Who Wants a Horsey Ride?

 

 These kids love a good horsey ride.  This is our routine every night before bed.  Both kids get their own ride and walk on Daddy's back.  Then it's time for a ride together.  Sometimes it gets a little out of hand, but the memories are worth it.

                                              

Not every night, but some nights the kids like to pretend to be the horsey.

 

And the best part of all???  Jumps! 

 

 

 Even Daddy is ready for bed by the end of this routine!

 

Strawberry Bread

Maya and I spent some time baking together yesterday.  I've been craving sweets lately and came across a recipe for Strawberry Bread that looked delicious.  Maya got to practice cutting and mixing and she loved every minute of it. 

     

  

  

The bread turned out to be pretty delicious.  I don't have a recipe to share because I improvised quite a few ingredients based on what I had in the house.  The kids loved the bread.                         

                                                       

 We had a wedding to go to last night and since we don't get nearly enough pictures of us as a couple, here are some pictures of us all dressed and ready to go out.

And lastly, I have finally updated the monthly pages of Maya and Mitchell on the old blog.  Go ahead and check out Maya Monthly and Mitchell Monthly.

Restoring The Sand Table

These pictures and activities are actually from yesterday, but I didn't get around to writing this last night.  The kids loved playing in the sand when we went to the beach.  They even played in a tiny little pile of sand at our campsite for what seemed like hours.  It made me realize it was time to get our sand table at home cleaned off and ready to use again.  It was covered in dirt, leaves, and bugs.  I enlisted Maya and Mitchell to help clean the table up.  Unfortunately, in the 30 minutes we spent outside at 9 am, I ended up with 10 bug bites! 

 

I had plans for the water table, but we were in need of a break from outside.  So we did some painting... 

 

 

 

 Mitchell enjoyed using his cars in his painting.  He liked cleaning them even more... 

I decided to give outside another chance later in the afternoon.  I read on Pinterest that you could fade construction paper in the sun.  I used magnetic letters on a piece of black paper and set it in the sun all afternoon.  

 

Then I made the kids Cloud Dough and used it to hide their letters in the sand table.  Maya loved hunting for her letters and matching them up.  Mitchell was more interested in driving his cars through it. 

My sweet girl decided to finish up by baking me a pie. 

Rainbow Swamp

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day and the perfect weather to make a rainbow swamp.  Yesterday I discovered the blog Fun At Home With Kids and this fantastic rainbow swamp idea.  I made the frozen cubes in a mini muffin tin yesterday and froze them overnight.  It was simply a mix of cornstarch and water with food coloring.  The whole thing took me about 10 minutes to prepare and I already had all the materials.  This is what it looked like out of the freezer...

 

 I almost trashed the frozen cubes for fear of using to much food coloring.  I rubbed my finger on a blue piece and my finger was immediately stained a bright blue.  I was worried the kids would have crazy colored hands all weekend.  I was so wrong and so glad I went through with it anyway.

I gave each kid a pyrex dish and divvied up the cubes among them.  I also let them include some animals in their swamp.  I wasn't sure how this would keep their attention and if they would even like it.  They loved it!  Maya played for about 45 minutes and Mitchell played over an hour.  It was a huge success and a great way to enjoy this gorgeous day.  The coloring washed right off the animals.  Maya and Mitchell went straight to the shower after this and their hands were good as new in no time.