What We’ve Been Up To– Week 2

The kids came home from Grandma and Grandpa’s on Monday and we’ve had a fun busy week since they came home. The boys were at Bible School in the mornings all week, which was fun for them although I think poor Squeezy was pretty tired of being left behind while her brothers were out gallivanting about. 🙂

So. Here are some of the projects we’ve done this week.

Paper plate aquariums– I only had five plates so Squeezy didn’t get to add the front part of the aquarium. That was okay; she wasn’t really into this project. The kids painted their plates and cut out their fish. For Squeezy I drew a couple fish on paper and had her color them in, then I cut them out and she glued them on.  It was a fun little project for the kids though and kept the boys busy for nearly an hour. My biggest trouble was not getting all helicopter-y and telling them how to do every part. Sometimes ya just gotta let them do it their way. I’m working on that. I occasionally have perfectionist tendencies.

This was Wednesday morning while the boys were gone. Squeezy was getting really squirrelly and making me kind of crazy. I filled a dishpan with about two inches of water and tons of soap bubbles and gave her a washcloth and some of her toy dishes. She played for nearly an hour, no lie. She splashed in the water; she washed her dishes; she used the washcloth to wash her feet and arms and the floor and the chair and the table; she poured water from one dish to another. It was fabulous.

On this night we busted out some smooth rocks I got at the dollar store and painted them. It was a lot of fun. Then we baked some of the rocks and colored on them with crayons; the wax melts and it’s really cool. I meant to take a picture of the finished product but never got around to it. But they’re pretty so I have them sitting in a dish on a shelf in my living room. And we got to mark something off of our summer to-do list, because painting rocks was on there. 🙂

After the rocks were all painted I told the boys they could use up the extra paint for whatever they wanted. Bubs had the idea to do fireworks paintings– using a straw to blow watered-down paint around the paper. I don’t have a picture of it but they turned out really cool. And Stinky painted a rocket. Very fun.

We have been continuing our science study of astronomy into the summer, because we didn’t finish it during the school year. This week we’ve been talking about asteroids, so when I saw this idea to use mashed potatoes to make asteroids, I decided we just had to do it. I made potatoes from a box and added extra flakes so they’d be stiffer. Once they were cooled I let the boys go at them making fun shapes with craters and stuff. Squeezy got in on the action but was more interested in eating her potatoes than in forming asteroids. I baked them and we had them for dinner, and had great fun coming up with names for our asteroids before we ate them. We had asteroids named Yummy, Eat, and Bob, among others.

Last night we had family game night and played Uno. Unfortunately that’s the only picture I got of Bubs. And I got one picture of Art, but he hadn’t combed his hair and did not want to appear on the blog in such an undignified state. That picture of me is me doing the “I Won” dance. My family loves it when I do the “I Won” dance. While we were playing, I got out the boys’ old Memory game and let Squeezy play with it. It kept her busy for about half an hour while we played Uno. She liked stacking the cards in the tray and looking at the pictures.

Today I have to do some cooking and laundry because the kids and I are going out of town on Monday to help my parents’ church with their VBS. I’m not feeling very great so hopefully I’ll get a burst of energy.

Hope you’ve had a great week! 🙂