Let Me Clear My Throat

Please pardon our absence while our mom recovers from the bubonic plague.  We'd post a pic, but it's not pretty.  We'll be back soon!

Yes I am a Pirate: Pirate Popsicles

We celebrated "Talk Like a Pirate Day" pretty much all week last week.  It had been a while since we had made popsicles so we busted out our Wilton's and decided to make some green (bananas and vanilla yogurt), white (just vanilla yogurt), and black (blackberries with a little Wilton's) striped pops.  Shocking that we'd buck the traditional red, white, and black.  Our stripes were a little loosey goosey, but they were delicious.  And this was Cam's first opportunity to join in the actual making of pops (instead of just the taste testing and eating) -- she got to help mom cut up bananas and blend them with yogurt.  She did pretty well for a first timer.  I picked out the star popsicle molds because, as I told mom, "pirates followed the stars with their ships."  True story.  I also told mom that I didn't want to make any "orange" layers (recall our frozen orange juice folly) -- guess its scurvy for us!

House Music All Night Long: Glow Stick Bath

Mommy surprised us with a super fun bath last night (the tub markers we tried the night before last were a bit of a wash) -- a glow stick bath!  It's hard to get both of us in the same tub these days.  Kane is obsessed with mom and dad's shower and has taken it over with an elaborate pirate bath toy set up.  Mom loves that he'll stay in there for 45 minutes at a time, but is not a fan that he somehow rejiggers all four shower heads every time he is in there and she can never figure it out the next morning.  Silly mommy.  That's what you get for thinking you can take a shower.

Anywho, this was pretty simple, but unsuspected and fun.  We turned them into "jellyfish," "shark sticks," and, no surprise to anyone, they were eventually turned into weapons.  Mom ignored us as she did the dishes and Kane even got over the several times I bit him during our jousts.  But the 'ish hit the fan when I deigned to dump water over his head.  Repeatedly.  There is nothing that Kane hates worse than water getting on his face.  Well, maybe when I turn the T.V. off during his "shows."  But water over the head is right up there.  I soon found myself getting tucked into bed.  Word is that Kane took the glow sticks to bed with him.  I'm sure that worked out well.

(mom's old school iPhone didn't pull through very strongly on this one.  can apple please roll the new ones out already?!?)

Born This Way: Maryland Renaissance Festival

Lately, if an event has even a vague connection to pirates, we'll be there.  Especially if its the weekend before International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  So last Sunday we hit up the Maryland Renaissance Festival.  Wow.  Let's get the good things out there first.  It was a beautiful day out and the festival is at a really cool location in the woods by Annapolis (apparently it's there all year long, but used only 19 days of the year).  It was a very family friendly event (and when it wasn't, it was easy to avoid.  Such as the performers who announced that their show wasn't "derogatory, but was a celebration of the female form."  moving on). There were lots of shows to see, FREE pony rides, a children's play area -- complete with, wait for it, wait for it ... A PIRATE SHIP, and reasonably priced food - $5 for a turkey leg the size of dad's head?  deal.  Plus I got a green sword and dagger.  And there were TONS of pirates walking around.  It was a good deal at $15 for adults and kids 6 and under FREE.

Now, there was also the small matter of the very very very interesting people in attendance at the festival.  I don't need to say much else about that except that it was very very very interesting.  Although I should point out that I see why dad was pushing the event -- mom's words of advice to me were "just because you can fit it into a corset, doesn't mean you should."  Not sure what that means, but dad said one day I will.  Also keep in mind that while panning for gemstones is a perfectly appropriate activity for kiddos, unsupervised playing with said gemstones for a 16 month old may lead to ingestion of a small amethyst stone.  I'm not saying it happened.  I'm just saying it could.  And it could also show up in her diaper the next morning.  Even shinier than when it went down.

Get there while you can -- it runs until October 23rd.

Spin Doctors: Spin Art with Plates

This was a super messy craft, but really really fun.  Seriously.  It might have been the longest amount of time I have spent on a craft since we built a volcano.  And I just kept asking mom for more and more paper to make prints.  Mom picked up this project here and although it seems like you could use lots of things around the house as a medium to hold the paint, we have about 8,000 hot pink dessert plates left from Cami's first birthday last year.  Between that and the green painters tape, we could seriously build an incredibly elaborate temporary shelter.

We used Crayola's bright washable fingerpaints (these are awesome and do seem to come out of everything, but to be on the safe side, mom stripped us down to our skivvies first) and dotted the colors on the underside of our paper plates.  Then we flipped the plates over, pressed down gently, and spun spun spun spun spun.  We used the same plate over and over again without wiping it off in between -- the colors got a bit muddled, but I thought that looked cool.  And I also did some impromptu hand printing.

Cam had a jump start on this one because she still gets up from naptime earlier (although mom has stretched her out to an hour and a half now - woo hoo!).  She liked it for a while and even did some fingerpainting with it.  But mostly she then wanted to squirt blue paint all over everything.  And she did not take kindly to mom putting the kabosh on that.  Can't win 'em all.

Got a Race Car Grin: Clemyjontri Park

Seeing as we now only have one weekday a week where we are all together without any scheduled activities, mom promises to suck it up and take us good places again (at least while the weather is nice.  after that, all bets are off.  i see a crafty winter on the horizon).  Last Friday we hit up one of our favorite playgrounds -- Clemyjontri Park, which is also mom's worst nightmare in terms of keeping track of both of us by herself.  This place is HUGE.  And there are lots of spots to "lose" Kane, including a little maze that we both love.  This trip I particularly liked racing the cars, trying out my new "vroom vroom" noises.  We played for a long time in the nice weather until Kane became insanely possessive over one of the airplanes and I became insanely intent on dethroning him.  I had mom fooled for a bit when I pretended I just wanted to do some wing acrobatics ... and then I pounced on the suspecting (but still unwilling to move) pilot Kane.  Oh well.

The carousel is open only on weekends now (and only until November 6th), which I have the sneaking suspicion was just fine with mom.  I can only imagine her trying to hold both of us onto horsies that would inevitably rise and fall at different times.  Plus we were already fighting over the zebra and the thing was freakin' closed.  It went something like: Kane, "I want to ride the zebra."  Mom, "It's closed."  Cami, "mamama.  [mad gesturing at zebra]  mamamama."  Mom, "You guys, it's closed."  Kane, to people merely walking by the carousel, "I'm so sorry, guys.  The carousel is closed.  It's only open on the weekends.  And the pirate has to ride the zebra." Mom, "I think we're done here."  We'll be back.