11/02/2010

A little creative fresh air

It's been a long time since I did any kind of fun project with the boys. Suddenly these activities must be penciled in months ahead, somehow sandwiched between possible osteogenesis imperfecta and potential whooping cough.

Today we managed to pull it off. Ethan and Drew had the day off and it was a perfect chance to try out something I had bookmarked back in the summer. The walnut boats from this post immediately captured my attention. I had to have them.

Apparently whole walnuts are not readily available. Even at WHOLE foods. Come ON! This past week, I finally struck it rich at Walmart of all places. Apparently they are a seasonal item.













My hoarding tendency served me well with the wax. Plenty of old candles lurk in my basement.

















Ethan was honored to perform the grown up task of playing with fire, dripping hot wax into the shells.

























We decided to get fancy and use pieces of felt, decorated with buttons and glitter for sails. Sadly, we learned a valuable lesson. When it comes to flotation devices, less is more.

One of the felt sails, unencumbered by decorations, worked fine. The others we replaced with paper.

















Ideally, if I had met my target date of the summer months, we could have sailed these somewhere outside and possibly tried racing them. The kitchen sink was not what I had in mind but blue food coloring helped bridge the excitement gap.

Adam and Drew were immensely happy perched on kitchen chairs, getting wet up to their elbows. Heavy winds blew in, epic battles raged, ships sunk, transformed into submarines, sails disintegrated and masts pried loose.

















It's the simple things.

5 comments:

Heidi said...

Cute, L. Your kids have the world's best mom. Any chance you can do a Panera day next week?

gretchen said...

Um, you call that simple things?

Okay, okay, same planet, different worlds. Or at least, same planet, different standards of "simple" fun for our kids : )

Your simple: this post.
My simple: go outside and jump in the leaves.

Hahahahaha!

It's a good thing I like you so much or I might be bitter : ) As it is, I find my reaction, as usual, being: "Amazing!" (But I don't bring the boys in and say, Hey, look what she did with her kids!)

Love you!

Heidi said...

I'm starting to think your friend Gretchen and I would get along very well :)

ljm said...

Ha! It's not a typical activity around here either. We tend to do more of the "go outside and play in the leaves" bit.

You two are both overachievers in your own right, so don't go pretending you aren't:)

Stoneslinger said...

Will you be my Mommy, too?