"Gingerbread Houses" aka A Good Excuse to Eat Candy

The kids begged to do graham cracker gingerbread houses while we were out in California.  My Mom and sister were kind enough to go and get us lots of supplies for the event.  A friend of mine told me about how she uses melted sugar to "glue" her crackers together.  Basically you just melt some sugar with some water and it makes liquid goo.  You have to be fast before it starts to harden and watch out that you don't burn yourself.  I glued the houses together and I thought they weren't going to stay together, but once the sugar hardened they were as sturdy as can be!
Everyone came up with such cute and unique designs.  I love seeing the kids' creative juices flowing.

 Aria did hers all by herself this year and I think she did a fantastic job.

I think Hunter used every kind of candy.

Chase's was probably the heaviest.

Michela's was a beautiful work of art.

Laina and I collaborated on our design.  

Perfect activity for a winter afternoon.

Spring Break Day 2: Volcanoes

Hunter has wanted to build a volcano for as long as I can remember.  We looked up some ideas on the internet and decided to go with building a salt dough volcano and filling it with a baking soda/vinegar mixture.

 The boys built one volcano and the girls built another.

They even decided to paint them.  We left them to dry while we took lunch to Mike at the store and ate with him.  

 We we got home we collected our supplies and went out to the driveway to test our creations.  First we filled the bottles with some warm water, food coloring, a few drops of dishwashing detergent, and baking soda.  Then the kids poured in the vinegar and watched the eruptions.  It was fun to see their excitement when the mixture oozed down the volcanoes.

 After we cleaned up the mess we grabbed the coke bottles and mentos we had picked up earlier.  We wanted to see if this really worked.  You are supposed to drop 7 mentos in at once, but the kids could only get in a few before the coke started spraying up.  We even let he neighbor boys in on the fun.  Now we just need to figure out how to get all of them in at once.  We got a pretty good geyser, but I bet it would be better with more mentos.

While we were cleaning that up one of the neighbor boys came running out of their house with a carton of dyed easter eggs.  They started tossing them around, so we organized an egg toss.

Laina liked peeling the shells off.

Chase and Michela playing catch.

Hunter and his friend Ridge.

Aria and her friend Abrie.

Laina playing soccer with her egg.

The street was a disaster afterwards, but the kids had so much fun.  We did make them clean up after, but luckily rain is in the forecast for later in the week.  Maybe we'll have to make this an annual after Easter tradition.

Party Time!

I never knew how loud a bunch of 11 and 12 year old girls could be! I found out last Friday night when we had 16 of Michela's friends over for her 12th birthday party. Now I know why my brother's were always telling me and my sister to be quiet. :) I'm also glad I told Mike to take the boys and go somewhere else for a few hours, he wouldn't have been able to take it.

It was so much fun having them all here. I loved watching Michela interact with all her friends.

They had so much fun being silly and hanging out together. She had invited friends from the neighborhood and friends from her school. I was worried at first that they would separate into two groups but they all got along so well! They played duck, duck, goose, Mafia, Ghosts in the Graveyard, and I taught them how to play Murder.

They feasted on pizza, fruit, strawberry lemonade, and ice cream cookie sandwiches.

Michela opened tons of presents and got so many cute gifts.

Candy, books, lots of art supplies (Heaven for Michela), and her new favorite t-shirt and sunglasses.

I was calling her J. Lo. all night.

They ended the evening with a showing of "How to Train Your Dragon" downstairs in the theater. They were like sardines all squished on the couches and beanbags, but they loved it.

I loved hearing all the laughter and giggling. I also loved watching the girls being so sweet with Aria and Laina. Isabelle, Heather, and Miranda were usually toting around one of them.

Aria was a bit shy of all the girls at first, but pretty soon she was right in the middle of everything. I came outside while they were playing Ghosts in the Graveyard and saw Isabelle running past with Aria in her arms. So sweet of them to include her.

As the girls were picked up by their parents at the end of the party they each got to pick out a party favor bag. Inside each one was a flower hair clip that Michela and I had made.

They turned out so cute and were super easy to make.

On Sunday I saw a lot of the flowers clipped into the girls' hair at church. It looked like a beautiful spring garden.

Michela even custom made one for herself to match her outfit on Friday.

All the parents kept saying how brave we were for having all those girls over, but it turned out to be such a stress free party and the best time having all those wonderful girls in our home. I'm so glad Michela has such great friends in her life.

Valentine's Day Wreath

Everyone has probably already seen a wreath like this. I saw the idea on the blog Idea Room last year and fell in love with it. The only problem was when I went to buy a heart shaped foam wreath they were all out. I finally found one after Valentine's day, so I shelved the idea for the next year. Well, it is now January and I just got around to taking down Christmas. I saw the wreath sitting on my shelf downstairs and decided to give it a try. I can't tell you how many felt circles I cut out, let's just say my hand was a bit tired by the time I was done. It was well worth it, because I got this as my end result.

Isn't it beautiful?! I love how it looks all ruffly and soft. And according to Michela, "it is AWESOME!" Now I have a new cute decoration to add to my little mantel grouping.

I also still love this plaque I made a few years back.

I hung it by my front door this year. Now that I've got one craft done, I'm itching to make more. We'll see how much time I get in the next few weeks. Somebody might not want to cooperate. In fact, she made it quite a bit difficult for me to even take these pictures.

Ha, Ha, ... she is too funny.

Holy Tower of Gingerbread

You've got to check out what my sister-in-law did.

Now that's a gingerbread house!

Miss Creative

Michela is so creative, sometimes I get blown away with what she comes up with. She is in sixth grade and is going through the NOVA program at school. This is kind of like the whole DARE program I remember when I was a kid. For some reason they are supposed to make a rocket for class. They could make it any way they wanted to with any kind of art medium. Michela chose to sculpt hers out of clay. She was down in the craft room for a long time last weekend working on it. This is what she came up with.

It says NOVA on it in blue and on top is the NOVA mascot, the wolf. I love the colored paper strips on the bottom so it looks like it's blasting off. I love all her attention to detail. She used beads for some decoration as well.

Here are some close ups of the astronauts.

After making the rocket she had some white clay left over. She sculpted these two creations that day also.

I really hope she continues to use her creativity throughout her life. I know being creative brings me so much joy. I love watching her when she gets in her creative zone. The craft room is usually a total disaster during the process, but her creations and the joy on her face make up for it.