September Catch-up: A month in Review

I can't believe its been a month since I last posted!  We've had a full month of launching youth and children's ministries at our church, and a month of adjusting to having Aria in all day, every day kindergarten!

We had a really HOT September... probably on account of summer not really starting until August... so we thought up some fun water activities with help from Pinterest, and some other creative moms!

One of our new favorite outdoor toys are these sponge balls!  They are super easy to make and tonnes of fun to play with.  I bought a pack of all-purpose sponges from the dollar store and used some zip-ties that I already had at home.

 

 Its as simple as cutting the sponges into three, alternating colors with another sponge (6 pieces total) and then using the zip-tie to cinch them as tightly as you can together.

 You can use different textures of sponges too to create even cooler looking sponge balls.  We like to use them in lieu of water balloons (way less mess to clean up! And they're re-usable) for water fights or water balloon tosses, or just for playing in the pool!

 We also found a great new friend in our backyard when we were moving some rocks...

 We were moving rocks so that we could set up our fabulous new swing set!  The kids have loved having their own "park" in their backyard.  August was SO crazy hot, I found I was often driving to the park, because it was too far to walk in the heat.  But, next summer, we'll be able to keep cool and have fun swinging in our own backyard in the 30 degree weather!

 Another fun activity we did to beat the heat was to freeze some toys and water in a bucket, and then hammer away to free the toys.

 I gave the kids a couple different kinds of hammers and tools to use so that they could experiment and figure out what kind worked the best.

 Aria preferred Daddy's hammer, while Roscoe liked his plastic hammer from his workshop playset.

 I tried to insist on the kids wearing their sunglasses to protect their eyes...

 But I guess Roscoe thought it made it difficult to see what he was doing.

 My suggestion if you want to try this yourself is to use toys that if broken won't cause upset children!  Some of the tails came off in the ice, and a few lost their feet or paws.  But, it kept the kids happy and entertained for a good 20-30 minutes!