Fall Pumpkin & General Conference

 My mother in-law Nancy was here visiting so we could go to General Conference.  She brought this fun pumpkin block craft for us to do and I think they turned out really cute. Of course it took me forever to do them because I'm a perfectionist when it comes to this sort of thing. It was really fun though and I really like them! The kids don't think they look like pumpkins, but that's ok, they sure fit the season and look great.

 

Yesterday Kerby and I went with Jared and Mandee, my brother and sister in-law to the Sunday morning session of General Conference. It was wonderful to sit in peace (without distraction from kids) to hear what the prophet and apostles and other leaders of the church had to say. It was so uplifting and I'm so grateful I had the opportunity to go. I couldn't believe how many people showed up in hopes to get tickets to go in and listen. I was wishing I had lots of extra tickets to hand out. We were all ready to hand over out tickets to some people from Chile and India holding up signs saying that's where they were from to watch. I got very emotional and got teary eyed seeing that they traveled such a great distance to be able to experience in person the words of the leaders of the church. Rest assured I'm pretty sure everyone waiting for tickets was able to go inside because there were still a few empty seats left after they started letting them in. What an uplifting session and weekend I had. Thank you so much Kerry and Nancy for watching all our kids and Jared and Mandee for planning it and inviting us.

 I'm so excited about the news for Elder missionaries to leave at age 18 and Sisters at age 19. I was so surprised and know it's going to be a wonderful thing. It did make me realize that Kadin will be 18 in 6 years and 2 months!!! Will he be ready? I know it's only a year difference for him, this just made me think more. Have I taught him enough? I don't think I have done enough on my part to prepare him for a mission. So, I need to be a stronger member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and teach my family more about it.

Jared and Mandee

 We had some really good seats. The seating, parking and everything went very smoothly, I thought we'd have to wait in line forever just to get anywhere, but we really didn't.

Green Pepper Shamrocks

We painted with the paint I made Homemade Washable Paint and tried making shamrocks with green peppers. It didn't turn out as well as I planned, the shamrocks or the paint but hey the kids had fun!

 I just used the tops of the green peppers, maybe it would have worked better to use the middle which would also have been easier for the kids to hold if they had most of the pepper to hold on to.

 Levi's the artist of the family.

 Ok maybe ALL the kids didn't have fun. Kadin was too caught up in the fact that the paint wasn't working as well as he anticipated. He does want to try it outside sometime though.

 

 Skylar enjoying it!

 Fisher had a blast, he didn't care at all that it wasn't the best paint to finger paint with on paper.

So, the big question. Is it really washable? Will it come out of my kids clothes?

Here is Skylar's shirt after she was done. I was really wishing I'd changed her shirt first.

 Here it is washed but not dried because there is some of the stain there. I did spray it with Spray N Wash but it's not completely gone so I didn't dry it yet. I'll spray it and wash it more and hopefully the stain leaves. I'll edit this post later to let you know. Most of it did come out though. Oh and it easily came off of the table and their hands.

Homemade Washable Paint

First of all this is NOT edible but I'm still putting it in the recipe section. Today I made some washable paint, recipe below. It turned out different than I expected. It's still really gel-like so we'll see how it works. It may still be gel-like because I forgot to let it cool before adding the dish soap. I can't imagine it making much of a difference though to where the paint would end up runny instead of gel-like. Maybe I'll make it again tomorrow before using it to see if it does, it was really easy to make.

Here's the paint before the liquid dish soap and food coloring is added.

 This is after I added the liquid dish soap. I only had blue dish soap so I was a little worried that the colors wouldn't work out.

 They worked out just fine!

 Store in airtight containers.

EDIT: Ok so FYI I remade the paint and let it cool completely before adding the food coloring like the recipe says. The result was even MORE gel-like paint. So, I'm editing the recipe and saying to NOT cool completely. Your paint will still be gel-like but not near as much as if you let it cool all the way.

2 Tbsp sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
2 cups cold water
1/4 cup liquid dish soap
Food coloring

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar and cornstarch. Whisk to combine. Gradually pour in the cold water and whisk. Set heat to medium and stir occasionally. Once the mixture begins to bubble, turn heat to low and whisk constantly until mixture is thickened and gel-like. Remove from heat and
stir in dish soap. Let cool. Divide mixture into small airtight containers, one for each color you want to have. Add food coloring into each container and mix well. Use immediately or cover and use later.

Ice Balloon Crystals

The other day I saw this really cute idea here and wanted to try it! So, here is my fun experience. First of all the balloons she used were much bigger and I think that's why her food coloring had time to separate, or maybe that's just because of the type of food coloring she had. I don't know but they didn't separate for me. Maybe I should get some big balloons and try at least one and see what it does. Anyways I think it was really fun and the kids thought it was too, afterward they wanted to eat them and throw them which sounded too dangerous to me!
I do think I'll have them draw in the snow with them next time it snows though. Oh I guess we still have snow in the back yard.

Put 2 or 3 drops of food coloring into the balloon, then fill with water and tie. I'll be honest here, it was messy at times. Especially when the balloon broke when it had red food coloring in it, I should have taken a picture because my walls, sink, hands and counter were all red. One of the kids came in after hearing me give a loud squeak because of it popping and they thought it was blood.

Balloons all filled!

I put them on plastic bags too so they'd be on something a little soft and maybe roll less.

In our back yard on top of the pretty snow.
 

The next morning I stuck them in the freezer because they weren't even attempting to freeze after being out all night. Too warm. :( Also the dark purple one had a leak in it so I tossed it. Didn't want it popping in my freezer.

WAHOO!
They froze! The next morning I checked and they were frozen.

This is so cool to peel them. Sometimes when you'd scrape it half the thing would automatically slide off just by making a tiny hole. A little messy though because the ice is melting quickly in your hands.

Kadin takes a 
turn, he says "it's really weird."

 Levi says, "that's AWESOME!"

 

Fisher asks, "can I eat it?" I said, "no, they're not sweet." He says, "why didn't you pour sugar in them?"

Skylar says, "YAY! Popcicles. Ooh ooh ooh it's too cold." 

I guess I could make popcicles like this but I don't think they'd taste that great, especially at first with the balloon flavor on the outside. Who knows that might even be throughout all of it. All I'd have to do is add Kool-Aid. Still sounds gross!

Here's a little video of me peeling one, kinda fun!

Kind of a fun decoration outside. Too bad it's like Spring around here and too warm.

I  think they're

really neat and pretty!

I think they'd make fun centerpieces for some parties. A bowl full wold be really pretty.

All together.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Melting!

 

The only clear one I did. See how small they are, I think the other lady did a lot bigger balloons which would be fun too. Can you imagine one of those popping if you were filling it in your bathroom or kitchen sink? YIKES!

So pretty!
And now they're sitting back inside my freezer so they don't melt. Hopefully we'll have a few cold days and nights soon. Wow, I never thought I'd wish for that!!!!!!!

Sand Art Bottles

Today we made sand bottles from a kit I got Levi for Christmas. The kit was something I bought at a day after Halloween sale at Walmart for $2.50, it was the last one there and now I'm really wishing there were more. This was so fun and the kids had a blast! I'll have to find some more somewhere.

 

The kids still wearing their Christmas pajamas, I can hardly get them to take them off!

Ginger Bread House

 We usually make a gingerbread house every year and when I found the Pepperidge Farm ginger family cookies I really wanted to make one even more. So, here's our little house we made this year; candy cane fence and all! Once I started putting up the candy cane fence the kids thought I was cRaZy! You know what? About half way through so did I!!!!!!! It all turned out really good though, just took some time. It was really fun to see the different ideas each kid had, even Skylar helped a lot and came up with some of the ideas.
I just got the kit, I've never made ginger bread cookies.

 The top

I just had the thought that we should have put 4 ginger kids instead of 2.

 Dad just made a strange noise with his mouth to get all the kids to laugh.

 Skylar came to me later and showed me her "hot button man" she made.