challenge day 19

For our challenge 18 we made glitter glue for painting- she has been loving these squeeze tubes essentially of sticky glitter but this was made with white glue, water, and a fine powdery glitter so it was best used with a paint brush and came out really soft and sparkly. I mixed up 2 colors as little miss S had a buddy over and they sat at our play table with a butcher roll of paper and went to town.. She didn't seem that thrilled by it but later when we brought it back out at while I was making dinner she got much more into it, so maybe it was the sharing factor or the distraction of having a playmate? Not sure. The real fun of this would be painting objects and we were too tired to go there this time but I was thinking we should try gathering shells or white rocks or something and paint them..

challenge day 18

Our 17th challenge involved a trip to IKEA- always fun and exciting as long as it's not a weekend or holiday or after 5pm-
IKEA is a really easy place to love/hate for a laundry list of reasons but today it was all love as we stocked up on some pretty serious art supplies and other stuff for some great projects going forward (stay tuned, I'm psyched!)including a new easel for a whopping $14- seriously! Add in the paper roll and an additional paper roll holder for our mega playroom, some paints, brushes, etc. We got out of there with a cart full as always but I swear it was all much needed, really. Or not. Anyhow I digress, but we came home and set up our easel- there was NO assembly which was a bonus- and S went to town drawing, painting, then was thrilled to use the whiteboard on back. The only thing we didn't get to was the chalkboard mainly because I want to keep chalk limited to our playroom and the easel is for upstairs and outside. The one bummer was the paints we purchased were not washable, huge irritation and I thanked my lucky stars we had done this portion of the adventure outside or I would have been in real trouble! I chucked them out and called it a $3.00 loss and S didn't even notice.. I will say I was immediately impressed by the different shapes and scale her drawings and paintings took on, she really branched out from her usual. It was very exciting for me as an artist to see versatility in her as we usually have a lot of repetition. Easily one of the most worthwhile ways of spending $20 in a long time!

challenge day 17

Our guests were in town a bit over a week and happened to be here for my sister-in-law's birthday- so what better thing to do as a group activity than bake her a cake? Not just any cake would do, so as we love color we thought to make it a rainbow cake! This is something S and I have done before just for kicks after being introduced by our creative friend E- but it was new to the other kids and to their parents which made it more fun.. Each kid picked a color, as did my sister in law, and they each got a turn stirring the individual bowl of colored cake batter then having a turn pouring it in to the cake pan. So fun and a perfect way to celebrate- plus it is so colorful we even got to skip the sugar rush of icing without any of the kids noticing!

challenge day 16

This was an old classic project for me.. I remember very clearly making Letter Pretzels with my mother many times during my childhood. I was really pleased to do this with S and her cousins during their visit! I let each child take turns pouring different ingrediants in and then they each took a turn rolling out the dough. What I hadn't anticipated was getting flour in every crevas of the kitchen but I guess with three kids hopping in and out of seats I should have.. Next time I will need to think through the setup a bit more but they were all quite happy with the end results and chomped into them after dinner!

challenge day 15

This was an absolute and surprising winner! We had two other kids visiting, ages 4 & 6, so we made 3 colors of no-cook salt playdough.. I let each child pick their color and seperated it out so they could each do their own kneading and stirring. They loved it! The best part was that they continued to play with their own little tub of dough for at least an hour! We broke it out several times over the next few days while we were preparing meals etc and still they loved it. Now that the other kids have gone home S is thrilled to have the three pots all to herself!

challenge day 14

Playing catchup with the reporting on our 30 day challenge... We decided to do a multi-day project and try out some paper mache. We had so many balloons left over from S's birthday we decided to use one as the base. S was really unhappy to ruin a balloon and refused to participate at first so my husband gladly took over the task of dipping and sticking the shredded newspaper. Eventually she became curious and then envious and then quite happily involved.. (familiar chain of events in this house!) Our next step will be a second layer of papering, in which we will use white paper so when we go on to step 3 which will be painting it will be easier to see the colors.. Not sure what the finished product will be, perhaps a kitty face? Or bunny? We shall see.....

Unplug

I have taken a week off, not from my challenge but from writing about it- or more so writing about it on the Internet.. It wasn't originally intentional; we went out of town for memorial day, we have had house guests.. But after a few days of being "unplugged" i started thinking about how so much communication all the time really takes away from my "mindfulness" and in short how distracting it can be. It's not even just the Internet, but email, Facebook, texts.. Its everywhere everyone everything all the time.. So many people text or status update constantantly, like they need to give a play by play of their day from morning to night. Maybe this information being shared makes it more valuable or important? Is it a cure for loneliness or a matter of ego? It seems like what might normally be an inner monologue is now constant public information.
The real problem comes though when people are then expected to know every little thing all the time or they expect you to do the same. It is almost like suddenly all these inane details become so constant and regular privacy is out the window. Boundries are gone, attention is demanded, knowledge becomes expected (you didn't READ I had a meeting today? You had a dinner party last night with so-and-so but not me?) and eventually you feel like you don't want to tune out because you don't want to miss a thing.
There is this level of falsified intimacy created, in this sick form of voyeurism- quantity over quality with just too much information. Why does everyone need to know everything that happens all the time? Where does privacy come into this? Or distance? What is the urgency? What is the vanity about? And more importantly what else could one be doing with the time, energy, thought, and emotion that goes into all of these efforts?
This week my answer to that would be long walks, toes in the sand, cuddles with my kids, baking, creating, and some fantastic conversations. Remember conversations? Good old fashioned phone calls or even better face to face time.. And yes I see the irony in typing this into my iPhone and publishing it to my blog, and I will certainly continue to flood my Facebook friends with too many happy snaps of my kids and eagerly click through my friends photos or my favorite blogs but I promise I will not send you a text about what I'm watching on tv or submit status updates including photos of myself trying on clothes at the mall or what I'm having for dinner (not that I have I swear!).. Really. Everything in moderation. I want to be in the here and now and soak up life and all I can of my loved ones but really- the bigger moments always happen in person not through idle chit chat- so I will be here and now because I don't want to miss a thing.