Turkey window

Thankfully, we finally changed the window after months.

Catching sun

Our picture window has been seriously slacking the last few months. We have just been busy playing outside and doing other things. I'm sure we will get back into it once the weather starts to turn colder in a few months.

The neighbors have even begun to comment we haven't been changing it up lately ;)

(PS, thanks for noticing--makes me happy you all pay attention to our creativity)

So to capture the last few weeks/months of sun, I came across this fun idea.

AND I had a coupon at Hobby Lobby. 

All I had to pick up were some pony beads.

While this had the window in mind for decorating, it was a fun activity.

Gavin was very helpful sorting colors and single layering his beads into the pan.

Yep, that's all there is to this. Put the pony beads into a cake/cupcake/mini cupcake pan in a single layer. Then you bake them in the oven at 450 for about 10 min or so. Just keep an eye on it. You'll know when it's done. Oh...and open all your windows and doors. It will smell like melting plastic. If you have an electric grill...do it outside. I don't. My non-thinking self, did turn my gas grill on and set the cupcake pan on it. Then quickly realized....oh no, my pan is going to BURN. So I took it inside. 

Honestly, the first two "batches" didn't overpower the place.
At first they start to melt slightly....

 When they look like this they are done.
Not that long.
Next I did the cake pan size.

After about 5-7 min

Done---about 10-12 min

But the third set, sent us outside to walk for ice cream.
We walked to Hershey's with some friends!
Gavin learned how to push the crosswalk button.

And wait for the white man to light up that says you can walk.

Superman ice cream!

 Yah....he took two bites and was done. Typical.
 
 There were many toys to play with there.

Afterwards we walked over to Once Upon A Child to check a few things out.

We didn't buy anything, but we had a few laughs before walking home.
 When we got back, the smell was gone. I'm sure some febreeze would have done the trick quickly as well.

Grandpa picked up Gavin from school on Monday and brought his drill and some fishing line.
Because you know...the suncatchers need a hole through them, and fishing line to hang them up. Neither of which I have.

The drill was apparently loud, so Gavin put on his earphones.

(It wasn't loud--seriously--but I love that he did. He also puts them on when I use my hairdryer in the morning)

Strung and hung.

I tried several times...there isn't a way to get a nice picture of suncatchers hanging in a window.
They look pretty sweet though.

Patriotic

For Flag day, I thought we would do something simple. Paint a flag to hang in the window.
I cut some strips of contact paper and placed them on a piece of white poster-board.

Then gave him the go ahead with red paint.
We started with just little bit of red paint on a paper plate and a sponge brush.

It was going okay.

Then he needed more paint.

And more...

Hmmmm, I think I need more red paint.

He used the entire bottle. It was brand new.

Then I cut out a blue rectangle and punched out some stars using a leftover sheet of sticker paper.

After the paint was dry, I pulled the contact paper strips off, glued on the blue sheet and we have ourselves a little U.S.A pride to hang in our window.

Happy Flag Day.

I think we'll leave it up through the 4th for July.

Along with our coffee can windsock.

Yah, we have spirit :)

Hoppin' down the bunny trail

It's window time!!

And we did the shaving cream painting again to decorate some eggs.

Then we added some gems.

Stop here, Easter Bunny!!

Trying to color our life with rainbows

It's been a tough couple weeks.

So we needed a new window to freshen things up.

Rainbows are always a good mood, right? :)

I bought a big piece of poster board and drew a rainbow.
I outlined each line with a color.

Then I let Gavin fill the entire thing in with paint.

He did a phenomenal job staying in the lines.

It is March now. So what better to go with our rainbow then our Leprechaun we made a few days ago after copying an idea from Life on the Homefront.

A small tantrum resulted with a crazy Van Gogh moment. But with a little glue, Mr. Leprechaun was whole again.

And what do we find under every rainbow??

A happy March window.

Thank you, Grandpa Buzz for the new Kodak Easyshare. I was going a little nuts trying to use my camera phone for pictures.
(all pics were taken with cell in this post except the last one)

Let it snow already

It's the third week in January and we still haven't gotten snow. Lots and lots of rain. But no snow.

So we are doing our version of a "snow spell." Using what else?? Paint!

And Barbasol. The beard buster.

First things first. We I cut out some snowflake shapes. (using white card-stock. Construction paper ripped) How many snowflakes should we paint to miraculously make it snow outside soon?

Gavin says six! (see his fingers up)

Filling this aluminum tin with shaving cream wasn't as easy as Gavin thought.

That button is pretty tough to hold down.

I didn't have any liquid water color paint, which is suggested, nor have I ever used it. The other suggestion is food coloring, which is a big no-no because it stains, so we used the always welcome crayola paints.

Rather than having a nice squirt bottle to squeeze colors out of we had to squeeze on a few blobs.

Then we swirled them around using the opposite end of a paintbrush.

Pushed the snowflakes down on top once we created a good swirl of colors.

Pulled them off and let sit for a few minutes. Then I used my impressive pancake flipper to scrape off the excess Barbasol and then left them in the window to dry for the evening.

Of course our "bring-on-the-snow-spell" wouldn't be complete without the most important snow day activity.

So we created a snowman with some white cardstock and scrap pieces of foam.

It's going to be colder out too, therefore we need to bust out some warm accessories.

In pink.

Finally we hung it in the window.
C'mon snow!!

 **this picture is THE VERY NEXT DAY!!**
With a forecast of 3-6 inches over the next couple days.
There's definitely some magic in our window =)