In Home Entertainment: Colored Ice Sculptures

As we've mentioned, between the east coast weather (and D.C.'s inability to cope with said weather), kiddo germies, and days off for parent-teacher conferences, we've been in the house A LOT. So, in frantically googling for fun ice activities to take advantage of the cold weather, mom came across this cool ice sculpture idea. Sold. Our ice sculptures had been an ongoing activity in our house until, you know, the below freezing temps jumped up to a balmy 70 degree day yesterday.

BUT, before that happened and the weather was still below freezing, we mixed gel food coloring and water into a variety of containers and stuck them outside to freeze overnight. The next day we popped them out of the molds and went to work stacking, slipping and sliding colorful sculptures together. Turns out that the ones I made (for which I refused to mix the food coloring well) were the coolest looking -- concentrated color on top and clear on the bottom. We were a little frustrated that the shapes we made weren't as easily stackable as we wanted, so we filled up tons of ice cube trays (formerly used for baby food for me -- by the time Cami was born, which wasn't that long, mom had given up on homemade baby food) with water and food coloring and set them outside for freezing.

They did. Then they turned to slush in the tropical temps yesterday. Then they were destroyed in the torrential downpour last night. Anyone else concerned about this weather!?! Well, it appears freezing temperatures will return soon, so we'll get them rigged back up and let everyone know if they stack up better!

In Home Entertainment: Frozen Creepy Crawly Fun

So one good thing about the below freezing temps we're currently experiencing is the opportunity for fun frozen projects that we wouldn't otherwise be able to swing (our freezer is always filled to the brim with no room for even a frozen water bead to hide). Mom came up with a mishmash of things we've already done (frozen water balloons and ice/salt/watercolors experiment) and the frozen toy excavation ideas we've seen and wanted to try. She put some of our squishy, stretchy froggies and bugs into balloons, filled them up with water and put them outside overnight to freeze.

Mom actually kept them a surprise from us until the next day until she sat us down with bowls full of salt and watercolors.  We had no idea what project was in store for us, but then she brought down containers full of frozen creepy crawlies! Once Kane got over his initial upset at mom freezing "his favorite toys ever," we sprinkled the frozen pieces liberally with salt. And then we waited until little tunnels began to form and squirted liquid watercolors over them.

We used the cracks traced by the watercolors to find weaknesses to break our buddies out. The froggies turned out to be SUPER fun -- they're squishy and sticky and we ended up being able to extract them out of teeny tiny holes in the ice. The buggies held their ground and we ended up having to wait for the ice to melt to free them.

There is an incredible array of ice projects out in the blogosphere, some of which are on our to do list before the temps turn back up. But check out these amazing projects that those in the persistent cold have come up with:

* an AMAZING rainbow ice igloo 
* gorgeous icicles 
* an outdoor ice sculpture garden
* outdoor ice ornaments

99 Luftballons: Water Balloon Ice Shapes

We are protesting the heat in every way possible and this water balloon ice was a big hit with both of us (less of a big hit with daddy who opened the freezer mid-freeze and had nice bright green one explode everywhere).  Mom squirted a few drops of food color into regular balloons (water balloons break too easily), filled them up with water, tied them, shook them up to mix the color, and then froze a whole bunch for 24 hours (and it took a full 24 hours -- the ones she checked prematurely exploded, so just sit tight).  I was so excited that I wanted at them before Cami woke up from nap (and I gave up my precious "show time" to do so).  Mom put them in our water table with some water beads, but I turned the whole thing into a kitchen and decided to make several varieties of "soup" for mom to taste test. "Orange bottomed carrot soup" was mom's favorite.  Then I used the melting ones to make sculptures by boring holes into them and filling them with squished up water beads.

Cam woke up cranky and threw a fit about the purple ice not being purpley enough.  And then she mostly terrorized me by moving the ice out of my soup.  We reconciled the following day (we had enough ice balloons to last two days) and turned our party tubs turned soup pots into bath tubs (don't worry - we'll wash them before the next bday bash!).  These kept us busy for several hours two days in a row.  And if we had an extra freezer (that wasn't crammed full of Trader Joe's), we'd make them every day!

p.s. one would think the amount of nakedness going on at our house this summer would mean a significant decrease in laundry and yet, miraculously, it has not.

not purpley enough.

no soup for you!

bathtime!