Painting with puffy paint

The other day the kids and I did an activity with homemade puffy paint.  Kinda a science experient mixed with art.  You first paint with the mixture of flour, food coloring and salt.  Then you microwave your masterpiece and see how it puffs up.  I must say I was a little disappointed by the results.  The pictures I saw of this looked much more puffy...That is the beauty of doing things like this with the ages I have to work with.  It doesn't take much to please and WOW them.  They were impressed and intrigued for a while by this.  They both made a few pictures and then both wanted their names made.  You will see in the pictures below the scene of how it went to get them to hold their name signs up at the same time.  What chaos for such a simple thought.  They could not do it!!!
However, they both enjoyed the activity.  I am glad we did it.

Isaac just LOVED it!

some of the paintings

Here is where the funny part starts.  Never thought it would be so hard to get a picture with each holding their name sign.

And give up!

Science fun!

Winter means a lot of time spent in the house...due to sickness, cold, etc. Yuck!  This only means that we have to start getting creative with children's activities.  So this weekend we did a couple of small but very entertaining science experiments with the kids.  Mostly, with Isaac and Addy just watched and tried to spill everything.  ha ha!!  The pictures speak for themselves...Isaac had a lot of fun and asked to do it again today.

The first experiment, put baking soda and glitter at the bottom of a vase, add vinegar and see what happens.

Isaac adding the blue glitter

we added vinegar

It fizzes, explodes all over

so....we did it again with new colors and new glitter

Then of course, Seth being Seth needed a bigger reaction and added lots of vinegar. Very excited.

Isaac kept saying,"this is AMAZING!  Let's do more..,Let's do more." over and over again!

 Second experiment (Sorry Louise) was trying to blow up a balloon using baking soda and vinegar

Isaac was surprised

more impressed by the fizzing going on in the bottle

Addy tried to pop it immediately.

This was an interesting one because it was the last one for the day.  The kids LOVE balloons and once they got ahold of them, all they wanted to do was blow them up and chase each other with them.  I was a little disappointed because I had more to do...but didn't want to diminish their exctiment and learning they already did....the teacher in me said,"okay."  I will put the rest of the experiments back in the file for another super cold...winter day!!!

Ice Castle Fun

Before it got so bitter cold this weekend we went to the ice castle on friday evening.  I don't think we have ever had such perfect timing for an event in our life with the kids.  We got there when it was still light out and we were able to see a lot of detail of how the made the castle, and then we also saw the lights when it turned dark.  Not to mention there was NO line when we just walked in....when we walked out there was a HUGE line!  Plus....it was relatively warm for a January evening in MN.  Overall...the kids had a blast.  There were puddles for jumping which was the highlight in Isaac's eyes due to melting and well baby just does whatever he does so they both had a great time.  As for the adults we were amazed by the details, but disappointed in the lighting.  Not very impressive at all.  We were all super super glad we saw it in the daylight!!

Here are the pics, we had Papa along on this adventure!!  Added to the fun!

on the way in

puddle

He held onto Addy a lot because it was so slippery...he said "baby be careful."

detail of the ice castle

so cool!!

me and the kids on one of the melting benches

family pic

papa and the kids

me and my dad!!!

the lights

see not very impressive up close!

Just Because...

Isaac has been asking me for quite some time if we could bake angry bird cupcakes.  I keep putting it off because I don't know how to do it.  Well today was the day...just because and I should have known that they didn't need to look like the angry birds to be called angry bird cupcakes.  After the mixing, baking and decorating (only using the colors of angry birds and not actually making them look like angry birds) we enjoyed our cupcakes in a picnic setting on Isaac's blue blanket.  It was a lovely morning with my two bakers and most precious part is Isaac said,"thank you mommy for baking these, they are really good, and I love angry birds."  Baby then proceeded to say her,"thank you" as well.

starting the decorating process

making one of the pigs

she grabbed a cupcake, added sprinkles and dug right in

green lips

The finished cupcakes

picnic time on the blue blanket

all smiles

they were happy and smiling so I just kept snapping

love how addy looks to him all the time to see what she should be doing.