Blogging mojo. (And a kid project)

I have a pocketful of excuses, and none of them seem legit enough.  Sometimes life happens.  In the end, that's what it all boils down to.  Blogging started to feel like another chore in my life, and that wasn't... isn't... what I want this blog to be.  So I started asking myself what I want from this blog.  What were my intentions when I started it?  I didn't want it to be a daily churn out of "look what I made!"  ...and that's kinda what I felt like it had evolved into.  I was sewing like crazy, writing too late, and losing steam.  I was linking my posts all over the interwebs, trying to get traffic and followers... and I ended up actually LOSING two followers.  Now, who knows why they really left.  It could have been lots of things.  But I took it personally, and it was the last straw.

So now I've taken a break, thought a lot, and I want to come back and be funny again.  When I started this blog, it wasn't all sewing projects.  It was cooking, kid things, and rants about life in my mommyhood.  So while I'll still show off things I made, I hope you'll still read my other posts, too!

Thanks for letting me take a break.  Now lets get this party started back up!

I don't think I ever wrote about this activity we did.  

It started off simple enough:  a pile of beads, and a bunch of pipe cleaners.  I was thinking fine motor skills mixed with craft time.  Pretty open ended.

and then, because why not, we added a big pile of feathers:

I'm not sure what I imagine Raina would do with this pile of goodies, but I didn't expect her to build a person and give it feather hair!  I helped with the mouth (chin?), but everything else was all miss Raina!  

Then, from the feathers, a question came up...

"WHY ARE THESE ALL PURPLE, BUT THEY ARE ALL DIFFERENT?"

Aaaah, the question the art student and color lover in me has been waiting for!  I'm so looking forward a whole new chapter of color explorations stemming from this!  Do you think Home Depot will mind if I clear them out of paint samples this weekend??

Playing with clouds

Cloud DOUGH, that is!  I found this pin on Pinterest (where else?)  You use 8 parts flour to 1 part baby oil (So 8 cups of flour, 1 cup of baby oil, or change amount to suit your needs!), mix it up with your hands, and you have this moldable, crumbly, powdery, super-soft play stuff to have fun with!

It feels powdery in your hands, but when you squish it together like you're making a snowbal, it mushes and holds shape!  We made little "sandcastles" using teacups, funnels, and other small kitchen items.  And, as you might've guessed, we added GLITTER!  Why not, right?  I add glitter to anything I can, really.  :)

It is, in fact, quite messy.  That doesn't bother me, but be prepared!  It doesn't stick like regular playdoh would, though, so all it takes is a minute or two with the vacuum and you're all set for your next activity!

We put a lid on ours to save it for later - seems like a shame to throw it out after one use!  This is one project we do only while Miss Lucca naps, though.  She will eat ANYTHING... and I'm pretty sure I don't want her ingesting baby oil!  

I love sensory activities!  Anything you can stick your hands right in and scoop, pour, pile up... that's right up my alley.  

Another reason this particular activity jumped out at me:  Raina has been interested in (among other things!) clouds lately.  It started as wanting to know at any given time if it was going to rain.  Then she thought EVERY cloud meant rain... so we started talking about the different types of clouds, weather, all that good misty stuff.  We got a couple books out of the library, inspected the humidifier mist, even found some old Bill Nye the Science Guy (!) on YouTube.  Now, I'm not sure THIS has anything to do with actual real clouds, but it was a fun tie in, and we talked about clouds a little while we did it - mostly what we thought they might or might not feel like.

I'm pretty sure Raina is going to ace science when she's older!

Butterflies and Raccoons

We grew butterflies!  (Grew?  Raised?)

We got this kit, and followed instructions:  Insect Lore - live bug kits!

It was pretty awesome at first.  I did this when I was younger, and have always loved butterflies, so it seemed like a no brainer to do this with Miss Raina this summer. Go online and order the caterpillars, easy peasy.  They arrived a few days later in the mail, cute and little and fuzzy wuzzy!

In no time at all, though.... they were eating through their brown food stuff, getting rid of waste, and getting big and meaty.  They yucked me out in a way I didn't remember getting yucked out when I was younger!

Raina checked them every day... she was so anxious for the caterpillars to turn from babies to "grownups" and build their "raccoons!"  We did lots of talking about the life cycle of a caterpillar/butterfly.  We read the book that came with the kit, read some things online, and of course read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" a few hundred times :).

A week and a half later, the raccoons came!  Slowly, one by one... the caterpillars built their raccoons on the lid of their little cup-bitat, and when they were all in... we moved them to their new and spacious butterfly screened in condo!

Then more waiting.  And some drama.  (With no pictures.  No pictures of sad butterfly drama)

I woke up one morning to find 2.5 of 5 butterflies out of their cocoons!  Hurrah!  By the end of the day, the count was the same - 2.5.  Ugh.  Next morning... 4.5 butterflies out.  And the half butterfly was flapping his wings furiously and frantically, causing the place to shake, and making a noise that freaked.  me.  out.  A day later, it was clear (to me, at least,  I don;t think Raina ever got it) that we had only 4 butterflies, and one sad cocoon mishap.  I am still pretty traumatized by it, and the sound of the flapping.

After 2 days of admiring our beautiful painted ladies indoors, we decided it was time to set them free!  Outside we went, opened the butterfly condo... nada.  Looks like the butterflies liked their condo... furnished with leaves, flowers, and tiny sugar water drinks.  I cut the whole lid of the condo, and they ventured out one at a time.

Raina's reaction was exactly what I hope for as she watched them fly out into the sunny day.  So amazing, that I couldn't stop watching it for long enough to take a picture.  You understand, right?  Those moments are gone so fast, I had to capture it in my memory instead of through a lens for once!

Will we do it again?  I'm undecided.  Part of me wants to give it another go and watch next years caterpillar larvae miraculously become brilliant orange butterflies.  Part of me can't go through the flapping again.

Use Your Noodle!

My kids seems to be on opposite schedules lately.  Lucca wakes up early, and is going down for a nap just when Raina is waking up for the day.  This leaves us with a 2-3 hour window of times in the morning when it's just me and Raina!  It's awesome... except we can't go anywhere.  Sometimes we fill the time with a movie and snuggles, but most of the time Raina wants to do science or an art project!  On those days, I pick my brain for ideas or head over to one of my Pinterest boards - Art with Raina or Learn at Home.

This morning's project has been living on my pinterest board for a while now:  Noodle Painting!  Yeah, it's as fun as it sounds!

We had no spaghetti, so I used our last bunch of these Japanese noodles

I thought it would be enough for just two colors, but it turned out to be enough for 3 bowls of alternative paintbrushes!

Then I topped them off with ketchup, mustard, and... blueberry sauce?

and mixed them up!  I think it looks purty!

We taped a roll of easel paper to the kitchen floor so we'd have a nice big work area to play on.  Raina helped with the taping.  That little lady loves herself a good roll of masking tape!  

MESSY TIME!

Of course, my vision was not hers :)  I imagined we would use the noodles as paintbrushes... she decided it was better to use a SMOOSH effect!

"Mumma!  This feels gooey!!"

Here are some of the fun marks the noodles made on paper:

And this is what we were left with :)  

3 bowls of  rainbow noodles...

...and one pretty rad painting!