I decided to kill the grass again because giant volcanoes are fun.
The great idea of the day was to use baking soda and a tiny amount of water to make a moldable dough. The kids played with it for a while, and they we formed a volcano with it and added an entire contained of vinegar and killed off all the dinosaurs. And the grass underneath since plants don’t like concentrated vinegar. (It does grow back.)
This is Mr. C’s demolition of his breakfast.
Our brother-in-law gave us these blocks when they moved. PB loves them. One of many towers, this is a window tower according to the architect.
This kids are out in the sandbox all the time. I have sand all over my house, but I don’t mind too much.
After PB rejecting my plans for the day, I suggested we go to the splash pad up north of us in Tremonton. He readily agreed. I packed a lunch, and we drove up there. First they wanted to play in the sandbox, with a few diggers they had in there. After that they explored the playground. We ate lunch, and then I suggested we get in our swimsuits and play in the splash pad. They proceeded to watch everyone else play and occasionally bravely touch the water. Neither of them is a big fan of water, especially splashing water. When we were done, they weren’t wet. Wasted effort on my part to get their swimsuits on. They still had a good time, even if it wasn’t quite what I expected.
Right now, one of our favorite family activities is biking. It’s just easier than many other activities: the kids are taken care of with our big bike set-up. No complaining. PB is too old and big (or should be) to ride in the stroller or be carried while walking or hiking and he tends to be tired/bored/complain a lot. He likes the bike, and even decided to pedal sometimes. Joe takes the big bike, and he’s nice and strong for it. I’m a bit of a whimp, and find very slight hills tortuous.
A couple weeks ago we biked around Mantua Reservoir. I’ve passed by the lake a lot when I lived in Logan, but never stopped and did anything there. It’s very quite–even on Memorial day weekend it wasn’t crowded. There are beautiful views and flowers and we found more trails to come back and explore later. It was a great bike ride, because it is almost completely flat and a great length. It took us under an hour to bike around the whole lake.
An added bonus, was I was recently learning about small dams in an online permaculture class I was taking. It was fun to look at dam after learning about them, the shape and construction of everything has an added depth. After we were done with the bike ride, the kids played on the small beach. They were having a lot of fun until…
C fell in the water. He was so sad and wet, and it signaled time to go home.
I’ve previously made our own stamps, and I always use baby wipes and either liquid water colors or food coloring for our stamp pads. Recently, while browsing a magazine, I saw the idea of bottle cap stamps. We just put some foam stickers we had onto a small collection of bottle caps I had. We added it to our homemade stamp pads, and we had a great little craft that was completely free. 
Ice cubes mixed with food coloring are a lot of fun, and in a lot of ways. C liked to eat them, PB painted with them, and they both experienced the wonderful sensation of cold, melting ice. Until, about 15 minutes into playing, it got too cold and we put them away.
Being a mom to these two little boys is the best job ever. I’m glad I can spend almost all day cuddling, playing and spending time with them.
For last Saturday’s adventure, we headed down to Ogden for a bike ride. We’ve enjoyed biking on the Ogden River Parkway before, and this time we picked a slightly different route that included visiting three parks. PB had planned out which park we would stay at the longest, although I don’t think we stuck to his plans. He just likes numbers and sequences.
If I were to pick up another hobby, birding would be high on my list. I don’t currently have the desire to invest time and effort into another hobby, so for now I enjoy identifying very easy birds like pelicans, and birds that I can remember the name of only because it is yellow-headed blackbird. The reason I am so tempted to take up birding, is we live ten minutes away from an excellent bird refuge. We went out with the kids and drove around the auto-loop and enjoyed massive amounts of awesome birds.
(Now I should insert all the wonderful pictures I took. But my camera is on its last legs and sorely needs to be replaces. All my pictures were blurry.)
I recently overheard a conversation about a mom lamenting over the mess of dying eggs. I had to cut in and tell her of the following method. I came across this idea on a now defunct blog of a friend, and it makes egg dying super simple and mess free.
Here is what you need:
Put drops of food coloring on the paper towels, and then roll the boiled egg across the paper towel. That’s it. There’s no need for vinegar or soaking. No splashing, or spills. You can even easily dye eggs that are already cracked. And the eggs look awesome.
Liz Braithwaite 