Salt Art

We crafted! Can you believe it?! Me either, but I have proof so it really did happen! I stumbled upon a great post on Pinterest for salt art (similar to sand art from the carnival) and knew Maddie would love it! Plus it was practically mess free and super cheap. 

Armed with our handy dandy trays we spread piles of table salt on white paper and proceeded to color it with plain ole chalk. Easy! Then we dumped it in the smallest Mason jar I had on hand. Since salt is cheap and we still have plenty of chalk I am saving some jelly jars that are a bit smaller to fill with salt next time. For complete directions visit flax & twine! 

 Maddie LOVED this project and it didn't involve all that much from me except supervision of course! Plus she is still at that great age that when I break out the dustpan and broom she willingly cleans the little bit of mess there was. She is looking forward to showing her Nanny how to make one next month when she comes for a visit!

A Beachy Kind of Day

Mr. Weatherman predicted gorgeous weather for the weekend so we decided to finally take Maddie down to the boardwalk in Virginia Beach and enjoy a bit of sunshine!

We let Maddie bring her scooter down to aid in her slowness.

Funny enough we didn't last all that long on the boardwalk when the shining sun and beautiful sea called to us.... well more the over eager 4 year old!

Watching Maddie splash in the surf was wonderful! Her uhh rough 4 year old behavior has been difficult lately but seeing her so happy and full of smiles was a wonderful change!

Of course is was mandatory that we all got our toes a bit wet. Yup that would be a baby belly in the picture!

Unfortunately getting our toes wet resulted in soaking wet pants for me. Oops!

Dad's time to splash with Maddie!

After hanging in the sun a snow cone was mandatory!

We went to the zoo....

and saw not a single animal.

Yes you read right. On one of our most recent trips to the zoo we didn't see a single animal. Instead I packed Maddie's bathing suit and towel and she spent the morning running around and getting soaking wet!

In the main plaza of the Virginia Zoo there happens to be a giant 20,000 pound granite globe floating on a cushion of water. Awesome. From my personal expertise {or the fact that we rode on the zoo train twice} I can tell you that the globe weighs more than two elephants. It's huge! Even cooler just the smallest kid can push it and it will twirl. Totally Awesome {like I said!}.

Surrounding the awesome globe are kiddo friendly fountains! Basically there is a splash park right inside the entrance to the zoo!

So Maddie and I {and a ton of other mommy's and kiddos} spending the hot mornings letting our little ones run themselves silly through the fountains!

Mini Golf Madness

We haven't finished our entire Summer To-Do List yet so we are still trying to squeeze in a few things here and there. This past weekend we spent a morning on the mini golf course and Maddie had a great time!

I spy someone cheating!

She would hit the ball and then go pick it up and move it to the edge of the cup every time!

I believe that's called high sticking.... maybe the wrong sport though.....

Cheating in action!

Look there's me!

Pink ball in the water hazard- as expected. Only once though, so not too bad for her first time!

Our little family.

No clue who won. Daddy has horrible hand writing!

We finished up the morning with a bucket of balls on the driving range for daddy- Maddie got to hit a few too!

Some More S'Mores Please!

Okay, okay! I know I said I was done posting until we arrived in Virginia but of course I can't stay away.

We had a wonderful evening with the parental units last night and I took some wonderful pictures so here I am!

A game of marbles anyone?

What about S'MORES? Madison refused to eat s'mores last year but certainly enjoyed them this year! And what's better than a s'more? A super awesome hubby who roasts all the marshmallows for you! Yeah I know I am super lucky to have one of those! hehe

And of course the customary glow sticks!

Cool Treat

I told you how unbearably hot it is on Connecticut yesterday so I suppose now I should tell you how we have been cooling offer. Or better yet - The.Most.Delicious.Ice.Cream.Sundae.Ever.

Oh its that good.
Have you tried Hood's new Frozen Tangy Yogurt? It's delicious. And good {enough} for you! So start off with a few scoops of frozen yogurt.

Next up time to add those glorious freshly picked blueberries.
You can't forget the Cool Whip either. Everything tastes better with Cool Whip.

I top my sundae off with fresh grated lemon zest and then a crumble of the most delicious cookie in the whole wide world - Back To Nature's Madagascar Vanilla Wafers. Heaven. Pure Bliss.

Don't you just want to lick your screen?

What's your favorite summer time treat?

Heat Wave

It's hot.

Like really, really hot.

I will admit I am kinda a wimp when it comes to heat but I did grow up here in New England so this weather is no surprise. Things are a bit different though. Growing up we had a pool in the backyard, our house was only one floor and every room had either a fan or air conditioner.

Fast forward to our current house. Last year we had 3 air conditioners in our two story home which kept things nice and cool - as in I could wear a sweatshirt and I was comfortable. Well you all know by now that we are headed down south to Virginia in about 3 weeks but we are actually moving out of our current home in less than a week. So as one air conditioner at a time has died on us we really didn't sweat it because our new house has central air conditioning.

Well we are sweating it now. Yesterday was 104 and our last air conditioner is on its last leg. Its pushing air but that's about it. The second floor of our house is so hot the thermostat doesn't even reach that high - meaning we are topping 90 up there. Of course all the bedrooms are upstairs making it unbearable to sleep.

We finally broke down last night and dragged our mattresses downstairs. Oh yeah, we have a family slumber party planned for the rest of the week. The three of us rolled around whining about the heat last night. It wasn't pretty.

It appears we are due for a slight cool down today but I'm not optimistic. Yikes!

What are you doing to keep cool?

Happy 4th of July!

The Ice Cream Truck!

You would think that because we live in military housing we would see the ice cream truck All. The. Time. But no. Never.

Don't we teach our kids NOT to run to the scary white van giving away treats?

That was until this past week and we were sitting down for dinner. The ice cream truck not only finally drove past our house but decided dinner time was the perfect time to park in front of our house.

Do you not have bottle of glue on your dinner table? huh. Just us I guess.

Not willing to miss him we grabbed cash and ran out the door leaving our dinner behind. Hey, we HAD to mark it off our Summer To Do list!

Of course I had to be mommy and demand that the ice cream went into the freezer until after dinner.

Maddie didn't mind waiting though and it was that extra little push that got her to eat her green beans too!

Red, White and Blueberries

We finally got a bit of a break in the epic heat wave we have been having in Connecticut {did I mention I am not leaving our air conditioned home in Virginia until October?} and it was just in time to go blueberry picking. Oddly enough I don't think I have brought Mad picking since our first summer in Connecticut so she was more than due for a little blueberry fun!

Lots o' blueberries

I am getting better at taking pictures! I love this one!

Manual labor builds character.... right?

Is this a big guy mom?

Don't kneel in the blueberry fields!

She kneeled in the blueberry fields.

Firework Centerpiece

This project was quite learning experience for me!

Spray glue and glitter don't go together well, at least for me.
Tape works so much better than glue.
Stickers don't stick on glitter, go figure.

With that said I am thrilled with how our fireworks came out!
This would be a fantastic project for the 4th of July!

Start with a toilet paper tube - we sprayed it with glue and added glitter. Ugh. If you are going to go the glitter route I would suggest just painting on good ole' Elmer's White School Glue. Then your fingers probably won't have glitter permanently stuck to them. Or you could use markers, crayons or paint and decorate away!

Next step - construction paper strips and star stickers! Of course you could skip the stickers and go straight for the glitter!

Now things got a bit tricky for me. I started off gluing each strip inside the tube and that wasn't working very well so I decided to line all the strips up a little wonky and tape them all together. Then I added a bit of glue to the tape, rolled it up and stuck it in the tube!

I am sure you will be much smarter than me on this one too and not roll it so all the stickers are facing down. Ugh. So we had to go back and add stickers to the other side of the strips too!

The USA letter stickers aren't really sticking but they still look great!

Red, White & Blue Swirls

Remember those tye-dye-riffic cookies we made... LAST YEAR. Well it was time to break out the recipe again but go for a bit more of a patriotic look.

Can I state for the record I LOVE the 4th of July. Sure maybe it has a lot to due with my birthday being the 2nd and possibly me thinking for my entire childhood that the parades and fireworks were in my honor. Whatever. But I do truly love red, white and blue. So pretty. So festive. I ♥ it!

Okay back to the cookies. This time Madison was much more involved and excited to be working in the kitchen with mommy.

She added ingredients.

She colored the dough.

She stacked it all in the fridge.

And then she chose to do nothing until the cookies were ready to eat. So I rolled the balls.

And formed the cookies.

Miss Maddie came back for the eating part.

You can find the original recipe at The Secret is in the Sauce.