We just figured out Blue's Clues!

Because we just saw Blue's Clues Live!

And nothing tops off a day at the theater better than - purchasing another 90-gallon fish tank.

Hubby taking care of the easy assembly.

The girls enjoy playing in it while daddy isn't looking.

Future Scientists

For our older daughter's birthday my husband purchased a number of 'kits' at Michael's (the craft store) of all places.

These include:

• grow your own sea monsters (totally cool - it worked - every playdate has to look at our sea monsters)
• grow carnivorous plants (container needs to be placed in the fridge for EIGHT weeks - ummmm - it is in my garage - real estate in the fridge is at a premium)
• grow your own crystals - experiment just started a few days ago - hoping for some spectacular crystals (and for my husband to stop imitating The Dark Crystal characters 'Skekie's bad').

The safety glasses, sported by the older of the two budding scientists, are from the crystal kit. Note - she has the magnifying glass by her tooth that is growing in.

Crayon Roll

I found the link to this crayon roll tutorial from the Sew Mama Sew website. The tutorial is easy and the crayon roll makes great gifts and is a great way to use cute kid fabric that I buy on impulse but never quite know what to do with it once I get it home.

I did change a few things. I actually think making it a half inch wider on all sides would be good since I am doing a decorative stitch around the outside instead of a straight stitch. Also, I close up the gap where the roll is turned inside out with some stitch witchery. When I do it without fusing the seams together I always seem to get puckering or part of the seam just doesn't seem to sit quite right. And, I can't do a decorative stitch.
And fray block on the ends of the ribbon is absolutely needed. The first ones I did for my daughters are all frayed. This will be off to a birthday girl tomorrow - hope she likes it!

Crafty Cooking Kit (TM)

My older daughter received a Crayola Crafty Cooking Kit (TM) as a present. We had a blast using it. It would have been a 'not too messy' craft if I hadn't left my younger daughter alone with the flour bucket (see above image). What I didn't take a photo of was the floor, where most of the flour that used to reside in the bucket wound up.


To make the dough just add margarine & an egg. Mixing up the icing is a breeze. Just add water.


The paint tray. Before the girls completely obliterated the colors to become black, black and you guessed it black.

And - some of their creations. Faces, a rainbow, unicorns and monochromatic themes once the others became too much work.

Here fishy, fishy, fishy...

So, we have a new fish tank. A 90-gallon fish tank. Complete with fish stand and lid on top (to hopefully keep the children from (a) trying to swim in the tank and (b) trying to catch fish when their daddy isn't looking.

Of course, it didn't come home looking like that. It looked more like this:


The joys of easy assembly.