Summet Fun: Gak!

Today we made GAK! With minimal ingredients and a little elbow grease from the kids, they now have some very fun icky, sticky, putty stuff that they are loving!

Ingredients:

1 4 oz bottle school glue

2 Tbls Borax

Food coloring

Water

Step 1: Pour a 4 oz bottle of regular school glue into 1/2 cup of water.

Step 2: Mix well (slow stirring makes for a bored son, but a clean table!) 

Step 3: Add food coloring (however many drops you want...)

Step 4 & 5: Measure 1 cup water and heat for 1 minute in the microwave.  Then add 2 Tablespoons Borax (stir until dissolved.)

Step 6: Pour Borax and water mixture into glue and water mixture.  (Look...this is almost immediately after combining the two!)

After you stir a little, the two mixtures will thicken. 

Once you have a thick blob in the middle, you'll see water around the edges.

Time to grab it!

Squeeze until it's all mixed well.

If you pull it fast, it breaks!

If you pull it slowly, it stretches!

This is so fun to make and easy too...the kids did a lot of it on their own!

Party Hair!

 Happy Independence Day!  Since it was a special day today, we decided to do something special with the girl's hair.  This took about 45 minutes but I had a good show on to keep her busy.  I originally found this on Pinterest but modified it for my needs...The creator of this hair style found here does a much better job explaining it and I merely put it here on my blog because I can't believe I actually did it! :)

The original Pinterest photo used bobby pins to pin up small chunks of hair.  I feel that bobby pins are unnecessary in a five year old's hair.  So instead I did one large rope braid and then just wrapped it around to make it look like a bun and tied it with a thin rubber band.

Top view with many rope braids.

Bottom view...with, you guessed it, rope braids.

Little Helping Hands

How many of you have young kids who LOVE to help but it usually turns into more work for you when they do?  Today I tried out something I had found on Pinterest, http://pinterest.com/pin/214202525996781224/...not sure how to figure out who thought of it first though! (I'm rather new to Pinterest.)

It feels like I have been working on homework all day and I was trying to figure out how to get lunch on the table for my kids and keep my roll going on the paper I was writing...Here's what I had my four year old do:

Step 1: Cut hot dogs into chunks with a plastic knife.

Step 2: Push spaghetti sticks into hot dog pieces.  I had her stick four halves into each piece.

Step 3: Put them all in the pot

 Step 4: Boil until Al Dente.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 5: Pick the sauce.  Jo wanted spaghetti sauce (which was really quite good).

Step 6: Enjoy! Little brother loved it!

 Jordyn was so proud of herself!  She made our lunch all by herself!  If you're OK with eating processed foods like hot dogs then you really should try it.  I knew the kids would eat it, but wasn't holding high expectations for myself.  It was actually pretty darned good.  Jamie was pretty surprised that Jo cooked for him too.  "But she's not a big human, Mommy!"  Hee hee...

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I had to share my chocolate chip cookies.  Today was a momentous day!  My cookies were made with two of our very own chicken's eggs (both from Sweetie) and the flour that I ground from wheat berries with our hand grinder!  The flour was a little coarser than white flour...I probably should have ground it twice.  But because it was coarse I only had to put in 2 cups instead of 2 1/4 cups and it was a little grainy.  But overall a very exciting day!  (Yes, I hear how silly I sound but it's the little things in life, really...)  Oh yeah, and I also used my new Pampered Chef Stoneware to bake them.  Love it! 

Early Mornings

Phew!  It has been a long time since I've posted anything.  It seems as though I'm only motivated to keep up a blog when I have end of year activities to plan for and masters classes to take...so mostly my title should be "procrastinator" instead of "blogger."  Much has happened and I hope to write about a few of the more exciting things in the next few days but this morning I'd like to just give myself a shout out.  I know, I know, singing your own praises is sooo not flattering but I am excited about something!  My neighbor and I went for a jalk this morning!  (For those of you who aren't fluent in Felicity that is a jog/walk...my husband hates this term BTW.)  We decided to run the canal banks which was perfect and beautiful and peaceful and just what I needed...except for the getting up at 6:00 thing.  Hey, this is supposed to be my summer vacation!  No alarms, please!  So while my family was snoring I was sweating but the post-jalk me has all sorts of energy and is optomistic that this summer might just be the summer I get in shape.  What?  You say the summer is half over? Okay, so maybe this summer will be the summer I start to get in shape.  Oh yeah, I have a picture to prove it!

Now the only thing I need is an arm band for my phone.  In an effort to save money, I use my super cool Vortex phone's Pandora app instead of an iPod.  Do they even make arm bands for phones??

Disappointment & Perspective

I am sad to report that I got my first B this semester!  Do you ever have one of those classes you just can't get the motivation to do?  I understood the class well, did great on the quizes and discussions, and yet...the papers...oi.  The only saving grace is that I actually did very well on the daily work and quizes because I bombed both papers!  I'm just thankful I got a B and not something worse!  It is frustrating though.  Two years of work with a 4.0 GPA all gone.  Tyler thought I was upset for no reason.  He asked, "Will they give you a masters with a B?"  Me: "Yes."  Tyler: "Phew.  I was worried about that."  Thank you, Tyler, for your dry sarcasm to put things into perspective.  It still bugs me though.

Official Bzz Agent: Cover Girl Natureluxe

I am so excited!  I just recieved my first ever Bzz Agent sample.  For those of you who are not Bzz Agents I ask you...WHY?  From what I've learned, it is an agency that supplies customer feedback and responses on various products.  I was picked to be a part of the Cover Girl Natureluxe Silk Foundation and Gloss Balm campaign. 

Let me tell you a little something about me that you might not know.  I absolutely HATE wearing foundation and lipstick.  I remember that ever since high school when I did plays and performances, the worst part of it was always the caking on of the makeup!  Don't get me wrong, I love eye makeup and lip gloss and wear it daily but the face stuff just never worked for me.  And another side note: the last time I actually bought foundation was three years ago (and I'm still using it today...that's how little I wear it). 

So Cover Girl sends a skeptic like me a full size Silk Foundation and a full size Gloss Balm.  I wore them both yesterday and I gotta tell you, I actually liked it!  The foundation had a very mild scent which was nice.  The website says that it's "infused with jojoba and cucumber extract" and I believe it.  Additionally, a little bit of foundation went a long way.  I feel like I had nice coverage but only used a tiny portion.  I also don't have that "caked on" feeling that I always attribute to the wearing of foundation.  The Gloss Balm for all intense and purposes looks like lipstick so I was immediately thinking of who I could give it to...(remember, I don't like lipstick either!)  But, because I had to try it to do a review for my Bzz Agent status, I did.  And I liked it too!  It had a very nice color which complemented my skin tone well.  It also went on very smooth (which is one of the reasons I hate wearing lipstick.)  I gotta tell you, I would never have gone to the store and purchased either one of these products but now that I have them I really love them! 

Now...does this mean that I'm a changed woman that will wear these two products daily?  Probably not.  But, I am far more likely to wear the Natureluxe products (and actually buy them in the future!) then ever before.  Another thing I like about being a Bzz Agent?  They sent me 4 $2 off coupons which I intend to give out today at my daughter's birthday party!  (Not so exciting for my four year old and her friends, but pretty darn cool for us mommies!)