check, check, check!

we have been checking things off our summer fun list and are having a blast doing so!

we've done a couple more outings, like a visit to old town clifton:

and we've done lots of activities, too. choi boy loves to get down and dirty and messy in a good project, so he's been loving these activities. i, on the other hand, am trying to be perfectly fine with the messy and getting down and dirty with him. ;)

honest confession: children and paint together terrify me. it takes a lot for me to let go and let my students paint in the classroom and even more for me to bring out the paints at home and give them to the two year old. but, cb loves painting and had a blast painting paper towel rolls and gluing them together to make binoculars.

painting the paper towel rolls led to some free painting, too.

i'm not claiming my child is an art prodigy and i know this was totally unintentional, but i just love this! i painted the sun and then cb tried to paint one, too, but after he painted the circle, he kept going and it morphed into that yellow creature. he smiled and said, "mommy, look at my doggie! please paint him bowls with kibble and water?" :) and i love the backwards C he signed on the bottom left!

of course, all that painting led to this:

see? terrifying. 

we also got to do some activities that i had pinned ages ago, like this one, using baking soda and droppers with colored vinegar:

"whoa, did ya see that, mommy? cool!"

this kept cb entertained for a good hour and at the end, i put the cups of vinegar in the baking dish and gave him a spoon so he dump the remaining baking soda inside the vinegar.

science is so cool. :)

but, perhaps our favorite project so far has been making cloud dough (or moonsand, as some might call it).

this was super easy and will likely last us all summer since it shows no sign of drying out.

the basic "recipe" calls for 8 parts flour, 1 part baby oil. i ended up using 20 cups of flour and 2.5 cups of baby oil. if you use whole wheat flour, it actually ends up looking more like sand, but white flour was cheaper. :) 

you dump it all into a big container and mush and mix it around with your hands until it gets nice and squishy and retains shape when you mold it. 

cb had a total blast playing in the stuff!

i used an old dishpan container and then set out another large tupperware container and different cups, bowls, diggers and sand toys.

cb made "cakes" and various other cloud dough delicacies for me to try.

at one point, he tried to actually get in the box so he could surround himself with the stuff!

cb played and played with the cloud dough for well over an hour and i literally had to drag him back in the house with promises of playing in it again another day. 

but seriously, the stuff is SO cool. the best part about cloud dough is that it is really moldable:

almost like wet sand. but it's much easier to get off and the baby oil makes it smell great!

like i said, it's sometimes been a stretch for me to let go of some of my ocd tendencies and just let cb get down and dirty with these projects, but you know what, it's been SO fun and i'm so thankful to be able to do them with him!