Aruba, Jamaica, Ooh I Want to Take You: Tropical Sensory Box

Unfortunately, we are not going anywhere near a tropical island at the moment.  But we did make some super fun tropical sensory boxes recently, which mom says must be almost as good, right?  Clearly mom doesn't think we remember Jamaica (we do.  and the sensory boxes aren't even a distant second, but not like we have much of a choice).  In any event, we put our colored rice back to good use, added in some silk flowers, tiki shooters (who says you can't use shot glasses once you have kids?), shells, plastic beads, drink umbrellas (anyone else seeing a theme as to what mom has laying around the house?), and, ultimately, pirates.  We loved pouring the colored rice and scooping with the shells.  A nice bit of fun -- even away from the beach.  Now bring me another mai tai!

Let's Play Holi: Colored Rice and Quinoa Sensory Bin

We have been on a little break from holiday arts and crafts (we od'd a bit on Valentine's Day) and mom hasn't quite yet geared up for dealing with the Passover and Easter madness.  But we are a bit Irish and fans of St. Patty's Day (we do have some GelGems up), so we got it together and are focusing on rainbows this year in celebration.  We had just made some rainbow colored rice and quinoa for our sensory bins and had them drying on the table.  Mom mentioned that she thought they looked just like the piles of color used for the Hindu festival of Holi.  So we were super excited when mom checked and found out that Holi starts today!

A few years ago, when I was just three months old, daddy spent many 4 - 6 week periods of time on a matter in India.  Yes, you read that correctly.  When I was three months old.  And not sleeping at all.  And crying all night long.  Oh and it was the middle of winter.  Daddy swears all he did was work miserably when he was there and that "playing Holi" was the one cool thing he did.  We don't know if we believe him - in fact mom said she would have done pretty much anything to be alone for 18 hours in first class on an airplane.  I think she still would.  We did get to go meet up with him one time in London, but mom's recollection of her flight back with me (by herself) was that I screamed the entire 8-hour flight.

In any event, in celebration of both St. Paddy's Day and Holi, we played for a long while with our colored rice and quinoa and some bugs.  Mom and Cami colored it with our Wilton's gel color, roughly following this tutorial.  You can see that the rice took the color more brilliantly.  We had a blast -- Cami did a lot of scooping and filling.  I made tunnels and volcanoes with my bugs and waged all kinds of attacks.  And we even got in on the cleanup.

p.s. - mark your calendars - Mom is eagerly awaiting her turn to "play Holi" at this run in September.

cam mixing it up

i came out before bedtime when mom had all the colors out drying and insisted she take a pic of me in front of each and every color.  and she thought it was so cute she is posting all of them.

all ready to play!

daddy playing Holi