Miscellaneous Madness: Acorn Cap Jewels

This isn't naturally a prime time of the year to find acorn caps (instead, in our neighborhood, the warm weather means an increase in street meat incidents -- apparently when it's nice out, the number of chicken wings eaten outside soars and, correspondingly, the number of chicken bones left on the street for doggie to try and snag increases as well), BUT when we were at a local park last week, I started finding tons of them. So mom went with it. She remembered seeing several tutorials for acorn cap jewels and we decided to collect a big bunch.

It turns out that it is super easy, uses materials you likely already have on hand at home, and produces bright jewels that can be used in oh so many ways. Here's what you'll need:

- empty acorn caps
- markers (we used our felt tip MALA IKEA markers)
- white school glue
- playdough, rice, beans or some other similar substance to hold your acorns upright as they dry (we used an old batch of playdough)

Scrape any dirt present out of your acorn caps and get to coloring them inside with your markers. The darker you color, the brighter your jewels will be. Set the colored tops upright in the playdough (or rice, beans, etc.). Fill them to the brim with white school glue. Let set for 48 hours and watch them transform into bright shiny jewels!

The first time we did this we used a batch of glue that had some liquid starch in it (from a botched flubber attempt) and it didn't turn out exactly as we hoped -- not all of the glue evaporated in all of the tops. We made sure we had "clean" glue the second go round and had much better success. We've been using these little gems all week for all sorts of pretend play -- they've been currency, treasure, used in patterns AND some super cute fairy projects that we'll reveal soon. If these are currently popping up in your neighborhood, get on it!

Fly Away: Chicago Part 4: 31st Street Beach Playground

Mom sort of intentionally planned us traveling on the holidays that fell over spring break (Passover and Easter) to avoid having to do big holiday celebrations (unlike her, we know, but it has been one holiday after another this year it seems). So imagine our surprise when our Aunt Carrie sprung an Easter egg hunt on us the day before Easter at the most fabulous beach playground in the city: 31st Street Beach.

We knew we were in for a real treat when we spotted artists carving real trees into amazing works of art on our walk to the playground. Then we hit a nice wide stretch of beach -- perfect to get some pre-egg (and post) hunting energy out. And then we spotted the egg hunt. A quick hello to all our cousins (including moose the doggie) and I was OFF. Fortunately the younger kids didn't care much that I piled my basket high with spoils -- they were so excited to find m&ms in just a few. I was a good sport though and shared.

Fully fueled by candy we hit the playground equipment and had a blast climbing, sliding and jumping (none of us braved the rock wall, though). And we all admired the empty boat slips, waiting for summer. This is a seriously sweet playground with awesome art and a swimming hole to boot. If we're back in Chitown during the oppressive summer, you know where you can find us.

Fly Away: Chicago Part 3: Garfield Park Conservatory

hat palm. really.

Garfield Park Conservatory, located in Chicago's Westside, has an incredible history. The park itself was influenced by French design and is the largest among three great original Westside parks (Humboldt, Garfield and Douglas), each of which had a small conservatory built in the late 19th century. The park and its lagoons were originally used for boating, strolling, and ice skating. In the early 1900s, the current conservatory (4.5 acres inside and out) was built and intended to house a series of naturalistic landscapes under glass (apparently a unique concept for that time). The neighborhood and park have changed considerably since that time (if you're interested in the history of the park and neighborhood, check out Inspired by Nature -- a great book we picked up for grandpa for his birthday during our visit), but the Conservatory remains a real gem of the neighborhood (and the 'hood itself is also in the midst of revitalization). So we met up with our cousins there early one morning.

i helped baby G get in on the scavenger hunt.

Happy to hear that entry was free, we each picked up a nice scavenger hunt sheet that was sorted by  location of each plant and included a handy-dandy picture to identify the item and a sticker to place over the plant once we found it. We love ourselves a good scavenger hunt and we were off. Cousin Jackie wasn't so sure at first, but then both he and Graham were running around with us like maniacs looking for various palms.

We stopped mid-scavenger hunt to play in the Conservatory's wonderful indoor Children's Garden, which boasts a two-level twisty tunnel slide built into a tree fort. And LOTS of little paths, nooks and crannies among the plants to play and hide. But OOOOWEE it was HOT in there and we decided to resume our scavenger hunt. All that intense searching left us hungry for an early lunch and we sat at the little tables and chairs set up in Horticultural Hall for our picnic (the gift shop there sells drinks, snacks, and a few pre-packaged lunch items as well).

After lunch, the sun was calling our names and we ran outside (with no coats needed!) for another hour or so. We chased, dug, played hide and seek, and generally rejoiced to be outside. We miss our cousins and had a BLAST just kickin' around. The inevitable meltdowns began and we decided to leave while things were still going relatively well. We can't wait to go back in the summer and explore the Conservatory's outdoor exhibits and perhaps some more of Garfield Park itself.

Keep It Local: "Angels, Demons, and Savages: Pollock, Ossorio, Dubuffet" at The Phillips Collection

We interrupt the next installment in our Chicago spring break series to report on a super cool visit mom and I made to The Phillips Collection yesterday, which included some artwork that is on exhibit for a limited time (so we wanted to make sure you knew about it before it left!). Our planned goal was to see the Pollock, Ossorio, Dubuffet exhibit (at the museum until May 12) and the recently-installed new permanent work the "Laib Wax Room, Where have you gone-where are you going?" Both delivered big. AND, to boot, we ended up discovering a super awesome exhibit of local charter and D.C. public school students that is a must see for kids (and part of it is departing on April 28). Oh, and the "Jeanne Silverthorne: Vanitas!" exhibit of rubber sculptures was an additional pleasant surprise.

First up was the Angels, Demons, and Savages exhibit, which highlights friendships among the various artists exhibited. In addition to Pollock's well known drip paintings, the exhibit includes some of his watercolors, collages and ink paintings. We snapped a few pictures before being told of the "no photo" policy in the exhibit. Drat. You'll just have to go see for yourself, because the artwork is pretty amazing. We weren't familiar with Ossorio or Dubuffet and some of their works in this exhibit are a little more outright dark in mood, but were also splashed with bright colors and recognizable objects that mom and I spent time picking out. Although I did frequently comment that some of the faces in their paintings were "not nice."

Moving on ... my Grammie B is a periodic urban bee keeper (part of the reason we also call her Grammie B) and mom and I talked at length before our visit about the beeswax room. And I was anxious to get there. Located just down the hall from the Pollock exhibit, you can smell it far before you see it. The small room (only two people allowed in at a time) is lined with fragrant beeswax and illuminated by a single light bulb. We went in and snuggled. And both agreed we'd love to take a nap in there. "It's gold," I kept whispering. And it does indeed seem to glow warm gold. Fortunately this one is a permanent work and I know we'll include a stop in there on all future visits.

We hadn't planned on visiting the Vanitas! exhibit, but it was basically adjacent to the beeswax room and the large rubber floral sculpture drew us right in. Vanitas!, we learned, are still life paintings symbolizing the brevity of life with images of decaying fruit and flowers, skulls, or household objects. This particular exhibit displays Silverthorne's sculptures alongside still life paintings from The Phillips Collection. I found some of it a little creepy, but the oversize, three-dimensional sculptures are a perfect fit for kiddos.

As we headed down to get a drink in the Tryst cafe, the sign for a Young Artists Exhibition caught mom's eye (there is usually student work on display there, but we haven't checked it out before). A few flights below we discovered two super cool student exhibits -- work by preschool through fourth grade students of the Inspired Teaching School (a nearby public charter) and by preschool through middle school students of the Takoma Education Campus and Tyler Elementary schools. Holy cow. These kids have talent. The artwork, even from the youngest of students, was amazing. And I thought it was awesome to see artwork done by kids my own age and highlighting so many sights from my 'hood. The work from the Inspired Teaching School students is at the Collection only through April 28 and we highly recommend taking a trip to check it out. We have TONS of new ideas -- thanks kiddos!

Fly Away: Chicago Part 2: The New Tinkering Lab at the Chicago Children's Museum

On our last visit to Chicago a few years back, we visited a highly crowded Chicago Children's Museum at Navy Pier (after a rainy, but pretty awesome, sail on Tall Ship Windy). This time around, we went with a real mission: to check out the new Tinkering Lab, which is chock full of real tools and real materials to create, destroy ... tinker. Fortunately our Aunt Carrie is now a member of the museum and members can get in to the museum an hour early on Fridays and Sundays. Sweet.

We took a brief detour at the firetruck, but then headed on up to the Tinkering Lab, where Kane and I about lost our minds. We quickly donned safety goggles and rummaged through the bins of materials and tools. Mom set us up at a real work table and we got into it. We used real drills, hammers and screwdrivers to start building (mom drew a line at the saws). Then Kane discovered the wall of "take apart" items and scored a CPU that the museum staff had used to build a sort of sculpture. And he got to take it apart and put something back together again. He said he was building a super secret spy phone booth.

Me? I told mom I was making her a latte -- you know, with a paper cup and a hand drill that looked a lot like a milk frother. Mom was a fan of my tinkering skills.

In addition to open access to all the materials and many serious tools, the Tinkering Lab has a "power tool bar" where you can use real power tools with the assistance of a museum staff member. The museum can get so crowded, but we seriously recommend checking out the Tinkering Lab -- we've never been anywhere else like it.

Once we had tinkered around for a while, we walked out to find a beautiful day on Navy Pier AND OUR DADDY! He had finally arrived. It was way too nice out to head back inside, so instead we took a touristy cruise with daddy, grandpa and mom (our cousins were planning to go back home for lunch, but ended up sticking around on the pier -- it was that nice out). We sat on the top deck for almost the whole ride and arrived back to find our cousins waiting for us.

Fly Away: Chicago Part 1: Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum

We spent our first morning in Chicago meeting up with our cousins at The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum (the museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences). It was our first time visiting the Lincoln Park museum and we thought it was AWESOME -- a perfect balance between a children's museum and a nature center with something for kids of all ages. Almost every exhibit offers a good mix of play and learning. We're pretty sure if we lived in Chicago, we'd take full advantage of the serious array of programming offered there.

Instead, we spent a rambunctious morning (it was our first time seeing our cousins this trip!) exploring the museum's exhibits. Favorites included Mysteries of the Marsh and the adjacent Family Look-in Lab(where we viewed lots of marsh-dwelling animals in tanks), the Hands-on Habitat (part playground part schooling on environments), the Butterfly Haven (a nice-sized room with identification sheets available), RiverWorks (offering a working/playing model of many of Chicago's water engineering feats), and the outdoor Nature Trails (of which we only briefly sampled). Mom was not excited about the Birds of Chicago exhibit, but thought everything else was well done (especially the art exhibit using insects to make wallpaper -- super cool).

(kane wasn't feeling that great ... but he perked up after this when we hit the riverworks exhibit)

After we exhausted ourselves, we ate our packed lunch in the sunny entryway next to the gift store -- there is not cafeteria per se, but there are vending machines and the gift store sells a small variety of drinks, sandwiches and salads. Free street parking close the museum is available, but we suggest arriving early to get a spot -- the Lincoln Park Zoo (which we checked out on our last visit) is right next door. The Green City Market will return to its outdoor location on May 4th (directly across from the zoo) and offers a good option for eating on Wednesdays and Saturdays AND RIGHT NOW is open Saturdays at the Nature Museum (we also went to the market during our visit to the zoo a few years back and are big fans).

Fly Away: Oak Park and Chicago, IL in "Spring"

To the best of our memory, we've had 3 days of school canceled this year for "snow." And basically didn't ever get any real white stuff. So it would only make total sense that mom would wake up the morning of the first day of our spring break -- the day on which she had to fly with both of us for the first time by herself -- to three accumulated inches of the fluff. After checking no less than 17 times that our flight to Chitown was "on," we took off for the airport. Easy peasy check-in and security walk through (well, I tried to bolt once because I didn't want to put my trail mix through the scanner, but they told me I could keep my shoes on and I had to think fast for a new excuse to act up). Once we made it through, the United Airlines messages started -- flight delayed 20 minutes, delayed an hour, delayed an hour 20 minutes. You get it.

Mom inwardly cringed, but we surprised her by being TOTAL troopers. We sat nicely and colored and played with each other at the gate for the extra time. We ate our lunch without incident (well, except when mom dropped Cami's smoothie all over all of us (and a few bysitters) while warning us that if we didn't drink it up, we were going to spill it). Finally on board we asked (!) to be buckled in, perused Sky Mall magazine in a contest to find the most ridiculous object for purchase upon a promise that mom would make daddy buy the winning item (Cam won -- she found a toilet training seat for cats. seriously), waited until we were in the air and then watched our shows for the 2 hour flight. Mom actually read a book. She was flabbergasted.

Grammie B picked us up and we spent the whole week visiting our fam in Oak Park and Chicago where the weather was surprisingly warmer than DC. We got LOTS of quality cousin time with our seriously-missed cousins Jack and Graham (who recently moved to Chicago from DC) and explored lots of new kiddo haunts in the city. AND we got to celebrate our Grandpa's birthday with every single family member on that side of the family (from grandparents to grandchildren at least). All 16 of us. A family first (cousin Graham is just a year old). Daddy even joined us for the last few days of our trip. We had a blast.

Reports on our various activities will be forthcoming, but for now, here's a few shots of how we spent most of our week.

Grammie B let me bring home mom's childhood copy of Greek & Norse legends. BEYOND PSYCHED would be putting it mildly.

arting, of course

cam mastered the spiderweb at mom's childhood park (Taylor Park)

we rolled all the way down the sledding hill because, well, we come from the land of no snow and have never been sledding

we got to play with all of mom's childhood toys left -- tinker toys, playmobil, dollhouse, dollies, etc.

hanging at cousin jackie's

scared in suburbia -- why are people so nice? they must be trying to jack our double driving cart.

singing happy b-day to Grandpa B at his Twin Anchor's rib joint dinner -- worth the hype.

cam and cousin jackie. BFFs for life. it's all aunt carrie's fault that they moved (and we hope you are reading this)

our aunt allie -- the only one who puts up with our BS for an extended period of time. in addition to my continuous banter, cami appears to have realized this past week that she can talk. sure, she's always said what she needed to, but now she won't stop. she's either talking, singing or tantrumming (and none of them quietly).

the only pic mom could get before i literally took off down the block -- grammie and grandpa and all six grandkids.