Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Summer Fun Actvities For The Kids!

We have been busy little bees around here lately! Some of the fun things we have been doing have included art and science! One things we did last week was make exploding chalk paint bags!
We needed vinegar, baking soda, cornstarch, food coloring, baggies, and napkins:


We measured out 1/4 cup each of the vinegar and baking soda...


mixed that up, and added food coloring to each bag.


We did one bag for each kid in their favorite color.


Then I made the baking soda packs. I poured a generous amount of baking soda on a piece of napkin....


then folded it up:


When it was their turn, they put their baking soda into the bag, closed it up quickly! (This step is important, if you don't close it quickly enough it will not work, so I suggest having most of the bag closed before putting the baking soda in.)


We shook our bags up and put them on the ground. They immediately filled up and then....


POP!





The boys were done after this part, but Lily picked her baggie up and sprinkled her sidewalk paint all over the driveway. :0)


Another fun project we did was making puffy paint.
We needed flour, baking powder, water, salt, food coloring, and baggies.


We started out by pouring 1 cup of flour into the bowl.


Then we added 3 teaspoons baking powder...


and 1 teaspoon salt.


Lastly, we added about 3/4 cup of water (enough to make it the consistency of pancake batter) and then stirred it up until it was smooth.



We divided it into several bags and added food coloring to each bag.




I cut a tiny hole into the corner of each bag and let the kids create!





When they were done, we stuck them in the microwave for 35 seconds.


The results? Puffy pictures!




And they smelled yummy too!! :0)

Another fun thing we got to do was go to my sister Amy's house to have Science Day! The first project was to have balloon races by attaching a balloon to a straw that  is taped to a string, blowing up the balloon, and letting it go!




The kids thought this was fun!!

Next up was making airplanes out of paper rings and straws! 


They loved trying these out!



Then my camera died, so I don't have any more pictures of the other projects. :0( But they had a lot of fun. Thanks Amy!!

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Our Last Two Days in Branson

On Thursday of our vacation, we headed back to Silver Dollar City!



The boys jumped on Powder Keg first! They loved it!


Zach & I hung out while Lily & Riley rode some rides in The Grand Exposition.


After several more rides, we walked by the magician stage right before he show started, so we sat down to watch. Lily got picked to be the first volunteer!!



The magician gave her his magic wand to hold & she broke it!! ;0)


He told her it was OK, and then asked if she would help with a trick. She of course did, so he opened a book that was full of colorful pictures.


Lily was supposed to turn the pictures black and white. She waved the wand over the book and......


she didn't turn them black and white, she made then disappear!!


So she waved the wand one more time and the pictures came back in black and white! :0)


She had a lot of fun doing that!!

Lily had seen that there was a kids parade and wanted to be in it, so we got to the square and waited for it to start. Lily got picked to be one of the kids who held the banner and lead the parade! She was SO excited!!





She did a great job!

They boys did not want to participate in the parade, so they just played checkers. :0)


We also got our pictures taken in "olden" clothes. It was fun to dress up like this!!




When the park closes, they have a free musical show. We had gone back to the condo to eat dinner and pick up Sheril before the show.
Jeff treated the kids to frozen lemonade and funnel cake. YUM!





The show was really good, but it started to sprinkle, so Jeff checked the radar and saw a big storm, so we decided to leave early. As we were getting up, they announced that the show was stopping because of the storm, so we really didn't miss anything. :0)

On Friday, we got to the park and split up. Lily went to ride rides she likes and the boys went with Jeff to ride roller coasters.







I think between the 5 of us, we rode every ride in that park!
That evening, we went to the docks behind the condo so the kids could fish.




Zach baited Ri's hook for him. I think the look on his face shows you that he was not willing to stick that worm on there himself. LOL!








Riley finally caught a fish!!!


Then he stuck his pole back in the water and immediately caught another one!



He was pretty proud of himself!
That made the other two very determined to catch a fish though!




Zach hadn't caught a fish, but he did see this little guy swimming around and scooped him up!




He did eventually catch a fish too though!


Lily didn't catch a fish this time, but we reminded her that she caught one on the boat on Wednesday. That didn't really make her feel any better, so we let her throw the extra worms on the water (we were leaving the next day). So she threw each worm out one at a time yelling, "Swim wormy! Go find a fish!" Poor worms. ;0)


And even though they wanted to keep it, the kids let the turtle go back into the water too.


(And Riley morbidly predicted that a big fish was going to eat it....thanks Riley...)

We had SO much fun during our week in Branson!! Thanks again Gary & Sheril for letting us come along!