Paint It, Black: Magnetic Chalkboard Paint

We really didn't get to participate in most of this project (except for the fact that we had our little grubby hands all over that pantry and kitchen wall necessitating the repainting in the first place), but we have been all over it since mom painted our pantry and a little bit of the kitchen with magnetic chalkboard paint.  This stuff really works!  The manufacturers recommend 1 gallon on a 100 square foot surface (slightly smaller than the area mom painted).  Mom did two coats and used about 1/2 the gallon.  It covered well, but she thinks another coat might amp up the magnetism just a bit.  We'll see.

Mom also used the wall to craft up a little art display solution.  She bought some inexpensive matted pictures at Ikea, tossed the pic, superglued some magnets on the back of the mat and BOOM instant magnetic frame for our artwork.  That way she can change out our ever growing art and display just a few things at a time.

AND it was all done in time for Kane's big pirate birthday party (more to come on that soon).  We love it!

I Got Bugs in My Room: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We heart Eric Carle and have seen a lot of really fabulous art projects for kids in his style (especially over the summer -- his bday is in June -- like these).  We are on the letter "C" in preschool right now and on her recent "duty day," mom decided to do a project with us making our own very hungry caterpillars.  Of course the moment she decided to do that was the moment that our copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar went AWOL.  After searching high and low for about 25 minutes, we finally found it in the bottom of my bathroom book box inside of another book, obvi.  At school, mom got us participating in reading the book by bringing our The Very Hungry Caterpillar felt board -- we all had different felt pieces and put them up on the board as mom read the book.  Afterwards, we made our own caterpillars using pre-cut ovals of patterned/textured paper, pipe cleaners, and googley eyes.  We would love to do a real Eric Carle painting/collage, but multi-day projects don't really work that well at school.  Mom had lots of left over paper, so Cam got to do one while I napped that afternoon.  She mostly liked eating the glue and making her own collage of paper.  But I have a feeling we'll do this one again -- because mom still has about 8,000 paper ovals that she cut out.

Sky Rockets in Flight: National Air and Space Museum

Of all the Smithsonian museums, the National Air and Space Museum is probably the one at which we've spent the least amount of time.  It always seems too overwhelming and crowded for mom to handle both of us on her own (Cami really does not like spending lots of time in the stroller these days - especially if I get to get out and about) and is a field trip magnet.  But on a recent rainy weekend day we decided to hit it up -- at least we figured there wouldn't be as many field trips. We concentrated our efforts on two main exhibits:
(1) How Things Fly; and (2) Pioneers of Flight.  Both Cam and I loved the hands-on displays and the Cessna 150 interactive in How Things Fly -- we both waited fairly patiently in line for several turns in the Cessna.  And Pioneers in Flight had a giant staircase you could climb up to get a closer view of the planes. Or in our case, just to climb up and down repeatedly for 25 minutes.  Hey, whatever floats your boat.  And of course we hopped across the street to the Mitsitam Cafe at the American Indian Museum for lunch -- it is always CRAZY busy there, but the food is worth it.  There is certainly lots more to explore at the Air and Space Museum and I think the weekend might be the best bet for our next visit, too.

I Know Jonah: Jonah's Treehouse

There are not really many gyms for little kids actually located in D.C. and the time it takes to schlep all the way out to the 'burbs for them sort of defeats the purpose of giving us some time to run around.  So we heart Jonah's Treehouse, located in Georgetown.  It's big, it's clean, and it has some natural light.  Kane and my schedules have never worked out to let us take a joint class anywhere (and actually JT's doesn't offer any), but now that Kane is in school, I'm able to take a class on my own!  We recently joined one of the Zebra classes and I love it.  Each time we go, I work up the courage to venture a little further away from mommy.  My favorites are the ball pit, the slides, and the kiddie elliptical that I turned into a swing (it seems kind of wrong that they even make a kiddie elliptical in the first place, no?).  JT's has open play weekend mornings and they frequently stay open for longer periods when there is particularly yucky weather on a weekend.  And its is just down the street from the best Whole Foods in town, close to a Starbucks, and one of our favorite parks -- Guy Mason.  We went to WF afterwards for lunch and I was so hungry from all that tumbling that I picked out, peeled, and ate 1/2 an avocado right there in my cart.

The Stamping Ground: Pirate Foam Stamps

I know, I know.  Another pirate craft.  Will it ever end?  I think mom secretly hopes it will, but then what will she do with all this pirate stuff?  Anyways, mom found some nicely sized foam stamps at Michaels on sale for $1.99 - so she snagged two sets and we tried them recently.  We tried using both fingerpaints and ink pads, the latter worked better.  But neither worked particularly well.  I think we needed to break out mom's brayer, but she has yet to donate that to the kids craft supplies.  I'm sure we'll get it eventually.  Cami really just wanted to paint herself.  It was still pretty fun and we are thinking up a good project in which we can incorporate the images we stamped.  I'm gonna make a wild guess -- a pirate project?

'Cause We're Gonna Boogie Oogie Oogie: Boogie Babes

On a rainy Friday morning a few weeks ago, we headed down to H Street N.E. in search of some tunes (mom looked longingly at the Rock & Roll Hotel and sadly realized the last time she had been there was actually for another music event for us -- Baby Loves Disco -- although there was booze, so she maintains it still counts as "going out").  We had heard through the D.C. blogvine about Boogie Babes and decided to check it out - it's only $5 per kid - siblings under 6 months are free.  BB is held at Eastern Market on Thursdays and at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on Fridays, which was a great, open, big bathroomed venue that had its little cafe open during the music hour.  Mr. Skip wowed us with his range (he hit both Yellow Submarine and Baby Beluga, which are MAJOR hits in our house), funny antics (Kane kept saying "he's so silly"), and energy.  We're babes.  We boogied. We'll be back.

And next time we'll make sure to hit up Dangerously Delicious Pies right next door, which just so happens to have a play on skull and crossbones as its logo.

Let's Stick Together: Pirate Foam Stickers and FREE Coloring Pages

Whew!  What a doozy of a last week we've had.  It all started when I brought home a little 24-hour bug last weekend -- I didn't feel great, but I basically got to lay around and watch "my shows" for a day.  Then I was fine.  Mom, not so much.  She got whalloped -- acute sinusitis and pharyngitis (aka a nasty sinus infection and strep throat).  After a 2+ day migraine, she finally hauled herself into the emergency room at 3 a.m. Tuesday morning.  By herself.  In a cab.  Where she waited for 4 hours to see a "doctor" and then a medical student tried to refuse to give her any pain medicine because he "didn't really think" she was having a "real migraine."  Why?  Because this "headache" was different than her other migraines.  No BLEEP.  That's why she was at the emergency room.  Fortunately for him, she was heavily handicapped by her pain and he got what was likely a much more mild version of mommy's "now you listen to me, kid" rants.  Luckily the nurse intervened and mommy got hooked up with some IV drugs and fluid.  A few days of antibiotics and she's finally feeling better to suck it up and be our scribe again.  So what do I do?  Well I start puking all night long Thursday night.  Thank goodness Nona and D-Rock were in town to deal with me so mommy could get some much needed rest.  We are finally all on the mend.  For this week at least.

Now on to the more important things - PIRATES.  We've decided to stretch this pirate kick on out -- in anticipation of my big pirate birthday party next weekend.  At one of mom's recent duty days at my co-op preschool, we brought pirate coloring pages and pirate foam stickers to make some sweet buccaneer scenes.  We found some awesome FREE coloring pages on Disney's Family Fun page and printed out a bunch to bring to school.  Then we dug out our pirate foam stickers, which we've used before in our pirate dino prints, and used those to decorate the pirate ship.  Mom was a little worried about the stickers -- the backing isn't that easy to get off.  But that proved to be a good use of time and lots of little fingers.  And because the letter "A" is one of the letters we are learning this month, we talked about all of the different pirate words that start with the letter "A": Argggg! (duh) Ahoy! Anchors Away! Avast!  It was super fun, even though it was a pretty simple craft.