Experimenting with Glass

I experimented with broken glass pieces (bought at A. C. Moore) on a clear (but swirled) glass plate today. This is what I came up with. The rest of the pics are here.

Is it Halloween yet?

I haven't blogged for a while. There are several new albums out on my Picasa site, but I haven't featured the albums in a blog...sorry. Instead of trying to back up, I'm just moving forward starting tonight.

It's kindof my own fault, I know, but I keep getting the question, "Is it Hallween yet?" especially from Johnny. Nevermind that it's only 9/8, but all the stores have the Halloween stuff out, and I'm proud, sad, happy, guilty and excited to report that it's going up at our house too. When Joey was born, I envisioned putting up the Halloween stuff AFTER his early October b'day so that we could enjoy his b'day as a separate entity. That is such a laugh now! Let's face it, I love Halloween as much as the kids, so why postpone something that can last for, well, 6-8 weeks.

We have been doing Perler Bead Halloween projects and hanging them in the boys' room for over a week now.

Tonight, we got out our fiber optic goblins, a haunted house (think Little People play house), and a bunch of McD Halloween toys. The boys had a lot of fun playing with the toys while I made dinner.

We are also REALLY into reading our Halloween books. I'm glad to give us all renewed interest in sitting down to read (for a long time) together. The house already echos with "The House that Jack Haunted":-)

Frank is coming...........................(those that need to know what that means know;-)

All the pics from tonight are here.

Wearing the Shirts

Here are pics of the boys actually wearing the tie dye shirts that we made. I'd say they were a complete success and fun to boot!

Tie Dye T-Shirts

The boys and I made tie dyed t-shirts Sunday and Monay nights. On Sunday we did the actual dying, and tonight we rinsed, washed, and dried. Joey is having a hard time picking a favorite to wear to school tomorrow, but it's probably going to be the blue and yellow one (mixed to make green).

The rest of the pics and more captions are here for Day 1, here for Day 2, and here for the wash and dry:-)

Brothers...

Around July of 2005, I put together a collage frame of pics of Joey and Johnny posing together spanning Johnny's first year (Johnny was born in July 2004). Then again, in July 2006 I did the same thing for the previous year. These frames are hanging in the stairwell to the pool room (or is that now the playroom;-). I realized the other day, that I never did one from 2006 - 2007 and that it was time to do one for 2007 - 2008 too. Time flies!!! (Please slow down.) So, I've been busy going through albums pulling out the best of the best of them posing together from July 2006 - July 2008. You can view the album here. I have to say that looking at 2 years of them getting big in a few minute slide show of super cute pics is enough to make any mom cry (maybe dad's too), so watch out.

Melting Crayons

I borrowed this idea from Patricia. There are variations here.

Essentially, you round up all your crayon pieces and if they aren't already peeled, you peel them. You decide if you want basic muffin cup shapes or something fancier. Muffins cups can be lined with paper. Put in an ample amount of crayons because they melt to less than what you think. 250 degrees for 15-25 minutes works great.

If you want to do a little more work, melt individual colors on the stove top or microwave (did not try this) and pour them into candy molds or some other mold.

Let the crayons cool off pretty good before peeling.

Let the kids color! They will be fascinated about how the crayons melt, about the colors that mixing makes, about rainbows and tie dye, and about the texture they produce when they use them to color, etc.

All my pics are here.

The Amazing...

We opened up the costume bin yesterday for some super hero action. This is so much fun for them (and me!). I had gotten Johnny The Incredibles costume for his b'day but hadn't given it to him yet. He tried it on early on then many other than put it back on and fell asleep for a long nap in it. He didn't take it off until bedtime. Too cute. I love Joey's tough Superman pose:-)

All the pics from today are here.

Other noteworthy news is Joey losing his 4th tooth in the top middle. Pic is at end of album.