DIY: Kool-Aid Dyed Pasta

This is a great way for what many people call "Sensory Learning."  It is suggested that you get a sensory bin (any kind of plastic shallow tray or bin) and then you want to have various colored objects of all shapes and sizes and then you child can learn from these things and play with them.  Personally I think that a lot of these things can double as art supplies if you have some glue on hand, to include this project.  I actually find that I will most likely use this more for doing other artistic and crafty ideas instead.  Already I want to make a pasta necklace :)  *Kiwi-Strawberry does not turn out very pink, looks similar to the orange flavor. 

Supplies: (Per Color)
1 Cup Rice or 1 Cup Pasta
1 packet Kool-Aid
1-2 tsp Rubbing Alcohol
Gallon or large plastic Ziplock bags
Tin Foil
Cookie Sheet

Directions:
First add 1 cup of pasta to each bag.  We decided to use a different kind of pasta for each color.  After the pasta is separated into the bags pour 1 packet of  Kool-Aid on top of the pasta.   Add 1-2 teaspoons of rubbing alcohol to each bag on top of the previous two ingredients.
Seal the bag shut and shake it up.  Let it sit for at least 15 minutes to saturate.  Cover the cookie sheet with tin foil.
Next, pour the wet pasta onto the cookie sheet. and get it as flat as it will go so that you can dry it overnight (or for at least 6-8 hours).  When it is dry, the rice will be all clumped together; separate the rice grains with your hands.
Now you can use it for sensory learning or to make additional arts and crafts projects like I intend to do.  My son was already having fun counting and telling me the colors. 

Get out your supplies

Show your excitement :)

Pour the pasta into the baggies

Get ready to add the Kool-Aid

Pour the Kool-Aid over the pasta, add the rubbing alcohol and tightly seal the baggies

Vigorously shake up each bag

Get that dye to stick to the pasta

Happily wait for the dye to sink in

Lay it out to dry overnight and then play :)

If you would like to see the past DIY activities that we have completed together, check them out here:

Cardboard Owls

Alphabet Train

Make Your Own Rainstorm

Orange Sugar Scrub

Meditation Bottle

DIY: Easter Arts & Crafts for Kids

If you know me, you know that I like to find at least one fun and unique thing to do with my 3 year old son every weekend.  With Easter fast approaching, I have been looking around for some fun ideas for us to do.  A couple of the ideas I have been waiting for months to do for Easter, and some are new and fun!  Feel free to steal any and use yourself.  I would love to see pictures of your end results!

Easter Egg Sun-catchers

Easter Egg Sun-catcher

I just love this activity, it is fun, a bit messy and something that can be hung up int he window!  Liam loves things that we can hang up and that will last for a very long time :)

Supplies:
Confetti
Easter Grass
Contact Paper
Painters Tape (or other heavy duty tape)
Double-Sided Tape (Just in case you need to seal the eggs better)

Directions:
Place the contact paper on the table sticky side up using painter’s tape to keep it on the table. Add the confetti and Easter grass to stick onto the contact paper.  Add it to your heart's content and throw it around all over.  Seal it by adding a second sheet on contact paper on the top.  Cut into an egg shape or several egg shapes.  It is possibly that you may need to extra seal with double-sided tape in case the confetti is too thick.  Hang and enjoy!

 

Magic Balloon Treats

Magic Balloon Treats

I have been wanting to do this one for MONTHS!  I have been waiting for Easter on purpose!

Supplies
Water Balloons
Yarn or String
Crafting Glue
Candy


Directions:
Place candy inside of the balloon.  Blow up the balloon.  Mix equal parts crafting glue & water, wrap around the balloon.  Wait until dry and pop the balloon.

Striped Easter Eggs

Striped Eggs

I love how this look is both very clean and colorful looking.  It doesn't seem to be immensely challenging either, which means that my son will be able to help with it!

Supplies:
Hard Boiled Eggs
Easter Egg Dye (or food coloring)
Electrical Tape

Directions:
Partially wrap eggs with electrical tape.  Dye the eggs.  Allow to dry and remove the tape.  Do it again in an alternating direction with a different color.  Dry and remove the tape, there you have it :)

Shaving Cream Egg Art

Shaving Cream Egg

Last year we tried doing the shaving cream and food coloring method to dye our Easter Eggs and it did NOT turn out the way it was supposed to.  I do think that paper may work better with the colors though, and I do not currently own a squeegee....

Supplies:
A surface to use, tray covered table, etc
Shaving Cream
Cardstock or Construction Paper
Acrylic Paints (Food Coloring gel works best)
Squeegee
Something to stir the paint (Spoon, toothpick, paintbrush)

Directions:
Spray out enough shaving cream so that the surface area is larger than your paper.  Spread it around to make the surface smooth.  Squirt paint or dye onto the shaving cream.  Make shapes, or swirls or zigzags in the color.  Cut the paper into shapes (in this case Easter shapes).  Press the paper down onto the colored shaving cream and let it sit for a few seconds.  Remove the paper and let it sit shaving cream side up for a few minutes to soak in the color.  gently squeegee the shaving cream off of the paper which will leave the color behind.  Allow to dry before hanging or using as a card.


Ombre Dyed Eggs

This looks very pretty and very low mess.

Supplies:
Hard Boiled Eggs
Food Coloring
Cups

Instructions:
Place eggs into cups or containers that will allow them to sit upright.  Add enough warm water to cover about a quarter of the egg.  Add enough food coloring for it the color to show darkly in the water.  Let sit 10 minutes and then add enough water so that the eggs are now half covered.  Let sit for another 10 minutes and cover up to the 3/4 mark.  Sit for another 10 minutes and cover completely.  After 5 minutes of total immersion you can remove to dry.  *Keep in mind that 40 additional minutes in warm water may cook the egg yolk a bit more.

Plastic Egg Snake Toy

Plastic Snake Toy

This is a great way to utilize your leftover plastic eggs and turn them into something fun and awesome :)

Supplies:
Plastic Lacing Cord
Newer Style Plastic Easter Eggs with two holes on the top and bottom
Googly Eyes
Red Paper Tongue

Instructions:
Cut the plastic lacing cord to about 3 feet long.  Know the end.  Threat the cord through on of the top shell openings.  Continue threading the cord through the eggs alternating from the left and right holes as you go.  Knot the end of the lacing cord when you have threaded all the top egg shells.  Decorate the snake head using the bottom of on of the eggs.  Attach googly eyes and a red paper tongue to the snakes face.  Snap it in place onto the last top egg shell.  Bend and slither and play.  

Cardboard Owls: Children's DIY Activity

I have been collecting cardboard rolls for awhile now and with the collection I have been getting, I needed to either use them up or start to get rid of them.  When I cam across this cardboard owls activity, I know that it would be a great way to utilize some of them.  This ended up being a fun and easy activity that Liam thoroughly enjoyed and was fun for me as well.  There was adult supervision required and I did most of the cutting so that we could get wing shapes, but Liam (my 3 year old son) was great and sorting, gluing and attaching things.  I would definitely do this or any similar activity again and now we have cute little owls sitting around the house. 

Supplies:
Cardboard tubes (1 for each owl if toilet paper, 2 owls per paper towel)
Scrap Paper
Pipe Cleaners
Googly Eyes
Colored Poms
Glue Stick (Tacky Glue works even better)
Glitter Glue (for optional hair that my son insisted upon haha)

Directions:
Fold the top of the toilet paper rolls down toward the middle to form the owls ears.
Cut up various scraps of textured and colored paper and  pipe cleaners to use.  Apply glue to the various textured papers and pipe cleaners.  Attach wings, textures, nose pom, googly eyes, and any other decorations you want to use. Beads and buttons would be fun too.

Get your supplies out!

Fold the cardboard tops to make ears

Sort your art supplies for ease of use

Pretend to cut your hand (jk you can skip this step haha)

Attach the googly eyes and a pom nose

After attaching wings and legs on the first owl search for a nose for the second one

Glue on the nose

Check out the owls with awesome glitter hair

Put the eyes on the 3rd owl

Extra concentration helps eyes stick on better

End with glitter glue hair

Revel in their owlity cuteness

If you would like to see the past DIY activities that we have completed together, check them out here:

Alphabet Train

Make Your Own Rainstorm

Orange Sugar Scrub

Meditation Bottle

Zumba Fitness World Party

 Every year I create Amazon wishlists for my parents to give them an idea of what they can buy for Liam and I.  I always suck at finding anything outside of books to really get me, but this year I was perusing the Kinect workout games because as much as I love love love my Zumba Fitness Core, I was starting to wear out all of the workouts and all of the music, and was in desperate need of something to change it up.  I was finding myself going back to old standards like Hip Hop Abs, which as much as I love just doesn't quite give you the cardio that you get from Zumba.  Needless to say when I came across Zumba World Party I HAD to get it!  I was so excited I could barely wait until Christmas to try it out.  The first day it came I was prepared to start my workout and was pumped up and for some reason I couldn't get it to pull up on the XBox.  I was devastated.  I wasted almost 40 minutes trying to get it to work before I gave up and decided in disgruntlement to do a different workout.  It took some fidgeting in the daylight but finally it worked like nothing had been wrong the night before.

Since I finally have started the world party workouts I have to say that it is an increased tempo and much more intense in a good way.  The makers decided to pick shorter songs to give you more of a chance to try out more kinds of dance and target more body parts in a single workout.  I think it was genius.  I did a short 20 minute medium intensity workout tonight and it had me pretty worn out by the end of it.   It is kind of daunting when you are used to only 4 or 5 songs and instead you get 7 or 8, but they are shorter and staggered more with intensity.  I love the fact that dance is used from all over the world.  My only real complaint is that in all of the other Zumba Fitness workouts you had very clear visual clues and in this one they are harder to recognize against the background when you are in mid dance.  Also the screen set up on World is a little different from the previous Zumba workouts so it has just been taking a little bit of getting used to.  The instructors are much more realistic looking and have better hair movement like you would see in a unreal game engine for PC games (oops I may have just geeked some of you out sorry).  Also the Zumba streak indicator gives you the number of Zumba streaks in points reminiscent of how many hits you got in an action or first person shooter console game so it gives it added video game feel.

This is the only Zumba Workout game thus far that does give you the added option to World Travel mode and go through 7 destinations around the world and focus on the dance styles for those locations instead.  This is an amazing added dimension on top of the other great qualities of class picking by length and intensity as well as customizing your own class, doing a song at a time, learning the steps and even the zumba world edition found on all Zumba games that allow you to live connect with a current ongoing Zumba class that is being broadcast. 

Overall I give this workout 5 stars.  Someone on my IG (InstaGram) just recently wrote a testimonial about losing 70 pounds on this workout alone.  I use it predominantly for cardio and because I thoroughly enjoy it which makes me look forward to working out.  The music is the best yet and reaches many different cultures.  I love the diversity and learning dances from around the world!  It will be quite some time before I wear this one out.  I highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys or would like to look into working out at home! 
*This workout is also available for Wii

Here is the official website for Zumba Fitness: Zumba World Party

Here is my review for Zumba Fitness Core: Zumba Fitness Core


My song for today :)

SNOWMAN TIME

Liam keeps wanting to make a snowman...  this has cause to be a problem considering that it is October and we live in Texas.  We maybe get snow about 3 times a year and usually it doesn't stick for long.  Last year we did get a nice snowfall that stuck around for about 2 days (that is a LONG time here).  Liam and Kiri both loved it!  To keep Liam pacified for now we have been watching videos that I took of the snow last year.  I think this was in January sometime when the videos were taken.  It is like watching another child.  Liam is a completely different person than he was a mere 9 months ago.  The way he acts and the way he talks, watching these videos is like watching a baby compared to the boy he has become.  Just wanted to share them with you.  Enjoy!  feel free to share your own great snow videos if you would like.

Zumba Fitness Core Kinect Review

As I am very new to the whole XBox-Kinect thing and also very new to the whole Zumba thing (I know WAAAY behind the times on both). I know I know I am a PC gamer through and through and haven't played on a game console since the original Nintendo and then the original Sega.  Since then it has been strictly PC for me.  I was always interested in the workout games when Wii first came out for playstation and I remember hearing that Kinect had expounded upon Wii when it came out.  Overall it just looked like quite a bit of fun.  I also was always interested in Zumba class, but even after a one year membership at the gym I found that the classes that were offered did not fit into my single mommy, bedtime for Liam schedule and so I was never able to get into it.  Also I felt like Zumba was something that I really wanted to do WITH someone.  I thought it would be a great class to take with a friend.  Alas as with everything else in San Angelo, at the time I found it quit difficult to try to get anyone to do anything outside of going out or drinking so I stuck with myself again.

Back to the topic at hand, when my boyfriend told me that he had a Kinect with his XBOX I was SO excited to try some of the workout "games" that were available.  I immediately started my search for which ones were the best and what I could find used and for cheap and also in my facebook shopping
groups.  Within a few days I was able to find someone selling a couple of Zumba Kinect "games" so I negotiated a fair price and was able to gleefully take them home.  Immediately I tried it out having no idea what I was doing.

Let me just say that I SUCK at using the kinect controls.  I am getting better at it, but I think that the placement of certain things was not the greatest in ease of use.  If you have something in the bottom right corner that you need to get your hand on (using the Kinect sensor) and then hold for a few second, it should NOT be in the bottom right corner next to something else to the right that will swipe the screen to the right, it should have been placed at the very least at the bottom center or just the center as a whole.   That is my main complaint, other than that I am slowly getting more accustomed to the way it works and getting more familiar with it.

 Get pumped up for Zumba Core!

As far as the Zumba Core disc in and of itself, I have to say that I definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in cardo, Core , Dance or Zumba workouts.  It is very fun and definitely effective.  You have many options to customize your workout to yourself.  I have tried the pre-set workouts and they are really great, I have tried going through by a song at a time to get a feel for what was available.  This evening I tried the playlist option where you get to create your own playlist and then workout to it.  I did 5 songs for tonight.  There is everything from bollywood, to hip hop to salsa to warm up types of songs, so that you can change it up or stick to one kind.  The sensors are pretty accurate in being able to distinguish your whole body and if you are doing the entire move correctly.  You get to track your progress and at the end of the workout it shows you how many calories you burned and the accuracy percentage for your technique.  You can track your progress and even have it suggest workouts based on your progress.  Definitely something worth a try that is both fun and effective :).

 For a great preview of what the Zumba actually looks like on the console

*As an added bonus and for the "game" part, as your progress is tracked you get to unlock different added bonuses to the game such as videos from the real life trainers, more songs, etc. 

Pool Fun with Liam

To know Liam is to know that he loves to play outside, especially when water is involved.  Here are some hilarious photos and videos from a day of great fun that I wanted to share.  Every little boy needs to know how to have fun with water...  as well as how to sound like an emergency siren :)  Enjoy!

Liam and Balloons

Liam LOVES balloons!  I think he first discovered this before he was even a year old.  I actually would buy him more balloons, but I don't want him to get hurt by popping them and he always gets so depressed when they last less than a minute before they are popped.

As he is getting older the balloons will last slightly longer.  The other day when we made a trip tot he dollar star for some more stickers for potty rewards.  I came across a mega bag of balloons and bought them.  They have been work 20 times or more than the dollar I paid for them.  We (meaning mommy) blew a bunch of balloons up and had them spread all over the living room floor.  Liam carries balloons all over with him.  He even brought a couple into the bathroom sink and was washing them.  It is always great to have the simple things that overjoy your child the most.  Children teach us early on that it TRULY IS the little things that count!  

I wanted to share some of the hilarious photos and videos of him playing.  Enjoy!

Balloon Party at Liam's!

 

Bubbles & Balloons

 
Balloon Fun!

Getting out the soap

Balloon Washing

Water!