Home Made Model Magic

Oh goodness I have gotten behind on the blog! We've been on vacation and it takes us some time to recover plus We have lots of exciting new things starting up this Fall including a preschool(ish) program for Echo, connection with a fabulous homeschool group, me starting yoga, and a lot of doctors visits for me and Eric, so it's been a whirlwind.

I'll get back in the swing of things by sharing this short project (I'm dying to share my vacation photos but that will have to wait a little longer).

I recently tried a recipe from Pinterest (where else?) for home made Model Magic clay, which is a Crayola product. I have used Model Magic in the past while teaching art and loved it! The texture reminds me of marshmallow fondant, so fun to play with! It's super expensive though so I thought I'd give the home made stuff a try. All you have to do is mix 2 cups baking soda, one cup corn starch and one and a half cups cold water. Bring to a boil over medium heat while stirring constantly and continue to stir until it thickens to the consistency of mashed potatoes. Remove the pot from heat and allow the clay to cool (cover with a dish towel to keep it from drying out too much). If it is too wet and sticky like mine was you can kneed a little corn starch in to it. I also scented mine with a little lemon essential oil because it smells a little weird on it's own.

It was really fun to play with and Echo and I loved making things with it. It wasn't quite the same as Model Magic but it still had a great texture and was fun to use. Our sculptures all cracked and fell apart when we left them out to dry so I'm not sure what we did wrong there but if you just want to use it like play dough it works great.

July Photos

 I am woefully late in posting my July photos to the blog! Sorry about that! In any case here they are, most are from July 4th weekend when we got to have a wonderful visit with Logan and Alison. Here we are hanging out at my parent's and making home made ice cream!

Later we went to Marietta square to party, eat pizza and watch the fireworks. I can't believe how much my hair has grown in since then!

Do Eric and Echo look alike or what?

The next day we played croquet and hung out at the local elementary school.

These last few are from one of our farmers market mornings.

Hope everyone is staying cool while we ride out the rest of August. Looking forward to a busy (and hopefully cooler) September!

Clover Turns One

Oh my darling Clover! How are you one already? I am simultaneously amazed that it has already been a year since you were born and unable to imagine a world without you.

 
I can so vividly remember how I felt this time last year. Heavy and uncomfortable, sweating in the August heat and so eager to meet my little girl. I wondered what you would be like, I wondered how I would survive life with two kids under two years, I wondered if I would ever get a full nights sleep again.

When you arrived in the world, literally kicking and screaming, I thought you were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Not only were you beautiful, but you were also good. Sleeping through the night almost immediately and taking everything in stride.

Even now, a year later, I amazed by your calm intelligence, your sense of humor, your spunk and determination, not to mention those gorgeous brown eyes of yours. You are so different than your sister but just as wonderfully perfect and just as loved.

Happy first Birthday my sweet girl! We are so lucky to have you in our lives and I am so honored to be your mommy.

These are highlights from Clover's one year photo shoot, see the rest on my shutterfly at https://audreyalbright.shutterfly.com/pictures/6126 

Early Chapter Books

We have been entering an exciting new era with Echo over the past few weeks. She is just beginning to get in to chapter books and it is amazing! We are starting to do more family reading time in the evenings and I have been able to read out loud to her in the afternoons while Clover naps so that we can have quiet time. Honestly I feel like it's changing my life, it's making things so much easier and more fun! She still has a limited attention span for books without many pictures (she can listen to picture books all day though!) so we have to be pretty selective in what we read to her at this point. I'm also trying not to push it too much because even though I am super excited about it I'm afraid of overdoing it and turning her off of the whole "reading a book out loud as a family" idea.

So far we have read the Dragons of Blueland trilogy and the first Boxcar Children book. We started the second in the Boxcar series but it didn't really hold her interest so we decided to move on. I am currently reading her Charlotte's Web which she likes, and we are trying a little bit of Peter Pan but it is pretty far over her head at this point. Anyone have any good suggestions for other early chapter books? We are very excited about starting this with her!