Friday was April Fools Day and this was the first year that the girls (well, Willow) really understood the concept and was excited about the possibilities. A few weeks prior, we planned a joke on Jay (Daddy), that we called "Operation Fake Cake". Jay is known for his love of all things sweet-- especially cake-- so we planned to frost and decorate an old plastic container so that it looked like a delicious cake and then present it to him after dinner, waiting for the disappointment as he tries to cut into it (hmmm...that sounds kinda mean now that I write it out :). The girls were beside themselves with excitement!
Here is the plastic container awaiting frosting:
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| And the finished cake with two devious helpers |
The plan was good and the caked looked real, so we were sure our plan would go off without a hitch. However, we didn't consider the fact that two year-olds are terrible at keeping secrets. So, Daddy walks in the door after work and immediately April Fools Day chaos erupts. Willow goes into her first joke-- telling Jay that she had lost her first tooth and as she is yelling the April Fools Day punchline, Indigo jumps in with her "cow goes to the moooovies" joke (she thought a practical joke meant telling jokes and this kid is a regular Don Rickles ). Then Willow loudly asks me where Daddy can have the real cake now (Her attempt to make Daddy think the cake is real and no, the accent on the word real doesn't call attention to the fact that the cake is fake at all), then, Indigo screams "De cake is plastic!! Don't eat de plastic cake!!", which made Willow pout, until Jay told her that he didn't hear the super loud reveal. Willow accepted this and we just went and brought the cake to Jay, at which point he dug in and feigned surprise at the fake cake. All of this happened within a couple of minutes of Jay coming in the door. The girls were delighted with their joke and Jay and I have never laughed so hard. These ages are the best!
Other things we did the past few days....
Caroline wasn't able to come to art class on Thursday, so the girls and I did a classic art project ore suited to their ages-- marbled paintings made with shaving cream. The idea is simple-- each child is given a tray filled with shaving cream and a few dots of paint. They use their finger or a brush to rake through the cream, swirling the color around. The swirls are pretty and the kids can mix the colors in places to make new colors. Once they are done, I laid a piece of heavy art paper on top, to capture the the marbled art. You are supposed to scrape the shaving cream off the paper, but I liked the chunky look of the shaving cream contrasted with the smooth swirls of paint. This is a fun, but super messy project.
The next day we did another project with our current favorite art material-- bleeding art tissue paper. I gave each girl some strips of different colored papers and a moistened piece of watercolor paper (they have to say "bleeding art tissue" -- regular tissue paper doesn't work). They then tore the strips into different pieces and placed them all over the wet paper. We gave them one last spritz with the spray bottle (too little and the color won't come through, too much and the colors will run all over) and let dry.
They make beautiful abstract art! The next day we took them down and removed the tissues, leaving the color behind on the paper. Then we used pens to doodle on the little splotches of color, using our imaginations to find all sorts of different objects in the shapes and drawing outlines around them. This was definitely a favorite project and one that we'll be doing again and again!
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| Yesterday we went to a sweet little farm near us to visit the many amusing animals. |
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| And then off to the garden center to daydream about our garden. No plants yet-- but there was this giant rocking chair that Willow commandeered |
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