Blue Sand

K's sand and water table has been a huge hit this year. He told me one day "Mama I wish I had blue sand". Very random. Just one of those things he came out with. I hadn't thought much of it until today. I was thinking of it again and decided why not give it a try. 

First we tried sidewalk chalk. It would work if I had more chalk. With the amount I had (probably a little less than one piece) it just made it look like it had blue specks through it. Being the impatient person that I am, I didn't want to wait until I could get to the store. So we moved on.

We added about 1 tablespoon of rubbing alcohol and between 10-20 drops of food coloring. Kadin tends to get a little squeeze happy with food coloring. You could adjust it for however light or dark you wanted it to be. I had him mash the sand all around until the color distributed.

We put it in the oven at 250° for about 5 minutes.

We did 2 batches and then added it to the (newly cleaned) table.

Kadin and Uncle Nicky playing with the blue sand.

Sometimes All You Need is a Friend

So I will admit, I am totally a mom that loves having extra kids around. In all reality it makes my life much easier. It takes almost no extra work (provided the kid is fairly well behaved of course) and my kid has an automatic playmate which means I can get a couple extra things done. It's a win-win. And it doesn't take much to entertain them either. A few simple things and they get pretty creative with them.

Play-doh kept them busy for quite awhile. Way longer than it does when it's just Kadin. They were busy making up games and making things to give to each other. Very cute!

We took our snacks outside to enjoy some of the last bits of summer. I don't remember what was so funny, but they were laughing hysterically at whatever it was. 

Popping bubbles with sticks.

Kadin you have a boo-boo? I'm a doctor, I'll make it all better for you!

Let's go have your Mommy check it too.

Ok, now drink your juice. (Such a good little mommy this one ;))

And their buddy the squirrel that they chased around the yard for half an hour. 

So needless to say it was a wonderful day spent with 2 pretty awesome kids. We're looking forward to lots more play dates soon. :)

More Camping

Every year at the end of August we go up to my Grandparent's camp. It's a great to spend a lot of time together, because there really isn't anything else to do. There's no electricity, cell phone service, tv etc. Kadin had a really good time. He loves being outside and got to do a lot of it since there was nothing else that I had to get done. He loved being able to run around outside and explore. 

 He also loves my grandparent's new puppy. She can be a bit overwhelming to him since she's gotten bigger, but he loves her. He was always very sad when the puppy had to go in her crate and would still try to play with her.

It was nice for him to get to spend some time with his great grandparents. He really has a lot of fun with them. I think his favorite was was Grammie drawing on the chalkboard and him erasing it. Rather entertaining. 

All the Boys

Four Generations

Me with my brothers and cousin

Santa's Village

One of the reasons I was so excited for this trip was to take Kadin to Santa's Village. I was really happy when I measured him and realized he was tall enough to go on almost all the rides. 

I really thought that he was going to love it. I was wrong. He was really excited when we walked in. He was intrigued by the elves and penguins everywhere. Loved that there was music playing.

And then his mean Mommy made him go on a ride. The Log Flume (my personal favorite). He hated it! I felt horrible, but there was no way to get him off of it.

Poor baby :( He wanted nothing to do with Santa's Village after that. He kept asking to go to "mama's car". I was again the mean mommy and took him to get a drink instead. Then we kept going. We tried a few more rides, but he didn't like any of them. I had avoided the water park, because when we took him to the water park earlier in the summer he hated it. We stumbled upon it accidentally and guess who loved the water park? Yep, my monster. I couldn't believe it and was pleasantly surprised. He could have played there for hours.

He was much happier after this and ran around wanting to try everything. We have free return passes (we went after 3) so I am excited to go back when they have decorated for Halloween or Christmas. I am quite optimistic about our next visit. Hopefully he remembers how much fun he had at the end of the day. 

Camping

We went camping this past week while Jon was on vacation. We started at a campground and then went to my grandparent's camp. It was a great time to get away from everything and just spend time together as a family. It was a little wet at times, especially in a tent, but we all had a blast. At the campground we were right across from the playground, so that was a huge hit with K.

  Thursday was a bit of a trying day. It said it was going to rain and thunderstorm all day so we were trying to find indoor activities. Wanna know what I found out? There are no indoor kid's activities up north. We did some shopping and went out for dinner and got him a few things that he could do in the tent. Luckily it was much nicer for the rest of the trip.

Outside from our tent. So gorgeous!

My boy "hiding". His mentality is "I can't see you, so you can't see me". So cute!

Sitting at the fire

And then hiding from it. 

My apartment is clean!

We're leaving to go camping tomorrow so today was a mass packing/cleaning/laundry day. So I thought I'd take the opportunity to post pictures of K's room while it's clean. For once lol. My little man has way too many toys! I cleaned out 2 large bags of toys today and there are still too many. Although he doesn't seem to mind. ;) It's a lot of fun to watch how creative he can be with his toys though. And he is always playing with different ones and doing different things with them.

One of his favorite is his fort. (Made by Mommy, with help from Great Grampie who cute some of the PVC pipes for us. ;))

What's in here changes quite often. And it frequently changes from Mommy come play to No Girls Allowed when Uncle Nicky's over. Right now it has bean bag chairs in it. The soccer one is filled with stuffed animals. Which is a great way to store stuffed animals if you have way to many like we do. They sell them here, but they one we have I bought just the skin at K-Mart for $20.

His Choo-Choo bed which has helped greatly in getting him to sleep in his own bed (which he does full time now. :D Which I love, but I miss my snuggly baby).

His hanging bookshelf (again very simple to do). Which I love because I can change the books in it often and it's much easier for him to get books out of then our over full bookshelf.

 Playing with his Yo Gabba Gabba guitar. And a few of his many art projects on the wall. :)

And more toys. ;)