Faux Stained Glass

My favorite art project (#16 on our summer fun list), was making faux stained glass. When I worked at a daycare (way, way back in high school & college) we did these with the summer school-age kids. They loved them, so I decided to try them with my own kids.
All you need is Gallery Glass window color. They come in lots of different colors & you can get them at Michael's.

You also need liquid leading. You can find it next to the window color.

Since I am not an artist, I let the kids find coloring pages on the Internet & I printed them off. If you are good at drawing, you can draw your own pictures with the liquid leading. You need to use something slick to draw the pictures on. I like to use gallon size ziplock bags (since they are cheap). All you have to do is outline your picture, making sure that you don't have any open sides, because you will fill in the spaces with the window color when the leading is dry.

These are the kids' outlines.

I did the outlines for them, but maybe someday I won't be so anal & let them do it themselves.....maybe... ;0)

After the black was all dry, they filled in the color by themselves. (Lily did get a little help from me.)

Each section can be a different color. It is pretty easy & doesn't use up that much of the bottle.

(I realized when I posted these pictures that they are all using purple in each picture. I thought that was funny.)

This is what they look like when they were done filling them in:

Here is what they look like after they start to dry:

When they are completely dry, you can peal them off of the ziplock bag:

Then you can stick them up on a window!

You can peal them off & put them back up again!

A small note of precaution though. When I used to do this at the daycare, we left one up for a really, really long time & it was really, really hard to get off. So, if you don't want them up permanently, you may only leave them up for awhile. (not a several months...)

This was a really fun project & the kids like looking at their "stained glass".

Build-A-Bear

Apparently our children are deprived. They've never been to Build-A-Bear. Poor things...... ;0) My sister Kathleen decided that Lily needed to go there, so she got her a gift card for her Birthday. Jeff & I took her there last night (without the boys...she was so excited to have a "Mommy/Daddy date"). She had what she wanted all planned out in her head before we even left the house! I just hoped they actually had what she wanted.
First, she picked out a lamb. I'm glad they had one of those. So far so good.

Then she got to go over to stuff her lamb.

She also go to pick out a heart:

And put it inside:

Then she gave it a "bath".

Then the moment she had been waiting for; picking out her outfit!!! She of course picked out the shoes first. (I know, that is so shocking...)

Lily picked out cute pink ballet slippers for all four feet of her lamb. She knew she wanted a tutu of some kind, but there were SO many to choose from!!

She finally settled on this cute one:

It was hard since they had so many cute outfits. This was just one wall:

Jeff wanted her to pick one of these. ;0)

But she decided she did not want her lamb to be a chiefs football player... I don't know why...

While Baby Lamb (that's the lamb's name, even though she already has a baby lamb that she has had since she was born, and sleeps with, and drags around the house.....) was getting dressed, Lily remembered that she wanted a princess crown for her lamb.

I knew that this outfit was starting to add up quickly, but Lily knows how to handle her Daddy. (Even though he won't admit it.) So, he found a pink tiara for Baby Lamb, since that's what Lily had envisioned before we got to the store. Such a good Daddy. :0)

So this is what the new Baby Lamb looked like when she was done:

After she was dressed, Lily got to make her birth certificate.

Lily was so excited to show her to Zach & Riley. She played and played with her when we got home and then slept with her. She also "introduced" her to "old" Baby Lamb and said that they liked being friends. Too cute!

She sure does love this new lamb!! She also wants to go back and do it again. I am sure this won't be the last time. =)

Thanks Aunt Kathleen for our new Baby Lamb!!!

#22: Family Game Night

It should be easier to have a family game night...but it doesn't seem that way at our house. The kids play games during the day, or the boys play games by themselves at night, but it doesn't seem like we have a night where the entire family plays a game together very often. I think that's why the kids (mainly Zach) wanted to add it to the summer fun list. We decided to play Monopoly. The real Monopoly, not the junior version. Zach said he was old enough. (The box says 8 and up mom!) Riley decided he was old enough too. (If Zach gets to do it, so can I!) Then Lily wanted to "help" daddy. So, that's how we had our family game night, kind of impromptu. =)

Lily didn't last too long though. She rolled the dice for Jeff a few times, but then decided to go play something else.

The boys had SO much fun though!!

By the end of the game, this is what the board looked like for Zach:

He had a ton of money & owned a lot of property. He takes his Monopoly game serious.

He ended up winning the game:

He was VERY excited he beat Jeff & I.

Riley came in second. This is his second place winner face:

We did help the boys out (Riley more than Zach), but not to the point that we helped them win. They did that all on their own. They can't wait until we play again. =)

Scavenger Hunt!

# 13 on our Summer Fun List was: Have a scavenger hunt. So, on Monday, we invited a bunch of cousins over to my parents' house to have a scavenger hunt. We had two lists. One for the youngest kids:



and one for the older kids:

Everyone got a bag to collect their items:

Everyone also got a treat bag when they finished, but the winner from each age group (the one who found everything first) also won a kite!

We told everyone the directions and then they were off!

The two winners were Johnny & Cooper! Good job boys!

I think everyone had fun!

The one thing I would change if we do it again next year, is that I would have 3 different age groups. The older kids list was a little long for those who are just starting to read, but otherwise I think it turned out pretty good.

Thanks everyone who came over to play!!

Water Balloons & a Picnic

Last week, we crossed numbers 6 & 15 off of our Summer Fun List.
They were: have a picnic & have a water balloon fight.
Water balloon fights aren't too much fun with just 3 kids, so we invited some cousins to come along with us to a park to have some fun.
Jeff & I filled about 200 balloons the night before:

It took us about an hour & half to do it....and it took them about 6 minutes to use them all up the next day....at least they had fun in those 6 minutes. ;0)
When we got to the park, we spread towels out around a big grassy area. Then we put balloons on each towel:

All of the kids lined up to get ready to run to a towel.

Do you like their "ready, set, go" stances? :0)

We let the littlest kids run first:

Then the big kids got to go!

They had a lot of fun running from towel to towel getting balloons and throwing them at each other.

I think the picture above is where Ares threw a balloon at Camden, then realized Camden had one too, so he started running away screaming. It was really funny!

After the balloon fight, they got to play at the park. Then we all had a picnic!

The weather was perfect! It wasn't super hot, and there were some nice clouds to keep us cool. Thanks everyone for coming to help us cross off more things from our list. It's always fun to be able to share these fun things with others. =)