Color Mixing Ice Cubes

Emily and Juliette love playing in the water and they love ice cubes.  Whenever an ice cube drops from the ice maker they run from wherever they are to pick it up and hold it while it melts.  So, I thought it would be fun let them play with some ice cubes outside.  I filled up our large sensory tub (a.k.a. under the bed storage container) with water and added some ice cubes.  To make it even more exciting I froze some ice cubes with food coloring in them and added those too.

Emily, Juliette and their cousin had fun picking up the ice cubes and also pushing them around with popsicle sticks. 

As the ice cubes melted we were able to see the colors begin to blend together.  It was very pretty to look at…

…and then it turned BROWN!

We talked about how when you mix all the colors together you get brown.  This was a great way to experiment with colors and keep cool on a summer afternoon!

Wordless Wednesday ~ A Future Gymnast!?!?!

“Look mom no hands!!!”

Summer Fun List ~ Outdoor Oobleck

We are having so much fun completing the activities on our Summer Fun List.  I was watching my nephew and he read over our list and said he really wanted to do Outdoor Oobleck with us and that is just what we did.

I originally intended on filling a small baby pool with Oobleck, but I was really not sure how much cornstarch I would need to do that, I got five boxes and figured we could see how much that would make.  Once I got the boxes home I realized that we would need a smaller container for the Oobleck than I thought.   I was happy to find this under the bed storage bin in the shed which worked really well.   It probably could have used a few more boxes, but now we know for next time!

I dumped all 5 boxes into the bin and then added about 2 small buckets of water.  The recipe is 2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water.  We also added green food coloring which left all of our hands a lovely tinge of green :0)

Outdoor Oobleck Fun!!!

The kids wore their bathing suits so that they could play in the Oobleck and then rinse it off in the pool.  

I hope to do this again with a few more boxes of cornstarch since we discovered that Oobleck is very relaxing for adults to play with too!

Summer Fun List ~ Water Balloons

We were able to cross water balloons off of our Summer Fun List!!

The kids and grownups had so much fun getting wet and keeping cool on a warm summer day by tossing water balloons around.

   Daddy, Aunt Jennifer and Mommy filled up lots and lots of water balloons, with the help of the kids too.  We were actually able to fill their blue step 2 sink up to the top.

On the run with a full water balloon!

Emily and our neighbor tossed the balloons to each other waiting to see who it would soak.

My favorite picture from the day was Emily’s Cousin trying to break a water balloon over her head :0)

Fireworks In the Park!!

We went to Eisenhower Park to watch our towns largest Fireworks Display this Fourth of July.  I LOVE fireworks and was so excited to be able to see them with Michael and the girls up close this year.  I actually love them so much that Michael and I were engaged on the 4th of July at the Fireworks Show that used to be held at Jones Beach nine years ago!!

Anyway we got to the park early to get a good spot.  It was CROWDED, but we found a nice spot to set up our blankets and have our dinner and wait for the show.

Uncle Jonathan, Aunt Jayme and Brianna joined us, we were both here in different spots and met up once we realized we were both at the park!!

The girls dancing to the Bon Jovi band that was playing before the Fireworks.

  Our Family waiting for it get get dark so we can enjoy the show.

There faces say it all…  …it was AMAZING!!

We had such a great night, I can’t wait to go back again next year!!

Water Play

Emily and Juliette have been enjoying the beautiful warm weather and loved playing outside in their bathing suits with our Step2 Fun Flow Play Sink (thank you Dad for finding this for us) although the faucet does not work anymore the girls loved washing their dishes and filling up the cups, bowls and teapot.

  Emily liked transferring water from one pot to the next.

My parents gave Emily this  Battat Kitchen Playsetset for Christmas a few years ago and we never opened them since the kitchen set we have came with everything already.  I had the same set when I was younger and loved it.  Now we can use these for outside creating and imaginative play.  My favorite part of this set is the working hand mixer that is next to Emily’s hand (yellow and red)  it is fun to watch it mix up the water.  I love that we have a stash of toys that were never opened or played with that I can use as special surprises throughout the year!

Juliette loved playing with the cups in the sink.  She would fill up the cups and then pour them out. 

I am looking forward to all of the creative outdoor play and fun that the girls will have with these toys during the summer!

Sidewalk Chalk Paint

  I have been wanting to try making homemade sidewalk chalk paint for a long time.  I finally got over the fear of it not coming off of the cement and made a batch.  Now all I can say is “why did it take me so long to try this?”  The girls (and myself) absolutely loved painting with this paint.  The colors were so vibrant and they covered the concrete so much easier than regular chalk.

Emily and Juliette each got their own tray of sidewalk chalk paint

Juliette mixed hers together pretty quickly.  I loved that she used two brushes at a time to paint with!

Emily was determined to paint the whole patio using all of once color at a time!

We will definitely be trying this again and just so you know it did leave behind a little bit of color after I hosed the patio down, but after a few days you couldn’t even see it anymore. 

Here is the recipe we used:

Sidewalk Chalk Paint

Mix together equal parts Corn Starch and water then add food coloring to get to the desired shade of each color.

When I made it for each color I used 2 Tbsp of cornstarch and 2 Tbsp water with about 4 drops of food coloring.  The next time we do this I will need to make more, they could have painted for much longer if we didn’t run out of he paint.  I will probably double is for each color.