Training Dummy

Okay, so the real dummy was mom for buying her sons costumes that involved swords. Especially when she knew that the swords would inevitable be used on each other. But the boys were so excited and the costumes were cheap...how could I say no?

Obviously, I couldn't. And even though I knew it would happen, I still wasn't too happy with their sword fights that always ended with one of them crying. And me yelling. And one or the other seeking revenge.

So my brilliant idea was to build a training dummy for them to hit instead of each other.

Now, I know it's past Halloween, but my kids love wearing their costumes any time of the year. It makes for a good dress up. So if you too were silly and bought costumes that involved a sword, here is a chance to put them to good use. And if you were smarter than I, your child can use a stick or their bare fists or whatever else you've got.

So, to build one of these very cool training dummies, grab a long sleeve shirt and a pair of long pants. (Preferably ones you don't care about) Tie off the legs and arms and neck hole. (I just tied knots in the sleeves and legs, but you could use string if you want.) Now stuff the shirt and pants. Crumbled-up newspaper would work. I used plastic grocery bags because I have a million of those under my sink. I'm too cheap to buy those reusable bags, but I still feel guilty throwing away the plastic bags. I figure if I reuse the plastic ones, then that makes it all okay, right?

Anyway, stuff the shirt and pants. Then tie off the bottom of the shirt and top of the pants. I'd recommend string or yarn, although I used ribbon because that's what I could find. Then tie it to a chair. I used a trick or treat bag for the head, but you could use a paper plate or a stuffed pillowcase, or whatever else you can find.

Now comes the fun part!!!

Beat it up until it falls apart! Yay!!

Michael was a ninja for Halloween, just in case you couldn't tell.

Lucy and Joseph were pirates. Since I know you want to see how cute they were, I've included their pictures as well.

Butterfly Clothes Pins

B is for Butterfly!

My little boy is growing up! Michael started kindergarten last week, and goes all day. Well, until 2. But he starts at 7:55. Does that seem a little early for kindergarten to anyone else? I have to get the poor kid up at 6:30. Which means that my alarm goes off at 5 so that I can eventually roll out of bed at 5:30 so that I can get my scripture study done, get dressed, and do a few (very few) other things before he wakes up. (We have two separate rooms in the hotel so I can thankfully get up without waking up the kids.)

Anyway, the main reason I mention this, besides because I enjoy complaining, is because you will probably notice fewer pictures of Michael now that he is no longer with us during the day. Yesterday it was just me and the Wumbumpagus (poor Joseph. I suppose we'll stop calling him that before he's old enough to be embarrassed by it). Which is good for Joseph. Being the poor middle child he doesn't get enough attention. I'm actually really excited to be able to play just with him while Lucy takes his nap and Michael is at school. I'm hoping it will be really good for him at that he will stop taking out his aggressions on his sister and brother and mother. If that doesn't work, I'm thinking some sport where he's actually suppose to hit or kick o tackle other other people or run around screaming. Football? Wrestling? Karate? Water polo?

Anyway, back to the craft.

You will need:

~clothespin

~tissue paper about the size of a sheet of paper or napkin

~marker

Draw a face on your clothespin. If you want, you can use markers to decorate your tissue paper or napkin. If you do this make sure to put a piece of paper underneath your tissue paper. I seem to remember using food dye perhaps mixed with water when I was younger to kind of tie dye the tissue paper. Unfortunately we don't have any food dye in the hotel room, so I can't try this out. Anybody know how to do this?

Lie your tissue paper flat and pinch it together in the middle. Stick it inside your clothespin.

Now you can play with your butterflies. Joseph and I had fun trying to hit the ceiling with them. When I was little, my sister and I drew swimsuits/bikinis on our butterflies and made them several pairs of wings--one for the swimsuit competition, one for the evening gown competition, etc. Then we had a butterfly beauty contest.

I was surprised at how excited Joseph was to play with his butterfly.

As a side note, we bought some markers to decorate our butterflies. Fortunately for us, the store was out of normal markers so we bought some Pip-Squeaks Mix-'Ems. They were super fun to play with--you can mix two colors together and then either draw so that you see both colors at the same time, or else make it more like a gradient.

I've seen so many different types of markers at the store. What ones have you tried? What ones do you really like?

I'm Back!

After how long has it been? I'm finally back. I know ya'll missed me. Cried buckets at night 'cause I wasn't here

Did anyone notice I was gone?

The last month or so has been kind of crazy. We left Utah, stayed in California with family for a week, and then flew to Hawaii. Where we are going to live for 3 years!! Yay! I'm so excited! So far I love it here! (And here are a few more exclamation points just because!!!!!!!)

Right now we are living in a hotel until September when we move into our cute little house. I must admit that part of the reason why I haven't blogged for a while is because my playing with my children has often consisted of handing them the iphone during dinner so that they'll be quiet, stop salting the table, and stop using the silverware as drumsticks. Thank goodness for all those fun apps.

Other than that...does it count if I watch TV with them?

I suppose I could blog about going to the beach--the warm water, the white sand, the palm trees, the sun, my tan ;).... but I don't want to make anyone too jealous. The beach is definitely our favorite activity as a family. The sad news is that our favorite beach will be covered by twenty foot waves in the winter, so we probably won't be playing there in a few months. We'll have to find another beach (I know, life is so tough).

Anyway, just posting to let you know why I hadn't posted and that I am going to post either tonight or tomorrow depending on when I get the pics from our last exciting craft loaded onto the computer.

So, how has everyone else's summer been?

Pudding Finger Paint

What you'll need: 

Chocolate pudding

Paper

As you'll notice from the pictures, we didn't have chocolate pudding. Well, we did, but I couldn't find it in my highly organized pantry. So we used coconut pudding, which had flakes of coconut in it that turned out looking pretty gross once they were on the paper. Not that my boys cared. But chocolate works a lot better.

Basically, just use the pudding as you would finger paint. Depending on your kids, it can be quite fun. I actually did this project because I don't have as many things for younger kids, and I thought Lucy might enjoy it. But she wanted to eat the pudding and she was a little stressed when I started smearing her treats on a piece of paper. She did make one picture, but then decided she wanted to eat the rest. In fact, you might want to make sure each child (if you do this with more than one) has their own bowl of pudding, since there is a high likelihood that they'll eat the paint as they go and you may not want to share germs.

Popsicles

P is for popsicles!

What you'll need:

Popsicle sticks (you can find these in the kids craft section at Wal Mart or the craft store.)

small paper cups

Juice (100% fruit juice is highly recommended. But watch out for those sneaky juices--like those V8 splash things or Ocean Spray--that look like they're super healthy but then turn out to be mostly not juice.)

optional: stiff paper or cardboard from a box.

Pour the juice in the cups, stick in a stick. You'll probably notice that the sticks are lopsided. If you want to fix this**, you can trace the wide part of the cup onto a piece of stiff paper (while it's empty) and then cut out the resulting circle about 1/4 wider than the line. Fold the circle in half, and make a small snip in the center of the folded line. Put the popsicle stick through that hole. (Cardboard would be harder to work with, but it would also hold the stick better.) Place the circles on top of the cup, adjust the stick as needed, and tape the circles down if you need to. Place the cups in the freezer on a flat spot. If you need to, once the juice has started freezing, you can adjust the popsicle sticks again so that they stay completely in the center.

Once the popsicles are completely frozen, peel away the cup and enjoy! (We eat our popsicles in the tub--less sticky juice running down their clothes.)

**Hallie said "What I do is just use plastic wrap and insert the stick." This sounds like it's ten times easier to do, so I'd recommend trying this method. Thanks Hallie!

Life is messy

So, I just felt like posting about my kids and, umm, what they like to do in their free, unsupervised time. This picture is one from when I left my children by themselves for just a little too long...

And today, I got stung by a bee at the park. Between my toes. I'd forgotten how much they hurt. (Poor me, I know.) I put the kids in the tub while my mom helped me get the stinger out. I just bought a brand new bottle of bubble bath today--the biggest one they had--and Joseph dumped almost the entire bottle into the tub. I drained all the water and still had an inch or two of bubbles at the bottom. So, that was their last bubble bath for a while.

I tried to make Joseph feel the severity of what he had done, but I obviously didn't get the point across. He started calling himself The Bubble Maker.

Contest Winner

Sorry I've been so lame about posting. Rough times being apart from my husband and having to deal with life. But enough complaining from me.

So, the contest ended a while ago, but I'm just now posting the results. Sorry to all those very anxious to see if they had one.

And the winner is...

Ariana!

Please email me your current address and I will send you your very cool prize.