Natural Finger Paints

Lana wanted to do some finger painting for arts and crafts the other day. When I checked her paints, they were so old and some were dry and some were just near empty. I did a quick internet search to learn how to make our own finger-paints! Here is the recipe and here are the results:
1 1/2 T cornstarch
1 C water
food color
Just mix the cornstarch and water and cook over a stove until thick (on a low temp). Then add food coloring.
We also make our own play-dough for sculpting. All we do is mix up some flour and water with some food coloring. It's real easy to understand what your kid is playing with when you make it yourself. It's also nice not to worry about them ingesting something nasty when they decide to eat a little play-dough!

The Wild Side

We have been going to one of the larger county parks for a long time... long before it was a developed county park. My brother learned to drive in it, we fished in it, Justin used to have BB-gun wars in it, and we used to Mountain Bike there as a couple ... now we take our kids there.

I love this park because it still has a wild side that most of the people don't venture into even though the park is much, much busier these days. We frequently have magical encounters there and the animals and plants are abundant. In addition to so many plants that you all could care less about unless you were geeky about it like me, they have wild walnuts, hickory, pecans, blueberries, blackberries and persimmons. It's just such a neat place with so many environments and several favorite spots that I call my "magic places", where I feel so alive and have had some neat experiences with the nature there.

Anyway, we go hiking there frequently but last week we took Lana out to gather some wild blackberries. It was a ton of fun and she really enjoys it. It will be so neat when Daphne is big enough for us to resume our hiking trips there again.

Shorty

I have not liked any haircut I've ever paid for Lana to have, so being a control freak I decided to try cutting her hair myself... I figured it can't be any worse than what I've been paying others to do to her hair. So, the first time, I was right.... it was no worse than what she was getting from hair-cutters but it was not any better either. It was free. This time I stopped by the beauty supply shop and picked up some texturizing shears so I could try giving her hair some "oomf" with a short cut! I think this worked! Here it is....