Good Bye Summer!

Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer and Mother Nature is following course. Today is cool and rainy with that whisper of Fall in the air.  We have been cramming as much summer as we can in these last few weeks.
We've hit the beach:

the amusement park (for roller coasters big and small):

gone swimming:

and played in the backyard:

(Eva's lawn furniture sculture)

And done all we can to keep cool:

Today we whipped up a batch of play dough and I dug out some of our fun fall activities from last year.  While Eva's been playing, I'm been coming up with new ideas to share with all of you over the next few weeks.  I hope you are enjoying the last bits of summer!

Paper Plate Watermelon

In our house summer = watermelon.  I have to buy one every week for Eva and Daddy to devour.  Their love of the fruit inspired this craft.  All you need is a white paper plate, red, green and black paint and a Q-tip.  To start Eva painted the inside of the plate red and then the rim green.

When that dried, I bent one end of the Q-tip to make a seed stamp for dabbing in the black paint.

You could then cut it into wedges when it dries but Eva wanted to leave hers whole.

Bubble Wrap Painting

The other day Eva was playing with some bubble wrap (we buy toys why?) and commented that the bubbles looked like little blueberries and this idea was born.  I cut a square of the wrap and Eva painted it with blue paint.

Then she flipped the wrap over and stamped it onto a sheet of paper a few times.

She then decided her blueberries needed a bowl so she painted a circle around them to contain them.

After finishing with the blueberries she informed me that the bubbles also looked like corn kernels so I grabbed the yellow paint and cut out a cob shape from the bubble wrap for stamping.

I suggested painting some husks on but Eva insisted on another bowl so I bowed to the artiste.

I love how spur of the moment crafts can turn out to be the most fun!

Sponge Balls

It seems like everyone is making these this summer so we couldn't be left out of the fun!  They are so easy to make- cut two or more sponges into 4 strips each and then tie tightly in the middle.  I bought 3 four packs of basic sponges and we made 6 balls.  Then we came up with fun things to do with them.  First I placed a hula hoop on the driveway and Eva tried to throw the balls into the hoop.

After doing that for a while, we played catch with them- be sure to soak them first for more fun!  We also threw them up as high as we could to see what kinds of splats they would make.  Eva came up with another fun thing to do them- squeezing them over your head.

Have you made sponge balls yet?  If so, what have you done with them?

So Long Summer!

Hello!  We don't have a theme this week as we are squeezing all we can out of this last week of summer.  It has been hot hot hot here so we have been enjoying the heat by going to the amusement park,

visiting the conservatory,

and hanging out at the beach doing all sorts of fun-in-the-sun beach activities like watching daddy play volleyball,

taking a dip in the lake,

and riding the merry-go-round.

We hope you are enjoying the unofficial last week of summer and that you all have a great Labor Day weekend.  We will be back on Tuesday with a new theme and lots of great activities.

Popsicle Painting

This craft isn't exactly beach related but it is definitely perfect for summer!  I froze some food colored water in our popsicle mold and then let Eva paint with it on paper out in the driveway.

She loved it!  Now if anyone has any tips for getting food coloring off our fingers, I'd love to hear them!

Half Birthday Celebration

Today my sweet little girl is two and a half!  She requested an ice cream party so today has been all about ice cream.  We made ice cream cards- one for my great uncle who just had his hip replaced and one for the friendly man who owns the ice cream parlor down the street from us.  I precut cones from sand paper and scoops of ice cream and cherries from construction paper.  Eva glued everything together.

Then we drizzled white glue on the ice cream and added sprinkles.

One will go out in the mail tomorrow.  The other we took down to the parlor after dinner and Eva had a yummy half-birthday treat.

Good stuff!  We also cooled off during the afternoon in Eva's little pool.  Nothing neats the summer heat like a swim!

Now we are unwinding before bed with an episode of Eva's favorite show- Kipper (along with the balloon she picked out today).  I hope she had a great half-birthday.  I still can't believe my baby is getting so big!

Strawberries (Part 2)

We used the rest of our strawberries to make strawberry freezer jam.  We followed the recipe given at ABC and 123.  It was very easy to make!  All you need is 2 cups of strawberries, 4 cups of sugar (gasp!  I didn't use full cups because that seemed like a ton of sugar), one box of pectin and 3/4 cup of water.  Eva helped cut the tops off the strawberries before we chopped them up in the blender and added the sugar.

She then combined the water and pectin in a saucepan and I brought it to a boil on the stove and let it boil for a minute before adding it to the strawberry mixture.

While the pectin was coming to a boil, Eva performed a quality control test on the strawberries.

After taking the pectin off the stove, we combined it with the strawberry mixture and let it sit for three minutes before ladling it into freezer jars.  The jars have to sit out at room temperature for 24 hours to set and then into the fridge or freezer they go.  Turns out the jars are fun for stacking.

We also made a sweet strawberry craft similar to the one itmom made, seen here.  To begin, I cut out a strawberry shape from red construction paper and Eva used the wrong end of a paintbrush to stamp the seeds on with black paint.

When the paint had dried she then painted the entire strawberry with glue that I had thinned out a little with water.

To make the strawberry smell sweet, we sprinkled strawberry gelatin mix all over it.

We let it dry overnight and finished it off with some leaves and a stem.  Looks, and smells, good enough to eat!

EDITED:  I was looking over this post and realized Eva looks like a wet rat!  I really do bathe her!  Before making our jam we were outside doing this: