Summer Outdoor Art

Its been so hot out lately, and the kids have just wanted to stay indoors to avoid the heat.

Aria was asking for some sort of painting to do, and I remembered a blog I had seen at Frugal Family Fun Blog about outdoor painting methods that I wanted to try.  So, we mixed up some tempera paint...

 I had bought the spray bottles at the dollar store, knowing that we were going to try "spray-painting" sometime soon.  Both kids LOVED spraying the paper, but because we were using newsprint, I suggested they not SOAK just one spot (or else it tears)

 It created a very nice "watercolor" effect backdrop to the paint strokes of the brushes.  To finish the whole thing off Aria used a great splatter technique of flicking her paintbrushes at the paper.  And since we were outside, and I was out of splatter-range, I let her splatter to her heart's delight.  (I was not as impressed later when she decided to paint her legs with the leftover paint... luckily it was bath night!)

 

Aria was of course, much more interested in the painting for longer than Roscoe, and the wind often threatened to steal the painting away, but it was a fun, easy to clean up outdoor craft activity!

You Say Tomato, I Say YUMMY!

It has been exciting days in my garden of late, as the tomatoes are starting to ripen up and turn RED.  

I have been snacking off the DELISHIOUSNESS that are my little cherry tomatoes, 

but this evening I harvested my first big tomato... and it was a MUTANT!  

But, I used it for my supper anyways and 

it. was. yum.

 

 My husband cannot eat tomatoes (his loss, my gain...) so tonight I enjoyed some Fasta Pasta a recipe taken from a Best of Bridge cookbook, I believe, where tomatoes are the STAR!

FASTA PASTA:

2 cups of halved cherry tomatoes (or any tomatoes, really)

1/2 cup of chopped fresh basil or 1/2 Tbsp dried (I enjoyed some lovely basil from my kitchen garden)

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 Tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine ingredients and let sit.

Make enough pasta for two (I used egg noodles tonight)

Add 1 cup of grated mozzarella cheese

Toss everything together, cover and set aside until cheese melts.

(I also added in some leftover roasted chicken from last night's supper)

D.I.V.I.N.E.

Backyard Garden Love

Deck flowers: fushias, geraniums and a pink black-eyed susan vine (thunbergia)

Aria enjoying the peas

Peas

Scarlet Runner Beans

Tomoatoes!

Green Peppers

Roscoe lovin the strawberries

Zucchini

 

Mmm cherry tomatoes!

Echinacea

 

A bit blurry because it was raining and windy!

 

My Kitchen Garden on the deck full of cilantro, mint, chives, thyme, parsley and sweet basil!

Summer Snapshots

Here's a couple pics from the end of June!

We were spending lots of time outside because it finally was warm enough.  I have discovered a lovely thing... my kids will play quite happily together for long periods of time if I set up the little pool and a sprinkler!  I have enjoyed a few relaxing afternoons dozing, working, reading, playing with my new iphone on the deck while they have fun in the water.

Roscoe loves his dog Ryley.  Ryley's not so sure most of the time what he thinks of Roscoe's love and attention.

One particularly warm day I brought out some tempera paint and we found some shade in the backyard to paint some rocks for our garden.  Now I just need to find some sealant spray to weatherproof the paint... I know I have some somewhere in my house....

 

 I quite enjoyed having the kids paint outside.  It didn't matter how messy it got, and was super easy to clean up!  Yay for summer!

Roscoe loving the alligator pool I bought on clearance at the end of last summer!

Rainy Day Puppets

If all the raindrops were lemondrops and gumdrops, oh what a rain that would be!

We have been experiencing more than our fair share of wet and miserable days since May, which is quite odd considering how hot and dry the Okanagan usually is.  So we made some lemonade with our lemons, aka fun rainy day activities to fill our rainy days.  One that Aria and I have worked particularly hard on, was a homemade puppet theatre. 

  

Aria created the puppets, and I built the theatre out of a box from our recycling, some wrapping paper from the dollar store, yarn, 2 buttons, some sparkly trim and some felt (yay for no sewing!) I had laying around waiting to be used!  Aria decided she would like to do an underwater puppet show, so I went online and found some good underwater creature coloring pages, and away she went coloring and adding glitter for some pizazz!

 I cut a good size rectangle out of the front of the box, and then cut out the back of the box, but only three sides, so that the theatre can fold up nicely still and keep all the puppets inside... and not all over my house!  I cut the felt in strips to hide little puppet-master's bodies, but still allowed ease of movement and play.  Aria helped me thread the strips onto a piece of yarn and then we fastened it with buttons on either side of the box.

 

 

 

 

 

We can't wait to make new puppets as we learn new Bible stories or fairy tales, or create new worlds and adventures!