Twin Time: Indoor Snowmen

I'm trying to get back on track with Twin Time now that the holidays are over. It's taken me a few days to figure out a good time of day since the baby is down to one afternoon nap. In the end our old time is best. She just gets to join in the fun.

Today we built snowmen, indoors! We used clay to minimize the mess. The girls thought it was pretty fun. I think they would have liked it better if the clay was more pliable (someone opened my clay and it hardened somewhat).

You'd think it was a voodoo doll the way she was stabbing those buttons into the snowman body!
It was just the right amount of messy. Enough that we washed hands, but easy enough that we just rolled up the mess and tossed it away.
We used acorn caps I found on my way to a football game last fall for hats, and strips of fleece I cut from a scrap for scarves. Cadi was proud of her creation.
Camden had lots of fun carving details into her snowman. I had to urge her to look up for a picture.

Wrigley was quite interested in the project. I know a baby shouldn't have scissors, but it made for a good picture. I did take them away from her post snap.
It's all in the details. At some point Wrigley decapitated her poor snowman, and decided he looked tasty. No matter how many times I told her that he was not yummy, she kept on trying. He does look kind of like a marshmallow I suppose. A big, cold, hard, damp marshmallow with eyes.
Lots of eyes. We wouldn't want to miss out on seeing anything would we?

It's Raining in the House!!!

This morning, I set the twins up with some oatmeal while I ran upstairs to put the baby to bed. After a trip to the bathroom I sat on my bed to read my scriptures. After a couple pages I hear cheers of, "It's raining in the house! It's raining in the house, " wafting up the stairwell, followed by, "Cami, Mom is going to be so upset with you." Ugh. I'm trying to read my scriptures. Not that I was incredibly sad to close the book. The section I'm reading is a particularly difficult chapter in 2 Nephi. I don't understand it. It makes no sense to me, and I've been trying to get through it for several days now, but I digress.

Upon entering the kitchen I see Camden up to the sink with the sprayer, and indeed it is raining in the house. Lovely to see her back to her old tricks. Casualties of the morning: a new box of Kleenex (my last one, naturally), half a bag of brown sugar, 1 Friend magazine, several pieces of art work, 1 photo of my girls at Yellowstone, the cornice off the kitchen blinds (snapped off when I adjusted the blinds to wipe the water off of them), and of course the floors and the counter. I had to quickly wipe down the walls and the cabinets inside and out. It's literally freezing outside so opening the doors and windows to help things dry out would probably be ineffective. Can't they do this kind of thing when it's 100 degrees outside so the paint doesn't bubble and the floors don't warp?

I had Camden help wipe the floors dry (after a long stint in time-out for refusal to help). I found it very funny when she says to me, "Mom, this isn't easy!" No. No, it's not.

Twin Time: Puffy Ghosts and Hot Chocolate

We made Puffy Ghosts for Twin Time today. I found this craft at No Time For Flashcards. It's one of my new favorite sites for activities. I recommend it. This is kind of messy, although it was fortunately contained to the area immediately surrounding the twins' individual projects. It's fast, explores some fun textures, and the twins had fun with it. I can't wait for them to dry so I can cut them out and post them somewhere in the house. I don't have pictures due to another non-functioning camera. I'll have to scan the artwork in when they're dry (which may take a while considering the mounds of "paint" on Cadi's ghost). Check out the original posting for pictures and the recipe. Try it. It's a fun one!

In honor of the first snowfall of the season, we broke out the tea kettle and had water warming while we crafted. After we were sufficiently spooked the girls helped me make hot chocolate. I let them stir in the powder, pour milk out of a creamer from my china set, and drop in marshmallows (one lump or two? Two of course!). They're currently mixing and sipping and creating a bigger mess than they did with the ghosts, but having a grand time! Good thing for dish rags and washing machines...

Twin Time: Monster Monday

I found some cute Halloween art projects in the last week. Since neither took a lot of time, we did them both today. The kids had great fun!

Rorschach Ghosts:

I saw this idea in a magazine while I was sitting in a doctor's office last week. I don't remember which one, but I thought it was really cute.

Frank"hand"stein Monsters:

I stumbled across another fun kids craft blog the other day, Filth Wizardry . This was so cute we had to try it too. Happy Halloween!

Twin Time: Apple Prints

For Twin Time today I borrowed this cute idea from Toddler Boredom Busters (love this site). The girls had fun learning about apples. Especially the tasting part. I was a little surprised that they knew the names of the apple parts considering I'd never formally talked about them before.

Cadence really enjoyed the apple stamping (I got smart and took the shirts off this time). Camden was more interested in the eating. Although she did like it when I got out the squeezy glitter to make the seeds. I thought it was fun. Not time consuming at all, educational, artistic, low mess, and tasty. What more could you ask for?

Twin Time: Pumpkin Clips

Two weeks ago en route to a football game, I came the biggest acorns I've EVER seen under a tree on BYU campus. On the way back to the car I asked everyone to stop and pick some up. I knew my harvest would yield a fun craft for a Twin Time to come. Yesterday was the day.

We separated some of the acorns from their hats and painted the seeds orange. I didn't have orange paint so we also had a quick little art lesson on how to make orange. The girls were most impressed by my magic trick of swirling red and yellow paint together.

Once the acorns were sufficiently coated we took a break to enjoy a slice of chocolate zucchini cake while our project dried. Then we used markers to turn our "pumpkins" into jack o' lanterns.

I covered some clothes pins with green ribbon, and glued a magnet to the back. While the girls "carved" their faces. Then we glued our happy jacks to the front of the clothes pin.

This was a bit messy, as the girls decided to paint more than just their acorns, but all in all it was fun. They had a good time, and we only lost one shirt (even though they had smocks on). The paint came off the table and floor. I need to get some more washable paint!

Twin Time: Leaf Art

For Twin Time today we used the spoils of our leaf hunt earlier in the week to make a collage. This was the first time the girls experienced regular, old, Elmer's Glue. They thought it was fantastic.

Note to self (and anyone else with twins): have two bottles of glue (or anything else for that matter) when doing craft projects. The fighting over product diminishes the fun.

We went through 1/3 a bottle of glue. It was brand new! They had a good time though. One thing I'd change if we did this again; I'd press the leaves flat while they dried. The curled leaves had fun texture, but they're brittle, and were hard to get to stay on the paper. I expect that some will fall off when the lakes of glue are dry enough that we can hang their artwork on the wall. Silly me. I thought that since we collected them off the ground they'd already be dry. My bad!

Happy Fall Y'all!