardboard-like wreath.

Today, the girls and I painted the wreath a very bright blue, let it dry, then glued the flipflops to the wreath.  It turned out super cute, but I haven't had a chance to get decent pictures of it.  Besides, next week, when we have a little more money in the budget, i'm going to buy some fun flowers/gems and decorate the sandals.  For now, i'm going to go upstairs, curl up with a book and read- after I ran 2 miles, I think i've earned it :)

Days 158 &159

Yesterday was an exciting day in our world.  Mike and his work friends ran something call National Challenge here in Cleveland, there were 300+ teams and over 1300 people running.  The top 25 teams get invited to the final race in Vegas in November, Mike's team came in 19th!  How exciting is that?!  If you know of any unique landmarks/statues/etc in Vegas, let me know, we are amassing a list of places and their locations for the Finals race!

Back to craft now.  We did Sculpy clay for the first time.  Iris LOVED it.  She started out making a person, then it got a "boo-boo" so it needed a band-aid.  The band-aid kept growing and growing.  Now it has a bandage on the back and front, and the top bandage has a belly button... don't ask me!  I made a rose that I am pretty darn proud of :)

So, that brings us to today, and of course, that also brings us to another side story... Fish died on Monday morning :(  It was a sad day in our house, but the kids took it very well.  They are still talking about us flushing fish lol.  Well, tuesday, we cleaned the tank really well, cleaned Fish's buddy (a cement turtle) off and put him on the memorial shelf with all our animals ashes, and threw away a few of the older plants.  Yesterday,  and Iris and I got the water tested to make sure that it was safe to add a new fish to and today, we went to pick out a new fish:

He is currently named "Fish 2", he got TWO new "friends": a pineapple hideaway and an ambulance, new red/orange/yellow rocks, and an orange/yellow plant.  He is SOOO active compared to Fish 1.  He is ALL over the tank up and down, side to side, he NEVER stops!  I guess that is the difference between a 5 year old fish and a young fish!!

And, now back to Craft again:  Iris and Penny wanted to make dolls.  I had no idea how to make a doll for craft, and mike decided to make felt cut-out dolls.  So, while Penny napped, Mike and I sat at the table for an hour and cut out two dolls, pants, shirts, skirts, dresses, shoes, shorts, a bathing suit, hair, etc etc etc... Iris even made a few "accessories" while we worked.  Then, Mike hot glued little pieces of velcroe to clothes.  The girls then got the "dress" them...and this is what was left!

Day 157: Marshmallow Art

Penny has been asking me to get Marshmallows for the last 2 weeks and I kept forgetting.  We were at Target today, and I was walking down the baking aisle and happened to glance at the Marshmallows and remembered that she wanted them.  So, we got a bag of marshmallows.  

Tonight, after dinner, Penny wanted to eat some marshmallows, and for some reason it reminded me of "building" with marshmallows when i was little.  A box of toothpicks and 1/2 a bag of mini marshmallows later, we had this:

Penny made barbells, Iris made a "Long doobie", I made a star, cube, pyramid, and "person" and mike made 2 , um, well, structures, i guess you could call it... Then the real fun part, we got to eat the marshmallows!!

On a side note: Good luck Team Codonics tomorrow in their 5k race thing that they are doing!