With Tuppence for Paper and Strings

Oh, oh, oh!

Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!

Let's go fly a kite and send it soaring 
Up through the atmosphere

Up where the air is clear 
Oh, let's go fly a kite!

I've had the song from Disney's Mary Poppins stuck in my head this whole windy weekend.  Now you can have it in your head, too.
 

No need to thank me, or anything.  It's my pleasure - really, truly.

Wilton Cupcake Decorating Kit - An Easy Afternoon of Fun

Normally, on the day we spot our first ladybug, we mix up a batch of ladybug cookies.  We skipped it this year, or at least delayed it, because the girls were already midway through another baking project.

The dinosaur cupcake kit from Wilton, pictured above, was another of my "moment of madness" grocery store purchases.  I can't remember if I thought I'd use it for a birthday, or if it was just on clearance, and looked like fun, but either way, it's been sitting in the back of our baking cupboard for a few months now.

I was beginning to wonder if we'd ever use it, when G (age "almost" 16) offered to entertain the younger girls (ages 8 and 10), so I could take the time to catch up on some household chores without interruption.   We've had a few work/home/family transitions lately, that have had the younger girls needing more of my attention.

Anyway, the cupcake kit seemed perfect for the girls to do together.  It was simple enough...

...for G to walk the younger girls through without my help...

...especially when paired with a boxed cake mix, and canned frosting...

...but also whimsical, artsy, and...

...cute enough to keep the younger girls engaged.

Wilton makes a number of different cupcake kits (you can find them online, if not in your local grocery store) - monsters, spiders, ladybugs, mustached faces, and more (non-affiliate links).  They are all extremely simple, just cupcake liners, small candy add-ons, and usually some kind of printed paper bit on a plastic stick. There's really not much to them at all, except for...

...an afternoon of baking-crafting-having-fun-together-type potential in a box.

My girls enjoyed them, anyway.

The First Ladybug of the Season

Have you spotted your first ladybug yet, this spring?

I love how the first spotting is always a surprise.  We were out checking out one of the holes made by our neighborhood ground squirrels, in the vacant lot next to our house...

...when a little flash of red caught our eye.

Did you know there are about 5000 species of ladybug worldwide, and more than 400 in the United States alone (per National Geographic Kids)?  Our first ladybug of the season, this year, was a Coccinella septempunctata, or Seven Spotted Ladybug...

...easily identified by its 7 spots, black pronotum (the part that looks like the head) with two large white (eye-like) spots (thanks to a handy dandy identification chart from the Lost Ladybug Project). 

How about you?  What kind of ladybugs have you spotted so far?

Crayola Paint Brush Pens - Review

I've been walking past, pausing, thinking about, and then deciding against buying Crayola's paint brush pens, at our local grocery store, for the last few months.

Finally, in a moment of madness, I tossed a couple of packages into the cart, for the girls to try out.  I paid somewhere around $3.50 for each pack.  They are more on Amazon, so I'd say look for them in a store. 

When the children were toddlers, I loved the Crayola No Mess, ColorWonder products.  They weren't exactly mess free, but they were close (I'm not being reimbursed for these opinions, either - just sharing mom to mom), and the children really enjoyed using them.

These paint brushes, with the paint in the brush, promised to be no spill, and low mess, too. But honestly, they didn't look, to me, like they held much paint.  I envisioned them running dry midway through the first masterpiece.  Still, I figured we'd never know until we tried them.

I'm happy to say, we found the paint pens to be pretty much as promised.  They are low mess.  They don't splatter, even when flicked (I tried), or dropped (which happens). 

Some, but not all of the colors blend - just like paint.  Purple and yellow, for instance, make a lovely, tree trunk brown, and yellow and blue do produce green, but we couldn't quite get an orange from the red and yellow, or a purple from the blue and red.  But, purple is an included color, anyway.

The younger girls enjoyed the pens (that are somewhere between paint brushes and markers) so much, that it wasn't long before they were joined by one of their older sisters, ready to give them a try, too.

All three girls gave the paint pens high praise.  The younger girls painted away throughout the day.  I enjoyed the fact they could come, and go without a lot of set up, or clean-up involved.  And, after several hours of work, and many more paintings than these pictured here...

...we didn't have any of our paint pens go dry.  All in all, a far better performance than we expected.  Not quite painting, but close enough to satisfy my young artists - and clean enough to pull out during spring cleaning, without adding to the mess.

Drinkable Rainstorm in a Cup

I had some trouble naming this springy, sprite punch/experiment.  It was made as a nod to the shaving cream/water/and food coloring - "rainstorm in a cup" experiments, popular this time of year.  But, instead of shaving cream, water and food coloring, we used lemon-lime soda-pop, frozen Cool Whip, and a blue Kool-Aid type drink for a...

...Drinkable Rainstorm!  Except, of course, that most rainstorms are drinkable in some manner, or other, so that name is just silly.  But you get the idea, I'm sure.

To make your own drinkable rainstorm experiment, pour clear soda-pop into a clear glass...

...add a few scoops of frozen Cool Whip, or whipping cream (creating a foamy science experiment, dealing with nucleation and fat coated bubbles, in and of itself)...

...wait for the bubbles to die down a bit...

...then add the blue drink, one drop at a time, to the top of the Cool Whip...

...until it becomes heavy enough (like water in a cloud) to rain down into the cup.

The "rainstorm" passes quickly, leaving behind a blue sky colored drink, topped with a few puffy, white, whip cream clouds...

...just like our spring sky today, only...well, you know...

...drinkable.

Easter Hymn Playlist - With Lyrics

Last year I posted YouTube links to some of our favorite Easter hymns. This year, I combined them into a single playlist. Now you can listen through without having to click for each hymn. Thanks to the individual YouTubers who originally posted all of these.



Happy Easter!

Preparing Children for Visiting a Granparent With Alzheimer's

Our visit to Oregon this year was marked by one major change.  It was the first time we have made a family visit there since the children's grandfather has moved from home with Grandma to a memory care center.

I wasn't sure how far Grandpa's Alzheimer's had progressed since we'd seen him last. It can be difficult to gauge from a distance. But, I knew there would be changes, and I wanted the children, especially my youngest two (ages 8 and 10) to be prepared.

I wanted them to understand as much as possible what was happening, so they could enjoy their time with their grandfather, rather than spending it being afraid, hurt, or confused.

I picked up several simple picture books written specifically for, or about children with grandfathers suffering from Alzheimer's (there are also plenty out there about grandmas with Alzheimer's, too).  

What's Wrong With Grandpa? by Danielle S. Cohen, self illustrated with childlike, crayon drawings, was a nice place to start.  It is a very simple, straightforward story of the love shared, and kept between a little girl and her grandfather as their roles begin to reverse due the disease neither of them fully understands.

Always My Grandpa tells the story of a little boy, first in denial, then angry and embarrassed, and finally accepting of what his grandfather is going through, ready to love and help him as he can.

What's Happening to Grandpa? by Maria Shriver is a well written story about the importance of family, and of how a family can come together to support each other, and hold on to what is important as Alzheimer's tries to tear it away. (Note:  This is the only book out the four listed here, that I was able to read aloud to the children without crying.)

The Memory Box by Mary Bahr like Shriver's story offers a solution of action, as one family, faced with the loss of memory due to Alzheimer's fights back by creating a "memory box", a special box in which to place stories and mementos to be passed down from one generation of a family to the next.  And, as the family in the story works to create their memory box, they also learn to enjoy each other and live together in the moment.

No two grandpas are the same, and Alzheimer's effects individuals differently, but even so, we found little bits of our story in each of the stories we read.  I let the children read and digest the books on their own before our trip.  Then, when returned home, we read them out loud, and talked about them, and our visit, together.

It didn't make things right, but reading about other children, and grandparents working through similar feelings, did seem to make it easier for the girls.  Which in turn, made it a little easier for Grandpa, too.