Colored Ice Cubes for the Snow!

I love finding new and fun things for Miss A and me to do during the day. 

I saw this activity at Growing a Jeweled Rose. She calls them ice sculptures, I thought colored ice cubes was more fitting for what we did with them. 

For this activity you will need;

a muffin pan

food coloring

water

I filled my muffin tin with water, add the food coloring and put it in the freezer over night. The next morning we headed out to play in the snow with them. 

Ava played with it for about an hour. She liked to burying the ice cubes and then finding them. 

Later when we were finished playing outside I left them to melt in the sink. Ava found them after quiet time and played with them for another hour in the sink. She probably would have done so longer, but the last of it had melted.  

Playing in the snow with the colored ice cubes. 

Splashing in a Puddle

Today has been one of those really good days. I slept horrible last night and was surprised when Ava came into my room, this morning and I wasn't cranky (so was Bryce). We got up watched some cartoons, made breakfast and headed to the gym. When we got back home and there was a puddle in the parking lot so I let Ava play in for a while. So was soaked and loved it.

My favorite of the photos I took.

After that we came in and she got a much needed bath. We had lunch and then made cookies (she had been asking for a few days). We then built a fort, ate a cookie and read Dr. Seuss books.  Her friend and her are currently playing, while I blog and listen to Cold Play. Oh and it's raining and thundering, so the windows are open. I love a good rainstorm.  Days like this make me happy because I feel like they are far and few in between. Maybe I just need to work on enjoying more of the smaller things. 

Giant Airplanes

At the beginning of June my niece and nephew came to stay with us. While they were here, we went swimming, made airplanes, went to the Aerospace Museum, went to parks and just laughed ourselves silly.  

The night we made the Giant paper airplanes, Ava started rolling down the hill and just kept laughing, 

Yup, he is my nerd! He was so proud of this one. I was proud of him also! 

I just love Javier, he is so silly! 

Jelly knows she is a princess. (no doubt about that) 

(Super attractive)

Hey they match! 

Messy play

I have blogged about sensory Baths before. I was trying to teach Ava her colors and decided to try using sensory baths. It worked great. I colored the water put up some shapes with foam and together we went through her toys to find the color of the day. This was the red one. It's not a great picture, but she loved it. Heck I loved it too. 

you can't see it, but there is a rocket bath fizz making the water yellow and blue. Ava thought it was so funny, but would not get in, until it was dissolved. You can get it at lush. A store at City Creek Center. 

 Bryce gets credit for this one. Corn starch and water, classic. 

 We love painting, especially finger painting. 

 This ones we actually started out as marbles painting. you need

1 small box, a shoe box lid works great.

different sized marbles

paint 

and white paper

You put the paper in the box, add drops of paint to the paper, drop the marbles in and shake the box.

After a few minutes of doing this Ava put her hands down and got to work. 

 Wax painting. for this one you will need 

white paper

a muffin tin

cupcake liners

broken crayons.

I took all of Ava's broken crayons and put each color in a tin. I melted them in the oven. Once they were not  burning hot and just warm. We put are fingers in and painted away. This activity was a little frustrating because the wax kept drying up, so I had to remelt it a few times. I think using more crayon per a muffin tin might help with this. It was fun and Ava enjoyed it, 

We were up visiting Bryce's parents and went out to help Julie in the garden. The water was turned on mud was made so we played. It was fun and messy. 

 Later that night, we made a fort using the ping pong ball table. We read stories and giggled. Aunt Haley joined us when she got there. Oh and we are kissing in this picture, 

 I babysit some kids on Wednesdays. I usually try and so some kind of craft. Ava and S really like Lady Bugs, so I went to pinterest and got some ideas and we created them. 

I keep seeing button trees on pinterest and decided it would be a good one for the girls.

you will need 

buttons (I just used some I have had for a while)

white paper and 

glue (we used elmer's glue) 

Ava didn't really care for the activity but little miss S and O loved the activity as did my little sis. 

This was a great activity to talk about colors, textures, shapes and sizes.

I also have lots of buttons and have enjoys putting them in the muffin tins and sorting them and making a mess. Don't have a picture of that though, 

Hold still so I can blog about this. (moon sand)

Once again from the blog http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/ , I used her recipe for moon sand. I have been wanting to make moon sand for a while, but couldn't find a recipe that required very little work. I then came upon this one on Pinterest and was ecstatic to discover who it was by. For this you will need one plastic container, a bag of flour and a bottle of baby oil. The original recipe calls for 8 cups of flour and 1 cup of baby oil, but I wanted to make a lot. I also put toy bats, dinosaurs and necklaces in the sand. We brought out all the play shovels, buckets and Ava's kitchen toys. 

While attempting to get picture's for this idea, I said to have "hold still, so I can get a picture to blog about this". It made the other moms laugh. I probably shouldn't take picture for that reason but I do. 

 I really love the picture of their feet. It was Riven's idea and the girls followed, including me and Emily. 

Emily had made a hopscotch for the kiddos to play on, this is Ava jumping on it. 

 we both needed to bathe after playing with the moon sand. 

Sensory Baths

 I follow this blog http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/ . The author of this Blog does Sensory baths, as soon as I came across the blog I fell in love with it. I just love messy and abstract play, here are some that I have done with Ava.  

 This is her Easter bath. I got 10 plastic eggs and filled them  with chocolate, plastic rings and erasers.

I then cut out some flowers, grass, butterfly's and bugs out of foam and taped them to the bath wall.

I then add a bath color tablet to make blue water and added bubbles. I then added the Easter grass. Ava loved everything but the Easter grass.   

 This bath is Ava's birthday Bath. She played with the balloons and colored in the tub. Ava is scared of deflated balloons that do not have strings on them. So her balloons are tied with ribbon 

Next up paint bath. I mixed food coloring, corn starch and clear baby shampoo. (if you mix food coloring with baby shampoo or bath wash it will not stain). Ava enjoyed painting and eventually dumped all the paint in the tub, which made for a black bath water. I have also seen puff paint with shaving cream,  I do not like the smell of shaving cream so this is an alternative. 

Rub A Dub Dub

For Christmas Ava got bath tub crayons form Aunt Taya. The are pretty much the coolest things. The bottom picture shows some of Ava's mad artisic skills. Jealous? You should be, just be glad your not the one scubbing the tub.. That's what Daddy's for.