Unplanned

Growing up, my family made the Fourth of July a big deal.  We usually had an all-day-long barbecue with friends and family.  By early evening, we were packing up our blankets and stadium chairs and heading off to find the perfect spot to watch the fireworks.  I love the memories of this fun and very family-oriented holiday.  But somehow, we've never been able to carry that tradition with our family.  Some years we've been able to have a picnic;  other years we've done our own "fireworks."  Every year though, it's not really been planned and sort of thrown together at the last minute.  This year, a few weeks before Independence Day, I mentioned to the Nerd that this time I really wanted to lay down some plans and have a very memorable day.  Life happened, and before we knew it, the holiday was here, and we had no plans.  As usual.

 We decided to barbecue; then we nixed that plan and headed to Wendy's.  Yes, you heard that right.  We were celebrating in style, baby!  I did want to see the fireworks, but we needed to find a place that wouldn't freak out the Beast.  He loves fireworks but hates crowds and can easily get overwhelmed.  After some researching on the interwebs, we decided to ditch Portland's fireworks and head out toward the coast to Tillamook. 

 The Blue Heron French Cheese Company was hosting their own fireworks show.  When we got there, we were surprised to find it not very crowded at all.  Our parking space was just a couple fields away from the launching area.  We set up our stadium chairs right by the van (hello easy access to blankets and juice boxes!) and went off to check out the local entertainment. 

 The kids were thrilled to see a group of farm animals getting ready for bed.  Their favorite were the goats and the peacocks. 

 The face painting was a bit expensive;  so we went to check out the other entertainment and were happily surprised to find out that the bouncy house and the bouncy slide were free.  I patiently guided the very excited kids through the lines to these attractions while the Nerd got to hang out with this cutie. 

As it got darker, the Nerd hustled the kids back to the van to get cozy while I ordered a cappucino. We settled in our chairs while the older kids did sparklers, and then the show began.   I have to say I was pretty impressed with the fireworks - although I would have settled for a mediocre show just to have a happy, not-overly-stimulated kid with us.  The Beast stimmed like crazy and shrieked with joy at every single burst of color and noise.  Little Sprout was unfazed and spent the entire show searching my lap for cookie crumbs. 

It was a happy, happy Fourth.  We got back home incredibly late, but it was worth it.  We finally have a plan for next year! :)

Art Project #2 - Dyed Rice Flag

Project Title: Dyed Rice Flag

Materials Needed: white poster board, crayons (red and blue), ruler, pencil, 4-5 cups rice, food coloring (red and blue), rubbing alcohol, school glue, mini marshmallows

Purpose: To teach students to explore different textures in art.

(I chose to do an American flag with this project since we studied it in history class and also since this art class closely followed the tenth anniversary of September 11th. The technique in this project however would be perfectly suited to any design or shape.)

First, gather your materials. You will also need two bowls and spatulas for the dying of each color of rice.

Then, dye your rice. For the red rice, we put two cups of rice into a large bowl. We added two teaspoons of rubbing alcohol and stirred it until all the rice looked wet. Then we added several drops of red food coloring and stirred until we were happy with the red color we achieved. For the blue rice, we used one cup of rice, one teaspoon of rubbing alcohol, and considerably less food coloring.

Spread each color of rice on a cookie sheet or pan with edges to dry. I put our trays on top of the stove and turned the oven to low to speed the drying process. The color on the rice dried very quickly.

While the rice was drying, I had the Drama Queen color the red stripes and blue field on the poster board flag I had drawn up the night before. The flag I made measured 13 inches by 22 inches. Each stripe was one inch wide, and the blue field measured 7 inches by 9 inches.

Now, it was time to add the rice. I squirted some school glue onto the blue field first and spread it into an even layer with a paint brush. Then we took handfuls of the blue rice and pressed them into the glue, covering as much of the area as possible.

We did the same thing with each red stripe. We found it was important to press the rice in firmly and put more rice on than you would think was necessary.

As the blue and red areas dried, I used another clean paint brush to carefully sweep away any rice that had fallen into the white stripes.

Finally, we added the white rice in between the red stripes. Don't stress if some white or blue rice makes it into the red stripes - you can remove those later with tweezers or just let it be. :)

When the project was completely dry, I tilted it up on one end and let all the loose rice fall off. ( I saved it all in a container for my autistic son to use in his sensory activities.) The Drama Queen helped me arrange the marshmallows on the blue field before I hot glued them in place. Before I could get the camera to take this last picture, however, the Spud managed to swipe a few marshmallows from the flag.

I haven't decided yet how we will display our flag - I probably will spray it with some sort of adhesive to make it more durable and then hang it in an area where a few grains of fallen rice here and there don't really matter.

The Drama Queen's favorite part was dying the rice*; so we plan on dying more colors of rice and making a big sensory box for the kids to dig and play in.

*You can also use this dying technique with any kind of pasta. Just be aware that the pasta takes much longer to dry than the rice does.

Wordless Wednesday - Red, White, and Blue

some sparkler fun on the Fourth!

more wordless fun at 5 Minutes for Mom...

Wordless Wednesday - Memorial Day Sweeties

(haha, the Spud's face in that last photo just cracks me up!)

more wordless fun at 5 Minutes for Mom...

Did You Have as Much Fun as We Did?

Hello all you people on the other side of the computer! This is the Drama Queen, guest-posting for my momma today. In case you are wondering about my mad typing skills as a four-year-old, I am just dictating this, thank you very much. If you were wondering about my excellent grammar, well, I just have a knack for it. Really and absolutely.

So how was your Independence Day celebration? I hope you didn't spend it inside watching Fresh Prince of Bel-air marathon (or whatever was on!) We had a great day! Momma let me wear my red cowgirl boots with my patriotic outfit, which was cool. She unfortunately also insisted on yanking all my hair up on top of my head into a ponytail with a red ribbon. She said she knows it hurts because Grammy did it to her too when she was little. I don't get it!

Momma tried to get a really and absolutely great picture of us on the church steps. She always does this when we are wearing matching outfits. I of course was listening and trying to keep my brothers in check, but you know brothers. Annoying!

See, when I'm by myself in the picture, it turns out great! (except The Spud's head is showing a little. Momma needs to crop him out!)

Momma said she will always treasure this picture because the Beast never sits still long enough! I don't really know what she meant but I laughed anyway. Grown-ups like it when you laugh at their jokes, and then they are much more willing to give you stuff.

After church, we had a barbeque right out in the parking lot. It was a lot of fun, and we stuffed ourselves with hot dogs, chips, cookies, and cupcakes. The Spud shared his food liberally with his clothes and his stroller. Haha! Again, I have no idea what that means, but just laugh, okay?

While we were eating, we got to see a whole bunch of people do different stuff on stage for us. There were people singing and reciting poetry and talking. It was cool. I liked when the big kids got up there and sang. Soon I'll be in school and I'll get to do that stuff too!

Momma and Daddy are not the greatest at planning our fireworks adventure each year. When they FINALLY decided where we were going to see fireworks, it was way too crowded, and there was no parking. I cried, but Daddy promised me we would get to see fireworks somehow. We went back home where Daddy set up a bunch of chairs and got out a big pack of fireworks and sparklers. I was really good at the sparklers - see how I am teaching the Beast how to do it right in the picture?

The Spud was a little scared; so he didn't do any sparklers with us. But he had fun watching us and the fireworks that Daddy set off. And, as it turns out, we were able to see a lot of fireworks in the sky through the trees near our house.

Here is another example of my awesome sparkler skills! It was so fun, and I am glad we had such a great day!

Let me know in the comments about your fun celebration and maybe even a link to your post about it. I love looking at the pictures, and Momma will read them to me.

Oh, and don't forget about Found It! Friday this week! The inspiration is daisies - here's hoping some more of you participate this week. :)