Let it snow...coffee filters

Today's super quick and easy project is brought to you courtesy of Keurig. Now that I have one of those fancy machines I have no need for the coffee filters sitting in my cupboard. So what to do with them? Craft of course! Super easy to fold them 3 times, and then cut. My 4 yr old loved it. Wants to make more every day. Even if it's not snowing outside we can make our own snowstorm.

Cotton Ball Christmas Decorations

Cotton balls, toilet paper rolls, and construction paper make the best decorations.

Turkey window

So I had seen this on another blog and thought I'd try it out. Water color on a coffee filter. The original post had you fold the filter in half to make the tail but Mihir has a crafty mind of his own and decided that was unnecessary. Turned out pretty cute. Mine are not as cute but they're okay.

Christmas Crafty

So I am trying to do a few little homemade crafts this year for Christmas. I started on a project of embroidering each family member a little ornament that has one of their favorite things on it. Two down, a bunch to go. I think the unicorn turned out pretty cute. The other one is supposed to be a frizzle-which for those of you not in the know- is a type of chicken. Of course I still need to turn these two into ornaments but it's fun, easy tondo while the boys watch a movie, and small enough that I can accomplish it by Christmas. That's a win in my book.

I'm in my element!

Not really. But both my sons want to be Finn from Adventure Time for Halloween so I am making hats. White hats with ears. We'll see how the complete outfit comes together but for now I'm one hat down, one to go!

Lunch box love

So I saw all these super cute little lunch box love notes on blogs lately and thought I could do that. So I am. Mine are not as cute, obviously, but they are quick and easy. I got out blank 3x5 index cards and some markers and then googled kids food jokes. I got quite a few hits and found some jokes I could work with.
The finished product is fold the card. Put joke question on front. Punch line inside along with a little note from me. I've made 3 so far and we'll see how long into the school year (okay who are we kidding next week) we'll last.

Marble maze madness

So I saw this idea about a million years ago but just now got around to making it. We bought PVC pipes and joints and marbles. Cut the pipe to different lengths and Woo Hoo marble maze.
We have 6 90* elbow joints, 2 t joints and 9 lengths of pipe. We decided not to cement them because it allows us to build the maze in different configurations and also use the pipe for other things-including super cool megaphones. :-)

Red, white, and crafty!

So my kiddos decided this morning that instead of breakfast we should make fourth of July decorations. Of they aren't battling I am down with just about anything so I say okay!
We've made a flag and some firework pennants. Who knows what's next?

Eating nasturtiums

So we've been growing nasturtium in the backyard and today the boys decided to try them. They were not big fans but Mihir did like sucking the nectar out of the flower. I remember doing that when I was a kid. Nice to pass these things on.

Teacher thank you cards

I once again have an army of thank you cards to make at school end. Some day my kiddo won't have 6 different aides and I'll just have one teacher per kiddo but until that happens I guess it's mass production time around here. Three of the cards have owls and will read "who deserves a thank you?" on the front. The bee cards will read "couldn't bee more thankful" at least that's the plan. I have a few more days {read two} to get it done, write a heartfelt message, force my kids to sign them, think about buying gift cards and delivering them. Wish me luck!

Mini Vacay Day 1

So my hubster is not one to stay in a job he doesn't like. And he really didn't like the last one so he got a new one. Yippee that people think he's good at what he does. Double yippee that he decided to take a week off between job 1 & 2 and we get to go on a mini vacation to the Southern Oregon coast.
The bummer is that there is a lot of driving between our house and pBrookings, Oregon. The double bummer is that my oldest son, Kie has supreme carsickness. Like, anytime youtakeacurvyroadtothebeachandeat asnackinthecaryoubarf carsickness. And today we drove I-5 which has some moments of curvy road. And we had sandwiches, watermelon and Doritos. Not a great combo.
It's actually kind of sad. He said he though he was going to throw up and I thought he was just trying to get a sour patch kid. We had an OT tell us once that sour things can settle an upset stomach. Anyhow so we pulled over and I was taking my sweet time getting him water, a towel and out of his seat. Luckily he mostly got the towel in time and his carseat (after a bit of poured water) was saved from the explosion. His clothes did not fare as well. Which is why there is a pic of me at the hotel laundry. Yippee!
Once we got here the view from our room, and proximity of the beach TOTALLY made up for it though!

Rocket ship

Someone decided that today he needed a rocket ship. So here we go. This is the reason we save boxes and go through so much duct tape at our house.

What's the buzz?

The boys decided to play pollinators today after school. I know what you're thinking where do they get this stuff. I don't know what to tell you. I can tell you that first they decided to make hummingbird nectar to drink (apple juice with red food coloring). Next they both put on striped shirts and Kieran gave himself "8 eyes like a bee" by putting on his bumble bee glasses that have a bunch of holes in them. They then turn to me and say what about wings? Ummm...yeah...I'm chock full out of wings boys. But being the crafty pushover of a mom that I am I look around and improvise. I had just bought garden wire earlier in the day. Nice thick stuff that I was planning to use with my pea plants. So took it and made a figure eight. Next I covered each side of the eight with a clear produce bag. I tied the two produce bags together in the middle and safety pinned the whole thing to their striped shirts-voila-bee wings! Love their creativity and even more I love that they are no old enough I can just open the back door and say "have fun, I'll call you when dinner is ready!"

Ahhh Spring Nights

I love sunny nights in spring. Here it is 6:30 at night and the boys have already had dinner and are outside getting dirty and burning some energy. The downpour this morning had me a bit nervous but it's turned into a beauty of an early evening. The water shooters made their way out of storage and now the backyard is a battleground. Ahhh boys. Luckily for me they haven't turned on each other or me-yet.

Science before school

So Kieran, my oldest, is programmed to wake up before 7 am every day. His bus doesn't come until 8:50 so we've often got almost 2 hours to fill before school. This morning he decided to read this scholastic book about digestion called You've got GUTS. Skip to the picture here. He decided he wanted to draw a picture of how food flows through the digestive system. I labeled it as he told me the parts. When Mihir woke up and stumbled into the kitchen. He decided we needed to add a piece of fake bacon in the stomach in the picture. Such little scientists!
{Ps after this endeavour they were planning the angry birds theme park. :-)}

Star wars training dojo

Big man came home from school having done a star wars obstacle course in PE. It got him psyched about making his own game at home. First up hit darth vadar's light saber. Next guess who I am-darth vadar or chewbacca. Last but not least star wars hangman. Too cute. Love his creativity.

The sicko and the sunshine

Today is gorgeous! Like sunniest day we've had in weeks beauty of a day. Little man has no school so you'd think we'd be outside somewhere enjoying all this sun. But alas he is sick. Hacking cough, runny nose, low grade fever sick. So, instead of basking outside, or doing yard work, or walking the block, we're inside keeping our germs and cranky selves to ourselves. {and believe me we are cranky!} I hope those of you lucky enough to be experiencing this awesome weather are out there using up our share.

Our very own beach

We went to Mihir's school carnival a few weeks back and the theme was a beach. As part of the decorations the teachers cut out crabs and lobsters and put the kiddos faces on them. When the event was over everyone got to bring their creature home.
Fast forward to this week in my living room. Mihir decided we needed to make a beach for the crab. So we grabbed my 'sand' colored comforter to be the beach, a blue blanket for the water, and I cut out lots of creatures to join the crab including a shark, a jellyfish, and a few baby crabs. Oh and Mihir made a yellow circle which we hung from the ceiling as the sun. Pretty creative little man!

Bean Castle

So I have been making a farm for Mihir. He wanted little felt animals so I said-okay. What was I thinking? I'll post the results of that endeavor later.
Anyhow I filled the little guys with beans, split peas and lentils. Mihirhaf such a fun time sticking his hands through the mix. He decided that it was kind of like playing in sand. The sand comparison led him to thinking about sand castles which led him to make his bean castle.
A piece of white paper, glue spread in the shape of a castle and dumping beans made a great little project. Although if I had to do it again I would have had him work on a cookie sheet. A little too many run away lentils for my taste.

Family art time

Once agin we spent some time doing art together. Mihir played with his gak and tested how well it left marks on the paper. Kieran drew pages and pages of his Ben10 inspired creations. Subu painted a landscape he found in a book. I attempted to paint a picture of myself. Can't tell if our art time is improving our techniques or just providing together non-battling time.

Ooooo oobleck!

So after big bro decided he didn't want to Gak anymore, little man and I made oobleck. It's basically cornstarch, water and a little food coloring. The ratio is 1 1/2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water. But you can adjust to make it more solid if you like-which we did. Anyhow it's cool because it acts like a solid and a liquid and feels really weird. As you can tell by the pictures Mihir loved it! Spent about an hour pouring and crushing, spilling and building. Good times.