Beading Bugs!

Tonight we used beads and pipe cleaners to make an insect diorama.

Oliver enjoyed beading and wanted to do it all by himself

Joaquin worked hard on his bugs

We used the toy box from Ni Hao Kai Lan's tree house, a perfect backround! It's too late tonight, tomorrow we will set up the diorama, hang the bugs, put up thr flowers.

Joaquin's cool spider, love the eyes!

Joaquin's Caterpillar, looks like he stepped out of Pee Wee's Playhouse.

Ollie did the beading, I did the twisting.

Ceramic Butterflies

While Joaquin was gone we made ceramic butterflies with Atlas' friend.

Jackson works with clay for the first time

Atlas loves working in clay

Three butterflies with holes for hanging. From top to bottom, Oliver's, Atlas', Jackson's

Pokemon Trading Cards

Joaquin taught this lesson, on Pokemon. They had fun making large Pokemon trading cards.

Rainbow Cookies

We colored our sugar cookie dough and rolled them into beautiful yummy rainbows!

Colorful cookie dough

Atlas shaping rainbows

Yummy finished cookies

Colorful Creatures

We used some fun stencils to draw an animal, then decorated it with oil pastels (Joaquin and I looked at Mexican Talavera pottery for ideas), then used paint to finish.

 Joaquin traces a gecko

M is for monkey!

Atlas painting his ghost monkey

Oliver uses the spray bottle to watch his paint spread

Oliver's monkey looks tie dyed!

Joaquin's gecko blending in

Atlas' monkey



Colorful Cream

We played with shaving cream for a couple days. On the first day we squirted shaving cream into ziplock bags, added color, had fun squishing arround, then used them to make secret messages.

Squishing the shaving cream

After using action figure card backs (they're sturdy and look cool) to write secret messages on, we taped the bags of shaving cream on top. This is Joaquin's.

When you press on the bag a secret messgae is revealed

On day two we took the shaving cream to the bath tub. I sprayed it into cups, added color, then they mixed them by hand.

They made great finger paints, I think Oliver had the most fun with them.



A Week of Bussiness!

We had a full house this last week... eleven people in our little home! It was fun. My family all returned back to their homes, but I've still got my mother and father inlaw here for another 10 days!

The weather was beautiful, so my brother Hank helped the boys work on their tree house almost every day that he was here.

Atlas sitting in their new tree chair.

Joaquin and Hank with the new door, frame, and rainbow wall they designed and built.

The boys in their new store front

Atlas turned five! My mom bought him really cool 3D side walk chalk. It was so much fun, and worked really well.

Joaquin and Atlas with their 3D glasses

Chalk drawing on everything!

Let me tell you, Crayola colored bubbles do not work good! They are heavy (don't float well), don't get many bubbles per blow, and get color all over everything! But before we dumped them, we decided to try bubble art with them, and they worked great. We poured them in a pie dish with a little water, blew bubbles with a straw, then dipped pictures in.

Joaquin dipping his drawing in bubbles.

Joaquin's starfish

Oliver's

Atlas is really into his letters right now, learning how to read and write. He was so proud to write 'moth' and draw a picture of one!

The morning after company left, the boys drew cards for them.

We miss you pictures

A Tale of Espionage

A tale of espionage, at least it was for the giraffes in Atlas' collage. We used animal print paper to cut out and make collages of animals.

Joaquin made his crocodile on a backround of paper he had watercolored the day before.

Oliver loved doing the cutting and ripping of his paper zebra, he also used the scissors on his shirt.

Atlas' Giraffe with many letter A's. He was having so much fun drawing, he created a whole story as he went arround his picture.

It is the story of two sad giraffes, a mom and dad, because they can't find their baby. Their tears are falling to the ground. Their baby got dropped down a hole by a bad spy. The bad spy's partner is good though, and going to take a rope down to save the baby. But there is a bomb on the other rope, flying around the picture, so the spy has to watch out.

Bubble Prints

We painted bubble wrap with glitter paint (because glitter rocks!), then put paper on top of it to make a print.