Bath Paint

I love to mix up a batch of bath paint on a rainy day.  It's fun, easy, and the mess washes right down the drain with little to no effort.

The recipe I prefer is:
1/4 cup shampoo or body wash
1/4 cup corn starch
1-2 TBSP water

I mix that together and divide it between the six cups of my craft use only muffin pan.  Then I let Kate add about 3 drops of food coloring to each cup.

 Bath paint is so much fun, and it's an easy way to sneak in some learning.  I wrote letters, numbers, and shapes for Kate to trace over with her paint brush, and she never once thought it was anything other than fun.

When she was done painting, I let her dump all of the paint in the tub and I gave her a cloth to clean the walls.  She loved it.

Earth Day

I wasn't really planning on doing anything for Earth Day this year, but we have a giant container of broken crayons that no one ever touches and I have thought about repurposing some of them for quite a while now.  Reagan, Kate and I found some green and blue crayons, peeled the paper off (there was a lot of grumbling about this task), and added the pieces to our craft muffin pan.  Reagan threw in a few white pieces too.

I put the pan in a 300 degree oven for about 15 minutes (until they were fully melted, but no longer), and then let them cool on the counter.

Kate likes to eat frozen blueberries.  You can see blueberry juice all over her arms, face, and fingernails.

Maybe our earth crayons will get some use!

American Girl Birthday Tradition

Reagan and I enjoyed our third annual trip to American Girl for lunch and shopping in honor of her birthday.

Reagan saved money from Christmas and her birthday to buy Grace (wearing the beret), and she also bought doll skis, and a doll outfit.

American Girl is always a super fun experience.  They definitely have what I call the "Disney factor". As soon as we walked in the door, Reagan and the doll she brought with her (Isabelle) were greeted, and the employees went out of their way to make Reagan feel welcome and extra special.  In the cafe, Reagan and her dolls received lots of extra attention, and everything was just right.  We always have a lot of fun, and I'm happy that she still enjoys this so much.  American Girl is certainly not inexpensive, but the experience is memorable and enjoyable.

Reagan's 9th Birthday Party

Reagan celebrated her ninth birthday with a sleepover party.  Five girls arrived around 6:00 PM - Miranda, Madison, Addie, Allison, and Karlie.

The theme was American Girl, and each girl brought one or more dolls for the sleepover.

They ate Papa Gino's pizza for dinner and Reagan chose brownie sundaes (instead of cake) for dessert.

The party favor for each girl was a doll sized sleeping bag that I ordered from Etsy.  I had them in a basket with a few activities I had picked out for the girls to enjoy.

The funniest activity was definitely Bean Boozled.  Each colored jelly bean comes in two flavors, one good and one gross, but you don't know whether you are getting good or gross until you bite into it. Some of the gross flavors include barf, skunk spray, stinky socks, canned dog food, and moldy cheese.  I didn't play!!!  I was laughing so hard just watching these girls playing.

They also had fun with the Slumber Party Box of Questions.

Later in the evening, they decorated cookies.

This must have been when I got tired because I didn't take anymore pictures!  The girls did A LOT of dancing and they stayed up talking most of the night.  Reagan was very happy to have all of them there to celebrate with her, and declared it a great birthday celebration.

STEM Expo

Collin and I recently attended the Wellesley STEM Expo.  It was a great day for the two of us.  We don't get to spend much one on one time together these days and he is very interested in all things STEM, so it was a perfect outing.  I didn't know what to expect from the event, and I was slightly nervous it would just be a glorified science fair with nothing of interest for Collin, but the event surpassed my expectations and there was a lot of fun to be had.

Here he is at the Museum of Science table trying to construct an object that would hover perfectly inside the tube (maybe a pneumatic tube, I'm not certain):

 After some trial and error, he succeeded.

 The instructor is showing him the light path of his object in the tube on the computer screen.

The infrared camera at another table was pretty cool.  Collin put his hand on his coat and then moved his hand away.  The handprint remained visible for some time after with the infrared technology.

Collin liked writing with light on glow in the dark paper.

 He used prisms to move lasers.

Here he is directing lasers with mirrors:

 There was a candy math activity that was super easy for Collin, but he was happy to eat the candy!

I was very happy with the Camp Invention table!  Collin and Reagan are both registered for a week of Camp Invention this summer, and it is a new program for us, so it was nice to see a little of what they offer.  At this table, Collin had to choose objects to place within a plastic egg that would result in the egg floating.

He accomplished the task.  The instructor was incredibly impressed with Collin because after he succeeded, he opened the egg and counted out each piece so that he would know exactly what worked.  She said he was the first student she has ever seen do that (usually they are happy to have succeeded and they go on their way), and she called him a "great scientist".

Kaleidoscope fun!

He built a bridge that could hold twenty-one books.  I'm sure it could have held more, but the idea was to learn about the fact that the Brooklyn Bridge was tested with twenty-one elephants after it was built.

Collin was very interested in the 3D printer.  It was making toys like those in the picture.

The MA state police had bomb detecting robots for the kids to try.  Here is Collin learning how to control the robot:

We had a lot of fun together that day, and we are both hoping to make it back to the expo next year.