Crafting with my boys ~ Rain sticks

My rain stick.  I colored a white
strip of construction paper to add
to my decorations.

I've recently began pinning on Pinterest and have found lots of great crafts for the kids to do.  The boys and I made rain sticks the other day.  It was a relatively simply craft for us and lots of fun. 

I have been saving paper towel tubes to use for crafts and they came in handy.  I also had lots of strips of construction paper left over from a Girl Scout craft. 
We glued the strips of paper around our paper towel tubes to decorate them.  Then we taped on construction paper that was cut in a circle at the bottom of the tube. 

Ahh Summer camps

I managed to have three of my four kids at summer camps for the exact same two weeks.  It was a really nice break for me and I was able to get alot done around the house. 

Cookie as a Bunny

 The first week Ladybug and Cookie did a week long theater summer camp at a local theater.  The camp is call Summer on Stage and is run by Missoula Children's Theatre.  Ladybug has been doing this camp since she was seven years old and it was Cookie's first time. 

Fun on the Fourth

We've been very busy and I almost forgot I was working on this post about our fourth of July fun.

Despite the clouds and possible rain, we headed out to the beach like we do every fourth of July.  Unfortunately we didn't make it to the beach in time to enter the sand castle contest.  The kids were a little sad, but they got past it.  I think it helped that I decided to get in the water with them, which I rarely, if ever do. 

Crafting with the kids ~ napkin rings & cloud dough

Duckling's napkin ring

We decided we needed to make some new napkin rings for our cloth napkins.  Several of napkin rings we made almost nine months ago have seen better days.  Which makes sense since we used paper towel rolls and yarn.  Because the kids have really been enjoying painting, I decided to go with painting wooden napkin rings. 

Crafting with the kids ~ Seashell critters

Ladybug's seashell people and cat

With summer already going I've been planning many craft activities to do with the kids. 
We have started a non-electronic time period during the middle of the day.  This helps me make sure the kids are spending time unplugged and are playing.  But to help with the "I'm bored", I have a craft or outing planned for almost every day of the week.
We just started yesterday, and I'll be sharing all the fun stuff we're doing.