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 

Sticky Fingers: Oobleck SUCCESS

In honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday last week, we decided to make some oobleck.  And we were determined.  We put our heads together, sat down with the periodic table of elements, and mixed away.  SUCCESS.  OK, so technically we cheated and used Biocolor putty solvent, but whatevs.  It worked (and the old fashioned route had not).  The amazingness of Biocolor continues -- you simply mix together a small amount of Biocolor putty solution and some Biocolor paint and presto - oobleck, slime, goop ... whatever you want to call it, it's super cool.  I promptly poured it all over my legs.  Cami promptly started screaming.  And there was nothing prompt about mom cleaning it all up (it actually wasn't too bad - even came out of my shirt without too much difficulty).  We'll be doing this again, but outside next time.  And mostly likely naked.

Imagine all the People: imagiNATIONS at the National Museum of the American Indian

The imagiNATIONS exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian opened last fall, but we hadn't yet had a chance to go.  We arrived just as the museum opened and had the exhibit all to ourselves -- there are so many neat things to do here.  An activity center, which had a coloring project the day we visited; a wonderful library with books for kids of all ages; and, my favorite, to scale models of three different Indian dwellings.  I insisted on bringing books from the library into the house on stilts and reading in there, patting the ground next to me and saying "mommy, here.  mommy, here."  (i just started saying two- and three-word sentences).  We also checked out the current "A Song for the Horse Nation" and "The Real Story of the Quilete Wolves" exhibits and loved both of them -- such beautiful things to look at.  I also snagged a copy of "The Girl Who Loved Horses."  One of mom's favorite books growing up was "Buffalo Woman" and although the stories are both a little old for me, the pictures are amazing.  And Kane likes reading it, too.  The museum hosts all kinds of special events and activities at the imagiNATIONS exhibit, so be sure to keep your eye out and visit!

oh, we always make sure to eat at The Mitsam Cafe, even when visiting neighboring museums.  But the museum recently put in an espresso bar on the first floor, which means we'll be visiting even more often!

Salt of the Earth: Painting with Salt

We've seen so many beautiful watercolor-salt painting projects on the web, but have had very little luck ourselves.  We're starting to think the pictures are fake (because it certainly couldn't be our technique).  We had some success recently by first wetting the watercolor paper with water, then using very watered down watercolors liberally, and then applying the salt.  As usual Kane just wanted to pour and scrub mountains of salt on his paper (we're thinking of setting him up with a little homemade salt scrub).  I had better luck, but didn't want to stick with it for very long because it didn't show immediate results (once they dried, the salt sort of soaks up the color and makes pretty marks on the paper).  We tried to be patient, but I think this is one we'll stick on the shelf until we are older.

Is It Glowing You?: Blacklight Glow Paint

Since our blacklight bubble play, we've been asking mom almost every day to get the blacklight out and play in the bathroom.   And seeing as our nightly baths have been turning into WWF matches with increasing frequency, mom thought that a glow in the dark paint bath might keep us occupied while she was getting us cleaned up.  She found these glow in the dark/blacklight face paints on Amazon and we went to town.  Cami of course completely covered herself.  I chose a more targeted approach, but we both had tons of fun.  And then we had no choice - mom had to wash the paint off, so we got really clean!  These are a little pricey, so I think next time we'll try mixing some of the paint into shaving cream (like these paints we've made before and these we spotted on Pinterest).  The blacklight is seriously saving our sick of winter selves.

SAFETY NOTE: we're no safety experts and we're pretty sure it goes without saying, but if you do this, make sure your blacklight is no where near the bathtub.

Born to Rock: Tot Rock at Discovery Theater

We've been waiting for Tot Rock since hearing about it at a Discovery Theater puppet show over the holidays and we were excited to see that the famed Rocknocerous would be kicking off the series.  But, to be honest, we were kind of disappointed.  The sound wasn't great and we were not that impressed by Rocknocerous.  Kane kept asking where Recess Monkey was and just kind of laid down on mom's lap once he came to grips with the fact that his favorite band was not playing.  Of course I wanted to sit in mom's lap, so that presented some issues for a while.  But eventually I got up and shook my bottom.  And Jammin Java, partners in the series with the Smithsonian, provided free bagels and coffee, which was a plus in all our books.

We know this series has a lot of potential and we'll definitely make some of the future performances.  And maybe Rocknocerous was just having an off day (it was their second performance of the day) -- we trust they play better shows because there were SERIOUS mom groupies there.  I mean moms who pushed kids out of the way for a front row seat, brought their own instruments (for them, not for their children), and sang every word to every song.  It was really, um, something.

Tot Rock is currently slated to run through June on the last Thursday of each month.

raise the roof?

"sorry, bubs.  recess monkey is not showing up."

too cool for school.

i'm not gonna say i was making the universal sign for "pukey."  but i'm not gonna say i wasn't.