Rainbow Crayons

Filling the muffin tins & bread pan (for the rainbow crayon).

Can you tell she is having fun?
Watching to see what will happen.

The finished product- she drew with them for over an hour!

Yesterday Grace & I did a fun art project. We made rainbow crayons. I had noticed a lot of our crayons were broken and went ahead and bought her some new ones to add to her crayon tin when they were on the back to school special. So I have been wanting to clean out the broken pieces. I knew you could melt them down but just hadn't gotten around to it. So yesterday I got on the internet and did some searching. Grace really got into this project. She helped unwrap the crayons and put them in the tins. We did two different types. The easiest was just putting the pieces in muffin tins. The second was more difficult but by far her favorite! We lined up crayons in the order of the rainbow in a foil lined bread tin to make an crayon that actually makes a rainbow.

My suggestions if you wish to attempt this project:

1. Crayola crayons are the most difficult to unwrap but melt the best.

2. The Roseart crayons don't melt great-don't use them for the rainbow crayon. (ours is missing a yellow stripe because of how it melted)

3. Some directions say you don't have to use muffin tin liners. I wouldn't suggest this method as some crayon residue was left on the pans and was hard to get off!

Here is a link to directions for the rainbow crayon.

http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/rainbow_crayon

When I first started doing these projects with Grace she was pretty little and they were more for me then her. But now she truly has fun- making it way more enjoyable!!

I have been doing a lot of evaluating lately. Our schedule has been so hectic and I constantly find myself spending my time on the urgent (what I HAVE to get done). 500 invitations for the Fall Fling at church, the laundry, all the cleaning jobs I neglected over the summer, etc. I say my priorities are the following: 1. My God 2. My Husband 3. My Girls. But it doens't always seem like that is where I spend my time... So it might be easy to see this blog and think,"Wow, what a neat idea; she must be a fun mom." But the truth of the matter is focusing on the to do list comes naturally to me. Jeremy is the one who excels at playing with the girls. I have to work at the fun carfree activities. Its not that I don't enjoy them-I LOVE them. I just have to discipline myself to let go of having everything in order and remember to spend my time where my heart is. So I'm thankful for moments when I totally focus in on my girls and make a memory like rainbow crayons.

One Last Summer Adventure

Photobucket Album

One Last Summer Adventure Part 2

Last week the girls and I headed out on a road trip to take advantage of the last full week of "summer." Our first stop was Sadie's house (or you might know it as Marc & Kristina's house) Grace was very excited to visit Sadie and see the fish. Kristina and I took all three girls to Chicago to the Shedd Aquarium. It was a really fun day. I enjoyed hearing Grace's oohs and aahs at all the differet fish & turtles. She was especially impressed with the monkey they had in a special display. Lunch was a little hectic getting the strollers parked and our lunches unpacked for all three girls. But overall it went pretty smoothly. The real challenge for the day was trying to take three little active girls who had been in their stroller all day to the dophin show (Strollers being parked was a requirement.) Kristina took Sadie & Grace to walk down and have a closer look at the water. But Grace was not impressed when she decided it was time to come back up and join her sister and I. She was really asserting herself. (You can see this if you look at the picture slideshow!) I was helpless because if I moved to go help Kristina I would loose our seats. Anyway I really didn't understand why she was so upset until we got to my parents the next day and she told my dad she went to see the fish. She then proceded to tell him, "I wanted to swim with the fish. They wouldn't let me! I tried." We kept telling her people were going to swim with the fish-apparently she thought that included her. Needless to say that is why she was hanging on the railing and refused to leave the dophine pool. We got a little lost on the way home making for a longer trip so we decided to spend the night before continuing our trip. We took the girls to the local ice cream place and I let Faith have her first taste of ice cream. (I know, I know I never would have done that with Grace at 10 months!) She loved it!

On the way back we stopped to see Grace's Nana (Jeremy's mom) at the hospital which she thought was fun. She told her dad, "I go to see my nana at WORK." We then headed on to my parent's house for a short visit. The girls were going to spend the day with Grammy and Papa while Jeremy and I met do some planning for the youth ministry this year. That never happened because my granmother was in a serious car accident. She is doing better now but has a lot of healing to do. We finished the evening off with Jeremy and I attending a Casting Crowns concert. It was really good. I am not a concert peron but I truly enjoyed hearing the lead singer talk about his struggles and what inspired him to write the different songs.