Adventures in Shaving Cream!

Dear Friends and Family,

It started Friday morning with an email from my super creative, fun, and well meaning mother.  My mom always loves a good craft, and when she sees one, she shares! I quickly glanced through the supplies list and smiled when I saw that I had all of them.  This craft had many of my favorite qualities: a sensory aspect (shaving cream), colors (food coloring) and a big reveal (scraping the shaving cream from the printed paper to reveal the art! http://meaningfulmama.com/2014/08/diy-marbled-paper-shaving-cream.html

I decided that this craft was indeed worthy of trying, so after school on Friday afternoon I tempted the kids from the school playground with two words, "shaving cream!" My friend Megan, who was standing nearby said, "Oh, have fun!" as we headed to our cars.

Once we got home the kids buzzed around me with anticipation as I pulled the supplies together for our craft. I placed some foil covered jellyroll pans in front of each child with a mound of shaving cream in the center and the fun began.

"With foil lined jellyroll pans, clean-up is a breeze!"

Now the craft website says to have the parent spread the shaving cream on the tray, but I thought we would lose some of the fun doing that, so I let the kids do the spreading...

And then there was more spreading...

Because, you see, the spreading was continuing to spread!

I sent a few of these pictures to my friend Megan, who said, "Have fun!" as we left the playground. She wrote back, "Oh no! We do it in the tub!" ...I guess that bit of advice was too obvious to share at the playground?!!!!

Great! Now he's curious about the taste! Verdict: Not good!

"Guess I better stick with the spreading!"

Claire, being my rule follower, stuck with the plan and had finished leveling out her shaving cream and was already using a medicine dropper to drop food coloring all over her shaving cream.

I was really beginning to embrace the "relaxed Mom" persona despite the very messy situation on my hands when my phone buzzed with a text from my neighbor: "Hi Beth!  Clyde broke his ankle today and I might need some help getting him in the door when we arrive home.  Are you around for the next hour?" I immediately let out a wild laugh which Will took to mean, "Let's take this mess up a notch!" And Claire took to mean, "Great job on the drops, time for the next step!"

Of course he's sticking his tongue out at me!

Note the splatter on the floor...that's when he decided it would be fun to start clapping! Ahhhh!!!!

Claire starts swirling her colors for paper printing. 

Although he coated himself in shaving cream, I have to credit him with following my orders to stay in his seat!

"Mom, I'm trying to get it on my back!"

"All done!"...now I'll paint the floor with my feet!

Time for a bath!  I had reached my limit for mess and my nerves were prickling as I knew I had to get the kids clean in case Betsy called to let me know they were home from the hospital! I quickly scraped Claire's papers to reveal her art and then raced Will to the bath tub.  While he was bathing, I heard the most glorious sound...the garage door was opening! Daddy was home to help! Chris came in and saw the kitchen, then he came upstairs to find me and he said, "Nice work with the foil! I see you kept the pans nice and clean!"

Not a moment after I had Will out of the tub, Betsy called to let me know they were turning onto our street. Chris gladly jumped up and ran to their rescue.
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Happy Ash Wednesday everyone!  I might say this every year, but I'll say it again, I'm really excited to begin Lent. It's always a great time for God discovery. I wish I could make myself focus on Bible Study everyday of the year, because during Lent, those times spent in the WORD are so rejuvenating.

This weekend, Sister Kass gave the reflection on the readings during Mass. What she said about the first reading (Isaiah 6:1-8) really struck me.  She said that Isaiah spends the beginning of the passage talking about how unworthy he is to be in God's presence. Only when his sin is purged does he feel ready to do God's work. We can look to the Bible to see that all of the people who are a part of God's plan were sinners. Sister Kass further reflected that shifting our focus on how great God is can help us stop thinking of ourselves as unworthy servants and instead realize the importance of God's work.

Lent is a time to make God's work a priority. She added that fasting or giving up sweets might improve your looks, but acting on the gospel and being more aware of others than ourselves is truly the meaning of Lent. I thought this was a great suggestion.  In our society today, it's so easy to become self absorbed! But being others aware isn't all that difficult.  I plan to be others aware by spending more time visiting with neighbors and friends, playing more board games with the kids for better quality time, trying for more date nights, and getting better about making some phone calls to friends and family.  So consider yourselves warned!

I'll close with just a few more pictures from this week!

Another Birthday party!  Madison turns 5 with a princess party!

Thanks Aunt Katie and Uncle Matt for the "build a train" set!  Claire was so excited to work on this with her Dad!

Chris kept a nice fire going all weekend! Talk about comfort!

We had our neighbors, Laura, Mike and little Abby Billings over for dinner on Saturday.  Abby and Will do some tool work together!

Will asked me to take a picture of his catch!

He has also been begging to paint for the last week. I finally relented on Sunday and we did "Mystery art!"  I gave the kids a white crayon and some card stock.  I told them to try to draw something and then they revealed what they drew with the watercolors! FUN!

Have a great week!
Love,
Bethie