Winged Hotdog Robot in a Brocolli Forest

Needed some inspiration for dinner tonight. When you have a kiddo who has a very small acceptable foods list it gets a little old. Trying to kick up the creativity. Hope they'll get it.

Family art time

So, I don't know about the rest of you but weekends around my house have a similar pattern. The boys (hubby included) wake up too early. The tv goes on. We talk about going somewhere, doing something. We all need showers. It starts to rain. We all need to eat. We find excuses and never make it out of the house. And by Sunday afternoon we've watched WAY too much tv, played about a bazillion computer games and I'm feeling like the slackiest parent ever.
Well last Sunday we all decided to do some art projects. Everyone sat together at the table and each of drew, painted, and colored for almost an hour. I focused on drawing shells because the next art discovery lesson is Georgia O'Keefe and she has some amazing shells drawings. Mihir drew Ben 10 aliens, as did Kieran. Subu surprised us all by not only drawing an amazing building but also turning it into a watercolor. So cool. In fact I was so impressed that I shared his work on my FB page.
We've decided from now on every weekend we are going to dedicate an hour for some family art time. Can't wait to see what masterpieces we create.

Dirt, oh, umm, make that sand cake

So I woke up this morning craving coffee cake. I never make it so I thought it'd be a treat for the boys,well one boy. My big guy is not one for new and exciting flavors.
Anyway when it started cooking they came and looked at it. I decided that they'd be more likely to eat it if it had a silly name. I called it dirt cake. They thought it looked more like sand cake because it was lighter brown.
So when it was done both boys decided to make it look more like dirt. They had different approaches. One used chocolate syrup and drizzled it over the top. The other chose a bit of chocolate frosting. If you notice they also had eggs so breakfast wasn't a complete sugarfest. They thought the cake was just okay but I think they were expecting something much sweeter.
My husband was on the phone with his mom while all this was happening. When he walked into the kitchen he said "I thought I heard you say coffee cake. You made it already? Yummmm!" He and I preceded to eat two pieces apiece! Yum indeed!

Chicken hat #2

Well...attempt #2 is better. Still not what I really want. Think I am going to have to make the comb longer and put the eyes and beak lower. Luckily the little guy likes it. He keeps saying "this is my chicken hat. Mine is white and I am going to make its wings fly!". So at least someone is happy about it.

Do these look like Gargoyles to you?

So I have been doing an art lesson once a week with my kiddos' Kindergarten class. I don't choose the topics or write the lessons. It's a really cool program that someone started in the school district an makes it easy for any parent volunteer to teach art. Very cool.
Anyhow, this month's topic was Gargoyles and Grotesques. Pretty Kindergarten friendly huh? So we talked about sculpture and 2d vs 3d art. That was cool.
Some of the project ideas were to make stain glass windows or a cut paper gargoyle. I decided to use clay and let them craft their own. My clay recipe was found online and used cornstarch, baking soda and water. It was air dry and seemed to be pretty malleable.
I also made a "how to form a Gargoyle face" board with step by step instructions. They were:
1. Roll clay into a ball
2. Pull up the corners to form ears-pointy? round? You decide!
3. Use a tool to make two eyes.
4. Take the center of your ball of clay and pull at it to form a nose. You can stick a tool in it to make nostrils.
5. Take your tool and push it into the clay below your nose to form a mouth. Make it big/small. Add teeth.
6. Now give your gargoyles character. Add horns. Give it a beard. Wrinkle up its face. Have fun.

And as with every time I come into the classroom I realize that my expectation of what the end result will look like is never what they actually produce. They all did a great job. And every gargoyle definitely had it's own character.

Chicken Hat

So my sister and her hubby have a chicken farm. Okay so technically it isn't a farm. More like a hobby that got a little out of control and is on it's way to being a business.
I know, I know what does this have to do with my chicken hat? Well...for christmas this year i made my sons Angry Bird hats. This made my sister think back to a chicken show they went to last fall where people had all sorts of chicken stuff for sale. But no hats! So what if I could crochet a chicken hat for them to sell. I had some extra yarn and am always game for something silly like this.
A few hours later this is my first attempt. Next time I will make the comb a different color. Maybe add some legs? But we may be on to something.

New Year New Blog

So with the new year I decided to dump the old blog and start a new one.  I am hoping to keep up with this one and show more of the fun things I do with the kiddos.  Crafts. Educational stuff.  Just being goofy.  I hope that maybe someone will find my posts and be inspired to share more messy, funny, crafty times with their kids.  They are only little for so long.  Soon my boys will be older, more interested in video games, and friends then in spending time with their silly mom.  
So buckle up kiddos.  It's going to be sloppy.  There will be messes. We might even stain the floor. BUT that's okay.  Stuff can be replaced.  Time with my boys cannot.