Marshmallows and more

Hello friends, I really have not forgotton that I have a blog, I am just chosing to ignore it.  Which is so very sad because we have done some really fun stuff this past little while.  I have been taking pics of all of it, but have yet to take any of them off of my camera.  (I still have the girls adorable ballet recital photos on the camera as well.  Umm that was in May)  I am going to play the pregnancy card on this one ;)  I say that in jest, but really I am ready to be done with this whole pregnancy thing.  My iron level dropped again.  Does anyone know what happens when you are taking an iron loaded pre-natal, plus extra iron, and are then told to take even more????..... It's not great!   I really am doing my best to juggle the kids, summer stuff, life, etc. but sometimes the fatigue just hits and I have to check out for a little while.  Sorrly little blog and cute pictures.

I have for the past several years come up with a summer theme and activity plan for Noah and his friends, and as Lauren has gotten older involved her in it as well.  Oh we have had some fun.  I do think Top Secret Agent summer was my favorite.  Anyway, I had grand plans for this summer but in the end didn't follow through with a theme and weekly activity.

 Instead I have just come up with things that sound like fun at the time and tried to make them happen.  you know when you were a kid and thought to yourself  "What would happen if I built the tallest tower I could think of..."  I think I am still a kid at heart, because that sounded like so much fun to me.  Off to the dollar store, 10 packages of popsicle sticks (1500 total), low-temp hot glue gun, step ladders and an extension cord.  AWESOME.  Not everything has been that involved obviously, but all of it fun and all of it has photos that I will eventually post.  So here are some highlights from the summer of random projects.

A huge roll of butcher paper and my bucket of paints.  The roll of paper went from the garage to the sidewalk.  Brushes, q-tips, toothbrushes, sponges. Whatever the kids thought would make a good paintbrush.

Sand art.  Really, really fun.  Messy and sticky, everything a project should be.

Clay

Rock painting, I have a little rock creature under almost every plant in my flower garden.

The kid car wash sprinkler from Family Fun magazine made out of PVC pipe and fittings.  We did scale it back from their plans.  I had them, design it, plan it out and draw it in 3D and add up the cost, number of parts, etc. before they could build it.  (And truth be told, I was going to let the actual building of it slide.  You know something along the lines of, "we'll get to that," or "maybe next week would be a good week to work on that.")  BUT my neighbor decided to take pity on the boys and she got all the stuff that very same day.  Three days of tinkering and building worth all the headache.  Math in real life and a neighborhood hit all in one project.  Huge success.

I also cannot say enough good things about "The Orb Factory Sticky Mosaics" kits.  Our daddy is out of town again!! This time it's just 5 days, so you know, a short trip this time.  We didn't do a scavanger hunt for this trip, but did the mosaics project on the first day and they have worked on it everyday since.  Really think about this seriously as a B-day or Christmas gift for your kiddos because they will LOVE it.

Then today's project, which is really what prompted me to post in the first place today.  Marshmallow Blowguns made from PVC pipe.  I think I had PVC pipe on the brain after last months PVC sprinkler, and I had the most random flashback/thought to a craft fair ages ago where I saw one of these for sale with a bag of marshmallows.  It was really kind of pricy and I didn't have any idea if it would work, so I left it there.  But I did learn one thing from the PVC sprinkler.  PVC pipe is so cheap!  Really it's inexpensive. Even if the guns didn't work like they said they would, what could it hurt. (The craft fair people had seriously overpriced their product.)  I googled a tutorial and spent $1.68 per gun for the fittings, and under $2 for a 10ft length of pipe (which will make 4-5 guns depending on your measurements)  If I actually owned pipe cutters and didn't have to spend $10 on those, I would have had enough quarters to pay for the stuff today.  (We used our neighbors pipe cutters for the sprinkler, and I thought maybe, as a tool deficient household we should suck it up and make the investment.)  ANYWAY, I had no idea how much fun and just how cool these could be.  Maybe you have made these before or had them when you were a kid, but I had not.  I got at least 25ft out of my marshmallow and I have zero lung capacity right now.  It was a marshmallow free for all and I was just as much a part of it as the kids.   SO MUCH FUN!  A must for all of you, really I am not over-stating the cool factor of this project.  I will make it my mission tomorrow to post the tutorial link and photos while the kids are doing their summer bridge work.  Everyone should try this.  Then let's all meet at the park and have an all out marshmallow battle. 

PS.  39 Days, here is hoping she comes early.  One can only hope.....