Spin art and jello before a snowday

On the eve of one of the biggest predicted snowstorms for the winter season, Gi and I tackled spin art and jello jigglers. What? Were you expecting me to tell you we had fun trying to find all our old candles and flashlights or making a trip to the store for ice and other necessities? Nah! We have to have FUN before the lights go out, right?

Oh, also all four of us have had a nasty cold for the past three days and lack of sleep, lack of preschool and lack of energy had me feeling like a zombie. I figured I could put a smile on at least one kids' face with paint, glitter and some good old fashioned jello. And, I was right!

Opening the bottle herself.
  
 

Gi is getting rather good at taking pictures too!
  
   

Get ready for fun!!

Gi had a blast using our (very expensive...so I cringed a little on the inside while I let her do this) salad spinner, some paper plates and LOTS of tempera paint. Some of the paint was washable, some wasn't but it all came off the salad spinner in the end. Breathe a secret sigh of relief here. Anyway, being three years old is all about making choices and doing it "all by myself" so this was a great activity for her. She chose the paper plates, the color paint, squeezed them "all by myself" which in most cases emptied the bottles of their contents entirely, put the top on the spinner, pressed the lever, pressed the stop button, repeat again and again and then dusted her final oeuvres with sparkly silver "princess" glitter--by the way, did you know the word princess is actually an adjective? Not many sentences are void of that special 8-letter word in our house these days. Thank God we're going to Disneyland Paris soon!

Press handle down, stop, repeat, FUN!

These will make a cool mobile
for her playroom ceiling!

So, after our dizzying array of spin art plates were finished we took a break for lunch and then my foresight really paid off. Earlier this morning I managed to get Gi to make jello with me, poured it into a shallow pan and let it set up in the fridge knowing we would be able to use our cool cookie cutters and make jello jigglers later today. Later was much sooner than I thought because Gi doesn't miss a beat. Right after finishing her pretzels and cheese she asked, "Mommy, can I see the jello now please?" But we all know what she really wanted to do was dig her fingers into that jiggly mess and cut out shapes she could eat while she was at it. Thankfully, it doesn't actually take the 3 hours recommended on the package to set up and we were digging into it for dessert after lunch. Yum!



 

 

 

Want to know the best part of all this? When we were finished she helped me clean up and then told me she was TIRED! Well, that's all it took for me to whisk her off to read a book and lay her down in bed and now here I am, one load of laundry done, dishes put away, kitchen cleaned and two kids napping leaving me to update you on my blog. Aaaah...sweet motherhood success!  I heart jello and tempera paint and also my husband who doesn't care if I don't make dinner tonight because of all the fun we had this morning instead. Now I really can relax and enjoy the snow storm.