Blob Monsters- fun craft for kids!

I thought that if I posted some craft tutorials, people would like my blog better. They'd feel like they could get something out of it maybe. And I would feel better about myself if I thought people were copying me.
So this is about how to make blob monsters with kids.
Step one is to buy a can of spray insulation from the hardware store. It's about 4 or 5 dollars. It might be called "great stuff".


Squirt out a blob of it (keeping in mind that it will double in size, kind of like rising bread dough). You can't really control what your blob monster will turn out like. Whatever you do, don't touch the stuff before it dries, because it is almost impossible to get off your skin. Also, do it on something like an old magazine. I show it here on my kitchen table, but that's only because it's already dry in the picture. Whatever you spray it on, it won't come off of.

Then you let it sit for 24 hours. It will slowly continue to grow within those 24 hours.

Then you paint/color it. I painted mine (below). Then I added googly eyes. If you paint it all brown it will look like a real pile of poo.

This is Roxanne's. She just colored hers with sharpies. Her blob happened to have a shape that looked like a mouth and then she found indentations that looked like eyes- it's a little like finding images in the clouds.

This is Rockets. He did his with sharpies too.

Ok, there's my craft blog post. I made it up.

Testing

I'm testing out a new blogging app. I am dissatisfied with how small the pictures post using blogpress.
This is rocket after coming in from the snow today:

Gingerbread Parties

I mentioned our annual gingerbread house party in a previous blog, so I thought I'd update about it. My favorite part about throwing a gingerbread house party for the kids, is arranging all the candy and icing on the table. Usually I do the party on their last day of school and prepare for it before they come home. When the children walk in the door, knowing school is over for the year, and then they come upon the table full of colorful candy, their eyes light up and they smile and squeal and that makes me feel happy and christmassy. This year, though, because of a scheduling conflict, I had to do the party the day after the last day of school, so the kids were around while I was setting up. Rocket designed a genius smorgasbord lazy Suzanne by putting the patio table top on top of our spinning scrabble board. Then we put the candy on top of it.

Rocket's friend Dillon put a cute heart on top of his house.


Roxanne didn't want to show her face in this picture.

Later that night.....


Then that night, I had the first ever "adult" gingerbread party with all the leftovers. I had made extra icing, in 10 different beautiful colors, as well as fondant in 5 different colors and lots of amazing candy. Shoutout to Jodi who donated the gumballs. Thank you Jodi.

But after all the time I spent making beautiful colored icing, my friends mostly only used the white. I guess cause it looks like snow. But I was still a little offended. And they were all late. Except Nikki. Shoutout to Nikki. Thanks for not being late, Nikki.

Mustache house... I admit the mustache was clever.


And there were "adult" elements (look closely above). That wasn't MY gingerbread house though. I would never do that. Mine is below:

Another things that went wrong at the adult party was that most everyone (except Nikki), left their house behind. I don't know why they didn't want to bring it home. So the next night, the kids and I had a THIRD gingerbread house party where we redecorated the left behind houses with all the leftover beautiful colored icing. This party was the most fun of all the parties. I told the kids to make sure not one drop of icing was left.
Now we have a pretty colorful gingerbread village. I don't think I'll do the adult party next year. Probably just the kids' one.
The reason I shouldn't have a blog is because I'm a jerk and complain about my friends. I did the "shoutouts" to try to make up for the complaining. Hopefully no one's feelings were hurt. I deleted the really offensive complaining.

Brewery touring today

We're taking the Coors brewery tour right now. Matt took the week before Christmas off from work so that we could have a fun time as a family, since after christmas we have to be with our extended family which obviously means we can't have fun. Yesterday we got counseling, fed the homeless and went bowling.







After this we're going to Casa Bonitas. Luke's family and our family decided that instead of giving gifts to each other on Christmas, we would just all go out together- that would be more appreciated by the kids. But they didn't want to do the Coors tour first because they think they are too high class for Coors... (but not for Casa Bonita's).
Tomorrow rocket and Matt are touring the Broncos stadium while Roxanne and I go to the Denver puppet theatre, and then we're all going to tour Hammonds candy factory. We better have lots of fun to make up for next week!!
We're in the post-tour lounge now. I'm going for beer number 2 of 3. The kids are on rootbeer number 2.
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Christmas Time

There's lots of fun Christmas stuff going on around here. We set up the tree a couple weeks ago. After our wedding, my mom made ornaments out of two of our bride-and-groom-gumball favors (I thought they were really ugly- it was a bride and a groom made out of gumballs). We've been hanging the gumballs on our tree for ten years now, but this year we decided to change it up and let the kids eat the gumballs. They did.

We did cookie decorating (one of my favorite Christmas traditions) on Friday with Milo and Lucy. Cookie decorating is just a prelude to the annual gingerbread decorating party that I let the kids both invite one friend to- that will be on Friday. I'm mostly prepared except that I cannot find gumballs anywhere. Ideas? Also, this will be the first year that I am having an adult gingerbread house party (think, naked gingerbread men), which I've wanted to have for many years.

I did a Christmas gift craft with Roxanne's class with shrinky dinks. These are their necklace charms pre-shrinkage. I love how the kids draw themselves:


Friday is feelin pretty Christmassy too. He's been wearing extra layers.
This morning was exceptionally celebratory, because it was the first Sunday that our church was allowed to meet in their own building (in over a year). Rocket and Roxanne adorned the new front pillars with an appropriate pose: Our pastor Mike, took this picture while I was inside and texted it to me later. Speaking of Tebow, the boys are going absolutely ridiculously nuts downstairs. Completely out of control. I'm guessing God is giving Tebow his usual blessing right as we speak... or type, I mean.
This is what I want for Christmas:

Long days...

This process is much more grueling than I ever imagined it would be. I really thought gluing individual pennies to the wall wouldn't take as long as it is taking. I'm committed, though, and I'm not quitting.


Finished the decoupaging last week. I can't get a good view of it with my camera though because I can't back up enough to get it all in the frame. This is the handicap stall.


I'm constantly underestimating projects. But I've decided that this is a good thing. If I accurately estimated the time/work involved with projects, I'd never do any of them!! Somebody pointed out today that God designed it that way- especially with marriage. If we knew what we were getting into, we'd back out before it started, and then we wouldn't have the opportunity to do great things.
Matt consistently underestimates how long it will take to drive somewhere. He still thinks it takes 30 minutes to drive to Colorado springs from Denver. I wonder if God designed him that way... And why?

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Cutting my paint palette in half....