Sometimes I'm Pretty Cool

I'm certainly not the Mom who's kids can't really play for the sake of keep things in pristine order,

but on occasion, I just toss my hands in the air and let go of the last strand of "No" I might've had...

 ...like when I let the boys all find white shirts,

pour food coloring into their spray bottles

and have a water fight :)

They couldn't have loved this more! It was totally fun even just to watch- they were having a blast trying to get other soaked with the color. I put plain water in little Ryder's bottle and he jumped in from the sidelines a bit. In the end, the shirts just kinda ended up gray- next time we'll use watered down fabric paint or fabric dye instead. :)

They were dripping with color- check Cooper's eyebrows! It came off no sweat in the bath right after.

I love this picture of these three below...  :)

 In the process of all the color works, they added food coloring to a few water balloons and froze them overnight- they played a game like hand hockey with them the next morning and tossed plain ice cubes across the tramp to each other. :)

And, yes, it's true, I am now completely out of food coloring...

oh well, this is probably the only good use for the nasty stuff anyway! :)

Fun colorful times :)

The Funnest Little Gems!

Don't you wish you could reach out and touch them just seeing the picture?? I do!

I love all that fun  color! We recently tried these Aqua Gems and they were a hit!

I guess they are made right here in Idaho Falls. I enjoyed them just as much as the boys!

I got this package at Joann's for $5, in the floral section, not far from the foam stuff.. I poured about a quarter of the package into a pitcher for each of the boys and they had oodles to play with! They start out little teeny, then you put a bunch of water over them and let them sit for about four hours or so- we got impatient and called them good after three or so!

They started getting bigger almost immediately- these above had only been wet for ten minutes or so.

Coop loved the black ones- his very own black pearl :)

I loved just letting a handful run through my fingers- I thought it made for a pretty sweet stress reliever! Anyhow, they are a fun thing to have on hand for cool days, too hot days, rainy days, or just to ease the boredom- tons of games could surely be played with them too!  They're fun to look at, but almost irresistible not to touch!

Stuff that Summer is Made of

Just a little update of the daily us lately, soakin' up the Summer...

Cooper is on a local T-Ball Team that runs through this month- the day of his first game was seriously freezing! It felt more like they were trying to pretend it was summer in the middle of winter! Still though, I think watchin' little kids play T-Ball might be one of the cutest things ever :) He has been really enjoying it and does great at gettin' right in there :) Gives him a chance to be around some kids he'll go to school with at least :)

We've also discovered the Rexburg Splash Park! Ryder doesn't like water over his head yet, but he enjoyed it nonetheless. Coop, on the other hand, was in heaven there!

It shows, eh? :)

In other highlights that tell this Mama it's summer... beloved weed bouquets. :)

I get one of these (or something fairly similar) every few days and couldn't love it more!

Water Gun Targets 3.0

For the past 2 years, I've created some fun little targets

to give my boys something besides me to shoot their water guns at...

And this year is no exception! 

EDIT: To see my fun and educational 2013 water gun targets, click here :)

Last year, I did some with letters to help Cooper learn to recognize common letters.

This year, they are just plain fun images of things both my boys enjoy.

So, we have:

To make them, you can click here to find and print a document with all seven of the target designs on it- print them all, or pick and choose! Once you have your papers (I just used plain old copy paper), you"ll need:

Paper trimmer

clear ConTact paper

scissors

scrap cardboard (diaper boxes work great)

spray adhesive...

(some is shown below)

These are sized to be 7.5" square, just right to print in a narrow margin document.

Just trim off the bottom end to give yourself even squares :)

Roll out the ConTact paper and lay your prints face down:

This is what makes them waterproof! If you have a laminator machine and the plastic sleeves, those are great and super simple too! The cardboard part, honestly, was born of the fact that I just didn't have enough ConTact paper left to do both the front and back of my squares. So, I hacked up a diaper box I had lying around (ya know, one of the four that were stacked up in the boys' closet takin' up space!). I measured and marked 7.5" squares and cut them out with a knife... Somewhere in the mix, cut the target squares that you laid across your ConTact paper out too :)

 

Then I sprayed the brown side of the squares with spray adhesive and attached, then smoothed, my targets down onto the cardboard. I sprayed the brown side because the side that has the label on it is kinda coated, smoothish. It will hold up to the water better even if it's not so pretty on the back side!

Alright- you've got sturdy, waterproof, cutsie images just waiting to be doused with water- let the games begin! I taped mine around our yard- on the porch, the swingset, the side of the house. Then I hollered out to the boys different ones to shoot at and they ran from place to place, watering away...

I know- Coop's belly! Could you die?!! :D

For another version, I taped them to different objects and placed them around our tramp.

As they jumped, I called out which one to have them shoot... 

They love them! Ryder is particularly fond of the Transformer one and packs it around as though it were one of his guys :) They held up to the water great... I did bring them inside so they weren't sitting out overnight and they are ready to go for another warm day!

When all was said and done, the boys got popsicles...

Only after I bribed them with them in order to get this...

Which, of course, came after this...

:) 

Anyhow... again, you can click here to print off your own water gun targets

and save yourself from being on the receiving end too! Enjoy!

And for my most recent version below, click HERE: