Playdough continues to rule

Not a week goes by without a new batch of playdough being whipped up.  It's a perennial favourite with my boys.  I like to do a cooked dough, because I think it's less prone to stickiness.  This is a good recipe. (Although, I always add the food colouring to the water, because it seems more work than necessary to mix it in afterwards.)

Here is some photographic evidence of the boys enjoying their dough.

 Because it just screams "make a hat out of me!"

 Or a witch nose...

 Or a pig nose...

 Of course, maniac eyebrows are always in style.

 Charley is an amazing sculptor.  This creation reminded me of the creatures from Where the Wild Things Are.  Love it.

 Still getting used to those teeth!  HUGE!

When Sam get's sick of playdough, he's mastering the art of dot-to-dots.  I had to find a more challenging book for him, because he likes them to be at least 100 dots.  Pretty proud of himself!

Between the playdough and the homemade bread I need a source for good quality,  yet cheap flour.  Does this exist in Canada?

Later.

January round-up

Or, at least, a round-up so far.  Strange January, just like last year.  No snow, weird temperatures... I figure, if it's going to be cold, we might as well have snow to play in!  Right?!

We've been busy, as always.  Chris has been away all week, so it's been the usual scurry here and there.  Life sure is easy with both of them at school though!  I get a lot more done these days, that's for sure.

Here's a few shots of the month so far.

Click "read more" to see all the other January photos.

Mistakes were made

So, sometimes around the holidays, parents can lose their minds temporarily.  This happened to me on Christmas Eve when I, aka Santa, was perusing some 50% off toys at the hardware store.  I see this product, Squishy Baff,  on the shelf.  "Turn your bath water into goo, and back again!" it chanted at me. 

As the mother of two boys who love all things squishy, goo-ey and gross, this seemed like a no-brainer.  Scooped it up, at a discount! and left the store. 

When the kids opened it on Christmas morning it was all I could do to get them to wait until night to use it.

So, basically, there are two packets.  One is the absorptive gel they put in diapers.  (You know how well it works if you've ever seen a diaper swell after a swim.)  The other pack is the dissolver (which happens to be salt).  So, in theory, you add the first pack, the water turns to goo and the kids go wild playing in the muck.  Then you add the salt which magically dissolves the goo and you have happy, slime-free kids.

Each kit has 2 of each pack so that you can enjoy the process more than once.  Hooray!  Let's go!

So, let me state up front that I didn't read the instructions as thoroughly as I might have.  I thought, "it's not that complicated!" and just went for it.

Okay.  Step one:  Fill tub with water.  Easy.

Step two:  Add eager boys.  Super-easy.

Step 3:  Add packet #1.  Again, not difficult.  Look!  It's turning green!

Hmm... something is definitely happening.  It's green-ish and kind of gooey.  Let's give this a few minutes...

Okay.  It's definitely green and slightly gooey, but I'm expecting MORE people!  Where's my goo!?  (Cue the beginning of the 'mistakes-made' period.)

So, I think "Hey!  Maybe there's too much water in the tub.  MAYBE I should add the other package and double up the goo-factor!?"   Can you see where this is going?


I add the second package and, lo and behold!, we have goo.  Lots of goo.  Waaaaay too much goo.  Cue finally reading the instructions, ever-so-slightly too late.  "Goo will take 10 minutes to fully develop".  Riiiiight.  Okay.  I added package #2 after about 4 or 5 minutes.  And now it's really gooey.  And it's going to take 10 MORE MINUTES to fully develop?!  Oh oh. 

Very quickly it looked like this:

And then, this:

And, then finally, this:

Yeah, it was so thick in the end, that they couldn't actually move.  It was like I had encased them in gooey cement.  I don't think they could have stood up under their own power if I'd held free toys and candy in front of them.  I couldn't see their legs! Really, really gross.

But, as you can see, the boys thought it was hilarious.  Charley was trying to 'dive underwater' but I really couldn't see that getting it in one's eye/ears/nose/hair was a good idea.  In fact, not much of this process seemed like a good idea at this point.

So, finally, despite their protests, I added both of the packet #2s (ie: salt).  Thankfully, oh-so-thankfully, it largely worked and the goo-cement was returned to a water state and went down the drain no problem. 

The boys, however, were covered in gel-ly granules and had to be rinsed with the watering can (showerless, claw-foot tub, you see) and then finally removed from the tub.

So, what can I say.  It certainly worked (double power!) and the boys loved it, but I sure wouldn't want to deal with it every night.  Chris walked in at one point, shook his head and left again.  Haha!  He's no fun though!


Here's a hilarious review on Amazon of the same product.  I laughed out loud reading it.

Has anyone else been crazy enough to try it? 

Oh, and did I mention that the next day my mom gave the boys ANOTHER PACK?!?! (Great, insane minds think alike)  I feel a follow-up post coming on! 

That's all from the house of crazy.  Onward!

Holiday wrap-up

Many people's holidays have been over for days, but officially ours ends tomorrow.  Kids are back to school on Monday and Chris re-enters the crazy world of work and travel.  It's been a fantastic 16 day break and I'm sorry to see it end.

2013 now, and I suppose I'm supposed to be making resolutions.  I think I'd rather just keep on with the pledge to organize the house (since it's never been done since we moved in!) and keep things chugging along here.  I don't really understand these amazing working-out-of-the-house moms... I feel like my days are full keeping things organized without working at a job.  Salute to all you heroic women!

Here's a little photo collection from the last 2 + weeks.

Click 'read more' for about a million photos after the jump, if you dare!

Yuletide cheer

It's all systems go on the holiday front here in Po-Ho.  The boys are properly excited about Christmas, without actually caring about presents (yet!).  The weather isn't really cooperating but, there's still time for snow before the 25th.  And, after the awfulness of the events in Connecticut yesterday, we're all just happy to be healthy, happy and together.

Friday was a bonus day for us, as the teacher's were striking in our board.  We went out with signs and treats to show our support.  The kids really liked seeing the teachers "on parade".  haha... Everything is fun for them!

Afterwards we went to our favourite 'cut-your-own' lot and picked out the world's greatest Christmas tree.  I don't want to exhibit excessive tree-pride, or diminish your own personal trees in any way, but it's seriously the best tree ever.  It's about 9 feet tall and bushy and symmetrical and smells amazing.  Just got to keep it alive now!

Here are a few pictures from the last week:

 When you don't have a tree up yet, why not decorate your face??

 Felt Santa face creations.

 Still looking rather green here, but there's time for a white Christmas!

 Of course, the boys wanted the tree that was as wide as it was tall.  No way! 

Look at that tree!  Didn't get this one either, but boy! they have some chubby trees up there!

 See that huge one in the background??  Oh yeah, baby.  That's coming home with me!

 Some quick cuts, and long carry out and TA-DA!  We have a tree!

 Presto!  I wish you could see it in real life.  It's really, really great.  They beauty of an old house is that you can get the biggest tree in the lot and it fits just fine.  Hooray!

Hope you're having fun preparing for your holidays.

Budding artist

Getting Charley to hold a writing utensil of any kind is a challenge.  Getting him to print letters is damn near impossible.  I could give you a full essay about Aspergers and the related fine-motor deficiencies, but just know that this is kind of a standard issue for these kids.  Actually, I just came back from a meeting at school where his team discussed how we can get him to write out words in his daily journal.  He's such a clever little monkey that he's managed to convince them to read him a book every time he writes out a 4 word sentence.  Manipulator alert!

He has, however, discovered drawing recently.  I know it must look like a feeble effort for a 6 year old, but, trust me, this is amazing stuff, relatively speaking!  Plus, the stories he tells about the drawings are always good for a laugh.

 Notice all the vegetables growing in our garden.

 Love the detail.  And the multiple heads.

 The Lorax

Possibly Mom as a horse.  Or a giraffe?

I love kid art.  I'll have to do a post of some of Sam's stuff soon.  It's awesome too!

November ho-hum

I think November must be a very boring month, because I don't have anything to update for you!  It's getting to be cold now, with frost appearing regularly in the mornings.  No snow seen yet, but it can't be far off now.

The boys, with the help of school/peers, seem to have caught Christmas fever already.  I had to make a countdown calendar to show them that there are still many, many days until then.  It seems like a million to them, but of course isn't nearly long enough for me to get everything done.

A few weeks ago, we went out for a hike in Millbrook and did our annual 'scattering of the milkweed' for the benefit of the monarchs.  In the absence of snow, it certainly made the surroundings look quite festive.

That's the (boring) update from here.  Happy November to you!